Do you want to learn how to sell on Amazon? Here's the Information You'll Need
If you have an established e-commerce business or just begin building your online presence You've likely thought about the advantages and disadvantages of selling products on Amazon.
Traditionally speaking, you'll keep an increase in revenue and capital for your company by building and maintaining the store you have on your site. With all the tools that make multi-channel selling more efficient -- and lucrative more than it has ever been it is possible to do both simultaneously and quickly expand your audience.
If you're interested in trying at selling your products on Amazon, or you just want to know a bit more about the process in the process, this article will teach you how to sell on Amazon, and what is required to start.
An introduction to Amazon's market
Amazon is the most popular e-commerce vendor in the world especially in it is the largest in U.S., where 70% of the adults subscribe to Prime. 56% of all ecommerce sales within the U.S. happen on Amazon with around 200 million monthly active app customers. Based on their own statistics, about 7400 products sell each minute in the U.S.
Amazon offers shipping to more than 130 countries, so if you're seeking global e-commerce customers, this is certainly the fastest and most convenient method to reach the largest world audience.
Ready? Let's dive into what you need to know to sell on Amazon.
Different types of Amazon seller accounts
There are two types of seller accounts on Amazon professional and individual accounts.
A majority of online businesses looking for consistent revenue and growth will want to choose the Professional version, because the Individual one charges you fees for every transaction, but the Professional one has a fixed monthly rate.
Other selling charges both types of accounts have to pay for, but we'll look at them a little later.
An easy guide for setting up the account you want to use as an Amazon seller account
Amazon has produced a lot of content to help merchants create accounts and start selling. If you're looking to read through their documentation to get started, begin on this webpage. However, we've distilled the steps to the following basic steps:
1. Set up an account to sell
Starting the process of creating your Amazon account is as simple as registering. The first step is to create a username and password and you can go on to the next step.
2. Select the Professional sales plan
Then, select the kind of seller account that you'd like to choose. In the past, you'll want to pick the Professional plan if you intend to increase your sales using Amazon. If, in terms of sales, you expect to sell over 40 items a month, you want to go with the Professional package.
Amazon will likely not be the sole e-commerce marketplace or platform. And it probably shouldn't be, because there are big benefits to building your own ecommerce store using . However, Amazon enables you to expand to markets that you would not be able to reach through your store.
3. Join the Brand Registry
Amazon provides the Brand Registry service, which must be used before you can build your store and make use of the various features and tools available on Amazon's platform, including sellers protections as well as Amazon Ads. Additionally, you can earn an extra 5% on purchases that are branded.
4. Make use of this Stores Builder tool to create your online store
Once you've registered, you can use their Stores builders tool as well as its drag-and-drop features to create your online store. It's possible to select from three designs, and once you pick the one you like best, you'll be able to upload products and start creating pages.
The tiles can be adjusted to display product pictures video, descriptions, or any other information to make the best sense for your store.
To get this far it is necessary to have an approved trademark for the country you're enrolling from and a logo.
5. Design your product listing and then begin to sell
Once you have selected a template, you are able to start by using the page manager to add products pages, make categories, make a home page or whatever else you'd like to make an element of your Amazon storefront in order to increase revenue.
There are certain image size requirements You're only allowed 200 characters for your product description and that's more than enough.
The "Perfect Launch"
Amazon is known to promote the concept of a "Perfect Launch" for brand new sellers that is, you must complete five tasks within the first 90 days of creating your account as a seller. These five goals comprise:
- Enroll in Brand Registry
- Add A+ content to your product pages
- Create Fulfillment by Amazon (we'll cover this later)
- Automate pricing with Amazon's machine-learning technology.
- Make ads for sponsored products, coupons, or deals
Doing all this within those first few days result with significantly higher results, according to their data, which is why they have called it the Perfect Launch.
Once your store gets going, you can begin using your analytics information to design product bundles and combinations that customers will like. This increases sales, and allows you to pack multiple items in the same package.
Make product descriptions more appealing for Amazon
Amazon's website functions similar to an engine for searching. Customers can search for search terms, and Amazon will display products that align with the keywords they typed in.
This should determine your method of creating the product listing and improving your product detail page.
Keywords with search-friendly properties
Make use of keywords consumers might look up that are related to your items. Use them in your titles and product descriptions. Make use of variations or other keywords if there's more than one way customers might talk about your product. Utilize model numbers and GTINs as well as SKUs.
Informative descriptions and details
Make sure you are precise in the descriptions you write and in the details Particularly for items that have many variations, including sizes, colors, and flavors.
Use bullet elements to make your lists easier to comprehend, as well as focusing on the benefits in addition to product features. Benefits refer to outcomesWhat can this product benefit me? What issue does it address? What is the need that this product can meet, and how does it meet this need? It is important to address these sorts of questions in your product descriptions and bullet points.
Great product images
Knowing the Amazon fees
As mentioned earlier, there are really just two plans to choose from.
The Individual plan is priced at 99 cents per sale. Everything you sell online with this plan costs you 99 cents.
The Professional plan is $39.99 per month. It comes with unlimited sales. That's where the idea of selling a minimum of 40 items per month comes from. But even if you aren't sure if you'll be able to sell 40 products in the first month, you should opt for the Professional plan if you're committed to making this one of the most important aspects of your business online and expect to surpass that amount in the near future.
If you are looking to promote on Amazon and appear in the Buy Box or sell items from restricted areas (and they are numerous of these), and use other advanced selling tools, you will need professional plan.
Amazon is also liable for a variety of extra selling charges based on your arrangement with Amazon. They also charge a variety of additional fees based on your arrangement with.
Fees for referral
Each plan charges a cost for every sale made, and the fees range from 3% or up to 45% in a couple cases. The majority of referral fees are between 8 and 15%, which is fairly typical for the online marketplaces.
You can also view a variety of other fees, plus referral fees in different product categories here.
Fees for fulfillment and storage
If you involve Amazon with all of your shipping packaging, packing, or other fulfillment activities There will be charges for it as well, and it is based on size and weight. If you use them just to ship items, the cost will be according to both of these factors.
There's additional costs when you utilize Amazon's warehouses to store your products. However, you may want to consider this due to other advantages that we'll discuss shortly. One of the biggest advantages is that you can offer 2-day shipping with their own label.
During October through December, storage fees will be three times more expensive than the other nine months, due to the holiday period.
Fulfillment options -- FBM, SFP, FBA
As just mentioned the decision is yours to make the best way to manage the process of fulfillment.
You can choose to fulfill every order yourself this is known as "fulfillment by seller" (FBM). You can also use the Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP), a special option for experienced Amazon sellers, but you aren't able to make use of if you're just beginning to get started. You can also use Fulfillment by Amazon, which is what they would like customers to utilize as it comes packed with rewards.
Fulfillment by merchant
This option of fulfillment provides you with the most amount of control over your fulfillment process. It allows you to handle your orders, package them for shipping, then store them in your home, warehouse, or other locations. If you're doing dropshipping which Amazon permits, you'll likely choose dropshipping.
One disadvantage of FBM is that you can't benefit from being an Amazon Prime seller, which has a variety of benefits.
However, if you wish to put special care into the process of packaging You may find it to be a more beneficial option in the event that less customers order from you due to the more time-consuming shipping process.
Prime Seller Fulfilled by Seller
Here, you still keep your inventory in your own warehouse, but Amazon handles the delivery process by using the suppliers of their own choice.
You can't do this feature until you have your Amazon store:
- Provides high-quality shipping options
- Delivers more than 99percent of orders in the same day.
- Cancels orders with a rate lower than 0.5 0.5%
- Uses Amazon Buy Shipping Services for the majority of orders
- Makes use of methods for shipping that permit weekend delivery
- Completes successfully a trial period
Get more details about the specifications.
Fulfillment by Amazon
Amazon consumers enjoy Prime Day, and all aspects Amazon Prime. As mentioned earlier, about 70% of U.S. adults have Prime memberships. Therefore, whatever you are able to do to appeal to these members is beneficial for sales.
If you select FBA, your Amazon store gets the Prime Badge. If customers are searching on Amazon you can select to filter their results based upon stores which have a Prime Badge. Therefore, if your store doesn't already have it, you will not appear in the search results for customers who use this option.
Even for those who don't filter their searches and aren't filtering their searches, they will still see the Prime logo on your listing when you're employing FBA.
Additionally, using Prime Badges You can give Amazon Prime's two-day free delivery, as well as all-free shipping. Amazon is responsible for shipping, return, packaging, and customer service issues.
FBA additionally allows you to use Amazon's machine learning technology for managing inventory, which can help you anticipate customer demand so you don't procure either too much or not enough stock.
There is a cost increase for Fulfillment by Amazon however, you get a lot more too, and some tasks associated with running an online store is lifted off your shoulders through an optimized amazon fulfillment center.
This is a great option for businesses that value efficiency and time and don't want to deal the logistics of storage and shipping. If you'd rather handle that things yourself in order to save money but you're not sure, FBA isn't a good choice.
Wait -- inventory?
If you're just beginning with your company, inventory is something that you might not have considered too much.
Inventory depends on several factors that will be different for each business, such as:
- The number of channels you're selling your products on
- Your industry norms
- Types of goods you sell
- The size of your business
The more channels you're working with The more items you'll sell. As for the inventory you have, it becomes harder to keep track of everything.
As an example, let's say you own a warehouse that has 50 units of stock of a specific product and you sell 30 of them on Amazon in one month. You are feeling great and decide to replenish your stock with another 50.
But what if you're also selling on your store, and then you've made 20 sales on items the following month using that particular platform. That means your supply is empty, and if your sales increase at all during the month following it will require a greater than 50.
That's an oversimplified example, since sales aren't always happening at once. It's a good illustration of why you have to be constantly monitoring your inventory, how quickly they are selling and what channels they're selling on -- each of which could have different fulfillment procedures.
It is also important to take into products that are non-perishable, products that aren't selling, or have high storage costs.
No matter what you're selling there's a way of monitoring all the details. Here's more from Amazon on managing stock.
Service to customers and keeping a high seller rating
As you learn the best ways to sell on Amazon it will be apparent the process of interacting with your customers a little harder than with the own online store. But you need to develop processes to provide the best customer service on a quality to earn high seller ratings.
First, be sure to include your product descriptions to answer as many questions as you think customers might have to.
Second, use good images along with other pictures to help buyers to understand the products they're purchasing.
Third, respond positively to any reviews you receive Even the ones that are negative. It shows that you're conscious of the reviews you receive and are committed to providing the best possible service.
And last thing, on Amazon there is an application called Brand Follow that is an option for buyers to follow you even when they don't purchase something on the first time they visit. Anyone who chooses to follow you will be notified of your product updates which gives you a possibility of regaining their trust.
Sell on Amazon Build your future with
With , you can benefit of endless flexibility, complete control, and powerful capabilities and all this without having to pay costs from the platform. Furthermore, you will not have to worry about competing services appearing right next to yours!
The ability to sell on several channels lets you reach the highest proportion of your customers and get them to where they're. There are a variety of multi-channel extensions which allow the connection of your online store to Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Facebook, Pinterest, and many more.