My recent experience selling vinyl on Amazon, and why I should have started sooner.
My obsession with selling weird things on Amazon
I’m really into finding the weird little inventory “blindspots” that most FBA sellers overlook. Recently, I’ve dabbled in selling vinyl with Fulfillment by Amazon.
Has the experiment been a success? Yes and no.
More on the results of my FBA vinyl experiment in a minute…
Do people buy vinyl on Amazon?
The first thing you’re likely to think is: People still buy vinyl?
Check this statistic out: Vinyl sales have increased 7x in the last 5 years. Sales have increased sevenfold.
And you can buy vinyl on Amazon. Sales of vinyl recently surpassed sales of CDs. And recently years, Amazon has been giving prominence to vinyl listings for an album over the CD version. This makes vinyl vastly more appetizing for the FBA seller.
My Amazon vinyl experiment
But does it sell?
Over the last 90 days, I’ve shipped in approximately 30 LPs.
And in those first 90 days, I sold…. One.
Before you declare this experiment some kind of “failure,” I have to disagree for several reasons. That single sale doesn’t tell the whole story…
One, I’m only 90 days in to this experiment. And I’ve already (almost) covered my costs.
Two, these records cost me an average of <$1 each. Yet every one is selling on Amazon for $10 and up, and most are in the $20+ range. The one that sold was priced at $30, netting me around $23. As mentioned, that came very close to covering my total costs in the first 90 days. Meaning when any of the other 29 sell, it’s pure profit.
As to how selling this kind of slow-moving vinyl this affects your Amazon IPI score is for every seller to consider. This approach isn’t for everyone.
Thoughts & analysis of the Amazon vinyl experiment
Weird vinyl holds value: So far it seems my approach with book sourcing works best with vinyl as well. I’ve been finding value in the weird and obscure titles (“STORY OF STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI“). While my actual sales are in their infancy, just from looking up hundreds of records, I’m seeing this pattern emerge.
Even old “bestsellers” have value: Then again, lots of “mainstream” records have value too. Unlike books, with vinyl, even the mainstays seem to have hold value. There just don’t seem to be many people selling vinyl on Amazon to bring prices down.
You can scan vinyl: So far I’ve limited my scope to records with barcodes only. I haven’t even ventured into the world of looking up records manually. If you want to take the time, I expect there may be some serious opportunity in sourcing & reselling vinyl without barcodes.
The takeaway
The rules to selling records appear to mirror those of long-tail, poorly-ranked books: You ship a lot in with huge margins, and they will sell “every once in awhile.” But in the long term, you’re making your money back tenfold.
-Peter Valley
Did you run into any problems with the albums getting damaged in the warehouse? I have about a thousand classic rock, funk and blues record. Some of them are sixty years+ and I would hate for them to be wrecked. Thanks!
No issues so far. Pack well.
I have a couple of albums I want to send in, and I was thinking as well of damage. I decided that I would add in a piece of cardboard to the back of the record, then shrink-wrap the two together. I would add in another layer of protection. Or perhaps a piece of 1/8-inch masonite cut to fit, then shrink-wrapped to the album. Overkill?
I tend to feel that everyone overthinks packing. Putting in the records in a carboard record mailer should be sufficient.
Hey Peter, I have looked for the answer to this question about selling lps FBA. Didnt find much that wasnt several years old, so of course I came back to my “go to” blog on FBA….FBA Mastery.
I want to send in a couple of boxes of lps and see how it goes. Ive been working in record stores and selling on ebay for many years but just started selling FBA about a month ago. So far ive sent in books and cds just to learn all the basics of listing,setting prices,packaging,shipping etc. I want to package each lp in a mailer like I was going to send it myself from home. The barcode will go on the outside. When amazon ships this to the customer, will they put the mailer in another box or just put a shipping label on the mailer itself and send it? I want it put in an additional box (unless they will take my barcode off. that way you cant tell exactly what is inside. What do you think?
thanks Peter I really have learned alot of the basics from your page. And so much more is available as i am able to adsorb it ll. Thanks for all the effort you put into it.
Jon
This shouldn’t be a problem, just write “ready to ship” really big on the outside of the mailer. That’s my approach, and its worked well.
Hi there. How in the world do we get approved to sell Vinyl through our FBA seller account? Thanks much