My husband and I have sold used books and DVDs on Amazon for several years now. We make enough sometimes to make us feel we’re recouping some of what we’ve spent on books, allowing us to feel less guilty for buying more.
My husband opened the seller account, but I handle the packaging of the books sold, record keeping, confirming shipments online, etc. If we only sell one book, the process is very easy. Selling 7 books in less than a day’s time makes it difficult to keep orders straight.
I told you yesterday that I went through the books in the entertainment center in our living room, listing some for sale on Amazon and donating the others to our local library. I listed several, and bagged up 7 Walmart bags of donated books that we’ll take to the library today.
Last night we sold 3 books. I packaged them for mailing and put them on our go-out table. By this morning, we had sold 4 more! I went through things carefully, printing out the shipping labels and info and packaging one book at a time so I didn’t get confused.
I made a list of what had sold and where the books were being shipped so that I could get online later today and confirm each shipment with a USPS number. (The only ones not on the list yet were the ones ready for shipping on the go-out table.)
I ran into one sale for which I didn’t have the book! I looked through the ones for sale very carefully several times. I couldn’t find it. I finally admitted defeat, wrote to the buyer, apologized profusely, telling her I didn’t know how this happened since I list books by their ISBN number. I cancelled the order and issued a refund for her money. I was embarrassed, telling my husband I was old and doofus, but was being as careful as possible.
I took the newly packaged books in to the go-out table and added the ones already packaged to my list for confirmation. THERE WAS THE BOOK I COULDN’T FIND. You can’t UN-cancel an order. You can’t put spilt milk back into the bottle.
SO – I’m embarrassed TWICE now. I’ll wait a week and then list the ‘sold-and-order-canceled’ book again next week….
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