Why would I have a -.05 for Amazon earnings?

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   Kenna McHughposted 4 years ago

   For the life of me, I can't remember why I would have -.05 earning in Amazon. Can someone explain this to me?

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      theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      It'll be a teeny-tiny refund to a reader who purchased something via your link.

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      Marie Flintposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      It would be nice if our stats could link to what was bought/sold or returned. I never have earnings from Amazon, but when I did, I was surprised and wondered which article I had written that inspired the purchase.
      
      Oh, well, we have all kinds of pluses and minuses relative to this website. Have a nice day, Kenna!

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   Rupert Taylorposted 4 years ago

   A nickel? WooHoo Kenna. Don't spend it all at once.

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      theraggededgeposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      It's a minus

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         Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         Yes. It is a minus. I am figuring the buyer argued super hard for the nickel.

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      NateB11posted 4 years agoin reply to this

      

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   Wesman Todd Shawposted 4 years ago

   Years ago when we had ebay, in one day I sold 3 very expensive used guitars and made $900.00 dollars from ebay commissions that day.
   
   That was nothing because years ago a man sold a 1957 Chevrolet and got $10K in commission from ebay for one day.
   
   Well, a few days later my account for the day reported -$700.
   
   Turns out a man had bought 3 expensive guitars from my ebay ads, and he had apparently pre-determined he was going to keep the one of the three he liked the best.

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      Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      Wesman,
      That is quite a story. I sell DVDs/Blu-rays on eBay. I never make that much commissions. With that, there are flip sides to working and selling on the Internet.

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      NateB11posted 4 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think I made sales of that magnitude but I do remember eBay being pretty good on sales for me and my articles. This also reminded me of the guy years ago who used to make quite a bit on the site selling watches. That was a big thing when I first started. I realize that's not the point of your story but it all popped up in my mind when I read what you wrote.

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         Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         Nate,
         Watches are a big deal, and it's an image.

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            NateB11posted 4 years agoin reply to this

            True. At that time, too, it was easier to make money online. I came in just under the wire when it became harder to make money online and the watch guy had been around awhile so he was making money when the getting was good. I know his name but didn't want to give it away because I have no idea whether he wants anyone to call out his name on a forum. But they used to talk about his successes on this site probably like 5 or 6 years ago.

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         Wesman Todd Shawposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         Yeah. The story of the guy who made $10K from the sales of a '57 Chevy was one of the things which got me excited about trying to do this thing to begin with.
         
         So the ebay thing netted me $200 in one day, which was great, but was quite a huge letdown from thinking I'd made $900.
         
         HP staff sent me a private email about it. Just to make sure I understood what had happened. I appreciated that.
         
         I'm not sure, I don't remember, but I don't think I ever made a significant ebay sale other than that one time.
         
         Amazon has been much more consistent, but I've never made more than around $90 from an amazon sale.
         
         I just wish I'd had my head together and was being very serious about all of this way back when. My articles from early days were...*shudders* - trash, basically. Just awful.

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            NateB11posted 4 years agoin reply to this

            I don't think I learned how to make money at this until a year or so into it. Not that I'm a mastermind of making money, far from it, but I did learn at some point I learned a few things about traffic and sales that make a little bit of money, way more than those old days, like you say.
            
            I don't think I ever made much from eBay but there was a time when I made more sales from it than I did from Amazon. At some point my Amazon sales became adequate. Not enough to live on but at least better than pennies.

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            Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            Wesman,
            It was cool that HP reached out to you and explained the situation. Also, I think we all grown as writers here. At least, I know I have. I still find typos.

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               Wesman Todd Shawposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               Oh yeah. I don't even want to look at the oldest stuff I have left on the website. I cringe and cringe and get kind of depressed when I look at how bad my writing was.

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               wildernessposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               It's amazing, isn't it, just how many times we can proof an article and still go back a year later and find more errors?  Sometimes I think the fairies are changing it periodically!

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                  Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                  I think their elves!!!

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            lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            That's really nice of the team to write to you about it.
            
            Well, weren't all our articles kind of trash back then? The trashy kind was the norm. Spam was what was common.

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               Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               Let's not forget about the pop-up ads.

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                  lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                  Haha

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               Wesman Todd Shawposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               I've probably published well over 400 articles here. The most of them I've moved to blogger where they do nothing, but of course they were doing nothing here either.
               
               I have a few very old ones left. Some of them were okay, the few early ones which were okay - and then a couple I keep here because there are lots of comments from people who I liked, and who have died since then.
               
               Like Dusty Tibbs or ".50 Caliber." I liked that guy.
               
               I'd write a 700 word article, he'd leave a 5 thousand word comment. LOL

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                  lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                  LOL, I don't think I know .50 Caliber but sounds like a great person.

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   Glenn Stokposted 4 years ago

   I doubt someone returned a 5¢ item.
   
   Your Amazon Sales Report shows the details of all items purchased and returned. It's possible that you had a sale and a return on the same day—and the sale was 5 cents less than the return. Hence, the total for the day shows -0.05
   
   Take a look at your itemized list and you'll see that.

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      Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      Glenn,
      I think that is what happened. It's still hard to tell because the says sold but -0.05, so it could have been a partially returned item since it was a pack of 8.  The same sold product was listed three months ago.

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   Solarasposted 4 years ago

   I first got started in online writing after reading a book on internet marketing. That book explained that one should write an article and paste it all over the place: ezine, your own blog, anywhere you could think of.  Times have changed.

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   wildernessposted 4 years ago

   It wasn't a -.05, but I had a great day from Amazon yesterday.  Some 50 shipments...of which over 30 were for food products and paid nothing.
   
   Is this normal, or something new, that we don't earn from food products?  I'm sure I've sold some over the years and don't recall not being paid for them.

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      Glenn Stokposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      That's strange, Dan. I used to get over 8% on food products, but I haven't had any food sales since April 21st, which is when the new payment system went into effect. Maybe they no longer pay for food.
      
      One thing I did notice though, is that I still get 8.50% on software sales and over 4% on electronics. That implies that the special deal HubPages has with Amazon keeps us at that level despite the reduced residuals to Amazon affiliates who have their own accounts. That doesn't explain why you got nothing for your food sales.

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         wildernessposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         theraggededge, on another thread, says it's been zero payment for food for some time.  Normally it doesn't affect me - I might get one food item a week or so - but when there were 30 of them in one day with no earnings I kind of woke up!

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            Glenn Stokposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            I just took another look at my sales. My last food sale was on April 13th, and I got 4.03% for that sale.
            
            I had several food sales throughout April, and some paid over 8%.
            Organic Blueberries, for example, paid 8.44%. I don’t know why they are all so different.
            
            I did find a few that paid zero. When I clicked on them to go to Amazon, they all showed it as “Currently unavailable.” I wonder if that means the order was not filled but it listed it anyway (as zero). Take a look at yours and see if they also are listed as unavailable.

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               Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               I'd love to hear how this food mystery turns out. Do food sales come from recipes or random purchases?

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                  Glenn Stokposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                  That's difficult to determine, Kenna. I have a couple of recipe hubs, and it's possible that my food sales come from those. However, the Amazon Sales Report does not indicate which hub originated the sale. So they could be random from any other article.

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               lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               This seems very likely, that the order was not fulfilled, but not canceled at the same time. I hard ordered some kind of lentil from Amazon that I do not get locally and it was not fulfilled due to the pandemic. It was unavailable when I placed the order and the seller had it set up to ship as soon as stock arrives, a week later it was cancelled.

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                  wildernessposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                  It appears that all the non-paying food purchases are from "Amazon Fresh", the Amazon grocery store that will either deliver to your home or you can pick up from.
                  
                  It is available in only a few cities, and the "not available" is probably because you don't live in one of those areas.  To others, that DO live there, they are available and sales were made.

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                     lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                     Maybe those that did not leave you any commissions were pickups and they didn't take their (browser) cookies to the store xD
                     
                     My personal order that was cancelled was not amazon fresh though, just checked.

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                        Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                        Haha!  Where did the term "cookies" come from, Amazon Fresh?

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                           lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                           When someone clicks on your amazon link a cookie is stored on their computer telling Amazon that all future orders from that person for the next 24 hours (or whatever the time limit is these days) is from the said tracking ID.

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                        Glenn Stokposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                        I get paid when people order cookies. So I wouldn't want to disable cookies on my browser. lol.

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                           lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                           Haha

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                           Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                           We love our cookies!!!

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                     lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                     It is available in my area. I meant to say my data that backed up Glen's unavailable hypothesis was moot because it was a product that was unavailable but not a product that is sold through Amazon fresh.

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                        wildernessposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                        Got it.  Seems two, unrelated, reasons - one for yours and one for mine.
                        
                        But I think my long list of products sold and not paid for is explained by the "Amazon Fresh" thing.

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            Glenn Stokposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            After my previous reply to you, I found more info as I searched more through my Amazon sales.
            
            I discovered a bunch of food sales that had zero earnings. They are all from “AmazonFresh”
            
            So that might be what theraggededge was talking about. All my food sales through “amazon.com” and “3rd Party” do have earnings, though.

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               Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               Glenn,
               Thank you for the clarification. I am not familiar with "AmazonFresh."

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               wildernessposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               And that's the key - everything that didn't pay is from Amazon Fresh, the grocery stores run by Amazon.
               
               Good work, Doctor Watson!

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                  Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                  Wilderness,
                  That mystery is solved!!! I am curious, though. Do we make revenue off Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon?

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                     wildernessposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                     Couldn't say, though I highly doubt it.

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                     Glenn Stokposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                     Kenna, Whole foods is one of Amazon's grocery stores, so it falls under the “AmazonFresh” category that I mentioned earlier doesn't pay. Dan (wilderness) confirmed that after my comment. Thank's Dan. That makes it all clear now.

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                        Kenna McHughposted 4 years agoin reply to this

                        Glen,
                        Thanks for reconfirming.

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