A 7 Step (and easy to follow!) Guide on How to Become a Third-Party Seller on Amazon
Do you remember when it first hit you: “What if I start selling on Amazon?” I bet the idea to become an Amazon seller didn’t strike you out of a sudden. From the early moments until it potentially becomes a reality, this business idea needs to mature: every “Amazon wannabe seller” has to do their due diligence and evaluate their pros and cons.
Side note:
In case you have already kicked off and dipped your toes into the Amazon waters, there is a comprehensive guide, written by Seller Labs Amazon expert Jeff Cohen. It may be of a better use for you.
But if you are at the outset, let me save you the pain of undergoing the investigation all by yourself and start from the very beginning.
One Step At a Time: What Is Amazon?
Amazon boasts a diversity of undertones depending on the view angle of a particular country. Being one of the largest employers in the USA, a sustainable competitor to Tesco in the UK, it is a recent immigrant in Sweden. Accidentally coming across the name of Amazon on the Internet we no longer puzzle ourselves with what it is. With no “ifs and buts”, it is a full-fledged eCommerce platform granting you plenty of options to sell your products profitably, no matter where you are in the world. So, why is it so iconic? Let’s get the ball rolling.
Did You Know?
In 2020, a total of 1.3 million new sellers joined Amazon Marketplaces worldwide, and the highest percentage of 13.8 % goes to US Marketplace.
Key Doubt Dispelling Reasons to Start Selling on Amazon
Anyone Can Start Selling
I mean it! Regardless of the starting positions, a potential trader gains a spectacular diversity of options when it comes to becoming an Amazon superseller. Be it a complete newcomer with his or her first steps as a reseller or a physical shop owner mapping the potential extension of his online brand awareness, anyone can start selling their product on Amazon. Once you feel equal to building your own brand, do create an Amazon store, list your products, choose the Amazon FBA method and here you are – a newborn 3P!
Support From Experts
Is it easy to become an Amazon seller? You’re right if you don’t delude yourself into thinking that it is a magical money-making happenstance. Being an Amazon seller takes constant hard work and a lot of research. The good news here is that you are not going to tread your path through the Amazon maze on your own. A group of eCommerce solutions like Seller Labs, provide a wealth of all sorts of incredible resources like Amazon FBA, inventory management services that make order fulfilment, and inventory tracking more time-efficient; and many -MANY!- more laboursaving!
Comprehensible Marketing
Since high and sustainable traffic portrays the daydream of any seller, it is vital to not play it by ear and have a well-put-together advertising campaign. Having Amazon Sponsored Ads in your corner is particularly handy. Inner and outer traffic driven by a PPC advertising campaign could be then converted into real sales. Another marketing channel in your piggy bank is definitely not making it overwhelmed.
Be a Part of Innovative Community
The moment you add your name to the list of Amazon sellers you find yourself among forward-thinking entrepreneurs, innovators, fighters, and influencers that form a huge community. The members of this community have literally created an invaluable bank of information on how to become a seller with thousands of tips and tricks to help you and keep your business afloat!
Another side note:
Our annual Resonate Event is a shining illustration of how subject experts share their unique experience to help you stick to new strategies in Amazon SEO, or cherish better customer relationships.
I hope these facts have strengthened your resolve to become a seller. The next steps now would be to make things even clearer by dividing the whole process into 7 plain, easy-to-follow, steps.
7-Step-Checklist to Join the “Amazon Sellers Club”
- Create an Amazon Account. It is going to be a little bit slippery since Amazon offers two fulfillment centers. This post is about having an Amazon Seller Central Account. At Seller Central newcomers choose a plan best suited to their business goals: an Individual or a Professional one. Let’s say you’re determined to become a third party seller, then you’d better choose a Professional plan since it grants access to such benefits as Sponsored Ads and advanced reporting.
- Calculate your budget. One of the first things to do is to adjust your budget (and new margins!) to Amazon Seller fees. Think of how much you are going to invest into a new sales channel before proceeding with active play.
- Aim a selling strategy. The choice of a selling method rests on your goals and branches into three options:
| Private Label | Find a generic low-cost product sold by manufacturers in bulk, modify it by adding your logo and shape your own brand. Alternatively, you can be a 3P that manufactures its own products. |
| Retail Arbitrage | Buy and resell discounted products at higher prices. It doesn’t imply huge investments as you don’t need to create your own brand. |
| Wholesale | Buy products directly from an established brand owner at wholesale price and resell them on Amazon. |
- Launch the product. It is crucial to do your own research before launching your product on Amazon. Once you find your niche -and with a gasp of relief-, you can turn to the Amazon product research tool to govern product details, assign product categories, and leverage keywords for a product’s high ranking.
- Choose FBM or FBA. Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM) and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) are the two main options to have your orders processed and products shipped. FBM sellers handle the storage and orders by themselves. FBA sellers benefit from a number of bonuses, like shipping to Amazon Prime members or owning a Buy Box, while Amazon fulfills their products. No wonder the query on how to become an FBA seller is so frequently googled.
- Attract customers. Advertising is one of the ways to create brand awareness, get your product noticed, and then purchased. As it stands, Amazon PPC advertising can be regarded as a promotion swiss knife for the scalability of ad campaigns to the marketing goals you’d like to achieve. Normally it works in close nexus with Amazon SEO tools which find relevant keywords to rank higher on Amazon.
- Cherish your reviews. Let’s face it that customer feedback is the cornerstone of any business. You may offer a top-notch quality product that won’t sell without outstanding customer service. Amazon provides a policy of transparent customer reviews to nurture shoppers’ loyalty. This plethora of rules is no longer confusing with the customer-oriented solution which handles communication with shoppers.
Let’s draw the line
I know that a swarm of “what-ifs” virtually assaults sellers’ confidence every step of the way. Surprisingly, all possible concerns are easy to overcome as soon as you get started with your checklist. Little by little you get well-versed by patching knowledge deficiencies. After that, you feel confident to select the tools for your new sales channel. In the sea of software solutions, Seller Labs Product Revenue Optimization (PRO) is a big fish to catch. It polishes all the facets of your Amazon business offering a sole out-of-the-box solution:
- Seller Dashboard with its actionable metrics and reports,
- PPC advertising services to be ahead of competitors,
- Communication Center delivering the gold standard of the shopper experience.
If you don’t take my word on it, here is a vivid example of a successful Amazon businessman Kevin Vegor who runs his store with backing from Seller Labs. We also suggest a 30-day trial to walk through PRO and decide whether you’ll learn the ropes of Amazon with Seller Labs’ heedful supervision.
Maria is an SEO Content Specialist at Seller Labs. Once captured by digital and content marketing in her student days, she keeps living and breathing it ever since.
