Amazon Seller
Whether you’ve have an established ecommerce business, a great idea for a new product, or you just have a passion for selling, here’s how to take that next step with Amazon.
Your most important task is to choose a selling plan for your products. With an Individual plan, you’ll pay Amazon $0.99 each time you sell an item. A Professional plan costs you $39.99 per month, no matter how many items you sell. For both plans, know that Amazon also collects a referral fee on each sale, which is a percentage of the total transaction. This amount varies by product category. Visit the pricing page for a summary of selling fees so you won’t be surprised.
Develop your specific selling strategy
Resellers often find popular products that already exist and offer them for sale in Amazon’s stores. Brand owners manufacture and distribute their own products or source goods to sell under their private label in order to offer shoppers unique selection.
Many sellers do a combination of each. You are not limited to either or and can choose whichever one for your specific goals. If you plan to sell your own brand on Amazon, there are many resources and tools which Amazon has to help in this process.
Create an Amazon seller account
Either use your customer account to start selling or establish a new Amazon seller account with a business email. Before you enroll, have ready with the following pieces of information:
- Either a business email address or your current Amazon customer account
- A valid credit card to cover both initial and ongoing costs
- A form of Government ID, such as Driver’s License or State ID card. Amazon will ask to verify your identity in order to protects both its sellers and customers
- Tax information, such as your social security or business EIN number
- Phone number where you can be reached
- A bank account where Amazon can send you proceeds from your sales
Seller Central
Seller Central is the place where Amazon sellers log in to monitor their sales activity. Through this, you can manage your inventory, modify pricing, communicate with customers, review your account, contact Amazon selling partner support, and add or delete new items.
What can you sell on Amazon? There is a wide range of options, but it depends on the product, the category, and the brand. Many categories are open to all sellers, others will require a Professional seller account, some require Amazon approval to sell, and several products cannot be sold by third-party sellers. In order to sell branded products which are protected by copyright, trademark, or patent, you must be either the legal owner of the specific brand or be an authorized reseller. Amazon is very strong in enforcing these terms of service.
Seller Central has more information about Amazon’s intellectual property do’s and don’ts for sellers.
Also visit Amazon Seller Central to learn more about product categories, various restrictions, and the process on how to request approval. If you plan to ship orders with Fulfillment by Amazon, review in advance the specific list of FBA product restrictions.
Organizing Your Listing
You are responsible for entering the product information in seller central. Amazon has specific guidelines you will need to follow to make sure that you can successful listing your product. This is just an overview.
The first step in selling a product on Amazon is to create a product listing in Seller Central (or via API).
Your product listing will need to include the following items:
A unique product identifier, such as GTIN, UPC, ISBN, or EAN to specify the exact item you’re selling. You can get a UPC code directly from GS1. In a few cases, you may request an exemption.
A SKU, which is a product ID you create as part of your accounting to track your own inventory
All the various product and offering details, including price, product condition, available quantity, and your shipping options if you are self-shipping.
Product details like name, brand, category, description, and several images well photographed.
Keywords and search terms to help buyers find your product among the other similar items
If another seller already offers the same product, you’ll match an existing listing (which means some details will already be in place, like the product identifier). If you’re the first seller to offer a product, you will then create a brand new listing.
How to Create Great Amazon Listings
Success on Amazon rarely happens without effort. Know that it will take some work, including trial and error to create a page that converts traffic in to purchases.
Like all industries, Amazon has its own jargon. Here are some of the terms you know as a seller:
ASIN – Every product offered for sale on Amazon gets an automatically generated ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number), which is different from a GTIN or SKU. Multiple sellers may offer the same ASIN.
The product detail page – Amazon Seller Central product detail pages show where your descriptions go. Your offer details will be displayed on a “product detail page.” If you’ve ever shopped on Amazon.com, you’ve seen one. Product detail pages are where customers find all of the relevant information about a particular item.
When multiple sellers offer the same product, Amazon will then combine data from those various offers on a single detail page. Sellers who offer the product have an ability to contribute detail page information and can request detail page reviews if the information displayed is incorrect.
Building your brand is an important part of any business. If you sell your products under a registered trademark, consider enrolling in Amazon Brand Registry. This is free service that gives you increased control over product detail pages that use your brand name.
Featured Offer (“Buy Box”)
If more than one seller offers the same product, they can compete for the Featured Offer (“Buy Box”), the most visible offers on the product detail page. Sellers must achieve performance-based requirements to be eligible for Featured Offer placement.
Attracting customers
Once your products go live in Amazon’s stores, there are a number of things you can do to attract customers. The Amazon has developed a selling system called the Amazon Flywheel which describes best practices for driving growth. Some of these include:
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Provide fast shipping – Customers often shop products with the Amazon Prime badge, which you can get by using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to ship products from one of our fulfillment centers.
TRAFFIC
Advertise your offers – Help improve visibility of individual products and boost brand awareness by advertising in both search results and on product pages. Running a promotion or publishing a coupon is another great way to introduce and promote your products.
PRICING
Set your prices to be competitive with similar products. While you may have outstanding quality, many customers will shop for the best price. Look at who else sells the same sorts of items. Amazon also has l tools including automated re-pricing and bulk pricing for Amazon Business customers. Once you master these, they can help you stay competitive in the fast changing marketplace.
Get customer reviews – Customer product reviews benefit customers and sellers. Make sure you’re familiar with the right and wrong ways to get more product reviews and avoid policy violations.
Amazon sets a high bar for their sellers because their goal is to provide a seamless, trustworthy, delightful shopping experience for customers worldwide.
For additional information on how to be a successful Amazon Seller, https://sell.amazon.com/sell.html