Returning to Oz after thirty years away - advice for a media seller

[Anonymous]

Hello all - I'm going to be returning to Australia later in the year to help look after my elderly mother.  I have been a specialised classical/jazz music seller for the past twenty five  years and would like to continue in Australia (though under no illusions as to what the state of the Australian market is likely to be). I currently do most of my business on Amazon UK and so have been really surprised to find that I cannot find any used media for sale on Amazon AU. I'm assuming this must be local company policy, does anyone happen to know why? If not Amazon does that mean that Ebay is the prime site for selling used media in Australia? Is there anywhere else? Does Discogs have any kind of profile in Australia? I haven't sold on Ebay for many years, does it still involve the painstaking task of having to photograph every item or are there generic listings/stock photos now as there are with Amazon? Thanks in advance for any advice/thoughts.

[imastawka]

I don't know anything about selling media, sorry, but I do know that anything second hand

must have a photo of the actual item, so that the buyer sees what they are getting.

[imastawka]

Images, videos and text policy | eBay

[countessalmirena · Accepted solution]

Amazon in Australia is not exactly a huge success story. I will still buy from Amazon US for many things, and from Amazon UK if I have a lot of items that I want to purchase from the UK (as I have to get everything sent to a UK parcel forwarding company due to the whole "won't send to Australia" thing in the wake of the low-value international purchase GST legislation). In terms of second-hand classical CDs, I don't think I've ever bought any from Amazon AU. (I'm a huge classical music collector in particular.)

Mostly, the second-hand discs that I want are hard to find, and I put out tentacles throughout the world. Discogs, yes, but individual shops in France or Germany or the UK... There are specialist shops in Australia with this sort of stuff, but they're certainly rarer now than, say, 15 years ago.

eBay is probably going to be a good part of your selling platform. I don't know how you'll go; perhaps some seller in a similar line can shed some light on that. I would love to say that I'll be a customer of yours, but I have very specific requirements in what I collect, so it will depend on what you have!

You may want to consider setting up your own website as well, and gradually building up a customer base here... but I would still think you'll need to create an established presence on eBay, irrespective of anything else.

I can only applaud your decision to move back here to help with looking after your mother. I hope that all goes well for you.

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for your reply. No, you won't have bought any second hand classical on Amazon AU because none is available. I would love to find out why Amazon decided to exclude it all from their Australian sector. I don't particularly enjoy selling on Amazon (the hectoring and micromanaging is incessant) but the really big advantage it holds over Ebay, from my perspective, is that listing stock is so much faster.

It looks like Ebay will be the only real game in town for me but I will consider Discogs and setting up my own site also as supplements. As to 'how I'll go' I don't expect it will be a roaring success but as in any case I'll no doubt be wanting to sell things from my own vast collection from time-to-time I might as well go down this route and then see how much income I'll need to find in other ways. The other advantage of continuing my current line of business is the flexibility of it in terms of being able to help my mother.

Anyway, thanks again and I hope we'll cross paths again, perhaps later in the year...

[davewil1964]

Be aware that you will have to jump through hoops to change your country of origin. Also that that will make you a 'new' seller, subject to funds hold.

[Anonymous]

That's a really useful heads up, thanks. It may be especially tricky given I will have basically no current forms of Australian identification.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for this