Selling Books on Amazon, Using Add Comments Box

Transactional Marketing of Used Books as Amazon Marketplace Seller

Jul 30, 2008

New sellers on Amazon Marketplace may overlook the marketing potential of using the add comments box when selling used books. Here's how to sell quick at a good price.

Starting out as a new seller on Amazon Marketplace may be a short term or significant venture.

All book merchants in their first week of selling second hand books – used like new, used very good, used good or used acceptable – from their own personal fiction, creative non-fiction, travel, self help or academic libraries will desire quick sales at good prices.

Frequently overlooked by new sellers is the add comments box, which allows a personalised story about each book to be written by the seller.

Including Add Comments When Selling Books on Amazon Marketplace

In Search, sellers find their book’s ISBN in the Amazon catalog and start their listing on the selling inventory. If their book is listed in the Amazon catalog, sellers then have to add from a pull down menu a statement about the condition of the book and at this stage can add a personalized comment.

The Amazon Marketplace condition guidelines state how books can be described as ‘used – very good’. ‘Used – very good’ must be a copy “that has been read but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.”

Using the add comments to write directly to prospective buyers of used books can be effective in increasing sales at good prices in two ways:

Adding the comments of “additional copy received for birthday, slight indentation in back cover due to posting” when selling a ‘used - very good’ copy of The Man With the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren (Seven Stories Press New York, 1990), for example, could justify setting the book at a good price which is higher than the lowest for used – very good copies available.

Using the add comments book to write a statement like “essential reading for fans of the new X Files film” to a listing of Deny All Knowledge: Reading the X-Files edited by David Lavery, Angela Hague and Marla Cartwright (Faber and Faber, 1996) may help sell a well established older used book to newer X-Files fans.

Transactional Marketing Selling Used Books on Amazon

By adding their own words to the comments box, new sellers are drawing on transactional marketing in their business of selling used books on Amazon:

Transactional marketing and relationship marketing are discussed by J.Narver and J. Slater in their article, ‘Customer-led and market-oriented: let’s not confuse the two’, published in the Journal of Marketing in 1990.

New sellers that make good use of the add comments box for each book they list in their inventory – whether it’s a dozen student textbooks or hundreds of travel guides – will give their listing an edge over others posted by new Amazon Marketplace sellers.

The copyright of the article Selling Books on Amazon, Using Add Comments Box in Business-to-Customer E-Commerce is owned by Susan Morris. Permission to republish Selling Books on Amazon, Using Add Comments Box in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.