Selling on Amazon.com

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Selling on Amazon.com

• Using Print on Demand (????) and Amazon Advantage
  to Reach US Book Buyers
• By Kurt Beidler ???

This report contains non-public information which
may be material. Receiving this report subjects
you to Amazons vendor non-disclosure agreement.
Any unauthorized disclosure, dissemination,
distribution, copying or the taking of any action
in reliance on the information herein is strictly
prohibited.
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Agenda

• Amazon overview
• Customer focus
• Staying in stock on Amazon.com

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A Leading Online Media Retailer

• A leading online retailer of books, music and
  DVDs
• 10.7 billion in 2006 sales (66 of sales in
  media)
• More than 69 million active customer accounts
  worldwide
• Web sites in US, UK, Germany, France, Japan,
  Canada, and China

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Over Ten Years of Learning
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(No Transcript)
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• More than 7 billion of Amazon.coms 2006 revenue
  came from the sale of Media Products

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Foreign language books ???
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Chinese Books ???
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Diverse Base of 69M Customers
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Agenda

• Amazon overview
• Customer focus
• Staying in stock on Amazon.com

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What do Amazon customers care about?
Convenience Discovery
Price
Selection
Availability
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Prices
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Selection

• Millions of items for sale
• Hundreds of categories
• More than 40 stores
• From best sellers to obscure hard-to-find titles
• Unique Chinese and other international titles

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Availability

• Even for low-velocity titles, sales of books at
  24 hrs gt 5 days gt 2-3 weeks gt OOP

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Convenience and Discovery

• Search Inside the Book
• Fast Track
• 1-Click ordering
• Sales Rank
• Customer reviews

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Agenda

• Amazon overview
• Customer focus
• Staying in stock on Amazon.com

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Maintaining In-stock Availability in the Long
Tails World of Abundance

• Amazon Inventory

• Amazon Advantage

• Special Order

Volume of sales
???(??)
???
Breadth of selection
Chris Anderson, The Long Tail, Wired
Magazine, October 2004
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What is Amazon Advantage?

• Consignment program
• 10s of thousands of Vendors, 100s of thousands
  of titles
• Advantage is a direct relationship with
  Amazon.com
• Online Account Management tools
• Add any new titles to Amazon.com
• Ship inventory to Amazon warehouse
• Prompt monthly payments

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Challenges for International Publishers

• Poor availability message when out of stock
• Shipping lead time
• Shipping cost
• Logistics and storage overhead
• Cash in inventory

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What is print-on-demand?

• Fast single copy fulfillment, all to order
• High quality printing and binding
• Reliable 24-hour delivery
• 100 in-stock, all the time
• Invisible to customers
• No shipping or logistics cost
• No inventory risk

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POD Expands the Long Tail and Enables Publishers
to Stay 100 In Stock

• Amazon Inventory

• Amazon Advantage

• Special Order

• BookSurge POD????

Volume of sales
???(??)
???
Breadth of selection
Expand your sales along the tail
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What you need to get started

• Digital book files (PDF cover and interior)
• OR physical book to scan
• Book metadata ????
• The rights to sell in the US market

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Amazon Advantage and BookSurge POD Work Together

• Initial offset run based on predicted demand
• Amazon inventory with fail-over to BookSurge POD
• Sales spike drove sales beyond expectations
• Amazon inventory quickly depleted but orders
  filled with BookSurge POD books
• Not one sale is lost
• Amazon sales rank
• soared to top 50!