Selling on Amazon Marketplace is simple. But bear in mind that there are other sellers there too. You need to use a few strategies to get an advantage. Think of your Marketplace presence as a shop. What can you do to persuade buyers to buy from your shop? Here are a few ideas:

1. Choose a good display name when you first set your Amazon account up

Your display name is your ‘business name’ when selling on Amazon, which shows at the top of the listing when buyers search for products. This can be your real name, or a made-up business name. Amazon Marketplace buyers tend to prefer professional- sounding business names rather than personal names. Try and include something that tells buyers why they should choose you rather than just a meaningless name. For example ‘FastBargainDVD’ might be a good idea if you’re selling DVDs.

Remember, if you already have an account on Amazon which you’ve used for buying the name might not be ideal for selling – so change it or open a new account.

2. Take advantage of the option to add extra information to your listing

Remember you can add up to 2,000 characters of ‘Comments’ to your listing. So take advantage of this. Give buyers some reasons why they should buy from you rather than anyone else. Remember, Amazon buyers are hot on product condition and good service. So something like the following can really make a difference: A1 perfect condition. We despatch daily by first class post, securely wrapped in bubble wrap.

3. List new as used

This is a real Amazon quirk. Strangely, it can be an advantage to describe new items as ‘used’. This pulls in buyers looking for a bargain since they will look at the ‘used’ listings for a product before the ‘new ones – ever if there is very little difference in the new and used prices.

Of course, it only works if you can afford to sell your item for much less than the recommended retail price. It is also not such a good idea if your item is likely to be bought as a gift.

4. Aim to sell at the lowest price

As with selling anywhere competitive pricing gives you an advantage. But it is particularly important when selling with Amazon because listings are presented to buyers in price order, cheapest first – unlike eBay where they are sorted by listing age. So it is a big advantage to get your listing at the top of the page. Sometimes cutting your price by just a few pence (e.g. £49.97 instead of £49.99) can get you at the top of the page.

If you can’t price at the lowest price try to choose a price that gets you within the top three listings. Also try and give buyers reasons why they should still buy from you at a higher price, i.e. you do fast delivery or (in the case of a used item) your item is in really good condition.

Good tip. If you are the only seller it’s still worth pricing competitively. This will discourage other potential sellers from coming in and undercutting you.

5. Send the goods ASAP

Because Amazon itself sends goods quickly Amazon buyers tend to be a bit obsessed with fast delivery. Amazon expects you to send goods within two days but you should try to do it the next or even same day if possible. If you can – state that you do this in your listing. It can get you extra sales.

6. Post products reviews

On Amazon, buyers can post reviews on the products they buy. These can be seen by anyone thinking of buying that product from any seller. This is a really great feature of Amazon that’s often under-exploited. As well as written reviews you can also post photos and videos if you want to.