Amazon is a global platform that harbors buyers and sellers, both. Nowadays, its online presence defines a business. Hence, all merchants are joining this race to become an online retailer. As an Amazon seller, you can easily change your e-commerce game.
HOW BEING AN SELLER ON AMAZON WORKS?
Your journey as an Amazon seller starts the moment you register on the sign-up link. But it takes a few more steps to be able to begin selling on Amazon.
The first of these is to select the category of your products. There is a long product list that Amazon hosts on its website. A few of these are well-known ones like clothing, electronics, and home decor.
Next comes the fee you have to pay to be able to utilize Amazon’s services. Here, if you sell more than 40 products a month, you’ll have to pay $39.99 per month. If you happen to sell less than 40, you’ll have to pay 99 cents per sale. On top of this, you need to pay a few other costs like personnel handling charges.
WHY SELL WITH AMAZON?
Amazon is a global brand with shoppers from even the tiniest corner of the globe. By becoming a seller on Amazon, you can leverage the vast number of incoming buyers per minute. The name and the model together make for a blockbuster profit opportunity. Let us see what Amazon has to offer.
A large customer base: Each minute, millions of customers visit Amazon to buy all sorts of products. To get traffic in this range with your website is quite tricky. You can sell a variety of goods and accordingly, plan your profits.
A global brand: Amazon has dominated the e-commerce market for years now. There customer service and global presence have validated their foolproof model. Consequently, you need to update the quality of your products and service to measure up with your competitors. Additionally, you can sell to customers in other countries too.
A user-friendly model: As a start-up, the most challenging step is the setting up of your website. But with Amazon’s, hassle-free inventory, your journey becomes easy. Above all, it makes for a great selling and buying experience.
Products of many categories and sub-categories: You can make the most as an Amazon seller, it is vital to place your product in the right category. Most of the buyers tend to search for products using types. For this reason, product categorized well leads to substantial traffic and sales of your product.
A big panel for reviews: The contemporary market thrives on reviews. Customers decide on a product by looking at the reviews of other buyers. After all, these testimonials are the most practical proof of the reliability of your products. You can encourage your buyers to write reviews for your products. To garner product reviews, you can plan for an e-mail marketing campaign too.
A STEPWISE GUIDE TO BECOMING A SELLER ON AMAZON
A few easy steps are all that it takes to be an Amazon seller. The point to note is that being a seller and a shopper is very different. These steps will help you get familiar with the value propositions that can come your way.
1. Sign up for Amazon as an individual seller
You can easily sign-up as a seller using the portal. This option suits best for a seller who has a small number of products to sell. Thus, you can build your business slowly.
With every item you sell on Amazon, you need to pay $0.99 to Amazon. As an individual customer, you can directly compete with other sellers.
2. The “Pro-merchant” option
You can become a Pro-merchant on the Amazon.com portal by paying a monthly fee. This option is suitable for merchants that have a variety of products to sell.
In this option, you also need to pay a referral fee. The referral amount is generally a percentage of the total sales. This option also opens up doors to quite a few administrative tools in addition to access to selling.
The only issue with this method is the working hours. To manage your products and orders, you need to devote a substantial amount of time.
3. Setting up an online store through Amazon
This option will make it easy for you to kick-off your website. An online store through Amazon adds to immediate credibility for your business.
This option requires you to pay a monthly fee of $24, along with 2% of your sales. If you are a pro-merchant, then all these facilities come for free.
4. Use Amazon FBA
To lighten the load on your business, you can use Fulfillment by Amazon or FBA. By opting for FBA, you can store your products in Amazon’s fulfillment centers. Afterward, they will handle the shipping process for you. Furthermore, they manage the customer service for you too.
You start by sending big shipments of your product to Amazon’s fulfillment center. There onwards, Amazon will manage your orders for you in an effective and cost-saving measure. It also saves your workforce.
While viewing a product on Amazon, you must have come across the “offers” links. This link redirects you to a list of available sellers. This method is the easiest way of competing with other sellers.
Another method to up your game is by striving to achieve the “Buy Box.” This option earns Amazon approximately it’s 90% of sales each year. Now, let us understand what the Buy box.
A shopper generally adds a product in their cart through the product detail page. But the buy box allows the buyer to purchase the product using the Featured seller list quickly. This list contains businesses handpicked by Amazon to receive the bulk of sales.
But there is much competition in the race to earn this Buy Box. To improve your chances, make sure you have a professional seller account. Do check the Buy Box Eligibility in the Amazon Seller Central account.
HOW TO GET LISTED ON TOP OF THE SEARCH LIST WITH AMAZON
Amazon has a wide assortment of products for each category. Sometimes, even the same products will be priced differently by different sellers. So to tackle this competition, Amazon prepares an offer list.
This offer list is the succession in which products appear as a search result. Since nobody likes to scroll down to the 100th position, your position in this list becomes crucial. If you are in the top 10 to 20, your product has a much higher chance of being bought.
So let us look at the factors Amazon uses to prepare the best list for your search:
Competitive Pricing is the amount incurred by Amazon until your product reaches you. Generally, it includes product costs and shipping charges and other charges, if any. Sellers have to battle massive competitions daily. Their product pricing strategy can make or break their game. That is why it is advisable that you pay the utmost attention to this step.
2. ONGOING OFFERS:
At any particular time, the market has specific ongoing trends. Once you recognize these trends, your job becomes much more straightforward. Adapting as per these trends will help you in avoiding competition. With fewer competitive merchants, it is needless to say that you can acquire a competitive spot easily.
The goal is to identify these trends and establish your customer base at the earliest. Your position on the offer list will improve once Amazon recognizes you as a high-performing seller.
3. ESTABLISH A STREAK AS A SELLER:
Amazon believes in the power of impression. If you have an unbeaten streak as a seller, you can secure the top spots. Garnering positive reviews and addressing any negative opinions will help you build-up this positive sales history. After all, Amazon just wants to keep its customers satisfied.
4. THE NUMBER OF SELLER REVIEWS YOU HAVE ON AMAZON:
The second most important factor that can make or break your sales is Amazon seller reviews. That is why you also need to encourage your buyers to leave positive reviews. Do take care of any negative reviews and address them at the earliest.
As a seller, the consequences of all your actions matter. That is why you need to work tirelessly to boost your seller ranking. Once you make a good number of sales, you will earn the track record of a good seller. This trend is especially true for products with less competition.
While selecting the product you want to sell, look in the rating section. Choose the product with the least positive rating. As the seller of that product, try to garner the highest number of positive reviews.
Higher the number of reviews more will be your trust among customers. Sooner or later, with your track record, you can breakthrough the high-competition niches.
6. PUT OFFER PRICE ON POPULAR PRODUCTS:
Try pricing some high-competition products at very competitive prices. This strategy can easily attract bargain shoppers. To select the ideal product from your inventory, you can refer to the “Most wished for” list on Amazon. This change will boost your seller ranking instantly.
WHAT TYPE OF MERCHANTS ARE THE MOST SOUGHT AFTER
MERCHANTS WHO MANUFACTURE THEIR UNIQUE ITEMS: Tinker ear-rings have become the trend of the market. This trend exists because merchants who design their unique products have comparatively lesser competition. Their products don’t overlap with other sellers. Therefore, they get to choose flexible prices for their unique items.
MERCHANTS OF USED OR REFURBISHED PRODUCTS: A large percentage of customers tend to choose products priced less. Many a time, due to this, they even compromise on delivery time. Amazon has a massive market for such customers. The only con faced by these merchants is that they can only use the USED BUY BOX. This option earns them fewer customers.
MERCHANTS SELLING NICHE PRODUCTS: Competition is the least in the case of products that tend to a specific niche. Moreover, Amazon doesn’t itself invest in such products, which will add to your large customer base.
TRY DATAHUT!
Datahut offers assistance to online retailers of all sorts. With careful planning and implementation, we can help you change your e-commerce game. We have a variety of services to offer, like web scraping and reputation management. To leverage the quality work that Datahut offers, do contact us.