Comments on: Amazon Affiliates, Scanners, and Drop Shippers

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 22:19:29 +0000

Good question Leo – I don’t know the answer. Hopefully one of the readers will see this and shed some light.

By: Leo

Leo — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 21:08:22 +0000

It would be very helpful and interesting to know how the various services obtain the Amazon price list. Do they actually query every ISBN on Amazon using a software “bot” and extract the price data, or can one buy a snapshot of the database from Amazon directly?

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:41:04 +0000

Hi Ephraim, I’ve listed the Quick & Dirty Guide II on ClickBank now, so buyers can use either a credit card or PayPal. Hope that helps! Here’s the link: http://www.genuineseller.com/ezGsecure.php?pid=17

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:08:25 +0000

Hi steve,
I’m just starting out in the whole Amazon books sales business and these scanners sound great and a real time saver!

As I’m in the UK can you recommend any of the scanners on that basis?

Also any other advice for the trans-atlantic market would be great!

Thanks Alot.

By: Ephraim Dallh

Ephraim Dallh — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 13:47:33 +0000

Hi Steve,
I signed on to purchase your “Amazon – Quick & Dirty Guide II.
But I could not because I do not have a PayPal Account.
What is the deal; why not other options?
Thanks.

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:24:08 +0000

Hi Morris, Assuming you understand the interface on the scanner – it depends on how much you pay for books, and how much you need to make.
I have a few different criteria settings, based on where I’m shopping.
For example, if I am paying an average of $1 for books, I need to make that back, plus fees, etc. So I set the scanner to give me a “Buy” signal only if those costs are covered. In Asellertool, the ranking is also factored. A book ranked between 1 and 10,000 is likely to sell within about a week. 10,000 to 40,000 in 2-3 weeks, and so on. A ranking of 1,000,000 or worse may sit for a year before selling.
With that in mind, I’m willing to make as little as a dollar or two on a book ranked better than 10,000. But if a book is ranked at 1,000,000 or worse – I want to make more since my money is tied up longer, and I’ll incur FBA fees.
Hope that helps!

By: Paul Friar

Paul Friar — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 12:19:53 +0000

I really love the amazon affiliate program, as they give you plenty of opportunity to create displays (or widgets, to give them there correct name) of ads that encourage clicks, although I admit i always go overboard and end up discouraging clicks by putting up too many products on my pages.
I suppose the dropshippers will try and operate on any website thay can get away with (just as they do with ebay), so more pressure should be put on Amazon to clamp down on those that are late with sending out their products.

By: Morris

Morris — Wed, 26 May 2010 06:24:40 +0000

Steve,Largely based on your experience and recommendation, I bought a scanner from AsellerTool. Being brand new to this I have a hard time understanding the default setting that they installed and there is no live help except by chat. In setting up my own critera, do you have any suggestions for meto use?

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:57:33 +0000

Good point Robin. It is possible, although many of the settings on the scanners allow you to “weed out” extremes. AsellerTool and some of the others display the prices of the items it uses to determine whether to Buy or Reject. I always glance at my screen – especially if a price seems too good to be true – to see if there are any highball prices that may be skewing the results.

By: Robin

Robin — Wed, 05 May 2010 12:47:50 +0000

Great article Steve. I am thinking the super high priced sellers that mess up the auto pricing software are also effecting the book pricing returned from scoutpal and netoscan?