Getting Started Using Amazon FBA

Starting an online Amazon FBA business presents less of a time commitment than fulfilling orders on your own. Maybe you’re working on building a business, or maybe you’re just hoping to get some extra income. Either way utilizing Amazon FBA can bring you huge benefits.

Selling on Amazon is fairly simple and straightforward. You can use it to build your own brand or resell products that people all over the world are looking for. Either way, Amazon is the largest online retail market making it the ideal place to sell products on.

Why Amazon FBA?

The Fulfillment by Amazon program handles the most difficult and time consuming parts of online selling. You find and list your products and ship them to Amazon warehouses. From there, they do everything. They store your products, process orders, and package and ship your products to the customer.

Amazon ensures the product reaches the customer. All you have to do now is watch your inventory levels.

Create Your Amazon Seller Account

Before you start selling you’ll need to create an Amazon seller account. You can use your personal information and don’t need some type of “official” business to start your account.

Whether you sign up for an individual seller account or a professional seller account depends on your business. If you’re just testing out Amazon, you may want to sign up as an individual. However, if you plan on selling 40 or more items a month, pay the monthly fee to be a professional seller. Using a professional account gets you many other benefits as well, so we’d recommend going with that instead of an individual account.

List Products on Amazon

When you add a product you’ll either search from an existing product database or enter brand new products, and this simply depends on your business. No matter the type of business there are several fields you will have to fill out. You’ll need to list a price, your item condition, and whether or not you want Amazon to ship your product or not.

Once you’ve listed your items, navigate to your inventory. Under actions make sure “fulfilled by Amazon” is highlighted. Now you’ll be able to select your Amazon FBA preferences.

Create a Shipping Plan

Are you shipping a case of products or individual items? Either way you need to create a shipping plan so you can get your items from your location to an Amazon warehouse.

You’ll be asked how many units of each item you will be sending. You are able to select if you want Amazon to label your product or not. You will need to properly package and ship your items to get them to Amazon, though.

Our Amazon FBA Supplies page has been designed to give you all the details on the supplies you need for shipping to Amazon. Make sure all your products are properly packed before you ship them to avoid item damage and time delays.

Additional Resources

Getting started with Amazon FBA may seem simple, but there are many layers to it depending on your business. Here are some additional resources to give you more detailed information.

Amazon Tutorials

FBA Fee Calculator

FBA Toolkit

Amazon Restricted Brands List

Freight Calculator

Ten Tips For Selling on Amazon

We’ve already posted about Amazon FBA Resources to help you more with the technicalities of selling your product on Amazon. But to have a successful business, you need to know more than the rules. That’s why we’re sharing with you our top ten tips for selling on Amazon.

1.      Sell items that other people are not selling on Amazon. With so many products available this can be difficult, but if you have a specific product that only you sell, it will stand out. This includes products that are similar to other products, but have features that those similar products do not. Being unique makes you stand out, which can lead to more sales.

2.      You aren’t doomed if you do sell the same products as many other sellers. Something you can do to stand out when this is the case is to bundle items. Say you sell popcorn makers, maybe the same brand as other sellers. Make it a bundle! Don’t just sell the popcorn maker, bundle in popcorn and popcorn seasoning to go with it, and price accordingly. When people are shopping and check who is selling the item they want, they will gravitate to bundles that also sell the other items they are probably going to buy along with that main item.

3.      The most obvious tip is to sell your items at the cheapest price compared to your competitors. This may not always be possible but if you can, it’s a great way to get more sales. What’s important about this is to have a good standing on Amazon. Even if your item is extremely cheap, if you don’t have good reviews or don’t have many reviews, people will probably pass you over for someone more established. So make sure to get that feedback!

4.      Make sure to answer customer inquiries quickly. This isn’t only because it is good customer service, but Amazon notices. When selling on Amazon, customer service is extremely important. Your account needs to be in good standing.

5.      Ask for feedback from your customers. Most customers do not review products after they receive them. As we’ve mentioned, feedback is extremely important to getting additional sales. There are services you can use that will send emails to your customers requesting feedback and asking if there was anything they were dissatisfied with. You’ll get more reviews with this email reminder, which only makes your business look better.

6.      Use quality, professional photos. This seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many people upload poor photos to advertise their product. If you’re not a photographer, hire one. Take multiple pictures of your item from different angles. Customers want to get a good look at the product they’re purchasing. If you don’t have good photos your business may be denied just because of that.

7.      Label and package your items correctly. This cannot be emphasized enough. Amazon has strict requirements that you need to follow. You want to use the correct materials to package, pack to ensure items will not be damaged, and make sure you’re meeting all of Amazon’s guidelines. Check out our Amazon FBA Resources post for more information about those guidelines, and take a look at the types of supplies you will need here. Make sure to follow the correct steps to avoid damage to the product, delays in shipping, and of course, penalty fees.

8.      Make sure your products can be found. This can be done in a number of ways. First off, you want your item to be connected to the correct attributes. To make sure this happen, you need to upload very accurate product information. You want to include as much information as you can, including a product title, description, search terms, color, size, and plenty of other categories. You’ll want to use SEO to your advantage. Include keywords you know your customer will be searching for. For customers to buy from you, they have to find you.

9.      Find a way to manage your inventory efficiently. You do not want to sell an item and discover you no longer have it in stock. Your customers will not be happy, and you can get penalized by Amazon. If you have items that sell, make sure you always have them in stock. If you don’t, your sales rank will start to fall fast, and that can be hard to recover from. Keep this in mind especially during the holiday season.

10.   Use discounts. Customers love discounts and so does Amazon. Offer a good enough discount and you could even end up on Amazon’s “Hot Deals” category which can generate huge amounts of traffic. You’re selling on Amazon, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use sales to your advantage. Plus customers who notice you have discounts will likely check your page again for more discounts.

Amazon FBA Resources

If you’re ready to start selling your products on Amazon, it may seem a bit overwhelming. There’s a lot of rules and policies that you need to follow, and you also need the right shipping supplies to get started. Luckily ShippingSupply.com can help with both of these!

The process of using FBA is fairly straightforward. You send your products to Amazon and Amazon stores them. Once customers order your products Amazon packs and sends them. To do this though, you must follow some policies and requirements. Amazon has laid them all out nicely right here.

While shipping your items to Amazon isn’t complicated, there are a multitude of ways to do it, depending on the product and the amount of that product you are sending. Again, Amazon has put together a very easy to understand chart to help you out. Find it here.

Amazon also provides you with a resources page, which can give more general advice. There’s also a great newsletter you can sign up for that is sure to help you!

Now, what about the shipping supplies themselves? There’s plenty you’re going to need to get this business running! Luckily we have an entire webpage dedicated to helping you get the supplies you’ll need. Click here to find it.

Our FBA page only lists the essentials. There are plenty more items you may want or even need to invest in down the line, depending on what you plan to sell. It is extremely likely that you will be able to find anything else you need on our website. If you need any assistant please give us a call at 1-877-501-PACK (7225) and we’d be happy to help!