how to become a amazon seller
The moment you sign up for an Amazon seller account, the clock starts.
With your first monthly account charge coming through after 30 days, you are expected to meet all Amazon performance metrics from day one.
Before you jump in headfirst and start selling on Amazon, there are several steps we encourage any prospective seller to take before formalizing the seller account registration process.
Necessary Paperwork (Amazon Seller Account Checklist)
To get through the full registration process for an Amazon seller account, you will need a bunch of information readily available, including:
1. Business Information.
Your legal business name, address and contact information
2. Email Address.
An email address that can be used for this company account. This email account should be set up already, as you will start receiving important emails from Amazon almost immediately.
3. Credit Card.
An internationally chargeable credit card with a valid billing address. If the credit card number isn't valid, Amazon will cancel your registration.
4. Phone Number.
A phone number where you can be reached during this registration process. Also, have your phone nearby during registration.
5. Tax ID.
Your tax identity information, including your Social Security number or your company's Federal Tax ID number. To submit your tax identity information, the registration process will take a brief detour to a "1099-K Tax Document Interview."
6. State Tax ID.
State tax ID information for states in which you have tax nexus. This physical presence is typically impacted by company offices, warehouses/3PLs, and call centers. In June 2018, the US Supreme Court changed the law regarding the responsibility that ecommerce sellers have to remit sales tax for online purchases.
I encourage you to speak with a tax attorney or tax accountant who specializes in online seller tax nexus issues (e.g., salestaxandmore.com, catchingclouds.net, peisnerjohnson.com) or one of the tax remittance companies that can give you the most current Amazon tax nexus information (e.g., taxjar.com, avalara.com, taxify.co, vertexsmb.com).
Print The Checklist and Take it With You
We've designed out the checklist as a worksheet to print out and take with you.
Questions to Work Through Before Registering Your Seller Account
Some of the logistics of being a successful seller should be worked out before you set up the seller account, as you likely won't have as much time to address these after you get started.
1. Where do you plan to send Amazon order returns?
As an Amazon seller, it is imperative that you think about your return process.
- Are you going to handle the Amazon returns yourself, or send them to a company that specializes in testing/grading returns and making the product available for sale again (e.g., tradeport.com, openedboxreturns.com)?
- Who on your team will handle Amazon customer inquiries?
The key is not just having all of the answers, but also respecting Amazon's requirements to respond to all customer inquiries within 24 hours, any day of the year.
Hence, figuring out who is on point (with possible backup) is one critical operational issue that should be addressed before opening your Amazon seller account.
2. If you plan to use Amazon's Fulfillment by Amazon program, will you co-mingle your products?
I very much recommend using FBA, given its potential visibility to 100MM+ Amazon Prime customers.
If you decide to go that route, you'll need to decide whether you plan to co-mingle your products with FBA inventory of other sellers of the same products.
Amazon gives FBA sellers this potentially lethal option of sending product into Amazon's Fulfillment Centers, where they might get co-mingled with other FBA sellers' product.
This may result in your products getting mixed up with counterfeit or low-grade versions of what you purport to be selling.
Unfortunately, if a co-mingled unit gets picked to fulfill an order on your account, you are left explaining to Amazon why a customer complained about getting a counterfeit item.
You need to work through this issue very early on because if you decide to use FBA but not use the co-mingled ("stickerless") option, you need to activate your account to become a "stickered" FBA account before ever creating your first FBA shipment into Amazon.
While it is possible to become a stickered account later on, it can quickly become very complicated if you have already sent some product into FBA as a stickerless product.
3. Do you plan to use a DBA (doing business as) name to operate your Amazon seller account?
While some companies have legitimate reasons to use a different customer-facing name, Amazon is also a place where many sellers purposefully conceal their identity.
Reasons for doing this include not wanting brands to know that they are selling online, or the brand is actually the reseller and doesn't want its other retail partners to know that it is selling product online direct to consumer.
4. Have you checked to see if the products you plan to list are in categories that Amazon has gated?
Amazon has restrictions on who can sell in certain categories, and while the ungating process is usually surmountable, it's important to recognize that if your desired categories are gated, you will have to apply to get ungated.
Review Amazon's approval category page before you decide to register on Amazon to learn more about the ungating process and whether it applies to your product categories.
5. Amazon has already started gating specific brands and SKUs.
During your first 30 days with a seller account, we encourage you to add all of your intended catalog to your Amazon seller account.
It won't take long to establish whether you will have problems with specific brands and SKUs.
You may need to change your catalog or close your account if Amazon is restricting the products you intended to sell.
Important Knowledge and Skills for Amazon Sellers
The Amazon marketplace has its own set up rules and regulations, but also its own combination of skills that every seller should master fairly quickly to succeed profitably and long-term.
These include:
1. Stellar marketing content to build product listings.
If the products you are selling are already sold by others on Amazon, this is less important because you will most likely end up adding your offer to the product listing that's already in place (requiring you to provide only basic pricing, available quantity and SKU name information).
But, if your products are new to the Amazon catalog (easy to check by simply searching for your brand or UPC in the Amazon.com search bar), you will need to come up with content for such fields as product titles, bullet points, product description and generic keywords (for optimizing SEO on your listings).
You will also need product images for your listings – check out Amazon's adding images support page for reference, but we encourage sellers to have multiple images, including a lifestyle image, if possible, to show the product in use.
This lifestyle image complements the main image that has strict requirements, including a white background, no branding, and at least a 500×500 pixel count.
2. Clear understanding of your product sourcing avenues.
If your products sell well on Amazon, do you know how to replenish quickly enough to avoid extensive stockout periods?
If you specialize in close-outs and one-time buys, you may not be able to replenish the same SKUs easily, but should have well-defined processes for adding new inventory, as your Amazon cash position improves.
3. A decision on whether you plan to sell the same items over and over.
If yes, you will want to take advantage of Amazon's replenishment alert tools inside Seller Central, as well as other external forecasting tools, such as standalone options from www.forecastly.com or those integrated into many of the multichannel inventory/order management tools.
4. A developed process for identifying and addressing stale inventory.
While everyone wants their products to sell, the reality is there will always be some that don't sell well and need to be liquidated or sold on other channels to help convert the inventory back into working capital.
Amazon has tools to help FBA sellers identify stale inventory, while the non-FBA Amazon seller will need to monitor its inventory by SKU to figure out what might need to be promoted for faster sale.
5. Understanding of basic cost structure, including overhead costs.
Far too many sellers on Amazon understand only the basics of SKU-level profitability, resulting in a blended view of the seller's overall profitability, rather than a pinpoint perspective on which SKUs drive what percentage of profits, while understanding which products are actually costing money to sell on Amazon.
Too many Amazon sellers don't know their profitability until the end of the year when their accountant announces the final numbers, hopefully to the seller's relief.
It's critical for sellers to understand and compile all of their overhead costs, and recognize that these expenses need to be integrated into the running total of costs that a seller incurs selling on Amazon.
6. Know who is already selling the same SKUs as you on Amazon.
Shockingly often, new sellers join Amazon and list their products, only to discover that the level or type of competition on their listings will make it next to impossible for the new seller to make any sales or any margin.
Before setting up an Amazon seller account, I strongly encourage every seller to spot check their intended catalog on Amazon to see if Amazon Retail is already selling these items.
If so, it's best to walk away from those items now.
Also, I encourage sellers to gauge what price points are competitive on Amazon. If you find that you are competing with low-priced competitors, it can serve as a valuable indication that, as a seller, it will be difficult to make money in that particular category.
7. Know how much time is needed to get listings in place right after you're registered as an Amazon seller.
Amazon doesn't charge a new seller until the end of the first month on Amazon, during which time the seller should have created its product offers and activated at least some with sellable inventory.
If you open your account and don't list your products, you'll still get charged for having your professional seller account open.
Why not plan to invest a bunch of time in the first 30 days to get moving on your account?
Finally, knowing that sales feedback is important to Amazon in gauging the performance of all new sellers, I encourage every new seller to sign up for one of the many inexpensive feedback solicitation tools that send each customer a request for seller feedback.
These include:
- Feedbackgenius.com
- Feedbackfive.com
- Salesbacker.com
- Bqool.com
All of these can help a seller solicit customer feedback, and show Amazon that the seller is performing well against Amazon's performance criteria while keeping customers happy.
From here, you'll want to dig into specific Amazon tactics such as:
- Winning the Buy Box.
- Determining your sales strategy (such as retail arbitrage).
- Selecting the right products.
Common Amazon Seller FAQs
What is the Amazon Seller Central?
Amazon Seller Central is where individual sellers, brands and merchants login to manage and list their products on Amazon.com.
How do I open an Amazon seller account?
- Decide what you want to sell on Amazon.
- Go to services.amazon.com, sellercentral.amazon.com or click "Sell" in the main navigation on Amazon.com.
- Choose between Individual and Professional selling plans.
- Create your Amazon seller account.
- Once registered, you will be able to manage your selling account and list products.
How much does it cost to create an Amazon seller account?
Amazon seller accounts differ in pricing based on the plan you choose.
The Individual Amazon seller plan costs $0.99 for each item sold and the Professional plan costs $39.99 per month.
Both plans have referral and variable closing fees.
Can I create a free Amazon seller account?
No. To sell on Amazon you must sign up for an Individual or Professional accounts.
What is the Amazon seller return policy?
Amazon requires third-party sellers to offer the following methods of return:
- Return address within the United States.
- Prepaid return label.
- Offer a full refund without requesting the item be returned.
Final Word
Want more information about Amazon before you begin?
Check out the company's evolution into a worldwide sales giant.
how to become a amazon seller
Source: https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/amazon-seller-account-checklist/
Posted by: allenclas1974.blogspot.com
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