How To Get An Amazon Seller Account

Amazon can help your business reach millions of potential customers that you may not have reached. Due to Amazon's trusty brand, those customers are more likely to feel safe buying your products through the platform than directly from a website.

To sell on Amazon, you need to set up an Amazon seller account. Here's a step-by-step process to help you get started:

How To Create An Amazon Seller Account In 5 Steps

From business modeling to dispatch, your Amazon seller account (aka your "Seller Central") has everything you need to get your business up and to run.

There are a few factors to consider before you create your seller account, including:

The type of business model
Best fulfillment methods
What products to sell
Whether you should sell as an individual or a professional
Which tools you can use to help you sell on Amazon

1. Choosing A Business Model

Even though the steps to start your seller account won't change, defining your overall business model strategy is still crucial.

Your business model will depend on factors like the availability of your product or whether there is a suitable amount of product storage. There are 5 business models you can choose from while setting up your Amazon seller account set up:
Private Label

The Private Label business model rebrands an existing white label product with another's logo and branding.

Pros: The products are manufactured elsewhere, removing the need for a supply chain. It's effortless to add your own branding to your products.
Cons: Products may not be to the exact specification that you or your customers would like, and it's unlikely that the product production can be changed if your buying volumes are small.

Online and/or Retail Arbitrage

An Arbitrage business model relies on the retailer finding discounted or bargain items in physical shops or online, then reselling them through Amazon for a profit.

Pros: The items you select can generate a large profit if there is a market for them.

Cons: There may not always be products available to source and resell.

Wholesale

This is similar to an Arbitrage business model but involves buying discount items in bulk. You'll then sell each product individually.

Pros: It's easier to make a profit on bulk items. Some businesses and warehouses can provide bulk items to online sellers.

Cons: It can sometimes be difficult to bulk items with an existing market. You risk being stuck with a lot of excess stock if you haven't judged the market demand correctly.

Dropshipping

The seller doesn't keep the physical stock in their warehouses or premises with a Dropship business model. Instead, the seller is responsible for collecting the customer's details and payment and arranging for the ordered items to be delivered to the customer from their third-party supplier.

Pros: You don't have to store many products to sell and deliver to your customer.

Cons: You're liable for faulty items and refunds the direct seller.

Handmade

This business model is fairly self-explanatory. You sell items that you handmake.

Pros: You can promote your own products to Amazon's customer base and generate a market for your product. This is especially beneficial if you have a niche product that would usually take a lot of marketing and effort to list elsewhere.

Cons: Handmaking items can be quite time-consuming and costly. Sales can be slower if there is less of a demand for handmade items.

2. Choosing A Fulfillment Method

After choosing a business model, you'll need to decide on a fulfillment method. During this stage of creating an Amazon seller account, you have two options:

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)

You should use FBA if:

You're comfortable with Amazon handling your customer service responses
You don't have logistics in place to despatch items
You have fast-moving inventory
The products that you sell are lightweight or small/medium-sized
It would cost you more to store and ship your own products

Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM)

You should use FBM if:

You have a well functioning and efficient customer service department
You have existing logistics in place
You'd like to keep control of how you interact with your customers
Your products are heavy or large in size
You have a slower moving stock inventory
You're able to absorb the costs of fulfillment

3. Choose Products to Sell

Whether you're selling handmade wedding gifts or dropshipping washing machines, it's important to browse Amazon for any competitors in your market. Determine if there's a healthy market in place for the product you want to sell and if there's a version of your product your competitors aren't selling.

4. Choose Amazon Seller Type

You'll need to decide whether to sell as an Individual or a professional when creating your seller account. Amazon uses these types to accommodate the levels of sales you're anticipating for your business.

Individual

Apply as an Individual if:

You'll sell fewer than 35 products per month
You're still trying to decide what to sell
You don't require any advanced selling tools yet

Professional

Apply as a Professional if:

You'll sell more than 35 products per month
You want access to selling reports and data
You want to use programs such as Handmade or Launchpad.

5. Choosing a Support Tool

Using the right seller tools can help you manage your Amazon seller account and get the most out of each sale. Sellzone is one such tool available to manage your Amazon listings.

With this tool, you can gain traffic insights that help you accurately measure who is viewing your products and where they're coming from.

With this data, you can make amends to your account and products to ensure you're converting viewers into customers.

Part of this is attracting viewers that are most likely to become customers. You can do this by choosing the right target keywords to include in your product listing. The Sellzone tool also gives you the ability to find optimal keywords for you with the Keyword Wizard.

You can further optimize your product listings to target that keyword, then run it through the Listing Quality Check tool.

The Sellzone tool also allows you to try Split Testing your product listings.

You'll gain valuable insight into which ads work best with your target audience so that you can deliver enticing ads with maximum impact.

Conclusion

Once you have taken the time to make an Amazon seller account, you will need to learn how to manage it with tools, keyword research.

Amazon makes the setup process relatively straightforward, so you can start selling your products and reaching millions of potential customers quickly.