First off, What is Amazon? Amazon is the largest retailer in the world. Their platform allows sellers and buyers to do business seamlessly in a customer centric environment.
Selling on Amazon can be broken down into 4 simple steps.
Step 1: Create an Amazon seller central account on sell.amazon.com
Step 2: List products for sale
Step 3: Fulfill customer orders and provide outstanding customer service
Step 4: Receive payments from your sales proceeds and maintain your account health
Let's take a closer look at each of these four processes.
Step 1: Create an Amazon seller account
Before you sign up for an Amazon account, decide whether you want to use the professional or individual selling plan. There are a few key distinctions between the two programs, so let's compare professional and individual.
Professional accounts have a flat monthly fee of $39.99, regardless of how many things they sell. This account is appropriate if you intend to sell a large number of things.
If you just plan to produce a few sales per month, an individual account is a better option. Instead of paying a monthly subscription cost, you pay a 99 cents per item fee for each item you sell.
Both individual and professional seller accounts are eligible for FBA service.
Let's have a look at some of the features that are only available to professional sellers:
- $39.99/mo
- Customize shipping rates
- Bulk listing tool
- Advertising deals and coupons
- Automated pricing tool
- Amazon Selling Coach
- Marketplace Web Services
and a lot more!
Step 2: List products
You can list a product to sell on amazon in less than five minutes, here’s how.
If someone else is selling the same goods, Amazon's product listing allows you to match an existing one or create a new listing if you are the first or only seller. If you're reselling things from Amazon's catalog, this is a quick method to expand your account's inventory.
What if my selection doesn’t match the existing offers?
You'll need to establish a new detail page on Amazon if you're selling your own brand private label or adding new product selections to a category. A product identification, often known as a barcode, is required to establish a new listing. UPC, GTIN, EAN, and ISBN are examples of commonly used identifying terms. Are you unsure what a barcode is? Look for barcodes on some of your favorite things or pay attention to what a store clerk scans to obtain pricing. A UPC is a 12-digit number, while an EAN is a 13-digit number. Apply for a GTIN exemption if the products you want to sell don't have a barcode. The choices can then be added without the need for barcode numbers.
Using the add a product option, you can add listings one by one to your account. Using the add products via upload option, you can add a large amount of inventory at once. Handmade and customized listing vendors have special listing options to meet their needs.
Step 3: Fulfill orders and provide outstanding customer service
Now that your product listings are complete, choose how to best fulfill orders.
Amazon's FBA program allows merchants to benefit from Amazon's world-class shipping, logistics, and customer service connections. FBA sellers ship their goods to Amazon's fulfillment centers. Packaging, shipping returns, and customer support issues are all handled by them. Sellers that opt to perform their own or merchant fulfilled shipping are responsible for ensuring that shipments are dispatched and delivered on schedule, as well as customer care and refunds.
Step 4: Receive payments from your sales proceeds
On approved sales revenues, Amazon pays you via an automatic clearing house payment to your bank account every two weeks.
Sellers should become familiar with Amazon's fee schedule in order to determine sales profits and profitability. In the search field on your seller central home page, enter in selling on Amazon fee schedule. This will take you to the support page. All fees associated with selling on Amazon are listed on the support page.
Finally, we encourage that you routinely review your performance as a seller by going to account health under the performance tab on seller central.
Good luck with your sales!