How to sell on Amazon?

The process of starting to sell on Amazon can be divided into several stages.

The first and most important is selecting products and conducting pre-launch analysis, the second is preparing all necessary product and formal data, and finally the third is opening an account, adding products, parameterising them, and starting sales.

What products should be sold on Amazon?

This may seem obvious, but it is not at all. If we are a manufacturer, a brand owner, a craftsman, or a distributor, the choice is simpler - we sell what we currently have in our own offer and what we offer in other sales channels, online or offline. If we are a distributor and products from our range are already offered on Amazon markets, we may simply become another seller of these products on Amazon (the so-called Piggybacking). If the products are not available, it is necessary to decide whether we will set up a new listing for such a product or not. What should be the basis for such a decision? The potential of a given product on Amazon. To find out the potential of a given product, one should analyse its position on Amazon using tools available on the market or by commissioning us to perform such analysis (you can find examples of such analysis results here). If your product is unique, exceptional, and there is no benchmark in the market, then such a product should be created.

If we do not know what products to sell on Amazon, we need to find such products first. There are several possibilities for how we can find such products. One way is to check your contacts and surroundings for individuals or companies that are manufacturers or distributors of products, check whether such or similar products are already available on Amazon, and create an Amazon listing or attach to an existing Amazon listing (Piggybacking). If you do not have such contacts, you can broaden your search and look for manufacturers, distributors, stores, or craftsmen who can provide you with such products both locally and those offering their products through platforms like Ali Express or Alibaba.

Besides the products themselves, you should make a number of other decisions as part of the pre-launch analysis and collect necessary data, including:

- On which Amazon marketplaces our products will be offered - in Europe, we have the option of marketplace amazon.de, amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.it, and amazon.es

- In what model we will conduct our sales: FBA, FBM, Vendor

- What pricing policy will we implement in this channel? Such a decision should be based on an analysis of our TKW costs, purchasing, Amazon costs, logistics costs, buffer for returns, damages, or complaints, and our product margin.

- In which product categories we will conduct our sales

- What resources we have within the organisation to handle orders, customers, and returns

- Do we have carriers who will be able to deliver our shipments to customers in a given market

- It is necessary to prepare the essential documents required to set up a seller account in Seller Central.

If you already have a complete set of the above data, you can move on to the next stage, which is preparing the product database.

Preparing Product Data

This is a key element of preparations for selling on Amazon, which determines our success on Amazon. At this stage, no shortcuts should be taken. Product data are the basis on which an Amazon customer should decide to purchase and choose our product rather than a competitive one.

Essential product data that must be prepared before adding products to Amazon include:

1) Product Name. It should serve as a business card for our product, convey the most important product data, and encourage the customer to click on the description to learn more about it.

2) Product Photo. Once our customer clicks on the description and is on the product card, the first element that most customers pay attention to are indeed the photos. Amazon allows up to 9 photos for each product. One main (main image) and 8 additional. Check here for technical requirements for photos. Photos serve 2 basic functions - they inform and sell. They should be in good resolution and should communicate what our product is from various angles, but they should also highlight its distinctive features and advantages. Invest in high-quality photos - it will pay off in sales value.

3) Bullet Points

You should prepare the most important features of the product in a concise form. Most categories allow for up to 5 bullet points for each product.

- What unique selling points (USP) will we communicate in our products

- Do we have a complete database of product data required to establish an Amazon listing, meaning product names, descriptions both in the form of a general description and as bullet points, EAN codes, logistical data (weights, dimensions), product photos conforming to Amazon’s guidelines.

4) Product Prices and Shipping Costs

5) General Product Description

This is a description of the product in a more traditional form, i.e., a collection of information about products, their features, usage information, and technical data of products.

6) Logistical data of products, which includes weights, dimensions of the product and packaging, and EAN codes are the minimum requirements in each product category. Depending on the product category, the amount and range of data can vary significantly.

Setting Up an Amazon Account.

This stage is the culmination of the process of starting sales.

To open an Amazon account, the following information is required:

- Account Name - under this name, our customers will see our offer on the Amazon platform. Aim for it to be easy to remember and ideally correlated with your product offer. It is not necessary for it to be the name of the company.

- Company Documents. Here, a scan of the document confirming the registration of our activity, i.e., an entry in the register or KRS is needed.

- Scan of the identity document of the business owner or the person managing the company. If it is an ID card, a readable scan of both sides in one file is necessary.

- Scan of documents confirming the address of registration of the company or the person managing the enterprise in the form of a utility bill, such as gas, electricity, telephone, water, that is, the so-called utility bill.

- An active credit card.

With a complete set of the above data, we are ready to register an account. After registering an account, you need to complete a number of data in the account settings, add products, and we are ready to launch into the world of Amazon.

Do you have questions or doubts? Be part of the Go2Market Community. Let us know in the comments to this article or on our FB group and we will respond to it, and perhaps this information will be useful to someone else :)

Good luck,

Go2Market Crew