Last night I bit the $39.95/month bullet and listed my LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD on Amazon as a “Pro Merchant.” I could “list a single item” on Amazon for free, ONLY IF they already have that item in their “catalog.”  In other words, if there is a book or DVD you can already find in Amazon, you can list yours to sell there… but if you want to submit a NEW item (like LinkedIn for Job Seekers) you have to pay $39.95 a month and become a Pro Merchant.

There is lots of help information available for this, although I find it to be a rather complex thing so I ended up reading a lot to do research on it.  Here are my initial thoughts:

• I need to list this item on Amazon because I think that’s where most of the sales are going to come from.  I think around 80% of my book sales come from Amazon, even though I have a bunch of Happy About affiliates, and I’ve promoted the affiliate program quite a bit since we started.  But Amazon has gazillions of eyeballs and people going there to look and purchase.
• I got sideblinded when entering the product because it requires a UPC.  DANG. For some reason I didn’t think that little-ol-me would have to have something so formal.  I did a search on UPC amazon and came upon a great blog post, which led me to IWantMyBarCode.com.  I read through the site and based on comments from that other blog post I decided to drop $22 for my UPC – a one-time purchase.  I LOVE the I Want My Barcode site style… not the design, but the personality and the story behind the site.  I ordered it last night (around 6pm) and got my UPC this morning (so I could finish submitting the LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD this morning).
• When I submitted the product for some reason it took it as “LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD by” … UGH.  I clicked the edit link but the only thing it would let me edit was the quantity and some other thing.  I have no idea how to edit the title… but then when I clicked on the actual listing it did NOT have the “by” … so it looked good.  Still bugged me :p
• I have seen plenty of items on Amazon that have a different “available” or “shipping on” date. I was hoping that I could set the “doesn’t ship until” date to April 7th, which is when the DVD company told me they would have the DVDs in my office.  Instead, the shipping date is TODAY, March 25th.  This is a problem, especially if people want expedited shipping.
• When I put in my inventory, which is 980 units, I was surprised to go the the Amazon product page and see there was … drum roll… 1 product.  I am not sure it matters, but I was surprised to see something different than what I put in.  I think it would be better to not show 980, or anything over a couple of dozen…
• Oh yeah, one thing I didn’t ask Amazon about was the price – for a limited time I’m offering it for 49.95 from my website… and wanted to do the same on Amazon, but I can’t find a way to change the price (or show there’s a special temporary price)…
• Finally, and the most important thing for me, is I want LinkedIn for Job Seekers (the DVD) to show up when someone is looking at ANY LinkedIn book on Amazon.  This is critical.  CRITICAL.  I don’t think this DVD will show up on those product pages because, well, I don’t think that BOOKs and DVDs mix.  This is not good for me, because many people who are looking at any of the LinkedIn books could be potential purchasers of my DVD… especially people who are looking at MY book!  Doesn’t it make sense that my two products are one one-another’s pages? I hope this wall between product types (books vs. DVDs) is something we can get around.

So those are my first impressions.  It really will be interesting to see how many are sold through Amazon, which will likely be people who have NO idea who Jason Alba is, vs. how many are sold through my own network/audience and affiliate channels.

Here’s an image from the Amazon listing page: