If you are wondering how to sell on Amazon FBA, you are certainly not alone.
Since it was first established back in 1994 to today, Amazon has become the dominating online marketplace that has just about every aspiring entrepreneur leveraging it to gain the profitability benefits and brand exposure.
Based on a recent report, Amazon is currently at a net worth of $1.7 trillion, and that number only continues to rise.
With so much prospering opportunity being just a few clicks away, it stands to reason why there are so many future sellers, like yourself, searching how to sell on Amazon for beginners.
After all, you will be going up against some pretty intense competition within the flooded market, so getting off on the best foot possible is the perfect way to gain that competitive edge, stand out, and succeed.
Establish the Basics – Choosing an Amazon Selling Plan
The first step in the process of learning how to sell on Amazon is understanding and establishing the basics. This means choosing your ideal selling plan on Amazon.
If you have a product you want to sell yourself or if you are someone who wants to sell but still has no idea what you want to promote yet, there is a plan designed for your needs:
- Private Label: creating your own brand and product label
- Wholesale: buying products in bulk from a brand/distributor to reselling on Amazon
- Reselling/Arbitrage: Purchasing discounted products and selling them for regular price on Amazon
- Drop-shipping: Buying products right from the manufacturer who fulfills the order process for you
- Handmade: creating your own products from scratch to sell
Fun fact: The most common (71% of Amazon sellers) use the private label option and buy products in bulk to sell under their own brand label.
Figuring Out What To Sell When Starting Out with Amazon
For the sake of this article, let’s say you go with the private sale method. Once you establish this, the next thing you need to figure out is what you are going to sell.
It might feel enticing to sell products that you personally like, but that should not be the sole decision indicator. Instead, do some product research to see what is trending and in high demand.
Think about the profit margin (after landing costs, Amazon fees, shipping, etc.) you can gain by going with certain items of another. In addition, how much competition is there?
The best advice for FBA beginners is to find a product that is popular all year round with low competition that you can see for about $20-$50 so you can gain a healthy profit.
Anything below $20 might not be worth the effort. Over $50 might work depending on the item, but some customers are not willing to spend more than that from a brand they are not familiar with.
Want to Sell More on Amazon FBA? Get Ungated in Days!
Pick A Fulfillment Method (Amazon FBA or FBM).
There are two ways you can go when selling on Amazon: Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) or Fulfilment by Merchant (FBM).
FBA, though it does come with a fee, is when you use Amazon’s warehouses to fulfill orders. When an order is placed, Amazon pulls to your inventory and delivers it to your customers on your behalf.
For beginner reference, 94% of Amazon sellers go with this. As for FBM, it is the less picked route, but in general, this is when you list products to sell and manage all the logistics that go with it yourself.
It is widely recommended that if you are learning about how to sell on amazon for beginners, you choose the managed route of FBA.
Sign Up for Your Amazon Seller Account
Though you could certainly make signing up step #1, setting the foundation with the concepts above is what will make the account set up go much smoother.
This process of creating you Amazon seller account is not hard, but you will need to have some key information on hand, including:
- Business name, address, and contact information
- Email address
- Credit card
- Phone number
- Tax ID for both Federal and State
- Know if you want to be a professional or individual seller
Create SEO Optimized Product Descriptions
After you followed the signing up process, you are ready to begin listing products to sell on there and grow your brand and ranking stats.
If you did your research on products prior like noted above, you should be able to get started on this rather quickly. But in order to rank high in searches, you have to be mindful of how you showcase each product.
For example, leverage the power of keywords and use them in your title and descriptions, so when people search for that particular product or item, yours shows up closer to the top.
In conjunction with optimizing titles and descriptions, make sure that the product photos you use are high quality, have great lighting, and are captivating.
When you are at the stage where you are studying about how to sell on amazon for beginners, you want to follow all this advice, so that you can compete with sellers that have been around much longer than you.
Tip: If you want to stand out even more when selling products on Amazon, think about implementing a video of your product as well.
Video marketing has shown to attract more customers, sell more product and increase conversions, going from an average of 2.9% without to 4.8% with.
Think About Applying for Amazon Gated Categories to Sell
For those just starting out, you can certainly work on getting your stats and reputation up in the ungated territory.
However, don’t forget that there is a whole other vetted market out there that can help boost your selling success even more called gated categories.
Amazon gated categories are secured, closed categories that you have to apply to gain access to.
The purpose is to protect buyers and their own brand image from sellers who are trying to scam or sell lower quality products.
This is a way for them to weed out the top sellers to provide their customers with the best Amazon experience they can.
Some restricted categories include:
- Topicals – Health and Beauty
- Personal Safety & Household (COVID Related Products)
- Dietary Supplements
- Pet Care & Pet Foods
- Medical Supplies & Devices
- Grocery & Gourmet Foods
- Baby Activity Gears
- Watches
- Hair Care & Beauty Appliances
- + Many More…
NOTE – You can read more about restricted Amazon categories here and Amazon restricted brands.
Want to get Ungated and Sell More Products in a Hurry?
When you first begin selling items and products, you automatically have access to the ungated areas to sell on. To gain access to the gated items, you have to apply for it, which you can read more about here.
They will look for things like performance checks and quality assurance. If you can demonstrate your validity and get access in particular categories, it opens the doors to more audience exposure and displays that you are a trusted brand to buy expensive items from.
You become more of the elite group of sellers, and that gives online shoppers the confidence that you are authentic, making them more likely to buy products from you.
Guide Conclusion – Beginners Still Have Potential
In summary, learning how to sell on Amazon successfully might feel like an exciting yet highly overwhelming journey to take on.
The monetized potential may be exceptionally high, but with 2.5 million sellers currently active on the platform (25k of them making more than $1M in sales annually), it can be intimidating for beginners to jump in on the selling action and reach optimal growth.
And the reality is that if you do not already have an established eCommerce business you can branch off of, then it will take quite a bit of dedication, commitment, and effort on your end to gain momentum on the Amazon marketplace.
But the thing you have to remember is that even the highest competitors had to begin somewhere too.
There was likely a point where they were researching how to sell on Amazon for beginners to build themselves up to where they are today with Amazon FBA.
In the end, don’t hold back due to fear of failure going up against more seasoned sellers in your industry.
Use them, along with the guidance above, to motivate you because you never know just how profitable you can become by taking that first initial step to selling on Amazon.
