Not happy with the presents you received for Christmas? This year, Amazon is again joining eBay in making entreaties to customers to sell their unwanted gifts on its marketplace. Surprised? This is actually Amazon’s fourth year of post-holiday marketing to consumer shoppers.
This year, Amazon sent holiday customers an email invitation to sell their unwanted gifts: “Sell on Amazon and Make Money,” was the subject of the email. “Dear Amazon.com Customer,” the email began, “Not quite happy with a gift you received? Customers who showed an interest in selling might like to learn more about how they can sell their holiday gifts on Amazon.com. Create a seller account and start selling to millions of people who come to Amazon every day.”
Amazon sent the email to customers on Sunday with a link to a “Sell Your Stuff” page that states, “Make money by selling your stuff on Amazon.com. It’s easy, it’s fast, and it doesn’t cost you a penny until your item sells,” and the page contains information about how to sell.
The Sell Your Stuff page also promotes a “mobile listing sweepstakes” Amazon is running to encourage customers to list using their mobile device. The sweepstakes offers a chance to win a $300 Amazon.com Gift Card every day the customer lists a product for sale using their mobile browser.
“Each new listing created on a mobile device gives you an additional entry into the sweepstakes (up to a total of 10 entries per day). Start listing your items from your mobile device, and you will automatically be entered into the Sweepstakes using the name and email address associated with your Amazon.com seller account.” The Amazon mobile listing sweepstakes ends today (12/31/2013).
eBay, meanwhile, is encouraging customers to sell unwanted gifts by running a promotion for individuals in the UK, writing, “If you don’t love your gift, someone will.” In fact, the week before Christmas, eBay UK revealed that the term “unwanted Christmas presents” was the sixth highest search term on its marketplace on Christmas Day last year as shoppers went online for a deal or even to sell their own unwanted presents.
And the day after Christmas, eBay and Gumtree (eBay’s classifieds site) present the Unwanted Gift Report 2013 in which it revealed factoids, such as, “Almost 8 in 10 Brits would consider reselling an unwanted gift, and “Britons sitting on 2.4bn pounds of unwanted gifts.”
