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How To Sell On Amazon: Step-by-Step Guide For Beginners [2021]

Maria Navolykina
Maria Navolykina Author

In this blog post, I’ll cover the essentials of how to sell on Amazon step by step — from finding products to mastering Amazon Ads, to using all other sorts of  promotions. 

You’ll also discover some of the easiest ways to become a successful Amazon FBA seller and find out how to win theAmazon Buy Box (without being punished!). Plus, closer to the end of this blog post, I’ll disclose some secret selling strategies and teach you how to (legally) hack Amazon to increase sales.

It’s 22 minutes read, so before we move forward, do some quick neck & back exercises. 

Feel refreshed? Let’s get the ball rolling.

Below is a quick overview of the article:

  1. Is Selling on Amazon Worth The Effort?
  2. How Much Does It Cost to Sell Products on Amazon?
  3. What You Need to Start Selling on Amazon
  4. How to Master and Win Amazon’s Buy Box
  5. Amazon FBA: Why You Need It to Sell on Amazon
  6. What Products to Sell on Amazon
  7. Where Can You Get Items to Sell on Amazon?
  8. How to Use Amazon SEO to Drive Traffic to Your Product Listings
  9. Amazon Ads — Another Legal Way to Get Your Orders on Amazon
  10. Three (Not so Dirty) Hacks to Improve Product Sales on Amazon
  11. More Growth Opportunities for Your Amazon-FBA Business

I. Why Selling Products on Amazon Is Still a Good Business Idea in 2021

More and more buyers are dipping their toes in the waters of Amazon shopping. No wonder Amazon has beaten eBay in terms of traffic, and it is still growing like crazy.

Amazon vs eBay
Source: SimilarWeb

But the best thing about it is that everyone benefits from Amazon’s growth, especially third-party sellers.

As of Q2 2020, independent third-party sellers account for over 53% of the total number of sales on Amazon worldwide (more than 185.5 million items!). Moreover, their sales are growing faster than those of Amazon itself!

Amazon growth
Source: Statista

That said, registering as an independent seller on Amazon is a great online business opportunity. If you’re not a risk-taker, study the guide to selling on Amazon to fuel your Amazon business and win your first sales.

II. How Much Does It Cost to Sell Products on Amazon?

The pricing scheme to sell on Amazon is the same worldwide, but the exact limits and fees vary by country.

In the USA, Amazon offers two selling plans. The Professional one costs $39.99/month plus per-item selling fees, which vary by product category. The Individual plan has no monthly subscription fees. You pay $0.99 per item sold plus other selling fees, which also vary by category. However, you won’t be able to sell more than 40 products a month.

Additionally, an Amazon referral fee is paid every time a sale occurs. It may be anywhere from 8% for personal electronics up to a crazy 45% for Amazon Device Accessories. On average, it’s about 15%.

Besides, more fees may apply:

  • Rental books service fee (USD $5.00).
  • Closing fee ($1.80 per media item that is sold).
  • High-volume listing fee ($0.005 per ASIN to cover system costs for cataloging and maintaining large numbers of ASINs).
  • Refund administration fee ($5.00 or 20% of the original referral fee, whichever is less).

The same basic pricing scheme exists on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, and Amazon in France, with the slight differences in pricing, since Amazon charges you in local currencies.

Is selling on Amazon worth it?

There’s $0.99 here, a 1.8% closing fee there… altogether these fees add up, inevitably decreasing your net profit. By the time the first, second, and third fees are applied, is there anything left for YOUR pocket?

When I was looking for some decent material to publish a success story on our website, I had interviewed one of the X-Cart store clients. He is running a successful men’s fashion business in the United Kingdom. This smart entrepreneur was one of the first to go omnichannel. He started by listing the products on eBay and Amazon, globally. amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.fr… Domain by domain. 

He admitted that each new Amazon listing increased sales by 25%, on average, and he went on adding new channels.

Does this answer whether it is worth it to sell on Amazon?  =)

Going omnichannel is easy if you use X-Cart as an eCommerce platform. It is packed with all the right features to ensure seamless sales enablement. Below are the addons you can use to manage your products across different channels, including Amazon and eBay.

Multi-channel synchronization for eBay, Amazon, Walmart, Etsy

Multi-channel synchronization for eBay, Amazon, Walmart, Etsy app for X-Cart is great for managing inventory and pricing across all channels.

Price: $41/mo. Available as a custom feature in X-Cart Enterprise

Join Amazon listing by product UPC addon

Join Amazon listing by product UPC app for X-Cart is a great addition to the above-mentioned addon. It will allow you to quickly upload your products to existing Amazon listings by UPC one by one or in bulk.

Price: Free

III. What You Need to Start Selling on Amazon

1. Create an Amazon Seller Central Account

First of all, you need a Seller account. Registration is fast. 

  • If you are planning to sell less than 40 items on Amazon, start with the Individual plan because it has no monthly subscription fee.
  • If your range of products is wider, subscribe to a professional Amazon account that will cost you $39.99/mo.

 2. Purchase GTIN and UPC codes

Second, you will need a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) to create a new product page on Amazon. Almost all North American manufacturers provide it in the form of a UPC, or an ISBN for books.

Based on the UPC code, Amazon will generate an “FNSKU” (Amazon’s proprietary barcode that will be printed on the packaging) for your products.

You don’t need to print a barcode sticker to sell on Amazon. All you need is the number.

You may see recommendations to purchase UPCs on eBay, but this is a slippery slope. You may end up paying for codes that were never verified as legitimate or unique. 

There’s a safer way to obtain a product code, according to Amazon. You can get UPC codes for Amazon from the GS1 US website. Their barcodes are accepted by all the major retailers across the globe, online and offline. 

Lookup product details by UPC and name add-on will integrate your X-Cart store with external product libraries such as Itemmaster, Aerse, Outpan, and Amazon so that you could use their product descriptions, images, and other product info.

Price: $355

NOTE: If you plan to sell the products you manufacture, consider ‘Amazon Brand Registry.’ In this case, you may be granted permission to list your products on the Amazon marketplace without a UPC or ISBN.

Further Reading:

Understanding Amazon Brand Registry and Its Limitations
[Tip Sheet] 4 Reasons Why You Should Enroll in Amazon Brand Registry

3. Figure Out What You Plan on Selling on Amazon

Third, you need to list the products on Amazon. If the product is already present in this giant marketplace, your only option is to map your product to an existing one. The point is, Amazon allows you to list products just once in the Amazon catalog. Creating a duplicate of an existing product leads to removing your copy or even deactivating your account.

Just in case your Amazon account is suspended (God forbid!), our valued partner at Payability has put together a few useful tips that will help you understand your Amazon suspension and create a successful appeal.  

If you’re selling a unique product on Amazon, you will need to create a new product listing for it.

I know, I know. Picking up a unique product is not the easiest task. That’s why we collected a bunch of simple tips that will help you find a product to sell on Amazon. You can also tap into Amazon selling software to get started. We suggest Seller Labs Pro, powered by Scope, to get a better understanding of your competition and calculate the estimated ROI of your eCommerce store.

Amazon allows you to manage listings manually and in bulk.

  • If you’re an individual seller, editing the product information, price, and shipping сosts and terms via the web interface of Amazon is the only option.
  • The volume listing tools are available in the Professional Sellers accounts. Say, you may connect your online store to Amazon and export your products to Amazon effortlessly.

4. Select the Right Amazon Fulfillment Option

Last, you need to decide on how your orders will be fulfilled. The options are by your own means (“Seller Fulfilled Prime”) or by Amazon (“Amazon FBA program”).

  1. Seller Fulfilled Prime. In the first case, you keep the items in your own warehouse. When an order comes, you ship the items directly to customers. You can mail your order with any carrier and method, as long as the buyers receive their envelopes within the timeframes you promised.

    Here at X-Cart, we have more than 30 shipping and fulfillment apps that you can use to deliver products to your customers. Below you can see an example of a great shipping automation software:

ShippingEasy shipping automation addon for X-Cart will automate your shipping based on carrier, service, package, and more.

Price: Free

  1. Amazon FBA. Note that Amazon doesn’t allow newly-registered merchants to offer expedited shipping service methods like two-day delivery right away. You are to earn this right by establishing a history of reliable shipping at the slower shipping speeds.

If having expedited delivery is crucial for your selling strategy even at the early stage, it’s a reason to consider “Fulfillment by Amazon.”

IV. How to Win Amazon’s Buy Box

When you sell a non-unique item on Amazon, a single product page will be shared by all sellers.

Your item (or, to be exact, the “Add to Cart” button that will add your item to the customer’s cart) can be displayed in either the “Buy box” or in the “Other sellers” section of the Amazon product details page.

Amazon product information page

In the example above, it’s “23andMe” who is lucky to be a “default” Amazon seller. Their item will be added to the shopping cart unless another seller’s item is explicitly chosen by a customer.

If there are 3+ sellers, which is not uncommon, you can be moved even further from the potential buyer. The buyer will need to click to view all the available offers listing this product.

Chances are, other sellers will also see orders coming. But getting into the Buy Box is a golden key to success on Amazon. The exact algorithm of how Amazon chooses the seller to “feature” is not disclosed yet. <Sigh…> Probably it takes buyers’ location, history of purchases, and other factors into account.

And that’s also one of the reasons why all the guides to selling on Amazon are so drastically different.

But here are the top factors you can control:

  • Product price and offers
  • Seller ratings and rankings
  • History as an Amazon seller
  • Fulfillment method

If there are two sellers and one of them uses “fulfillment by Amazon,” guess who will be a default seller?

Amazon FBA again.

Let’s study it with due diligence!

V. Fulfillment by Amazon: Why You Need It to Sell on Amazon

All roads lead to Rome Fulfillment by Amazon (Amazon FBA)!

If you are still not sure how to start selling on Amazon, here’s the fuss-free solution for you. Just sign up for Amazon’s state of the art fulfillment network. This will help you receive more orders through Amazon’s marketplace and succeed in it quicker.

Below you’ll discover a couple of useful rules that you should follow to succeed on Amazon as a seller:

  • Amazon prioritizes FBA sellers over FBM sellers who pack and ship the orders on their own.
  • FBA allows access to Amazon Prime shoppers. Another lure for the merchants to sign up for the Fulfillment by Amazon program is to get access to an extra segment of shoppers. These are Prime members, an estimated 150M users. This heavy segment of Amazon buyers pays $119/year to have their orders delivered within a single day or even earlier. For Amazon Prime Now, this is a matter of hours. Obviously, Amazon can guarantee this delivery at a supersonic speed only if it handles orders fulfillment.
  • Evaluate your sales using Amazon FBA Revenue Calculator. They have even created an Amazon Revenue Calculator to compare how much you earn (or could earn!) depending on who fulfills your orders. Spoiler: FBA often wins in this battle. But insert your own data and check. Just out of curiosity?
  • Amazon takes on the task of product storage and orders fulfillment. Long story short, it works this way. Step one: choose the right product that will always be in demand on Amazon. Step Two: set the right price that covers your costs, arranges product shipping to Amazon’s warehouse, and start making money, not lifting a finger any further.
  • Amazon can handle logistics & customs clearance. If you don’t want to deal even with logistics and customs clearance, you may outsource all this headache to Amazon’s Freight Forwarding Service provider for a reasonable price.

By the way, if you try to Google for a complete list of Amazon FBA warehouse locations, you will find no official info from Amazon. But a huge community of sellers needs this info. Housing inventory in some states gives a “sales tax nexus” to the seller in that very state, and storing your goods in Amazon warehouses is not an exception.

So “alternative” lists exist, based on the scraps of information picked up by TaxJar from “independent research, news stories about new fulfillment centers, interviews with current FBA sellers, and even postings on Amazon’s job boards.”

How Selling on Amazon with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) looks:

  1. Create an account with Amazon Seller Central. Edit your plan by going to the “Set up your billing method” section, and tick the “Fulfillment by Amazon” box.
Fulfillment by Amazon: billing method
  1. Choose the product to sell. Check for FBA product restrictions to make sure this product is allowed.
  2. Create your shipping plan. When you’re ready to send inventory to Amazon, create a list of products that you want to send to Amazon fulfillment centers. This list is called a Shipping plan.
  3. Specify your location. When you list your product, you specify where you will ship the item from. Amazon uses this info to “assign” the Fulfillment by Amazon warehouse for you to ship the products to. You don’t choose it.
  4. You box up and ship your products to the Amazon FBA warehouse in bulk. Your only purpose is to deliver it in a proper condition and in the most cost-effective way.
  5. Amazon’s staff unpacks everything and verifies that the right items in proper condition and quantity have been received.
  6. Your listing is active, and you can start selling on Amazon this very second. Yahoo! 
  7. Time to relax a bit. Once the new order arrives, it’s Amazon who picks, packs, and ships the item to customers.
  8. Your share of the sale is deposited into your seller account. It is made up of the selling price, minus Amazon’s fees. An email notifies you every time when this happens. Many of our clients prefer using Seller Labs Pro to get a clearer picture of the incoming cash flow and to understand where you can be most profitable.

Sounds like a dream job! It really is for many.

Amazon does a great job making it attractive for sellers. The incentives are strong. Will you join the club and start selling online with Amazon, too?

join the club

Just choose the right product to sell. I’ll tell you how.

What Products to Sell on Amazon

Generally speaking, you can sell everything but restricted items.

There’s a list of prohibited products, generally referred by Amazon as “illegal or unsafe.” Hazardous and Dangerous items, certain Tobacco-related products, Explosives, Weapons, and related items, Alcohol, unless you’re a pre-approved wine seller.

Keep in mind that certain product categories require you to obtain pre-approval from Amazon before listing in those categories. The examples are collectibles, wine, watches, video, etc.

In fact, you can’t sell real estate, pets, or cars, either. You may not sell used clothing, shoes, or handbags. No used jewelry or watches either, even though they seem pretty safe and legal.

Doubt whether your product will be considered by Amazon “legal and safe” enough? Start studying the Category, Listing, and Product restrictions from here. But “what you can sell on Amazon” is only the first part of the question.

What one really wants to know when they register an account in Amazon Seller Center, is how to discover profitable products to sell.

You may do Amazon product research manually or sign up for a service like Seller Labs Pro to pinpoint the best products to sell.

What Item Is Likely to Bring More Orders to an Amazon Seller?

  • The target sale price is within the range of $10 — $60.
  • The manufacturing/supply cost is within 25% to 35% of your sale price.
  • Cheap to ship: compact, lightweight, not fragile.
  • Difficult to break in everyday use.
  • “Evergreen,” i.e., not seasonal or holiday-specific items.
  • Opportunity to develop and upsell complementary products.
  • No competition with loud brand names or major Amazon sellers.
  • The items can be listed in multiple product categories.
  • The product is in demand: top product keywords have 100,000+ searches in total per month, as seen in Keyword Planner by Google.

Take a look at Amazon’s bestsellers. They meet most of these criteria, if not all of them:

LeapFrog Learning Friends 100 Words Book, Green — $14.96
Amoji Unisex Garden Clogs Shoes Slippers Sandals — $21.99
Echo Dot (3rd Gen) – Smart speaker with Alexa – Charcoal — $39.99
Cards Against Humanity — $25.00

Amazon product information

Each of them is compact, solid, easy, and cheap to ship, evergreen, affordable enough for a spontaneous purchase. Can you say the same about your product?

How to Sell Books on Amazon

Selling books on Amazon (new or used ones) is one of the best ways to start an online business. We have put together a great guide that should help you jumpstart sales as a new seller.

VII. Where Can You Get Items to Sell on Amazon?

Pulling products to sell on Amazon out of the hat is only one possible trick. There are several more tricks that will help you find products to sell. More doable even for an “average magician” =)

Option 1: Make Money Selling on Amazon via Retail Arbitrage

First of all, you can try the approach called Retail Arbitrage. The concept is simple. You buy a product in a retail store at a discount and resell it for a higher price on Amazon, putting the difference in your pocket.

The main challenge is to find the best deals. For some reason, most of the experiments that I read about mentioned Target.

Say, this one describes an experiment with a $150 budget and $100 profit.

But Target doesn’t like being a Retail Arbitrage Supplier. They’re strongly against resellers, so be careful, or you will be banned.

Retail Arbitrage seems to be an acceptable scenario for a business startup with little to no budget. But flipping the products this way, you will have limited opportunities to grow.

Option 2: Amazon Dropshipping

If you can stand firmly on your two feet, you should consider the alternative ways of selling products on Amazon, such as dropshipping. I would prefer not to dwell on the topic any further as there’s an extensive article by our partner, Rukham Khan. See it below. 

Option 3: Selling Private Label Products on Amazon

Try to find an item that is selling online well but has something to improve. Now create a better version of it.

There are many readily available white-label products that you can rebrand or private-label, and sell on amazon.com.

Note that you CAN’T private-label an existing brand, or you would get into serious trouble. Trademarking and intellectual property laws protect brands from cunning tricksters.

Things You Need to Know to Sell Private Label Products on Amazon

  1. You must get in touch with a supplier and make sure that the product is truly a white-label product (or “generic”), and you have the legal right to private-label it.
  2. You may put your logo on it, pack the product in your colors, and sell it on Amazon. It will be a simple rebranding, which may work fine if the competition is low.
  3. You may also alter the product itself, making it physically different from what your competitors offer. Unique colors, extra features. Some manufacturers agree to do that on their side too, so ask if this is possible when you’re negotiating the contract.

How to find wholesale suppliers and manufacturers who sell white-label products? This article contains a brilliant video with spoon-fed answers to all the questions around the topic. 

Even though you will need some initial budget to sign a contract with a white-label product supplier, this still can be a very profitable route to take.

Additional read:
How to Sell Private Label Products on Amazon in 2020

Option 4: Start Selling Your Own Products on Amazon

Start your own brand and invent your product from scratch. Manufacture it on your own or outsource the task to a professional supplier. Pack, take professional photos, create irresistible product descriptions, and work hard to market on Amazon.

It’s a bumpy ride, but test-driving your product on Amazon is one of the quickest ways to see its potential.

Don’t get upset if, at some point, you will feel overwhelmed with the variety of different tasks; experts like Seller Labs are always here to have your back. They’ll assist you with PPC campaigns, creating beautiful images of your products, optimizing your messaging, and handling all the other Amazon optimization tasks you don’t have time for.

VIII. How to Use Amazon SEO to Drive Traffic (And Orders!) to Your Product Listings

Amazon is the largest world Product Search Engine.

A9, the search engine that powers Amazon search, is constantly evolving. What worked two years ago no longer works now. That’s why Amazon SEO (just like eCommerce SEO) is the task you will have to return from time to time, revising your strategy.

But as of now, I’ll tell you the best (and safest!) practices for your Amazon listing optimization.

According to Amazon, it’s not only copywriting that determines where your product appears in a customer’s search result.

Price, great customer service, and your history as an Amazon Seller also make a difference when it comes to organic search results.

But the role of building a solid listing is still extremely high.

Amazon SEO: How to Rank Highly and Sell More on Amazon

  • Make sure the title looks natural, contains your brand name, and all of the essential elements of the product like target keywords. 
  • Populate as many relevant terms as possible. Pro tip: Don’t “keyword stuff” your product titles. Instead, insert only the most relevant keywords. This will ensure your products will reach the right audience.
  • Use bullet formatting. Words in the bullets don’t carry as much weight as those in the title, but they will be indexed by Amazon, so you have an opportunity to make a play in the marketplace search engine.
  • Consider your Backend Search Terms. These terms get indexed too, even if they aren’t visible to customers. This is the place to write misspellings, slang, Spanish/Chinese terms, and other words that are commonly used in your niche, but don’t 100% fit the “public” descriptions.
  • Add product photos. It goes without saying that high-quality photos increase conversions, and better product sales directly impact the product’s rank in search results. Amazon also instructs users to upload images larger than 1000×1000 pixels, since the ability to “zoom in” on a product has proven to enhance sales. Another photo tip: The number of photos available also matters for Amazon’s search algorithm, so make sure you have enough photos to accurately show the product.

You can find more tips on Amazon SEO in the following guide, Amazon SEO: How to Get Your Products Found on the Amazon Marketplace.

What is outside of copywriting, but within your control too:

  • Real Product Sales. Nothing lifts your product in the search results better than its actual sales. Keeping that in mind, you can try the following: drive external traffic to your product and convince Amazon that your product is what customers are eager to buy. Google Adwords, posts, and ads in social media, email marketing campaigns — these are common ways to drive external traffic to your Amazon listings.
  • Product reviews. Doing product research, people read reviews. When reviews are positive, all from verified buyers, with photos and real people behind them, the product sells better, which is exactly what Amazon LOVES. Amazon exerts its best efforts to penalize fake reviews and encourage real feedback. This is why reviews on Amazon are extremely credible. First, work your arse off to impress your buyers with your product and customer service, then incentivize them to write about their great experience.

Note: Be careful requesting Amazon seller feedback and product reviews. Amazon may penalize you if you don’t adhere to its Communications Guidelines. This quick guide from SellerLabs will help you decipher the alphabet soup.

I cannot but mention here my massive guide on how to sell products online. I recommend you to read it from cover to cover, but if you are in a rush (as all of us!), you can run through the last paragraph only.

IX. Amazon Ads — Another Legal Way to Get Your Orders on Amazon

Amazon PPC is a reliable way to drive internal Amazon traffic to your listings and sell more effectively on Amazon.

There are three self-service advertising options you can take advantage of:

  • Amazon Sponsored Products are the most popular PPC ads that are shown on both product pages and Amazon’s search results. They are available for both Vendor Central and Seller Central members and allow you to target by keyword, ASIN, or category.
Amazon Sponsored Products
  • Amazon Sponsored Brands (formerly Amazon Headline Search Ads) — are cost-per-click (CPC) ads available only to those enrolled in Amazon’s Brand Registry. This can help sellers increase brand awareness and get more sales. These ads can be displayed on top of, alongside, or within shopping results, both on desktop and mobile.
Amazon Sponsored Brands
  • Amazon Sponsored Display Ads (formerly Product Display Ads) are also available to Amazon Brand Registry participants. Unlike Sponsored Brands or Product Ads, these ads are based on customer behavior. For example, if a customer once viewed your product or a product similar to yours, she will see your ad. The best thing is that Sponsored Displayed Ads can be displayed on a wide range of places off Amazon.
Amazon Sponsored Display Ads

Depending on the type of ad you choose, it will show below the search results, above the search results, and on related product detail pages.

Advertising on Amazon is auction-based, so you’ve got to set the bid and daily/campaign budget. The more competitive your bid is, the more likely it is that your ad will be displayed.

We suggest a minimum bid per keyword of $0.05 for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Display Ads, $0.10 for Sponsored Brands.

The minimum budget is $1.00/day for Product Display (though Amazon recommends at least $10 to ensure your ad campaign doesn’t stop working in the middle of the day) and from $100 for the entire campaign of the other two types.

Sponsored Products is probably the simplest way to get started, but study this guide on Amazon advertising to have a better understanding of what else you can do and how.

If you prefer having an expert handle this for you, the guys from Seller Labs can help you set, meet, and exceed your advertising goals. Alternatively, you can also try their advertising tool that’s included in their Pro plan.

X. Three (Not so Dirty) Hacks to Improve Product Sales on Amazon

White hat ways to make sales, such as optimizing your listings for Amazon and running Ads may sometimes not be enough, so the most dexterous merchants are starting to look for additional ways to gin up their Amazon sales.

These are top-3 hacks that should help you sell more effectively on Amazon.

Trick #1: Artificially High Price Plus Big Discount (It’s Classic)

Amazon shoppers are looking for good deals. When they see a fair discount, your product sells well.

Many sellers have all their items “on sale”, all the time. Set a regular price at $49.99, set a sale price at $24.99. The customers feel like they have found a good deal (half price!) and… buy it with triple the speed and gusto!

how to sell on Amazon using discounts

Trick #2: Offer a Little Bit Better of a Price

Price is a pretty much determining factor in winning the Buy Box or not. Check what your competitors are selling your product for on Amazon and sell it for just one cent less.

Note that this penny-pinching strategy is not a secret weapon of yours. The other sellers are well-armed too, so you may very soon discover that their price has gone another cent lower. Moreover, there are even automated tools called Repricers that help sellers race to the bottom. Sellery, SellerEngine Plus, RepricerExpress are among the most popular ones.

Note: If you notice that a competitor has “accepted your challenge to battle in the penny-war,” you may choose not to BEAT this competitor, but just MATCH the price she sets. Underselling your competitors decreases the margin, and then no one wins.

Amazon free shipping

Trick #3: Create Amazon’s Vendor Powered Coupons (VPCs)

If you’re competing in a tough niche, creating Vendor Powered Coupons (VPS) can jumpstart your sales on Amazon.

The coupons are popular among online shoppers, so they’re not pitched around the website too actively.

sell on Amazon using VPC

Yet, you’re getting quite a good exposure just by creating a VPC. Your customers will be able to see your promotional coupon codes:

  • In the Gold Box.
  • On a dedicated Coupons page.
  • In Amazon’s notifications.

The coupons have their own “Sales rank”, just as your products do. It means that the more popular your coupon is, the higher it will be shown in the results, and the more sales it will generate.

Having their own sales rank also means a downside. It does not affect the Buy Box pricing logic <sigh…>. It won’t help you in winning the Buy Box, no matter how low your price will be after the coupon is applied.

VPC is a paid marketing tool. Amazon charges a redemption fee of $0.60 every time the coupon is redeemed. If the coupon is only clipped, but not redeemed, you won’t be charged.

This marketing opportunity is available to both Amazon vendors and sellers. You can create VPCs in Amazon Seller Central, set a maximum budget, and the coupon will turn off automatically as soon as the budget is spent.

You can also use coupons outside your Amazon store, using the following apps:

Coupon Roulette addon for X-Cart adds a gamified pop-up to your eCommerce site and helps you collect emails from your potential customers.

Price: Available for free in X-Cart Cloud Premium edition

Discount coupons is a simple addon for X-Cart that lets your customers shop with a coupon.

Price: Free

XI. More Growth Opportunities for Your Amazon-FBA Business

If you have your own product to sell online, you may consider selling on Amazon as an EXTRA sales channel, not as the ONLY one.

Going omnichannel has been a trend in eCommerce, and that’s not for nothing. This integrated approach is a proven way to reach more potential customers, hence — to sell more.

Btw, there’s an extensive guide on omnichannel retailing in our blog. You will learn how to use this new hot strategy and what on earth this fancy buzzword means.

How to Connect Your Online Store and Start Selling on Amazon Step by Step

Online eCommerce store + Amazon store = ❤

  1. Create your online store with X-Cart shopping platform. This is a starting-eCommerce-website-from-scratch guide for you to understand where and how to proceed.
  1. Connect your online store to Amazon and export your products to Amazon effortlessly using our multi-channel synchronization app. Feel free to get back to our Custom Development Team for additional customization and set up. 
  1. Enable Amazon Payments on your eCommerce store checkout with a free Amazon Pay addon.

Amazon Pay addon for X-Cart will give your customers a convenient option to shop online.
Price: Available for FREE in X-Cart Cloud Business & Premium editions

  1. Advertise your product on Amazon to drive targeted traffic to your site: motivated shoppers with their purses open and credit cards prepared.

Still Wondering How To Sell On Amazon?

If you have read this beginner’s guide up to the end and still have doubts about whether to sell on Amazon or not, that’s okay. Getting out of the comfort zone is hard. But what risk do you take if you just try?

Are you afraid of losing money? The beginner, getting started on Amazon, needs about $1K. If you’re going to spend $5K, you’re probably overspending.

Time? We’re speaking about several hours of active work. Plus, several days of passive waiting for results.

In the best scenario, you will start your own successful business on Amazon. In the worst case, you will know that you have at least tried, and it’s high time to move to another channel. eBay or Facebook, for example. In both cases, the price you pay seems affordable.

If an idea to sell on Amazon has ever come to your mind, it’s time to bring it to life.

Go to Chapter 2
Go to Chapter 4

Chapters

Maria Navolykina
Maria Navolykina Marketing Manager

Maria is a marketing manager at X-Cart. Once captured by digital and content marketing in her student days, she keeps living and breathing it ever since.

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    Meanwhile, learn how LittleDiode doubled down on efficiency and increased revenue with X-Cart.

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