How To Buy And Sell On Amazon.com

Amazon.com is an American multinational technology company that is based in Seattle, Washington State, USA.  Amazon.com focuses on e-commerce, artificial intelligence, clouds computing and digital steaming. It is well known as the world’s largest e-commerce and largest internet company by revenue. It is also one of the world’s most valuable companies. Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos on July 5th, 1994, in Washington. It first started as an online marketplace for books later it expanded to sell electronics, software, video games, food, toys furniture, jewelry, and other items. Amazon distributes downloads and steaming video, Music, Audiobook, through Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Music, and Audible subsidiaries. Amazon.com has a number of product and services available.

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How to Start Selling On Amazon (Overview)

Even if you are starting from scratch, the process of getting started on Amazon isn’t as hard as many people think. Here are the main steps you will need to take:

  1. Review the sourcing strategies you can use to get products.
  2. Learn the rules (and fees) for selling on Amazon.
  3. Register for an Amazon seller’s account.
  4. Obtain your first products to sell.
  5. Create your first product listing.
  6. Ship your products to FBA warehouses (or fulfill orders yourself).

If you take these six steps, you will get your first sale. Once you do that, growing that start into a successful business is a matter of reinvesting and repeating steps 4 through 6 over and over again.

Step 4 is what trips a lot of people up. Later in this guide, we’ll cover a product sourcing strategy that will allow you to find your first products to sell this week in your local retail stores. This strategy is called retail arbitrage, and I owe the initial success of my business (and over 7-figures in sales each year) to it.

How Much Can You Earn Selling On Amazon?

One of the main questions people have before getting started on Amazon is ‘how much can I earn as an Amazon seller’.

The answer to this question is different for everyone and largely depends on what your goals are and what you want to sell. There are people who make next to nothing, and there are others who make 7+ figures in profit.

But in general, my experience suggests that earning a comfortable living is well within the capabilities of the majority of people who invest the time needed to build a successful business.

Amazon has two selling plans. It offers sellers the flexibility to sell one or more products. The two selling packages include the professional plan which gives sellers the opportunity to sell an unlimited number of product at a token fee and Fulfilment by Amazon FBA plan. The following are steps to sell on amazon with the professional selling plan.

  • Launch amazon website or app
  • Login your amazon account if you are an existing member or simply click or tab new to amazon to create an account
  • Set up your amazon selling account. To do this you must have the following information available; business name and address, mobile or telephone number, chargeable credit card and valid bank account
  • List the product for sale on Amazon by uploading a picture or photo of the product you want to sell and add a description of the product. This should the price and discount on price if available.

N.B you can also sell on Amazon through FBA meaning Fulfillment by Amazon. Amazon has one of the most advanced fulfilment network in the world. With fulfilment by amazon (FBA) sellers can store their products in Amazon’s fulfilment center and Amazon on the other hand will pick, pack, ship and provide customer service for the products. FBA can help sellers to scale their businesses and reach more customers. To sell through Fulfilment by Amazon, the following steps should be taking

  • Find the product you are selling on Amazon
  • List the product for sale. Add the selling price of the product when listing the product on Amazon
  • Prepare the products or goods to be transported or shipped to a Fulfilment by Amazon warehouse
  • Box up the products before shipping them to the warehouse location that Amazon had assigned. You can box up many different products or items together.
  • Amazon will verify that you the seller has sent the proper items in their right conditions
  • Amazon will activate your listing
  • Amazon will store the products in their warehouse until a potential buyer orders it
  • When a customer orders your product, a member of the Amazon team will ship the product to the customer
  • Once the product has been shipped, Amazon will deposit your share of the sale into your sellers account.

How To Buy on Amazon.com

  • Launch the amazon website or app
  • Tap or click on department on the home screen and it will display earth’s biggest selection
  • Click or tap to choose any of the listed selection
  • Browse through a list of the different products under the department you have selected. Use the previous or next buttons to view more items or the previous items.
  • Tap or click to choose your preferred product also choose the color and size of the product
  • Click or tap ‘’Add to chart’’ to continue browsing ‘’Buy Now’’ to check out
  • Enter the shipping address including Name, Street Address, P.O Box, suit, Unit or Building no., City, State Province or Region, Zip, Phone Number and Country. Also add delivery instructions like additional instruction to fine the address and which day you can receive packages.
  • Click or tap continue to buy or purchase product.

Selling on Amazon for Beginners (How Amazon Works)

Before we dive into how to set up your account and how to find products, let’s take a minute to go over how Amazon works.

Here’s what a product listed on Amazon looks like. I’ve added some arrows to draw your attention to some details that you may not have paid much attention to as a buyer:

Screenshot of Catan Sold By 3rd Party On Amazon
(Note: Click on the image to enlarge for a better view.)

There are a few noteworthy items in this screenshot:

  1. The arrow and underlined name in the center of the screenshot is a “3rd Party Seller” on Amazon.  If you start selling on Amazon, you will also be classified as a 3rd party seller. They are in what is known as the “Buy Box.”  What this means is that when a buyer clicks the “add to cart” button” it will be this seller’s item that is added to the cart to purchase.  In this case, the seller in the Buy Box is ROLANDA.
  2. The seller that is in the buy box has their listing “Fulfilled by Amazon.”  This means that Amazon will handle shipping this item to the customer.  We’ll get into more details on what Fulfillment by Amazon means shortly.
  3. On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see that there is a section with “Other Sellers on Amazon.”  This section also displays 3rd party sellers on Amazon, however, these sellers aren’t in the “buy box.”
  4. You might notice that “Amazon.com” is not listed as a seller in either the buy box or the other sellers sections.  On many products, you will see Amazon.com listed as a seller of the product you are looking at.  Generally speaking, 3rd party sellers see better sales on their products when Amazon.com is not a seller on the same item.

When you sell on Amazon, your item will be displayed in either the buy box or in the other sellers section of the Amazon product detail page.

Generally, there are only 3 different sellers shown in the other sellers section on the main product detail page.  If there are more than 3 other sellers, which is very common, then the buyer will have to click to view all of the available offers to see every seller who is on the listing.

It’s also important to note that all sellers for the same item display on the same product page. If you’ve sold on eBay in the past, then this will be a bit of a change.  When selling on Amazon, you are able to add your product offering on the same product detail page as other sellers. On eBay, you have to create your own listing.

In the case of the Catan board game above, there are 81 total sellers that have this item for sale at the time of the screenshot.  The buy box seller and the other sellers section are the only sellers who are featured at the current time.

Getting the buy box is a key part of seeing success on Amazon.  The exact algorithm is not known, but 3 of the top factors you can control are your price, your feedback rating, and your fulfillment method.

The fulfillment method is very important for maximizing your results on Amazon.  Using Fulfillment by Amazon as your fulfillment method will be one of the best things you can do to generate sales when selling on Amazon.

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