So You Already Buy or Sell on Amazon - Should You Choose Merchant Shipping or Amazon Fulfillment?

As an avid reader myself, I buy both new and used books from Amazon. Right up front, I want to let you know that there are a few things that greatly affect my choices.

When it comes to used or new merchant books on Amazon, there are many to choose from. They are listed by quality, price, and Amazon shows whether you get your shipment from the merchant or from Amazon. When I am looking for a book, sometimes I already know I want a new one, and sometimes I prefer the cost of a used book - especially for basic fiction or expensive reference/textbook type books.

It really surprised me the first time I saw a used book for .01 sold by a merchant on Amazon. Why would they do this? I bought the book, and it really didn't cost me much less than the average used book since I had to pay for shipping. The book arrived as described and I was happy with it. I got to thinking about why people would do this, so I did a little research. Turns out, many new sellers start selling decent books for .01 even at a loss just to build up clientele and feedback. After all, merchant-sold books rely on repeat business and happy customers - not unlike auction sites.

The second thing I noticed in my early used-book-buying days on Amazon was that if I wanted to buy several books at once, i was often more likely to go ahead and buy them new from Amazon so I could stack up twenty-five bucks worth and qualify for free shipping. Later on, though, Amazon started a service where private sellers can send one book or a whole pallet-load directly to Amazon and they go on a kind of 'consignment' where Amazon sells and ships the book instead of the merchant doing it directly. The beauty of fulfillment by Amazon is that the used books then qualify for free super-saver shipping and a buyer can buy multiple used books from private merchants, but still be guaranteed Amazon-quality service and shipment as well as free shipping if they spend enough.

Of course, this helps and hurts the penny sellers at the same time. A buyer who wants a few penny books from merchants who use fulfillment by Amazon can throw those in the virtual cart and it is certainly nice to get maybe 10 extra books for .10! However, that isn't going to qualify you for the free shipping, so unless you also plan to buy some more expensive used books that aren't available at a penny, or some new books on Amazon which can stack up to get the free shipping fast- you are still going to end up paying for shipping on those penny books.

As a buyer- just remember that when you place an order for one or more books and it qualifies or almost qualifies for the free shipping deal, you might look for some used penny books or used cheap books to toss in the cart for some added value.

As a seller, use the penny option to build some business and make some customers happy, but don't forget that it take a LOT of pennies if you are using fulfillment by Amazon and hoping buyers will use it due to the free shipping!