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Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies

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Re: Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies

#11
post #10

Someone should try selling a book that there are limited copies of (ie one that can't be procured easily) to see what happens if someone buys from a seller who doesn't have it.

The seller will drop ship it from another seller or they cancel the order. Not a lot of options. As long as they don't do it too often it won't affect their feedback ratings noticeably.

Re: Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies

#13
This explains a lot. I wrote a small book back in the 90s that had few sales and was unlamented when it fell out of print. A couple of years ago saw it as the subject of an amazon.com sidebar ad and was astonished to find that it was listed at $100 or thereabouts, and couldn't imagine how or why it might have become collectible. The idea that this was the result of competing pricing algorithms makes a great deal more sense to me.

Now, if you'll excuse me I'm off to weep over my broken dreams of belated celebrity.

Re: Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies

#14
oh man. reminds me of the days when I sold books on amazon and half.com. I wrote a script that took the 'nickel less than the other guy' approach.

These things are /wonderful/ when it comes to making the market more efficient. Really, though, the shipping costs eat up most of the efficiency. Amazon needs an easy way to say "I want these 10 books, used. Find me the lowest price (including shipping)" - the idea is that the more books you could buy from one seller, the less shipping friction would be involved, but amazon isn't really set up that way, which makes it much less efficient for the low end used books.

Re: Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies

#15
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any 3rd party tools available to 3rd party sellers? Offering something that beats the current algorithms could be a good deal (if its not illegal).

I have code that does ecommerce price point optimization using machine learning. In an ideal setting, it combines a variety of signals, including prediction using previous sales data. It's also able to "smooth" over different products, so that you can make good price point choices even for products that have very little sales history.

What's the algorithm?

Edit: I'm puzzled by the downvotes to my honest question. "machine learning" is not an algorithm, it's a field!

Re: Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies

#16
post #14

oh man. reminds me of the days when I sold books on amazon and half.com. I wrote a script that took the 'nickel less than the other guy' approach. These things are /wonderful/ when it comes to making the market more efficient. Really, though, the shipping costs eat up most of the efficiency. Amazon needs an easy way to say "I want these 10 books, used. Find me the lowest price (including shipping)" - the idea is that…

Everyone always mentions that buying more items from a single Amazon store would make shipping cheaper? Is that ever true? Of all the online stores I've made purchases from, I believe monoprice is the only one that appears to base shipping on tiers based on item size/mass. All the rest simply charge a set rate for each item, and it doesn't matter how you divide your shipments up into different orders.

Re: Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies

#18
post #10

Someone should try selling a book that there are limited copies of (ie one that can't be procured easily) to see what happens if someone buys from a seller who doesn't have it.

The nice thing about selling books is that you aren't bound to deliver the book - you can always just cancel the contract and refund the money. It's unlike short selling stocks in that respect; you aren't vulnerable to a short squeeze (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_selling#Risk).

(For an example, read up on Porsche & Volkswagen: eg. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/business/worldbusiness/30i... )

Re: Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies

#19
post #16
post #14

oh man. reminds me of the days when I sold books on amazon and half.com. I wrote a script that took the 'nickel less than the other guy' approach. These things are /wonderful/ when it comes to making the market more efficient. Really, though, the shipping costs eat up most of the efficiency. Amazon needs an easy way to say "I want these 10 books, used. Find me the lowest price (including shipping)" - the idea is that…

Everyone always mentions that buying more items from a single Amazon store would make shipping cheaper? Is that ever true? Of all the online stores I've made purchases from, I believe monoprice is the only one that appears to base shipping on tiers based on item size/mass. All the rest simply charge a set rate for each item, and it doesn't matter how you divide your shipments up into different orders.

well, the post office would take less of a cut. shipping one one-pound box is usually a lot cheaper than shipping two half-pound boxes. In theory, amazon could either give that surplus to the seller, to the buyer, or they could split it between the two. (I guess they could also keep it for themselves, but that might have negative PR consequences.)

Re: Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies

#20
post #15
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have code that does ecommerce price point optimization using machine learning. In an ideal setting, it combines a variety of signals, including prediction using previous sales data. It's also able to "smooth" over different products, so that you can make good price point choices even for products that have very little sales history.

What's the algorithm? Edit: I'm puzzled by the downvotes to my honest question. "machine learning" is not an algorithm, it's a field!

Probably some sort of regression for the prediction part, and perhaps linear programming for the price optimization, since there are probably some nontrivial (but possibly linear?) constraints on pricing.
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