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Introduction:
What is Selling on Amazon?
Amazon is the world’s largest online store, and it has a huge marketplace for sellers. Amazon is the place where people can buy anything, from books to groceries to clothes and electronics. Sellers of all kinds are welcome on Amazon, as long as they are following the rules set by the company. These are called 3rd party sellers.
This section will cover what selling on Amazon entails and how it works.
Start Selling On Amazon
Selling on Amazon is not rocket science, but there are many things you should know before jumping in.
- Start by learning for free on YouTube from the creators of Amazon seller tools (like Helium 10, Jungle Scout, Sellzone, etc) These companies offer real advice, and in return they just want customers.
- Subscribe to podcasts about Amazon FBA
- Find a mentor. But remember if the mentor has time for 1 on 1 training he/she probably isn’t doing that good on Amazon anyway.
Before you pick a product or create accounts with Amazon software memberships, you need to know how you are going to source the products, and not what to sell. The key to success is finding a niche that you’re interested in and a product that has some demand and is low.
What are the Costs You Have to Pay to Sell on Amazon?
Amazon has two types of sellers: individual sellers and professional sellers. Individual sellers are people or companies who sell on Amazon as a side business or to supplement their income. Professional Sellers are individuals or companies who sell and own an Amazon business
The costs you have to pay to sell on Amazon depend on which seller type you are:
Individual Seller: The cost of selling an item through an individual seller is a $0 monthly fee, $1 per item sold plus 15% of the gross sale (depending on the category)
Individual plans work well if you’re thinking of only selling less than 40 units per month. If you’re aiming to sell more than that, however, you should consider signing up for a professional plan that gives much better terms and conditions.
Professional Seller: The professional plan on Amazon comes with a monthly fee of $39.99 but the $1 per item goes away with this plan.
What are the Ways To Sell On Amazon?
- Online Arbitrage (Finding products online with huge discounts, buying in bulk to sell on Amazon at full price)
- Retail Arbitrage (Finding products at the store with huge discounts, buying in bulk to sell on Amazon at full price)
- Wholesale (Contacting known manufacturers asking for wholesale prices so you can become the online distributor)
- Private Label (Sourcing products that already exist, and adding your brand label to them)
- Dropshipping (Only allowed if the product gets sent from you with BOL in your name) (I would avoid this)
- Bulk Lots (Buying pallet lots from auctions at liquidation locations like Walmart liquidation, BulQ, etc, and then selling at full price or as used)
- Used Books (The original Amazon selling model since the late ’90s)
The most common ways to sell on Amazon are PL (Private Label), Wholesale, and RA (Retail Arbitrage).
After you learn more about all those options, you can start sourcing products that have proven demand.
The reason you should choose products that already have demand is to minimize risk and increase cash flow by selling faster.
How do You Choose a Product to Sell?
How do you choose a product to sell?
Many factors go into the decision of what product to sell. If you have a specific niche in mind, then this will be much easier, but not always the best option if it’s a competitive space.
To get started, you need to research what products are already selling well in your niche and see which ones you can compete with or better than.
You also need to take into consideration how much money is being spent on advertising for that specific product and whether or not you have the resources available to do the same thing.
Don’t just assume the product will sell itself, you will always need a budget for marketing.
How Much Money Can You Make Selling On Amazon?
Amazon has been a go-to destination for online shoppers and sellers for years. And it’s not just because of their wide variety of products and competitive prices. There are many ways to make money on Amazon, and some of them don’t even involve selling anything.
But today we are talking about selling products, so here we go.
Nobody can tell you for sure how much you will be able to make while selling on Amazon, because that depends on a huge variety of elements. The product quality, the images you use, the competition, the size of your marketing budget, the quality of your marketing team, the demand for that product… You get the point!
So if you ever see someone tell you how much you can make, they could be delusional or simply trying to take advantage of you, by selling some Amazon Automation Scheme.
There are many sellers making millions on Amazon, but there are many more that are losing money!
It is very important to know your numbers, not only as an eCommerce seller but in any business. If you don’t know your numbers that is the easiest way to kill profit and the business along with it.
Don’t get impressed or disappointed when you see screenshots of millions of dollars of sales that someone has posted on Facebook. The rule of thumb is, that if someone is showing you a screenshot of their high sales, they are trying to sell you something!
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Quin Amorim
Ecommerce and private label with over 25 years of experience.
CEO at Prolific Zone