With millions of customers depending on Amazon for their online shopping needs, Amazon has proved itself to be one of the greatest brands in the market, in fact, greatest if looked upon from certain aspects. But you already know that, right? So, let’s not dive deep into the achievements of Amazon and plunge into the crux of the discussion.
Starting with the question, ‘How can Amazon’s years of hard work benefit me?’ The answer is simple, i.e. by being a third party seller at Amazon store. So basically, you can escape from all the marketing madness and just operate as a seller for Amazon. ‘What if I already have an online store?’ The more the merrier. You can make Amazon selling an additional income to your store without doing anything further about it. Many big brands are doing so, and in fact it’s a good way to promote your products by making it visible in a platform like Amazon.
Now let’s engage with the most important question, ‘How can I sell products on Amazon?’ Even though the process is super easy, we will further discuss it in detail to help you successfully sell your products on Amazon. Let’s take one step at a time to make it clear and concise for you:
Choose your Amazon Seller Account
So for all those who wonder “Where do I start?”
The very first step is to decide on your Amazon seller account. There are two plans, first is individual seller plan which charges per sold unit from the seller and the other one is the professional seller account which charges a nominal monthly fee, no matter how much sales you bag.
Expert Suggestion: If you are planning to expand your business and make it a stable source of income, the professional account offers you many additional features to facilitate it. It lets you collect taxes, offer promotions and gift services, and many other seller perks you don’t get with the individual seller account.
Setup Your Seller Account
It’s more sorted that you can probably fathom. It’s takes like about 10-15 minutes to setup your seller account at sellercentral.amazon.com. You either need your business TIN/EIN number (preferably) or can do it with your social security number. Answer a number of questions related to taxes and other seller details, and it’s done! Well, it’s seems to be as easy as registering for Facebook, doesn’t it?
Choose from Amazon’s fulfillment programs
You must have come across this as a buyer as well. Amazon offers two fulfillment programs to its sellers (And buyers) namely merchant/self fulfillment and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).
Self/Merchant Fulfillment: You need to manage your own inventory and send out the products yourself once an order is placed. You can still get low postage rates from Amazon approved carriers.
FBA: Under this program, you need to send out the products to Amazon and they maintain the warehouse and later ship the product. The customer service and returns, if any, is managed all by Amazon.
Expert Suggestions: Prime members and even other customers prefer products under FBA, sometimes even when the rates are higher. Even you as a customer might have noticed this trend for Amazon fulfilled products have a reputation to be delivered within a stipulated time and in its best condition. An Amazon fulfilled program is therefore suggested to third party sellers to increase brand visibility and sales.
Product Listing
Now make a list of products you want to sell on Amazon and decide on how you are going to source the products. Direct manufacturers will require setting a strategy to keep an updated inventory. It’s always a good idea to sell your own line of products with private labels as it helps the brand to gain recognition in the market. You can also source products from other manufacturers with a deal to use your own labels for them.
Once you are set with the products you want to sell, create a new product listing through your seller dashboard. You can list your items from the ‘inventory’ tab in there. This is required as you are selling new products under a new brand name that hasn’t been sold before on Amazon.
If you opted for Amazon Fulfillment Program earlier, your next step will be to ship your products to the Amazon warehouse.
Register Your Brand with Amazon
Registering your brand with Amazon Brand Registry is important if you are manufacturing your own products or sourcing them solely to be sold under your private labels. The point behind it is to express ownership of your products. Moreover, it also opens up more seller marketing features for you as a bonus.
When you are live, some tips to increase sales:
- True that Amazon brings customers itself but it’s a tried and tested formula to generate your first few sales yourself to improve your ranking on the site and gain visibility for the keywords you have setup for your products. You can also send out coupons to your previous customers to encourage them from buying products from Amazon and increasing your brand’s rankings on the site.
- You can promote your products on Amazon by running a definitive period promotion for your products. Find various such options by exploring your seller dashboard.
- When the sales start pouring in, ask your customers for feedback. Trust us when we say that but customer reviews does work almost as personal recommendation and boost your sales greatly.
Conclusion
Now we know Amazon’s position in the market and why it’s a smart idea to start selling with Amazon. The answer to ‘How?’ has also been answered. So, now the only task left is for you to start selling and making some uncomplicated business money by profiting from the name and fame Amazon has earned over the years!
About Author: Pratik Shah is the Creative Director at Brush Your Ideas. It is a company that offers a Adobe Commerce Product Designer tool and a ready to integrate Web-to-Print store. Pratik holds an expertise on the ecommerce and web-to-print technology related subjects. He often contributes with his articles on different forums.
