Amazon… everybody knows them, everyone uses them; but few who buy from them also sell with them. Therefore, there is often a lot of confusion over how they store books, order stock and so on. We decided to clear up some confusion and answer the most commonly asked questions about Amazon we receive! We hope it helps.
Sale or Return
Every book sent to Amazon by a warehouse or publisher is on a sale or return basis, meaning each book sent may not be a purchase. Books are often returned as usually Amazon orders more than the demand.
Showing Out Of Stock when we have sent books to Amazon?
Amazon only shows the book as in-stock when the book is ready to go in their warehouse. It takes time to go from sent, received, processed and in stock. In Amazon’s own words:
The message you see on the website is solely dependent on the stocks in our warehouses. Only when we have active stock that is ready to be sent out to the customers, the status on the website would be “In Stock”.
Processing times can vary. For example – we acknowledge all orders within a working day and usually send it out the same day, unless it is a pre-order or we are waiting for stock. Our postage is usually next day or 1-2 working days. Once it is delivered, it can take up to 10 working days for Amazon to process the orders – it is all dependant on how busy they are.
How does Amazon know when to order more books?
Again, it is easier to have this next question answered in Amazon’s own words:
Purchase Orders are generated automatically by the system which detects the demand forecast for the products. Depending on the demand forecast, POs are raised. So, once there is enough demand for the products, the system will automatically detect that and will generate Purchase Orders.
Please know that DEMAND does not depend on the number of “add to basket” clicks, but the number of searches a product detail page receives on an average for a time period. This includes the keyword search, Ad clicks and other hits. Amazon uses this model to generate Purchase Orders to:
1. Prevent overstock. This usually causes products to be depleted in the Fulfillment Center or initiate returns to the vendor causing losses to both the Vendor and Amazon.
2. To be able to fulfil demand. Amazon orders products once the demand crosses a threshold so that when customers actually start ordering the products, we should have enough stock to be able to fulfil all the orders and not have any backlog.
I know my friend purchased my book, why is it not showing in my royalties?
Many shops, Amazon included, take up to 3 months to pay an invoice for a book that is sold. The book is not registered as a sale until we have received the payment. So, the royalty will show in the next statement if it does not appear in the current one issued. This is also the case for bookshops.
Can you not just send them a box of books?
We can only send out books when we have a purchase order, if there is no purchase order and books are sent to one of Amazon’s many fulfilment centres, they will either be destroyed or returned to us.
Why is my price different on Amazon?
The RRP showing on Amazon is decided by them. We can suggest a RRP, which most often is used. However, they may have the price lower or higher than we suggest. But do not worry, you will receive the same amount of royalties per book if it is sold by amazon at £10 or £5, as we sell it to them at one price. The same goes for postage, the price of the postage is decided by Amazon and only Amazon.
Why can’t I leave a review on Amazon?
Amazon requires a spending amount of £40 every 12 months to be eligible to leave a review. This is so fake reviewers are less likely to be able to leave reviews. Also, it should be noted that amazon owns all reviews published on their page, so these cannot be used for your own promotion.
We hope this helped some of you, if you have any further questions, do send them in and we can do our best to answer them or check out amazon’s community guidelines for more information: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201929730