Hello, dear beginner Amazon sellers! In this article, we’ll teach you how to get started with your own online business. We congratulate you with opening new opportunities with the world’s largest marketplace. Grab your chance to become a successful entrepreneur!
Honestly speaking, selling on Amazon is not difficult, but needs some knowledge and skills.
Let’s take a closer look at them!
Many people wondering how to start a business with minor investments look at Amazon and are not sure whether it is a good idea. According to the statistics, more than 50% of overall Amazon sales come from individual and private label sellers.
The good news is that you can earn as much (or as little) money as you like. Some sellers are happy with a couple of hundreds of dollars, some work hard on their businesses and make millions. The real average numbers are somewhere about $2000 and $10000. Everything depends on what you sell and how you do that.
As for the latter, here are 2 methods of selling on Amazon:
Everyone! Even if you don’t have experience with selling on other marketplaces such as eBay, Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, you can do that on Amazon. Start with arbitrage, as it requires fewer investments.
There are no barriers to start selling on Amazon. You will need only:
FBA means ‘Fulfilled by Amazon’. You might have heard that Amazon has plenty of warehouses across the world - they are called ‘fulfillment centers’. Products of Amazon and third-party sellers are stored there.
Once such product is sold, Amazon’s fulfillment team gets it from their warehouse, packs the product and ships it to the customer. As you can see, sellers do nothing but pay a fee to Amazon for this.
Also, the FBA program offers the following benefits to entrepreneurs:
However, if you want to pack and ship your items manually, there is an FBM (Fulfillment by Merchant) option.
We hope you are eager to start your business activities. So, here are the basics:
Head to Amazon’s Seller Central and click on ‘Register Now’.
Next, pass the registration process.
You now will be able to choose whether you’ll be an individual or a pro seller. Professionals perform 40+ sales per month, so if you’re planning to do more, choose this option.
The plan costs almost $40, and it doesn’t require to pay for each sold item. The number of sales is unlimited!
If you are just starting, we would recommend you choosing an individual account. That means that there are no flat fees, but you pay for each sale. This is beneficially for users who are practicing and sell 10-20 items per month.
You might also have to scroll the page down and find a separate sign-up link for individual sellers. It looks like in the image above.
Congrats! You are now an Amazon seller! You now need to find a product for further selling in the online marketplace. How to do that?
First, you can look around and see what you can sell from what you have at home. Books, comic books, household items you don’t use, etc.
Also, you can use BSR to help you. Amazon’s BSR is the number given to any product, which can tell about their popularity among customers. The lower the product’s BSR is, the more sales it’s going to bring.
Search for a product which is interesting to you and find its BSR in the ‘Product Details’ section.
As shown on the picture above, there are different BSRs for different categories. You will need the first one, as this is the parent (main) category.
Four-digits scores mean that is is a real bestseller - dozens of copies are sold every day!
Do the initial research to find out how well the product will sell. At Seller Nexus, we have such guides, browse our blog to find out more details about BSRs and Private Labels.
For example, check this out: 10 Things to Know about Sales Rank on Amazon
You are now an Amazon seller, you have a product, so you need to list it for a customer to buy this product. This is easy, especially if someone has already listed similar products. All you need to do in this case is to go to the already existing listing - you don’t have to recreate it like on Facebook, eBay or Craigslist.
Find the same product to the one you want to sell and find the button ‘Sell on Amazon’. It is located right under the purchase button.
Specify all the necessary information, set your price and specify the condition.
Choose the price according to the condition of your product, especially is this is a used book.
As for the condition, here are Amazon’s guidelines for you to know what to specify. By the way, products in a very nice condition can be specified as new ones. Please, make sure that everything is good before listing it like a new item.
After you list your item, wait for a couple of minutes - it will appear on the Amazon marketplace. That’s it! Wait for your customers! ;)
Finally, someone finds your product and decides to purchase it. Amazing! Now, there are 2 scenarios:
Good news! You have learned the basics for selling on Amazon and can practice and learn more!
You might agree that everything sounds simple. Believe us, selling on Amazon is not rocket science. You just have to master its main aspects: high quality of products, excellent customer experience, and scaling your business, finally.
For more information, check out other articles for beginners on Seller Nexus: