Amazon iOs Seller App Consolidates Sourcing and Listing

So Amazon came out with a Selling App for iOS, and I've taken it for a test scan...or I should say, several test scans. The bottom line is, the app should save sellers time by letting them scan/check prices on products, and then also list them (if desired) within the same tool. I'm not going to say it will make your life desktop- or laptop-and-printer free; you still gotta print your labels, or at least your postage, out at some point, and physically pack your box of items if you are shipping to Amazon for fulfillment. (Unless you really want to tick off the folks at the post office).

And, of course you can choose to merchant-fulfill if you want, in which case you are also packing and printing. Also, if anything goes awry in the iPhone listing process (sorry, Droidies, the Android Amazon selling app isn't out yet, but I'm sure it will be soon), you can run back to your desktop PC and tweak things as needed on the big screen.

In a test of scanning five new-in-shrinkwrap movies, three scanned easily and the prices came up fine on my iPhone screen; one movie was not found on Amazon; one first gave me the wrong product when I scanned the bar code that had been taped to the shrinkwrap - but once I peeled it off and scanned the different, real one on the movie's case itself, it came up fine.

And a fifth one came up but Amazon told me it had two different numbers/ASINS for that movie and I would need to list the correct version. For that one, I went to my desktop to look up the exact title and cover photo I had and make sure it was correct; I entered it in as a new listing and will delete the original, wrong one.

Overall, the app is quick and snappy; my only quibbles were a couple of minor blips I think they can improve upon.  While selecting the field for "new, used," etc. from the "clickwheel" type menu proves simple, selecting the "tax code" from a drop-down list is a little tricky physically; it's easy to be a butterfingers and land on the wrong tax code. (I sometimes have a hard time finding an appropriate tax code for my items, anyway. Where is the option for a movie/dvd, and what exactly is "comp_gamper"? Is that second "p" supposed to be in there?

And typing in the "condition notes" field is easy enough, especially for working on a small screen, but it would be nice if the app would remember the last condition notes you typed in, so it would auto-fill the rest of a phrase such as "Brand new in shrink wrap; shrink wrap has mild wear." (Or, any phrase you use and re-use over a lot).

I got around this by doing a "select all" and "copy" on that field, so I could simply paste that in for the next item's condition (nearly all the movies I had to list fit that description).

A cool thing about the app is it will calculate your profit after Amazon fees for you. It also lets sellers can interact with customers via a dedicated Communication pane, according to this piece in Apple Insider, but I didn't test that feature.

But, overall, I expect this app will make Amazon sellers happy campers. Now you can scan and list pretty much at the same time. It's like two, two, two mints in one! (Anyone 39 or younger may have to Google that).

Have you tried the Amazon seller app yet, and what did you think of it? Do you think it will replace any existing tools you use to list or scan? Post a comment here!

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