Everything you need to know before selling on Amazon

1. Everything you need to know before selling on Amazon November 15, 2021Category: Blog Some people are considering selling on Amazon. They may be wondering what they need to do in order to sell successfully on Amazon. This post will help answer that question and give you the information you need before deciding if you want to sell on Amazon or not. It is important for sellers to know all of the pros and cons so they can make an educated decision about whether or not it is right for them! What you need to know before selling on Amazon As with any online sales channel, there are pros and cons to selling on Amazon. There are also certain requirements that must be met in order to sell successfully on Amazon. These include - You MUST have a pro merchant account that costs money. You can NOT just create an individual account for free. The pro merchant account allows you to sell items not just on Amazon but anywhere else as well. An individual account will ONLY allow you to list your item(s) for sale on Amazon. You MUST ship the item(s) directly from your own warehouse or shipping location (or use FBA). This means either hiring staff or renting a post office box is no longer an option if you want to sell successfully on Amazon. You MUST be included in the Amazon search results or else you WILL NOT make sales. This means that it is no longer an option to list your product using a third party service and then wait for it to sell. It is critical to have your own website with your own store containing all of your listings. If you want people to be able to buy from you directly, they need a way to find your items quickly and easily on Amazon's site! You MUST have a registered business name & have a separate checking account/credit card linked ONLY TO THAT BUSINESS NAME for receiving funds from Amazon before being allowed as a seller on their site. Some other things sellers should know about selling on Amazon

2. You MUST provide all the required documentation to Amazon before selling. This includes but is not limited to completing their application, sending in your sales tax certificate (if applicable), completing their vendor agreement , & providing bank statements . Selling on Amazon does NOT require you to be at home all day, every day. If you are sick or out of town- no problem! You can still make sales because Amazon allows you to use drop shipping . All listings will remain active until cancelled or sold and items do not have an expiration date which means they will stay active until someone buys them. It is also possible for sellers to use both individual accounts AND pro merchant accounts if they would like. For example, if a business wants to sell large quantities of the same item- they can use a pro merchant account. If the business only wants to sell one or two different items on Amazon- they could use an individual account with drop shipping from their own warehouse. And finally, some things you NEED TO KNOW before selling on Amazon... ALL of the fees and costs associated with running a business will be incurred by YOU! In addition to paying Amazon $39.99 per month for your pro merchant accounts, you ALSO need to pay for all of your shipping costs (for FBA shipments), insurance, staff salaries and any other business related expenses you may incur. You MUST also factor in that Amazon is NOT responsible for anything that happens during the actual sale and shipment process! They hold your money until they get confirmation from the buyer that they received their item and/or it has been returned to them (in the case of an A-Z guarantee claim). It is YOUR responsibility to make sure your shipping company picks up the item within a day or two of shipping and that your staff is available to process all orders in a timely fashion. Also, you MUST offer any refunds, exchanges and returns directly through YOU not Amazon! You can check out the You can check out the official Amazon policy page for more info . official Amazon policy page for more info . Selling on Amazon vs Selling on Ebay- Which ecommerce platform should you choose? It's funny because so many people ask me why I sell my items on both Ebay and

3. Amazon. They figure since I'm selling online I should just list everything as cheaply as possible on Ebay and then list the items for a much higher price on Amazon. Here's what you need to remember- You can not control your own store name or store front at all times on EBAY! This means if someone is searching under a certain category such as " Jewelry " and they type in " Watches, Jewelry & Accessories" one of those other stores could easily take YOUR sale by offering their item for less money EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE NOT IN THE SAME CATEGORY ! I know this may sound silly but it actually happens quite frequently. The same holds true with Amazon vs Ebay- Amazon customers are used to buying new items while EBay customers are more likely to purchase gently used or vintage merchandise. Again, your sale could easily be taken by another seller on EBay if they list their item for a lower price than yours even though it's in the wrong category . And God forbid someone copies your listing down to every last detail- then what? You will not only lose that one sale, but any future sales that person may make because people will assume that anything they see listed under your store name has already sold (and therefore might not buy again). What about all of those fees you're charged when selling on Amazon? I know there are lots of people who think Amazon is less expensive than Ebay but I will set them straight right now! Listing an item for 7 days on EBay used to cost $0.80 until the new fee schedule went into effect in March of 2013. Now it's a flat rate of $0.15 so if you sell your item for $20 you will only pay a little over a dollar to list your item. If you sell an item on EBay that goes for around $500 or more- then it's FREE! Check out this post I wrote about EBay fees when selling from CANADA . Let me also share with you all the benefits of listing on Ebay vs Amazon which include: You can choose to offer free returns on any order within 30 days (no questions asked). In addition, they only charge a 3% restocking fee rather than up to 25% which is common in most other countries. Your listing fees include up to 12 pictures. You can alter your listings as many times as you like and it only costs $0.10 each time you do so. No matter how long it takes to sell an item, you will never pay a cent in storage fees

4. or have to deal with paying for extra staff to pick, pack & ship items that are sold. You also don't have to worry about Amazon withholding any of your money if they believe the customer is always right because they give YOU the option of which shipping carrier works best for YOUR business . Final paragraph In conclusion, it is important to know all of the pros and cons before deciding if you want to sell on Amazon. As with any online sales channel, there are pros and cons to amazon global selling. It is clear that this market has a lot going for it but not everything can be perfect!