How to Become an Amazon Seller: Step-by-Step Guide

Becoming a seller online used to be quite an unimaginable feat for the everyday person. It was a confusing world that seemed only accessible to tech-savvy folks and seasoned entrepreneurs. But with e-commerce platforms like Etsy, Redbubble, and Amazon, running your own online store has become a highly accessible venture.

No matter whether you’re interested in starting up a side gig or quitting your full-time job, we’re going to show you how to become an Amazon seller, from setting up your profile to marketing your products.

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Why Sell on Amazon?

Amazon is a lucrative e-commerce platform because of its reach, complete ecosystem, and seller-centric approach. The platform is designed to make selling on Amazon for beginners easy, helping them kick start their business and bypass the struggles relating to logistics, customer service, setting up a website from scratch, and building a customer base.

Rather than having to handle each and every component of the selling process independently, features like Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) hands off the storage and shipping process to Amazon and their built-in advertising solutions help sellers increase their product visibility without having to be marketing experts.

Let’s quickly look at a few reasons why selling on Amazon is a smart choice for entrepreneurs:

• Extensive customer base: Between July and December 2023, Amazon had 2.3 to 2.7 billion visits to Amazon.com alone (not including their other URL extensions like .de and .ca.¹ With that many customers browsing and potentially ready to make a purchase, you won’t have to worry about finding an audience.
• Brand credibility: Amazon has built up a strong brand presence, and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard of it before. In the United States, Amazon awareness is at 97%, which means you get to benefit from that built-in trust.²
• User-friendly platform: Sellers don’t have to go through a massive learning curve like with other ecommerce platforms. Its dashboard, Seller Central, lets you manage your listings, inventory, and order processing in one place, uncomplicating business operations.
• Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA): Arguably one of the most complex aspects of selling online is the fulfillment process. Especially when shipping internationally, there are taxes, customs regulations and duties, and other tedious challenges to deal with. Fulfillment by Amazon takes that burden off you, from packaging to customs clearance.
• Global reach: Amazon dominates the market when it comes to reaching international customers. On the platform, you aren’t just limited to local or national users—you have the option to sell to buyers in several countries across the world.
• Diverse selling models: There isn’t just one way to sell on Amazon, which makes it versatile enough to accommodate any vision. Perhaps you want to work with private label products, become a dropshipper, or sell handmade products; all of those options are possible on the site.

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Steps to Become an Amazon Seller

Ready to begin your selling journey? Here are the steps to take to become an Amazon seller:

Choose Your Selling Plan

To kick off the Amazon seller registration process, you’ll need to choose the right selling plan for your business. Amazon offers two selling plans with different tools and services, each more suitable for certain types of sellers: the Individual selling plan and the Professional selling plan.

The Individual plan is considered the basic plan, with fewer tools and services included. You’ll still get access to Seller University trainings and other features like the Amazon Seller App and be able to list products and manage inventory, but only one product at a time. Rather than paying a per-month cost like with the Professional plan, the cost is $0.99 per item sold, which makes it a good option for those with a lower sales volume or those who are testing the waters.

The Professional plan is considered the more popular plan, according to Amazon, thanks to its abundance of selling features. While you’ll enjoy all the features of the Individual plan, you’ll also get to manage and list your products in bulk, create promotions, set dynamic prices, use B2B tools and business reports, and more. The plan costs $39.99/month and is most suitable for those planning to sell over 40 items a month.³

Plan	Cost	Best For
Individual Plan	$0.99/item sold	Sellers just starting out and testing their business or those planning to sell less than 40 items a month.
Professional Plan	$39.99/month	Sellers looking for all the tools and features Amazon has to offer and plan to sell over 40 items a month.

There are also other additional Amazon seller fees that may apply, such as referral fees and fulfillment fees, which we’ll talk about later.

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Register Your Amazon Seller Account

Registering on the site requires you to make a Seller Central account, where you’ll need to have the following Amazon seller requirements ready:

• Email address
• Tax information
• Phone number
• Credit card (international like Visa or Mastercard)
• Bank account and routing number
• Government-issued ID

Set Up Your Seller Profile

Once registration is complete, you’ll have full access to your Seller Central account, where you can manage every aspect of your Amazon store. Before you start listing your products, however, you’ll need to make sure everything is configured, including your shipping and returns settings, payment and business information, and more. This will make selling a lot easier, as you’ll have a fully operational system in place before orders start rolling in.

Listing Products on Amazon

Now you’re ready for the fun part—presenting your products to the Amazon customer base.

Product Research

But before you start tackling the listings, you want to be certain about what you’re selling and how you want to position your offerings. After all, markets can get saturated, and if you’re simply following trends and hoping for the best, you risk entering a market where standing out is nearly impossible.

Taking your time to discover customer preferences, the potential competition you’re up against, and looking for gaps in the market you can capitalize on are all great tactics, so long as you use the right tools to help you out. You might read customer reviews on similar existing products to see what customers like and dislike about them, use keyword research tools, and even check out sales rank data to get deeper insights.

Create Product Listings

Creating your listings involves a lot more thought than uploading an image and writing a quick description of what it is. Listings serve the purpose of communicating what you’re selling and providing that first impression, but it also gives you the opportunity to improve your search visibility through carefully chosen strategies.

Amazon has these general guidelines for the main elements of the description.⁴

Element	Description
Product Title	200 characters max, capitalize the first letter of every word
Images	500 x 500 or 1,000 x 1,000 pixels, white background
Bullet Points	Short, descriptive sentences highlighting key features
Description	Detailed information with keywords for SEO

There are also various other tactics that you can use to boost your listings, including creating a proper product title using primary keywords, and adding back-end search terms in the product catalog data. Be sure to discover and play with the many features Amazon has to offer to bolster your listings to their full potential.

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Pricing Your Products

Amazon doesn’t leave sellers to their own devices when it comes to pricing their products—they use a couple of techniques to help support pricing in the store. For example, their competitive external pricing and lowest Amazon price features will give you an idea of how to price your products.

Following the competitive pricing standard means that your item price, including shipping, will always be equal to or less than the external price, so you won’t miss out on potential sales. Meanwhile, knowing the lowest Amazon price, which is the current lowest price for a similar product, will help you strategize with your pricing.

Fulfillment Options: FBA vs. FBM

Especially if this is your first time selling online, navigating the logistics of it all can be a big challenge. It includes everything from processing an order, shipping the products out, and being there after the delivery in case of any issues.

Amazon has two primary fulfillment methods: Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM). Fulfilled by Merchant involves handling the entire process yourself, which can be useful if you want more control over every aspect of the logistics. It could also mean using a third-party logistics company to help manage some or all of it for you. If you aren’t familiar with fulfillment at all, Amazon offers its very own fulfillment service, Fulfillment by Amazon.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)

Choosing Fulfillment by Amazon means you outsource the picking, packing, shipping, and return process to Amazon’s network of fulfillment centers. It’s the easiest way to handle logistics and get the extra advance of offering free, two-day shipping with Prime to your customers.

• Benefits: Prime shipping, returns processing, inventory storage, increased credibility, global fulfillment network, handles customer service for you
• Costs: By size, shipping weight, and whether the item is apparel or non-apparel, between $2.50 and $194+. FBA storage costs, depending on the cubic foot volume, are between $0.56 and $2.40 per cubic foot.⁵

Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM)

Whether you choose to handle the entire logistics process on your own or outsource it to a third party, those options are found under the FBM umbrella. Although you won’t have the convenience that FBA has, FBM provides more flexibility and the opportunity to capitalize on direct customer interaction.

• Benefits: More control over inventory and the logistics process, brand-building and customer service opportunities
• Considerations: Need to handle all aspects of the logistics process and customer service

Fulfillment Method	Benefits	Costs/Considerations
FBA	Amazon handles logistics, Prime eligibility	Fulfillment and storage fees
FBM	Control over inventory, lower fees	Responsibility for logistics and customer service

Managing Your Amazon Seller Account

Once your store gains traction and the orders start coming in, this doesn’t mean you can let it just do its thing. As a seller, you need to keep a close watch over your Amazon seller account, making sure you’re meeting performance targets and adhering to the website’s policies.

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Monitor Performance Metrics

Even if your store might seem like it’s doing well at a glance, the proper performance metrics will help you truly understand whether your products are selling successfully or not. Amazon has a few performance metrics you can gloss over on the Account Health dashboard, such as:

• Account Health Rating: Aim to stay at a ‘Good’ rating. If your account rating happens to be ‘At Risk’ or ‘Critical,’ it means you’ll need to fix any policy violations relating to your listing.
• Shipping Performance Metrics: Late Shipment Rate refers to shipping confirmations after the expected shipping date, which should be kept low. Also, so should the pre-fulfillment Cancel Rate and Valid Tracking Rate, where you want to limit your canceled orders and make sure your orders all have a valid tracking number.

Customer Service

Rather than handling customer service operations on your own, Customer Service by Amazon can handle those inquiries on your behalf. This means customers can directly interact with Amazon 24/7 using chat, email, or phone to get immediate answers and help. Even outside of your working hours, customers can get support instead of having to wait for you to be online. Amazon directly measures your customer service performance through the Order Defect Rate, where anything over 1% is considered cause for concern.⁶

Marketing and Promoting Your Products

Although Amazon makes product discovery seamless for their customer base, it’s recommended to take an active approach to marketing your products. With so many listings on the site, differentiating yourself and staying competitive will require a comprehensive approach to marketing—and Amazon has tons of tools to help you do this.

For example, you should create Lighting Deals to get your product noticed during events like Prime Day, create coupons to appear on the Amazon Coupons page or create Sponsored Products or Sponsored Display ads. The site has even introduced several generative AI tools to help sellers accelerate their growth and improve the customer experience.

Amazon’s new AI selling assistant, Project Amelia, will understand and take data from your business and provide personalized insights and recommendations to help you make improvements.

Amazon Advertising

Amazon has tools in place to let you advertise on the site and beyond the store with a variety of campaigns and ads. Even if you’ve never advertised before, their interface makes it easy to start a campaign featuring your product images, videos, brand logo, and all sorts of details that’ll entice potential customers to take a look. You get to capitalize on Amazon’s built-in machine learning capabilities that suggest relevant products that are likely to engage customers more so you can put together an effective campaign.

Promotions and Deals

As a seller, you can decide whether you want to offer deals and promotions to your customers. Here are the different types Amazon has:

• Lightning Deal (Professional selling plan only): Runs from 4 to 12 hours and is applied automatically
• Best Deal (Professional selling plan only): Runs for a number of days
• Percentage-off promotions: Tiered discount where more spending = more savings
• Buy one (or more), get one free: Customized dollar amount or number of items bought before the promotion applies
• Coupons that can be clipped on the Amazon Deals page (Professional selling plan only)

Final Thoughts: Maximizing Your Success as an Amazon Seller

Selling on Amazon is a lucrative venture, considering its established platform and a plethora of tools available to help sellers thrive. Getting familiar with Amazon and the ins and outs of its offerings will help you get your products seen by ready buyers and beat out the competition. Becoming successful doesn’t happen overnight, but with a little patience and a lot of continuous effort, creating a profitable business on Amazon is possible for anyone.

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Sources:

1. Web visitor traffic to amazon.com 2023 | Statista
2. Amazon brand profile U.S. 2022 | Statista
3. Standard selling fees| Amazon
4. How to sell on Amazon | A guide for beginners| Amazon
5. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)| Amazon
6. How to sell on Amazon | A guide for beginners | Amazon