A Beginner’s Guide To Selling On Amazon In 2021
Amazon is the mega E-com giant of the entire world. And more than half of Amazon’s billion-dollar revenue comes from third-party sellers. With a little hard work and dedication, you can make millions by selling almost anything on Amazon.
The E-Com Fever
The E-Com Fever is raging all over the world. The market garnering over $1 trillion in sales and is predicted to grow a sweet 17% each year. It is indeed a smart move to build an early career in the E-Com business.
A real-time feedback loop will be your best learning curve. E-commerce teaches you all the nitty-gritty aspects of business and marketing. However, with great demand, comes extra work.
One of the biggest issues new businesses face today is the lack of audience. Investing tens of thousands of dollars into their startups, and then struggling for years to get decent sales. Newbie e-com sellers get lost in the pool.
And Amazon is your rescue boat. Amazon constantly works on its brand recognition, so you only have to worry about showcasing your products to already existent millions of potential customers.
Make A Plan
Amazon might cut out half of your work, but there is still the half that you need to figure out. Create a detailed plan to successfully launch your first Amazon business. Using a smarter approach to simple mechanics is the best way to go.
Do a thorough market analysis, make lists of products and sourcing points, create a budget-friendly finance plan, etc.
Choose Your Niche
After you’re done with the research, it’s time you finalize your market. The niche that you choose will play a significant role in determining the success of your business. You don’t really have to invent the wheel here, but make sure that you pick something that is trendy enough and aligns with your business interests.
Educate Yourself
This is a very important step. Knowing all the details about the different Amazon programs will help you better shape your business. Before you proceed any further, educate yourself about Amazon policies related to your niche. Understand their fee structures and plans, calculate to set your profit margins, etcetera.
It’s also important to track your chosen market and understand different trends and competitor strategies to help you curate a unique business plan.
Sourcing And Settling
Once you’ve chosen a market, picked several products, curated a solid business plan, it’s time you align your sourcing suppliers. You can either go for local suppliers, but there are great sourcing websites available online as well.
For wholesale supplier search, Alibaba is one of the biggest and finest wholesale giants. You can easily source any type of product from there. The manufacturers even supply custom-made products for new brands.
Both of the options are ideal, but I always suggest that you keep alternate options for emergencies. Having a local as well as an online wholesale supplier will save you big time for when the sales start booming.
Register
After you’re done with the business setup, it’s time to launch your Amazon shop. Based on your location, go to the seller central page to have your Amazon seller account registered.
Documents Required:
- Valid Credit / Debit Card
- Country-Specific Bank Account
- Supporting KYC Documents For Verification
- Country-Specific Phone Number
- Valid Photo ID
- Business Tax Information
- For Private Labels, Trademark & Brand Authorization Required
- For FBA Services, Additional Place Of Business To Be Added In Tax Info.
Have all of the above documents ready before starting the registration process. Based on your location and preferred selling platform, there might be some changes to these verification documents. So make sure to do some research beforehand for your country-specific tax documents requirements.
After that, decide whether you want to be an Amazon FBA seller or Merchant Fulfilled.
Amazon FBA [Fullfilled By Amazon]: is a simple fulfillment program where you send in your product catalog and inventory to Amazon warehouses. When a customer places an order, Amazon packs, ships, and delivers the product to the customer.
Merchant Fulfilled: is a seller who handles their own packing and shipping of their Amazon orders. However, Amazon does provide an easy ship and self-ship option where the merchant can either use the Amazon-provided shipping services or ship the orders using third-party shipping providers.
Build
Once the registration process is complete, it’s time to start adding products to your catalog. There are several steps to creating a professional Amazon product listing. Make sure you are familiar with the details beforehand to create optimal listings.
- Use High-Resolution Product Images
Your product images are the very first thing a customer sees. So always make sure you get professional product photography done with high-resolution images. If you’re just starting out, there are a lot of ways you can do your own professional product photoshoot.
- Catchy, SEO Optimized Titles
Having an informative eye-catching product title goes a long way. The search page only shows about 200 characters of a product title. So make sure you learn simple Amazon SEO tricks to create catchy titles that can help you rank as well.
- Bullet Points
Bullet points are the next top liners showed on an Amazon listing. The power of sales depends on those bullet points. And if it’s not interesting enough to last them 20 seconds on your listing, you lose a sale.
- Informative Descriptions
Product descriptions are where you take up all your space. Be concise and informative in your descriptions to make sure the customer makes an educated purchase. This is the space where you jam-pack those golden SEO keywords to boost your Amazon listing up the search results.
Learn To Scale
Once you’ve successfully set up and launched your Amazon store. It’s time you start to scale the business. Use the Amazon algorithm to your advantage, monitoring sales performance and optimizing the product listings accordingly will boost your traffic and sales significantly.
And do not forget to leverage social media to grow your online presence. Amazon might be the bigger brand, but your products need a platform for recognition and growth.