Selling on Amazon FBA can seem daunting when you don’t know what you’re doing. So to help, we have compiled the steps into 10 easy instructions with the essentials to get you started!
By doing research into Amazon FBA now, you can save yourself a lot of time and stress. Let’s dive in!
1. Choose your business niche
To build your Amazon business from the ground up you will need to decide what your niche will be. A niche is a specific and specialised product that you can see the market needs for. Your business’ niche can be anything you like, as long as you believe it will sell well on Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA), if not your business venture could be cut short, which no one wants!
What do you want to sell and why? You must think of these things and consider; what people want to buy, put yourself into the shoes of your customer, and what are their needs, and then from there, you will find your niche.
You also need to think of categories within this stage, as one specific product may sell better than a very broad product. For example, you could choose fashion, which is perfectly fine, but men’s fashion is more niche and will narrow the category down so your customers know exactly what you sell.
This can take up a large portion of your time and rightly so, this needs to be done properly so that your business can thrive. From brainstorming to completing your market research to learning about the best supplier option for you once you have chosen your business’ niche, the list goes on.
However, once this is done you have all of the basic information you need to start selling on Amazon meaning you can put your efforts into selling!
2. Find the products you want to sell
Next, you need to find the actual products that fit into your niche, and that you will sell to your customers. Try to give people what you know they want, and once again do your research!
By using Amazon keyword tools you will be able to see what people are searching for the most, within your chosen niche and category, from there you can find exactly what products you want to sell and establish your brand further.
Always keep in mind that Amazon FBA does have fees depending on:
- The size of a product
- The weight of a product
- The shape of a product
So choosing your product wisely at this stage will prove beneficial for you in the future.
3. Establish your brand
Try to create an individual brand for your product to ‘come’ from. If a customer sees a basic product from a brand that isn’t established they may find this untrustworthy and buy the same product elsewhere, even if your product is cheaper.
You will need a seller name and a product name that will tell people about your brand and make your business recognisable. The reason you want to be recognisable is so that people begin to trust your brand, and therefore want to buy from it more.
Your seller name will be what your business is called, where your products come from, and everything that falls under it. Your product name is simply what your product is, however, you can create a unique product name if that belongs to your brand.
There are restrictions to what you can call your company/seller and product as outlined in the Amazon guidelines below:
“Your seller display name is displayed with your listings and on your Seller Profile. Sellers are generally allowed to be descriptive or fanciful as they like when creating their display names. There are a few constraints, however.”
- Each seller has to have a unique display name.
- Display names cannot have the word “Amazon” or any other Amazon domain name or trademark.
- You, as the seller, must have all necessary rights to your display name.
- For readability, display names are suggested to be less than 20 characters long.
- Only letters, numbers, and “-” or “_” are allowed. No other special characters are allowed.
- No profanity or offensive display names are allowed.
At this point you must also think about the design choices you will make for your brand; colour palettes, packaging choices and even graphics are incredibly important to think about when setting up your brand. Remember, you want to be recognisable and trustworthy!
Photo by Wicked Monday on Unsplash
4. Create your Amazon Seller Account
Next, you will want to set up your Amazon Seller account. Simply go to Sell.Amazon.com and set up an account by following the instructions it gives you on the webpage.
It will ask you a few questions about what you’re selling and how many you expect to sell each month, at this point in your business you will probably have little to know clue, but that’s perfectly fine!
The best rule of thumb is:
- If you expect to sell 40+ items a month (this is more applicable if you already sell elsewhere and know your customers will buy your products from Amazon.) the charge per month will be £25. This is the ‘professional plan’.
- Alternatively, if you don’t know how much you will be selling per month just yet they have an ‘individual plan’ that costs 75p per item sold.
This, however, does not include the other fees Amazon has for the services that come with FBA. Services like storing the items for you, the size, weight and shape of the items previously mentioned, or the fees of shipping them for you.
Amazon does have a useful fee calculator that can help you understand how much it will be and what your revenue may look like by the end of it too, so starting there is a good idea.
5. Sign up for Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA)
Now you need to sign up for Amazon FBA. To do this log in to your Amazon seller account and add your products, once this is done you can add FBA services to your account and create your FBA account.
6. Send your inventory to an Amazon Fulfillment Centre
You will receive instructions from Amazon once you sign up for FBA services, telling you how to package and send your products to the fulfilment centre, then Amazon can store your items ready for when they are ordered.
However, if you are feeling lazy they will pack the items for you for a fee depending on how many there are, the size and the weight.
7. Launch your products
You can now launch your products and business on Amazon officially, well done!
Launching your products via Amazon Seller Central is relatively straightforward, once you’ve completed one you’ll have the hang of it.
There are ways of optimising your listings that make sure you have the best possible chance of making great sales.
- Optimising your product descriptions.
This is a must if you want to sell anything on Amazon. If your products have little to no information and look untrustworthy people are not going to buy them, unfortunately.
By using keywords that you’ve found through researching similar products, high-quality images and making sure you don’t go over 500 characters per bullet point, your descriptions will do the hard work for you by getting customers to trust and understand your product further.
Optimising your writing for your product falls under SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), which can be a hard skill to learn, but not impossible. Here’s a free online course on the basics of Amazon SEO by Semrush, so you can get started as soon as possible!
- Market your products well.
By using PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising), you can generate even more traffic towards your product and sales for your business.
If you don’t know how to utilise PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising) or SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) Content, look no further as Seller Presto can take care of all things Amazon Marketing for you! Click here and get your Amazon Marketing done by the professionals today!
8. Get product reviews
Your best options to gain reviews on your product are:
- Amazon Vine: This service sends customers a sample (if applicable) and in return, they will review your product honestly. These reviews will be labelled as Vine reviews.
- Follow up: with customers after they have purchased your products and ask them to review them. Seller Presto offers a service in which we will set up an automated email review request, so you can sit back and relax.
The only way to get potential customers to trust and want to buy your product is to get reviews. You may be tempted to buy some fake reviews, and as easy as that sounds, please do not do this. Not only is it frowned upon, but it’s very obvious, and will tarnish your business and products as fake, which as you know, is the opposite of what you want.
So stay calm and be honest, reviews will come.
9. Keep an eye on Amazon Seller Central
By keeping an eye on Amazon Seller Central you will be able to see analytical information that will keep you up to date with what’s happening on Amazon and other Amazon Sellers, such as the Business reports feature and brand analytics.
Not to mention, you can A/B test different products, their descriptions and more on Seller Central, which puts you ahead of the competition if you’re always up to date with your analytics.
Photo by Bryan Angelo on Unsplash
10. Build an audience for your brand/product
Creating an established and trustworthy brand on Amazon can be completed in a few easy steps, but does take time. However building a consistent and trusting brand on Amazon can create long-lasting relationships with customers, as well as with Amazon itself.
- Be ready to go: You must ensure your brand is cohesive and makes sense before you start spending money on advertising your business or products.
- Be patient: Most brands do not take off on Amazon until they get past the 6-month mark, as it takes time to build a positive reputation and gain a customer base.
- Begin your brand: Register your brand on Amazon’s Brand Registry, this will allow you to create A + content and store pages, to create a consistent brand image that customers will remember.
- Begin advertising: Sponsored brands are a great place to grow your brand reach with banner ads, video ads and store ads.
Now you should be an expert on how to set up your Amazon FBA account and how to create your brand from scratch, two things that are essential to your business’s success on Amazon. If you’d like to know more about Amazon Marketing and how to set up an Amazon business, get in touch below and set up a consultation for free! Here at Seller Presto, we are professionals who know exactly what your Amazon business needs to thrive, so what are you waiting for, get in touch with us today!