Amazon is an American multinational corporation specializing in e-commerce, cloud technologies, and computing. So, a little about what Amazon is in numbers:
- The platform's share of the US e-commerce market is almost 50% (data for 2018);
- the number of monthly visits to the site is 1,6 billion users;
- the number of active customers worldwide is 300 million ;
- annual turnover is 136 billion US dollars (data for 2016).
Benefits of Selling Products on Amazon
The platform is an advanced service with a large number of tools for successful promotion and sales. By starting a business, you benefit from several Benefits of Selling Products on Amazon :
- free hot traffic. 90% of sales are made from products that are at the top of service production. If you can do this, you won't have to think about attracting visitors at all;
- own delivery service – Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM). You don’t need to contact international shipping companies and couriers – Amazon has its own service;
- the ability to sell products all over the world. Most buyers are located in the United States of America, but there are customers from Australia, South Korea, Italy and any other country;
- it is possible to choose one of several work formats: selling individually, opening an online store or combining these approaches;
- there is no need to create a separate website for your product, because the budget for such a resource can reach several thousand euros. When working on Amazon, this problem is solved automatically.
But there are also disadvantages:
- serious requirements for sellers opening an online store on Amazon, especially for those who have registered a business account. You will need to provide notarized translations of constituent documents and other documents;
- demanding customers. Delivery of goods must be done on a daily basis, otherwise you will receive a negative review and the store rating will drop;
- high competition. Yes, this is compensated by a large number of buyers, but it does not make things easier. While you are reading this article, several dozen new online stores will open on Amazon. To keep up with them, you need to create an attractive product card: you should think about adding a video using a free video editing software without watermark.
How to Start Selling on Amazon
Are you ready to register as an Amazon France seller so that your customers can make the first purchase of your product? As in any buying and selling business, on Amazon you must start by drawing up a profile of the target audience and a thorough analysis of the competitors.
In order to monitor competitors, you need to go to the section popular products and select a similar segment. This is what you need to pay attention to when monitoring:
- price. Everything is relatively simple here: the price of your raw materials should differ from your competitors in a smaller way. If the cost is higher, it must be justified. For example, faster delivery, technical support or additional goods to the main package;
- speed of delivery. The faster the better. There is no point in competing with American sellers in this area – they will deliver faster anyway;
- product description, store design and product sheets. See how everything is done by successful sellers and stick to the style. Use a photo editor to make the product more attractive to customers.
Determine the target audience based on the consumer properties of the product. There are no ready-made solutions here. It is worth focusing on the estimated age of potential buyers. You need to communicate with young people in simple and easy language, and a restrained, semi-formal style is suitable for the older generation.
When registering an individual account, you will have to pay a commission of 0,99 cents on each sale. The individual status is suitable for sellers of handmade products, representatives of small businesses, and those who want to test Amazon's capabilities. Sellers can switch between an individual and a professional plan by selecting the necessary settings in their personal account.
How to Open a Store on Amazon: Step-by-Step Instructions
Here we will talk about creating a professional account. If you think that you will manage with an individual sales plan and save money, consider this: an individual account is seriously limited in both features and selling capacity. For example, you cannot set up more than 40 lots per month. That is why you should focus on creating a professional account. It offers the following features:
- using the Amazon delivery program – FBA. You bring the order to one of the Amazon warehouses, hand it over to the employees and forget about what delivery is. Everything else is done by FBA employees. There are already such warehouses in almost every US state. That is, when placing an order with a Chinese supplier, you need to specify one of the fulfillment warehouses in the United States as the delivery address, and it will be immediately brought there. The savings are huge: no need to overpay for delivery;
- use of various marketing tools for promote your lists, including targeted advertising;
- creation of a store name and even registration of a trademark;
- reduction of sales commissions;
- placement of a large number of products (lists). Professional accounts can list up to 250 items in their store.
How to add a product sheet step by step:
- access the seller's account;
- Click on the button Add product ;
- in the menu that opens, click on the link Create a new product sheet ;
- choose a product category from the suggested options;
- add a description: name, manufacturer, brand, price, identification code;
- Click on the button Save and Finish.
After that, the product will appear on your virtual storefront and will be available for sale. Next, you need to calculate the cost of delivering the goods from the warehouse FBA or FBM to the buyer. This can be done using a calculator on the service's website.
That's it. Now the product can be sold.
Some final tips:
- Think carefully about pricing. Consider everything: service fees, shipping fees, and customs fees. Otherwise, you can go into the negative and ruin the bill when selling the first lot.
- Don’t forget about SEO optimization. Include keywords in the product description, add videos of your product using an online video editor, so that it is presentable for your target audience.
- Carefully study the lists of goods prohibited for export and import. Ignorance of such things will lead to the fact that the order will not be cleared through customs.
- Among all the delivery methods, give preference to air transport. Yes, it is more expensive, but the customer is assured of receiving the order on time.
There is no doubt that the future belongs to global markets. Working with foreign sites is your first step in this direction. Start now to get ahead of the competition. Good luck with the promotion!
Article updated on January 4, 2025 by Byothe
