Hello,
I am new to this site and was wondering if I could pull from your experience and resources to help me out with some quesitons. I am looking into using Amazon FBA services and was wondering if anyone here has used them, how, and what were your results? Were they expensive? Were they helpful? The more details the better! I of course have looked into their own self-descriptions and have read older reviews of their services, but I wanted to hear from some recent sources.
Thank you!
-MAR
You may have already seen this, but here's an article on BGG that I found quite interesting and helpful. I don't have any experience in this area myself.
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/737216/amazon-fba-indie-publishers-frie...
I use them for selling on Amazon - non boardgames - here's my answers in relation to that.
Are they expensive : slightly more than alternatives but not dramatically so. Not worth moving for.
Are they helpful : the interface is AWFUL. The people can be amazing. It can take a long time to get things resolved due to systems and process - that is very irritating. 99% of the time things just work.
I find it by far the most hasslefree way of selling things - I just create a listing, post them a big box of stuff, with barcodes on it, and they do everything.
By far the most valuable thing is the sales platform and that definitely isn't cheap - they make more than I do on each sale currently but....without it there wouldn't be sales.
I have experience with Amazon, but not with their FBA. Without going into too much, I will say this-
Make sure you read every bit of fine print & understand it (Amazon can't & won't explain it to you. It is common to have a seller account deleted for violations but nobody can tell you what was violated).
and
Make sure you can afford to make a bunch of product to send out not knowing if you will ever see a return (they will most likely pressure you into supplying X amount for each center they have).
I do not like or care for Amazon or Jeff Bezos. It warms my heart that they are entering retail now, and my guess is it will be another disastrous financial move for them. (Most forget that they have gone bankrupt a few times and in doing so have put many small businesses out of business that couldn't afford to lose the inventory they lost.)
I will also suggest you look up how to do better with Amazon FBA and you will probably come across sites telling you how to get around the rules or how to end up at top of page all the time. You probably don't want to do these things, but will let you know what a bunch of others are doing and how badly Amazon designs their systems.
(A simple ebook seller scam on Amazon- Publish a public domain title & put in in Kindle Unlimited. Put a link on first page to the table of contents on last page. Every time a reader clicks that link your entire book is considered read and you get paid in full. Every one of their systems has something bad like this.)
Jamey Stegmaier has an epic blog on this sort of thing. Here is a post to get you started
https://stonemaiergames.com/why-im-done-selling-through-amazon-fba/
I just looked at the fee schedule. All I can say is make sure you understand all the fees, how they change, how they work, and make sure those fees won't negatively impact you. I don't know if they still bump the storage prices for 6 month & 12 months, make sure you look into that aspect.
Thanks for doing more research and looking into the fees! I have been studying this topic a lot lately and will not rush into anything for sure, I need information first of course. I will continue to look into other options, but right now I am liking the idea of producing the game, selling it on Amazon, and using their FBA service- it seems very hassle free. Granted, I need to experience their service for myself to ultimately resolve these questions. Do you guys have any other good alternatives to look into? Either way, I shall inform you of what I go with, though it will still be a while, I am a big planner.
-MAR
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Thank you for your replies so far. As you may have guessed, I have read those articles already, but was looking for newer information. From what it seems, there are many benefits to the program and it seems to make the entire process easy. The drawbacks seem to be inconsistancy in packaging, difficulty in customer service if there are issues on occasion, and other such issues. The current information that I have seen, what little I can find, seems to indicate positive benefits. The two primary sources referenced above were good, though they were both years old. I am still leaning towards FBA as a realistic option, due to ease, budget, and the total amount of services provided as opposed to other options, though I am willing to look into other options. Please let me know if you guys come up with anything else!