BULLET POINTS
How to Start Selling on Amazon
Amazon is a well-known name in the E-commerce industry. It is a US-based marketplace and was founded in 1996. Now, it is available in 16 countries and still has an aim to target other countries.
Amazon has more than 2.5 million sellers and 197+ million buyers. These stats make it the biggest planet on the earth. Over 410 million worth products are sold every day on Amazon.
From an Analytical Point of view; a huge number of sellers proof that it is a good place to sell your items and buyers quantity proofs earning potential.
Is it still Worthy to Sell on Amazon?
Before beginning, the question is… there is lots of competition on Amazon nowadays so, is it still worthy to sell on Amazon?
To be very honest, after understanding the statics I will say that Amazon still has a very good earning potential for new sellers. All you need to do is, find worthy products and make a strategy to beat the competition.
How much money do you Need to Start?
Well, I can’t figure out the exact investment amount because it is directly related to the products’ cost. But yes, I can tell you the other costs and product quantity for a startup.
- Amazon Seller Account – $0.99 per item or $39.99 monthly + Additional Amazon Fees
- Initial Inventory – Depends on per piece price & can be $200 – $5,000
- Branding – Some suppliers offer it free. Anyhow, the maximum cost can be $300
- UPC Codes – $10
- Marketing Budget – Can be as low as $100 or as big as $1,000
- Amazon Seller Tools (Optional) – There are several tools and starting prices are around $100/month. An individual seller may go on without them.
What are the Requirements?
Amazon has a few requirements for sellers that are important to follow.
- You must be at least 18 years old
- You must have a registered business account for pro account otherwise you will choose “Individual” option.
- A debit or credit card is required for payment
- Passport or Govt. issued ID card
- Bank account number and routing number
Amazon Plans & Fee Details
Amazon has two types of plans for sellers.
- Individual Plan – $0.99 per sale
- Professional Plan – $39.99 charges each month
Individual plan holders also have to pay a variable closing fee which is from $0.45 to $1.35. On the other hand, professional plan holders are charged 6% to 25% variable closing fee. These charges vary from category to category.
Both types of sellers may choose Amazon Shipping option which is known as Fulfilled by Amazon or FBA. Its cost also varies depending on the shipment and package size. Amazon also allows you to deliver the products yourself but FBA is better, faster and reliable.
Step 1: Plan your Business
Are you ready to sell on Amazon? If yes then plan your business. Planning is the most important and crucial part of a business. The better you will plan the lower the efforts will and better the output will be.
Take a paper and write the answers to the following questions after strong analytical research.
- Which product you will sell?
- Is your selected product(s) are in-demand on the large online stores?
- Are your select products profitable?
- What competition you will face?
Below are the tools that will help you in your research. As you are just doing the basic research so, I am telling only FREE tools here.
- Google Keyword planner – Here you will put your queries related to products to see how many people search it and also noted the CPC
- Google Trends – This tool will show you where your select product is popular. You can even filter data by cities
- Ahrefs – This is although a paid tool but it provides a few queries for free. You can use their Amazon Keyword Tool to see the search volume on Amazon
- Manually search your selected products on Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, AliExpress, Walmart and any other popular online store and see the number of purchases.
We will explore all the above points with details in below headings.
Step 2: Find the Products
I already have given a quick overview of finding the products. Here we will explore it with details.
1. Choose a Niche
Choosing the right niche is a difficult task but you should invest time on it. There are several ways to find a good niche.
2. Use Google’s FREE Tools
Google tools such as Keyword Planner and Google Trends are amazing free tools to see what people search on Google.
Before using these two tools, I will recommend to go to Amazon and explore the sub-categories. Make a list of sub-categories in which you are interested.
Once you have all the sub-categories, starting search it’s relevant keywords in Keyword Planner and Trends.
Pro Tip: Include “buy” word while researching Keyword planner and trends. It will show you the right audience that is ready to purchase online. Do not forget to select the desired location.
3. Ask in Communities
The 2nd good and freeway are to ask others in forums and social sites like Reddit. Get reviews of different products and give the rating to each niche & product yourself.
4. Jungle Scout
This is although paid but all in one Amazon tool. You can do keyword research, finding products, product tracking and much more. Its price is only $39/month. You can buy it and reduce lots of efforts.
5. Find a Supplier
Once you have chosen a niche and selected the products, the next part is to find a supplier. Alibaba and AliExpress are the two most popular platforms to buy products at bulk at the lowest cost.
There are multiple suppliers on both platforms for every product. All you need to do is, find a suitable person with a good rating. Do not forget to communicate with them via call or mail.
Alibaba is a wholesaler marketplace so, before purchasing products at bulk, it will good to order 1 – 3 samples and check the quality of products.
Step 3: Create an Account with Amazon Seller
Now you have to create an account on Amazon Seller Central. Amazon will ask a few simple questions such as personal info, ID card, phone verification and debit card for account payment fees.
I have already told that Amazon offers two plans. If your selling capacity is less than 40 items than the personal plan is good otherwise choose a professional plan. You can read the details about both plans above if you skipped.
Step 4: List your Products
This is the final step to show your products to the world and get some sales. Following are the tips for a good product listing
1. Use Keywords Wisely
You have to use high search volume and low competition keywords in your title, image ALT and product description.
You can use Jungle Scout (paid) or Ahrefs free Amazon keyword tool to find some amazing keywords for your first product.
2. Images Guidelines
Avoid using blur images. Amazon recommends using at least 500×500 and maximum 1000×1000 dimension images for better results. Do not forget to add keywords in your images’ titles for SEO optimization.
3. Readers Engagement
No matters how long your product description is, but it must be properly optimized for readers. The best way to engage readers with a description is to keep paragraphs short and use bullet points where possible.
You have successfully listed your first product. Similarly, you can add as many products as you want.
Step 5: Get some Quick Sales
Did you think why a person will buy from a seller having no rating while other sellers are selling at the same price?
Advertising is the right solution to get some quick sales and boost your Amazon store with some amazing buyer reviews. There are several ways of promotion, I’m telling some best one.
1. Start Amazon Advertising
Amazon allows sellers to show their products at the top with advertising. Amazon offers three types of advertising solutions:
Product Ads – This advertising option will show a single product to buyers. Amazon’s advance algorithm will show ads based on users’ interest so, your product will reach to the right audience.
Sponsored Brand – This advertising option will highlight your brand when someone will use Amazon search to find a product.
Amazon Stores – These are the custom pages to highlight your brands and offers.
2. Hire Influencers
Another popular option is to get social people and brand services. You can hire a Youtuber, a TikToker, a FB page and any other social platform account holder which is popular enough and offer sponsored posts.
YouTube will be a good option if you will create a sponsored product review video that will be linked back with your product on Amazon.
3. Direct Ads
You may know that Google, Bing, Facebook and any other platform will not allow you to run ads directly. You have to create a landing page by creating a single page site where you will put links of products and user will reach to Amazon store from that site.
It looks a quite hard process. Direct advertising is a good solution to this problem. Almost every popular site allows direct advertising and sponsored post. Find the top sites and ask them for your product promotion.