Last month Nordstrom ran a promotion in the British Airways shopping portal in which they gave 36 miles per dollar to people who signed up for the promotion and made their first ever BA shopping portal purchase, and made that purchase through Nordstrom.
As I reported earlier, I bought approximately $4000 worth of merchandise with the intent to sell it for as little loss as possible. The difference between how much I spent and how much I got back from reselling was my cost. In order for this to be a good deal, I wanted the cost per mile to be less than 1 cent. Specifically, I targeted .5 cents per mile as a really good deal.
Selling Approach
I had bought 10 watches and 7 noise cancelling headphones. Rather than deal with trying to sell and ship all 17 items individually, I decided to use a service called “Fulfillment by Amazon”. I signed up for a seller account and shipped all of my stuff to Amazon. They take their usual seller fees and also charge for storage of the items. In exchange, they handle all of the details of making each sale, and shipping the items.
So, how did I do?
With my original pricing, I was on track to meet my target of acquiring BA miles for .5 cents each. Truthfully, though, I became a bit impatient and put the items on sale to sell them quickly. They all sold in one weekend and I ended up with a somewhat final tally of acquiring BA miles for .67 cents each. It was still a very good deal and I was happy with that. But then Amazon made a big mistake…
Amazon’s Error
Of the 10 watches I sent to Amazon, Amazon somehow sold 24 of them! I opened a ticket with Amazon’s seller support telling them they had sold 17 of the 10 items (this was before they sold 7 more), but was told the following:
Greetings,
Having researched your account I could see that you have sent 10 units but total order shipped for this […] is 17 and I could see that all the items are shipped and the payment is already posted to your account. As all the orders has been fulfilled and there is no fulfillable quantity in your account we would not able further investigate on this issue.
You would receiving the payment for all the 17 orders.
Thank you for selling with Amazon,
No, Amazon, Thank You!
What’s Next?
I fully expect that Amazon will eventually figure out the error and come back to collect their money. And, of course, I’ll readily return it. It does reduce my confidence in them considerably though. If they can accidentally pay me too much, they can just as easily accidentally pay me too little in the future.
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Ken: Yes, I go stickerless. Sorry to hear about your plight
I’ve used FBA before and had Amazon not count all the items I sent in. When I opened a case about it they said I must have miscounted when I packed the box to send in and closed the case. They obviously lost the items and blamed it on me. And short of video taping me adding the items to the box there’s no way to prove I actually sent it in.
Do you use stickerless, comingled inventory or do you print labels and cover the barcode with them?
[…] When shopping portals run big promotions, it sometimes pays to buy things just for the shopping portal points. For example, early last year, the British Airways shopping portal briefly offered 36 points per dollar for first time users shopping at Nordstrom. I qualified, so I bought over $4000 worth of headphones and GPS watches and I earned over 144,000 points. The idea was to resell the merchandise in order to get most of my money back. Whatever money was not recovered would be my cost for “buying” 144,000 points. As it happened, I ended up making money on that deal, but that was due to a one time fluke (see “How Amazon paid me to collect miles“). […]
FWIW – I had a stake in a firm that did a lot of reselling on Amazon. Well over $100k in sales, and we never got 1099’d by them. (We did report the income, of course.)
@Brent: Even if you aren’t issued a 1099, if you sell something above your cost basis, you are required to report the income.
[…] British Airways portal offered 36X at Nordstrom I bought and sold headphones and watches (see “How Amazon paid me to collect miles”). And when the Southwest Rapid Rewards portal offered 15X at Sears I bought and sold […]
Paul: That would be great, but you have to print out a form and include it in the package that is sent to Amazon.
Have you considered having the products shipped directly to Amazon? Is there any way to make this work?
It would be nice if you could place the order, and have it go directly into your FBA inventory. I’m doubtful it could work, but it would be great if it could!
[…] electronics and raked in over 140,000 BA miles. You can read about that deal in my posts “How Amazon paid me to collect miles” and “Round trip to Hawaii for […]
[…] the deal and received the full 10X points. Not bad! Sure, it’s not quite as good as Amazon paying me for collecting BA miles, but I’ll take […]
This is really an inspiring post. However, when I tried to sell watches I bought during the BA promotion, I found that AMZ only let me list these watches as “like new” condition. How can I change the item condition? Is there a way to list these watches as “new”? Thanks.
Walter: Unfortunately, Amazon does have restrictions like that that are imposed by various companies. I was lucky with my watch because I was able to list it as new. I bought 3 watches from Sears, though, where I had the same problem as you. It is possible to create a second listing for the same item (I haven’t tried it though) and there you can list it as new. If you do a Google search you should be able to find someone who explains how to do this.
Just to clarify, what percentage did amazon charge you as their seller referral fee?
The website says they charge anywhere from 6-25%. I imagine that will put a damper on any profit from this exercise.
item 368660 10x $45 FAR
Right on man!
Wow, so they REALLY over paid! Great error on your side, for now at least. I suppose it will stay like that until the seller who didn’t get paid files his ticket. Keep those fingers crossed 😉
Am I right with my math that you paid about $964.80 for about 144,000 BA miles? ($4,000 Nordstrom x 36 miles per dollar = 144k miles. Sold on Amazon at .67 each = $964.80)
Just curious.
I didn’t work this deal b/c I won’t be home for 2 months to sell anything and nothing else was catching my eye. Crazy deal though.
– David
Travel and Credit (David): Yep, you got the math right. Yes, I got ridiculously lucky here (until Amazon claws back their money).