Q&A: How can I manage my Amazon book inventory on a Mac?
QUESTION: I love Macs. Is there any seller software that works with Amazon for managing inventory and assigning SKUs?
ANSWER: Unfortunately there's a real dearth of seller software for Mac users. However, you can add new listings and assign SKUs using a spreadsheet. You can upload the spreadsheet to Amazon as an "Inventory Loader" text file.
This is how I list books using my PC. When I started on Amazon, there was no seller software, so I started this way and never changed. You need a Pro-Merchant subscription to access the Inventory Loader function.
If you're listing just a few books, it's easy enough to click on the "Sell Yours Here" button, and list through the Web. But for a stack of books, you can save lots of time with a spreadsheet. I prefill my spreadsheet with most of the variables, then just enter the ISBN, condition and price for each book. Excel has an "autofill" feature you can use to populate a whole column of cells, so typing each one isn't necessary.
Amazon has a tutorial for building and uploading your Inventory Loader files, and it includes a spreadsheet template to get you started.
For checking prices on your existing inventory, one free option is comparing your prices with the "low price" through your seller account "open listings" page on Amazon's site.
One seller product I'm aware of has a Mac version, BookHound.
And a new price-checking service that came out recently is Tooyen. Since this service is provided over the Web, I imagine it would work fine for Mac users.
I hope other Mac users will chime in with additional comments to this post.
ANSWER: Unfortunately there's a real dearth of seller software for Mac users. However, you can add new listings and assign SKUs using a spreadsheet. You can upload the spreadsheet to Amazon as an "Inventory Loader" text file.
This is how I list books using my PC. When I started on Amazon, there was no seller software, so I started this way and never changed. You need a Pro-Merchant subscription to access the Inventory Loader function.
If you're listing just a few books, it's easy enough to click on the "Sell Yours Here" button, and list through the Web. But for a stack of books, you can save lots of time with a spreadsheet. I prefill my spreadsheet with most of the variables, then just enter the ISBN, condition and price for each book. Excel has an "autofill" feature you can use to populate a whole column of cells, so typing each one isn't necessary.
Amazon has a tutorial for building and uploading your Inventory Loader files, and it includes a spreadsheet template to get you started.
For checking prices on your existing inventory, one free option is comparing your prices with the "low price" through your seller account "open listings" page on Amazon's site.
One seller product I'm aware of has a Mac version, BookHound.
And a new price-checking service that came out recently is Tooyen. Since this service is provided over the Web, I imagine it would work fine for Mac users.
I hope other Mac users will chime in with additional comments to this post.
posted by Steve Weber at 3/20/2006
3 Comments:
I talked to the Marketshark people who are currently developping a really great bookselling software. Check out their website at www.marketshark.net! Or check Steve Webbers blog entry here on this site on the subject of Marketshark. They very much regret not having a Mac version (yet). They said that they are potentially interested in a Mac version, but are not sure of the interest. Let's show them there is interest! Write to them and request a Mac version, that should get them going...
Contact: Daniel Jeffries. Sorry, but this form does not allow me to publish his email here, but it is basically his first name, followed by the @ sign, followed by marketshark.net
Hi, The Tooyen Web Team (aka "Andy") here. Tooyen, being one of those silly web-only no-client-software blah-blah-blah programs, works perfectly for Mac users. The Web pages, at least, are supposed to do that. Try it out and see if it works.
http://www.tooyen.com/
If it doesn't, just send mail to support@tooyen.com and We'll Fix It For You. Being in between consulting jobs, I have plenty of time on my hands and there's nothing I love better than writing software.
Best of luck to you,
Tooyen.com
I use The Art of Books. I am on a PowerMac G4 running OSX. I've had no problems using AOB at all. Prior to that I used Excel, downloading my new listings and doing a lot of cutting and pasting. It worked okay, but my inventory got too big to make that a very effective option. Also, with AOB I can effectively list on multiple sites. I was already selling on Half in addition to AZ, but making sure things got deleted on one site when they sold on the other was a constant challenge. Now AOB does that for me. AOB's one staffer (other than the husband and wife owners) is their Mac person, who also answers questions on their user message board - there's a separate category just for Macs! However, there aren't a lot of postings there - I think mostly because it's such a non-issue.
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