Amazon.co.uk Associates Discussion Board

Many reasons:

1) Loss leader products - like a supermarket selling cans of beans for 9p. Each can is sold at a loss, but because the price attracts you into the store you then buy lots of other profit making goodies, likewise you may buy other books off the same seller.

2) Sellers need to clear space - books can be slow sellers and sit around for months, shifting a load is better than sitting on them as stagnant stock.

3) Marketing - the seller can build a customer database by attracting bargain hunters.

4) Postage variations - some large sellers may have bulk mailing/franking so do not lose as much on postage, or have separate deals with couriers.

5) Pro Merchant - some large sellers will have a merchant deal with Amazon for set fees, once they sell a certain amount of products per month they have recouped the cost of monthly fees.

6) Ranking/Feedback - more sales equals more feedback and higher sellers rankings as a marketplace merchant, easy feedback results in buyers trust when selling other items.

No doubt there are other reasons!

as an ex-seller of books I can give a couple of definitive answers on this from my experience and that of other sellers.

1. Fixed P&P by amazon - effectively the '1p' book is a myth as they actually cost the customer £2.76. after fees and postage/packaging costs it is possible to make a profit of upto £1 per sale as a seller, assuming the book is light and small, packaging is bought in bulk, and a postage contract giving much better rates than using the post office or stamps.

2. Overscale - some big sellers with staff and huge stocks will be quite happy to make only a few pence per sale on some books, rather than actually price them to ensure a minimum profit.

3. lossleaders are a myth amongst big sellers as they can't actually make a loss due to postal discounts. Though many newb and inexperienced sellers will sell at 1p and be very surprised they have made a loss as they saw the bigboys selling at that price and felt they could also make a profit pricing the same.

It's not really a case of sellers trying to avoid paying a 'commission' to affiliates, most are probably unaware of amazon associates. out of the £2.75 P&P amazon still take a healthy cut of anything from 50p to £1.50 approx, depending on status of the seller. It's also not just books that this is the case, often in the electronics category you will find the same, like buying an audio lead for 99p but paying £4.50 for delivery!

Conversely, associates also can gain from this fixed postage business. Expensive electronics often cost more than amazon state is the rate for that category as sellers want to use a courier or tracked delivery service and the fixed rate does not cover this. In cases like these they add the extra costs to the price of the item and the associate will then gain extra commission on the inflated price.

It would be nice if amazon could admit that fixed postal rates are a big fail, as many other internet companies are now including 'free postage' and customers like the fact they see 1price and don;t have to then build in a postal allowance. This means affiliates of those 'free postage' companies gain on the postal charge being included in the actual price advertised.