Amazon is undoubtedly one of the strongest online buying and selling platforms. So it is a great option to sell your products through this website. In this publication, we will be offering you a guide on how to sell on Amazon, in case you want to start your online business.
Advantages of selling on Amazon
- It’s easy to do: selling on Amazon is relatively easy. Simply by creating a Seller account and uploading your products, you can access all its features.
- It is relatively inexpensive: the price of a Seller account is relatively cheap, at 39 Euros a month.
- You reach users in the purchase phase: when someone finds your product on Amazon, they are normally in the purchase phase. That is, you are visiting Amazon because you plan to buy something. This is very interesting since these types of users are very valuable and have higher conversion rates.
- It allows you to internationalize: creating an account can serve you directly to sell in other countries.
Aspects to consider when selling on amazon
- Amazon charges you commissions: depending on the category of the product you sell, Amazon will put a percentage of commission on the final sale. This is very important before you start selling, since if you have very tight profit margins on your product it may not be the best choice.
- You do not receive payments directly: that is, the customer pays, Amazon charges, and then Amazon pays you. Important when considering accounting, when you sell in your e-commerce or online store the payment is direct, here it can take weeks if there are disputes with the buyer.
- Doing it right takes time: as in any sector, doing things well takes time, and getting profitability, and sales from Amazon requires dedication. You have to upload products, optimize them, manage opinions, etc. There are quite a few things that obviously will take time in your day today.
- It is very competitive in the prices: this point is closely related to the first, selling on Amazon is going to mean measuring yourself with competitors who have a very tight price. It can also be the fairly common case that several sellers have the same product and, logically, the one with the lowest price takes the cat overboard.
Which Amazon account should I choose?
When it comes to selling on Amazon, we have two main Seller accounts.
- Individual Seller: there is no monthly subscription fee but in exchange, it charges you a fee per item sale. Also, you can only sell less than 40 items per month.
- Pro Seller: you have the monthly subscription fee of 39 Euros, you do not have the item sale fee and you can also sell more than 40 items per month.
It is clear that if you want to do a little test on Amazon, you can start with the Individual Seller account but at the moment you want to give it a greater role in the sales plan of your online store, you should go for the Pro Seller account.
How to sell on Amazon step by step?
Now is time for you to see how you can sell on Amazon.
Choose which products to sell
Ideally, you should start with a selection of products from your online store. To make this selection, we will take several factors into account:
- Profit margin: as you will have seen in previous sections, Amazon will charge you fixed fees and also a percentage of the sale on each product depending on the category to which it belongs. The first thing you should know is the profit margin you have on your product, calculate the commission that Amazon would take for the sale of this, and see if including that commission is still profitable for you to sell it. Later, calculate the price that your product has or that you have to put it so that you get a certain profit margin, you will have to look for that product on Amazon and see the price of your competitors. Is your price competitive? Keep in mind that this is one of the most important variables when it comes to a user choosing you on Amazon. If your product has a much higher price than the competition, perhaps it is time to analyze other products that have higher profitability for you.
- Demand: the first thing we must understand is whether the products you want to sell on Amazon are in demand by users. A good place to start is on Amazon: Best Sellers. This way you can see by category which is the best-selling products on Amazon. This has the limitation that it only shows you the hundred best-selling products by category.
- Competition: once you have seen which products are the most demanded and also in which you can have an interesting profit margin, it is time to analyze who you are measuring with. We recommend you look for those products that you want to sell and see if many sellers offer them if they have many reviews or comments and the price. If you find a lot of sellers with more competitive prices than yours and many positive opinions, it will be difficult for you to start selling. On the contrary, if these characteristics do not exist, you may have found your place to start selling!
Create an account
This is the easiest step, it is only to go to the part of the registration of sellers. You will have to choose the type of seller account that interests you the most. If you want to start little by little, as a small test, try the individual account, and then you will always have time to switch to the Pro account. To register your account, you will have to give a series of personal, company, and payment details. and contact (phone).
Create your products
Once you have created the Amazon Seller account, you will proceed to create your first products. If they have an EAN or barcode, you can search them directly on Amazon and see if that product is already registered. When you have found the product, you can select it and finish filling in the missing data. This modality is faster since someone has previously created the product and assigned it to the appropriate category and subcategory. To get to this option, you have to click on the top menu “Inventory” and then “Add a product”.
The opposite case can happen, that you look for the product and you cannot find it. In this case, you will have to create it from zero. It does not take long but it is an essential step.
If you have several products that you need to upload at the same time, you can use the inventory files, which allow you to do a simultaneous import of several products.
Can I sell handmade items on Amazon? This question is quite interesting. The answer is that to sell your products on Amazon as well as on Google Shopping, you need to have an EAN or barcode. If they do not have it, some companies are dedicated to this.
Optimize the images of your products
Upload several quality images of your products, made by a professional and that is made from different angles to show how the product really is to the user.
This will make you sell more since the image is what attracts the most attention in a product file and you will also avoid returns. We always recommend you to use quality photos because one of the things that Amazon allows is to zoom on the product images, if the image is of low quality, this will not be possible.
Use SEO in the following elements
Titles: when writing your titles, keep in mind that all the keywords of the title are indexed in Amazon, but you must be careful and avoid exceeding 200 characters in this section or you will not have visibility.
Attributes: they are the data that is placed under the product title, they are listed and it is an element of something of importance to position and to help the user to decide.
Meta keywords: Amazon uses meta keywords that you can add to help reach users to your products.
Descriptions: you will use them to give additional useful information to the user and also to add derived keywords that you have not been able to add in the title.
Sales results: this variable is not manipulable from the start, it is that if your product has positive reviews, sell and people interact with it, you will get it to rank better. Like Google, Amazon is interested in better positioning the sellers that give better results.
Choose the shipping method
You have two options, do it yourself or have Amazon do it.
FBA or Fulfillment by Amazon. That is, Amazon is responsible for making shipments, it has these characteristics:
- Amazon does all the order management. In this case, you have to take care of sending them to Amazon.
- Besides, Amazon manages storage, shipping, returns, and customer service.
- You can use the Prime shipping method.
- You can get the buy box (That the user with the push of a button can add a product to their basket).
Keep in mind that if you are going to use the FBA option, you will have to go into inventory, select the products, and go to the replenish inventory option. Later you will have to select how many product units you are going to send, print some labels and be in charge of sending that shipment to Amazon warehouses so that they can manage it.
FBM or Fulfillment by Merchant:
- It is you who makes the shipment directly to the customer.
- You are responsible for everything: storage, shipping, returns, and customer service.
Receive your payment from Amazon
One of the advantages of selling on Amazon is that you will not need to have a payment gateway. Amazon receives the user’s money and later transfers it to you.
Every 15 days Amazon will pay you the money you have accumulated. Please note that in case of user problems or disputes, Amazon may withhold those payments. This is something important when considering accounting. Unlike in your e-commerce where the fastest money arrives, these 15 days can be important.