Amazon Textbook Support

Back to school: Successful Order Fulfillment 101

The busy back-to-school season isn't far away! Here are some best practices for timely and accurate order fulfillment:

• Keep up with increased orders by checking the Manage Orders section of your Seller Account daily.
• Students need their books and supplies fast!  Avoid listing items that you can't ship right away, and update your inventory daily if possible to avoid cancelled orders.
• Offer expedited shipping, and remember to check the shipping speed requested for each order.
• Keep buyers informed about their orders. This is easy with Charge When Ship. Simply ship your orders on time and confirm shipment promptly through your Amazon seller account - buyers can track orders in their account.  Learn more about Charge When Ship.
• Provide tracking information. It's not required, but based on buyer feedback, we highly recommend using shipping method that supports tracking. You can enter the tracking info when you confirm shipment of an order. Amazon provides all of the shipping information to the buyer in their Amazon.com account as well as in e-mail.

Good fulfillment practices go a long way to e satisfaction for buyers and good performance ratings for you!

Amazon Marketplace – Top Selling Textbooks for Spring 2011

With the spring term over and the summer term under way, textbook sellers are making plans to list and sell on Amazon Marketplace for the upcoming fall term. To help you decide which used and new textbooks to include for sale on the Amazon Marketplace, we are providing the following list of bestselling textbook titles.

These textbooks were the Top 100 textbooks sold by Amazon Marketplace sellers during the peak weeks of the Spring 2011 textbook season. Please remember that due to seasonality, books that are big sellers for the spring term (January 2011) may not be indicative of the books that will sell in the fall term (September 2011). Also, historical sales on Amazon Marketplace may not be indicative of future sales, as used textbooks have a limited lifespan.

When listing textbooks, it is important to note the publication date and edition. For the best buying experience, sellers should be careful to match the ISBN of the textbook they're listing to the exact detail page on Amazon.com to ensure that the title and edition are correct. Sellers should also note differences in cover art when checking for matches.

For example, one of the top selling textbooks on this spring's list, Mankiw's Principles of Microeconomics is the 5th Edition published September 24, 2008, ISBN 978-0324589986. The 6th Edition of this textbook, ISBN 978-0538453042, was published on February 7, 2011. While older editions of this textbook have value and can be sold on Amazon Marketplace, demand for the most recent edition will likely increase. (You may notice that several of the top-selling textbooks on the Spring 2011 list have upgrade editions.)

For additional information on each title, click on the image to see the product detail page in the Amazon catalog.

The table below shows the top 10 bestselling textbook titles for Spring 2011.

Click on the following link to download a full table:

Top 100 Textbook ASINs - Spring 2011

For comparison to the earlier lists, click on the links below:
Top 100 Textbook ASINs - Fall 2010
Top 100 Textbook ASINs - Spring 2010

We hope that providing information about top-selling textbook titles will help sellers be more successful in the upcoming Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 textbook seasons. If you have feedback about this effort, feel free to write to textbook-selling@amazon.com.

Thank you for selling on Amazon.com.

Selling Textbooks on Amazon: Your Feedback Requested

Throughout this winter/spring textbook season (December  2010 through the first week of February 2011), we provided sellers with best practices and resources for selling textbooks on Amazon. Our blog posts, tips in your Seller Account home page, and informative e-mails were designed to address the specific needs of our textbook sellers.

Now we want to know what communications were helpful and what could be improved upon. Please take a few minutes to complete our short Amazon Winter/Spring Textbook Selling Survey 2011. Your feedback helps us serve you better in the future. Thank you for your time.

Handling returns for textbook orders

Be prepared for increased returns during textbook season. Students sometimes need to return books due to class cancellations. All sellers must accept returns, even if the order is fulfilled correctly.

Here are some situations when you may need to refund, accept returns or cancel orders:

• You can't fulfill an order.
• The customer doesn't receive your order.
• The customer returns an item.
• The customer files a credit card chargeback or an A-to-z Guarantee Claim.
• The customer requests you cancel an order.
• The buyer is unable to receive the order at the address provided.

Whether you need to issue a full or partial refund, you can do so using the Manage Orders tool in your seller account.

Still have questions? Read our Fulfillment, Returns and Refunds FAQ.

Refresh your knowledge: Policies on Selling Textbooks

We all know that textbooks are big sellers on Amazon! But did you also know that certain editions of your textbook might be prohibited for sale on our site?

Prohibited Textbook Items:

• Promotional Instructor's Editions
• Teacher's Editions and Annotated Instructor's Editions
• Solutions Manuals
• International/Foreign Edition Textbooks

Learn more.

 

Tips for Managing Orders Effectively

Spring textbook sales peak in the first two weeks of January. To keep up with a higher volume of orders, use the tools in your selling account and follow some suggested "best practices":

• Don't rely solely on "Sold, ship now" e-mails to let you know you have new orders. The Manage Orders tool in your account provides up-to-the minute views of orders.
• The Manage Orders tool gives you lots of information about orders, including buyer name and shipping address.
• If you need to refund an order, do so promptly. You can make refunds through the Manage Orders tool.
• If you have a Pro Merchant subscription, you can download Inventory Reports to help you track open listings, sold items, order fulfillment (items sold and paid via Marketplace Payments), and listings cancelled by Amazon.
• Get in the habit of shipping your orders right away. You’ll have more time to resolve any problems that might arise.

Getting Paid 101

To get paid for items you sell on Amazon.com, you'll need to:
   1. Sign up for Marketplace Payments by Amazon
   2. Enter valid credit card information for your Seller Account
   3. Enter valid bank account information for your Seller Account
   4. Confirm shipment of your orders

Let's look at these requirements in more detail:

1. Sign up for Marketplace Payments by Amazon.

Marketplace Payments by Amazon is the service through which Amazon disburses the net proceeds of your sales on Amazon.com to your bank account. You sign up for Marketplace Payments when you list your first item.

2. Enter valid credit card information in your Seller Account.

Your credit card information is used for verification purposes. It helps to authenticate you for the transfer of your funds into your checking account. (We do not transfer your funds to your credit card.) You can change the credit card information in your Seller Account whenever you need to; for instance, if you cancel your card or it expires.

3. Enter valid bank account information in your Seller Account.

We require all sellers to have valid bank account information on record in their Seller Account because that is the account to which Amazon will disburse payments. You can always change bank account information later if you need to. (However, for security reasons, you will not be able to request disbursement for 7 days after you make any changes.) After funds are released from your Marketplace Payments account, it can take up to 5 business days for the funds to be transferred from our bank to yours. 

For new sellers, there is also an initial 14-day holding period  before funds will be disbursed to your bank account. This holding period is an important security requirement and is applied to all new seller accounts. After the initial 14-day holding period has passed, the funds credited to your Marketplace Payments account are automatically disbursed into your bank account.

Below is the general timeline for the first disbursement for a new seller.

4. Confirm shipment of your orders.

Sellers are required to confirm shipment of orders in order to be paid. “Confirm shipment” means that you notify Amazon (using tools we provide in your Seller Account) when you have shipped an order to the buyer. For more information about confirming shipments, please see our online Seller Help.

 

Selling Textbooks on Amazon: Your Feedback Requested!

Throughout this Fall textbook season, we provided sellers with best practices and resources for selling textbooks on Amazon. Our blog posts, headlines in your seller account home page, Textbook Selling Help pages, and informative e-mails were designed to help you make this the most successful back-to-school season ever!

Now we want to know what communications were helpful and what could be improved upon. Please take a few minutes to complete our short Amazon Fall Textbook Selling Survey 2010. Your feedback helps us serve you better in the future. Thank you!

Returns, A-to-z Guarantee Claims and Chargebacks

For most sellers, A-to-z Guarantee claims and chargebacks are a rare occurrence. However, when they do occur, be sure to take action to resolve them promptly. You may also occasionally need to make refunds, accept a return, or cancel an order.

Here are some examples of when you may need to refund, accept returns, or cancel orders:

• You can't fulfill an order or part of an order
• The customer doesn't receive your order
• The customer returns an item
• The customer files a credit card chargeback or an A-to-z Guarantee Claim
• The customer requests you cancel an order
• The buyer is unable to receive the order at the address provided

It's a good idea to check your seller account daily so you can proactively take action on any order issues.

For lots of information on returns, refunds, cancelling orders, A-to-z Guarantee claims and chargebacks, see our Help pages, which are available to you 24 hours a day.

Common post-order problems -- and solutions

The Fall back-to-school textbook selling season may be winding down, but sellers on Amazon often get orders for books throughout the year. Let's look at two common post-order fulfillment issues you may experience and how you might handle them.

1. The buyer hasn't received the item they ordered. 

Buyers might contact you by e-mail to check on the shipment status of their order. How you respond will depend on when you shipped the order, what shipping method you used, and the estimated delivery date that was provided to the buyer at the time they placed the order.

In many cases, the shipment is not late but may not have arrived as early as the buyer hoped. You may need to politely explain the delivery timeframes to the buyer. Read our seller Help page about Delivery Expectations, and the buyer Help page about Marketplace Shipping Times.

For a "late" item that may be lost, you could engage your carrier for assistance in locating the package and moving it along.

Occasionally, a buyer receives an empty box in the mail. When that happens, you may want to contact the shipper to report the issue and ask about the options available.

Ultimately, once the outside delivery date has passed and the buyer still hasn't received their order, the best solution is to refund the order. Compensating buyers for lost shipments is simply a cost of doing business.

If the buyer receives the item later and e-mails you to let you know, you can ask them to contact Amazon directly to authorize repayment to you. Also, you may be able to recover your costs if you purchased insurance originally.

2. The buyer wants to return the item they ordered.

The buyer received the item, but doesn't want to keep it. The issues here are pretty straightforward: is it fair to return the item, how should it be returned, who will pay for the return, and what kind of refund should the buyer receive.

Here are the basics about returns:

• You have to accept returns within the guidelines spelled out in the Marketplace Returns Policy, even if the item was exactly as described and the buyer simply no longer wants it.
• Returns of new items are different from returns of damaged/defective/materially different items.
• Buyer returns should be postmarked within 30 days of the original shipment sent by the seller.
• Returns should be posted to the address included on the outside of each package. It's a good idea to also include your return address inside the package and to confirm it with the buyer before a return is shipped.
• When there is nothing wrong with an item, buyers should cover the cost of return shipping.
• When the item is damaged or defective, or when it is materially different than the item described on the product detail page, you should cover the costs of return shipping. You can do this by issuing a concession to the buyer in advance of the return.
• You can charge a restocking fee (up to 20%) for returned items that are not damaged, defective or materially different. These fees are meant to cover the extra handling costs to take the item back into inventory and relist it for sale.

Learn more about Handling Orders.