Selling on Amazon

To successfully sell on Amazon and conquer overseas markets, you should set up a seller account, make a professional sales plan and list your products. Unfortunately, this is not a certainty of success. It is worth delving into the principle of selling wholesale and retail. It is important to understand and learn about the opportunities that Amazon offers for your business. If you understand the potential of this platform and familiarize yourself with the different business models, the road to success may be easier than you think. The topic of selling on the Amazon platform may seem difficult at first, but a few valuable tips will help you with getting started.

Benefits of selling on Amazon

Without a doubt, selling on Amazon has many advantages. What distinguishes Amazon from other online stores? Sellers who use this platform most often point to important conveniences such as:

• The opportunity to reach hundreds of millions of customers around the world,
• high security of payment transactions,
• Products may be shipped through Amazon’s warehouses,
• The possibility of promoting offers through the PPC model,
• permanent access to Seller Central, which can be used to check e.g. sales statistics, order defect rate or shipment delay rate,
• Access to APIs and additional sales reports,
• Access to many advanced tools to improve international sales,
• low costs to maintain the business.

Strengths of the platform in relation to Polish companies

The cost of business

One of the biggest benefits of the Amazon platform is the level of expenses you will incur in maintaining your business. In Poland, unlike suppliers from Germany, Switzerland or the Czech Republic, the costs of labor and product storage are not high. As a result, selling on Amazon is extremely profitable for Polish entrepreneurs.

Product prices

The Amazon seller who offers the best prices on the platform can count on the largest number of potential customers. Entrepreneurs from Poland often get much better price offers than contractors from other countries. Therefore, take advantage of it and start selling cheaper!

Location

Poland is perfectly connected with Germany. This provides the opportunity for often cheaper shipping than that between cities in the western region. Thanks to good road, plane and rail transport, the shipping options are constantly expanding and allow Amazon to decide to build their logistics centers right here in our country.

How to sell on Amazon?

Currently, very few Polish companies are listed on Amazon. This is most likely due to a misconception that in order to sell abroad, you need to have your company’s registration details in that particular country.  Of course, this is not true because if you have a Polish company, you can start selling in the UK or Germany. Moreover, it often turns out to be an easier and more profitable solution. However, it is worth taking one step, which will often allow you to reduce VAT in our business. Namely, you need to remember to register VAT in your country of wholesale, which will entitle you to benefit from Fulfilment by Amazon fba. Moreover, in many western countries VAT rates are much lower than in Poland.

Is an Amazon customer account needed for a seller?

How do I set up a seller account on Amazon?

To start their business on Amazon, every seller needs to create an account, that is, register on the platform. According to Amazon’s terms and conditions, registration requires a company email address or an Amazon customer account, an active credit card, and a document proving our credentials.

Na platformie Amazon dostępne są dwa rodzaje kont: profesjonalne oraz indywidualne. If you want to be taken seriously, you should opt for a professional account. However, the individual option will work for sellers whose monthly sales do not exceed 40 products.

In order to confirm your identity, you will need to provide a photocopy of your ID card or a copy of the National Court Register. When deciding to start selling on Amazon, find out what types of additional fees you may have to pay.

What is Seller Central and Vendor Central?

Amazon offers product sales in the form of different business models. In their basic configuration, they are divided into Seller Central and Vendor Central. The first of these, Seller Central, is for sellers who provide direct customer service. By adopting the second model, you can sell wholesale quantities of goods to Amazon, who will handle the distribution.

FBA

Fulfilment by amazon is a shipping method on Amazon in which the seller ships products directly to Amazon’s warehouse. Then, from there, they are shipped by Amazon to the specified address. There is an additional fee for this program, and shipping fees are charged based on the product category.

FBM

Fulfilment by Merchant is the second method of selling. The Amazon seller lists their products on the platform, owns their warehouse, and manages customer service. Self-shipping also occurs in this model.

Each sales model has its advantages and disadvantages. FBM is ideal for sellers with unique and exclusive products. FBA, on the other hand, is the best option for experienced salespeople looking to scale their sales. It is important to know that sellers who opt for the FBA model have a better chance of winning a Buy Box (what is a Buy Box, you will read below).

It’s also important that you don’t have to decide on just one sales model. Create a professional sales plan where you combine several sales models. This will allow you to take advantage of the benefits of each.

In order to sell on Amazon, what is the first thing to do?

First, carefully analyze the sales potential of your products. Ask for a free international sales forecast. Make sure that all your products have GTIN codes, these are essential to start selling. Keep in mind that on the Amazon platform, products of one type (with the same code), are grouped under one product card, even though they are sold by various vendors.

Then process your registration with the appropriate institutions. Create an Amazon account, upload your products, and configure the most important account settings, including the Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA), Fulfilment by Merchant (FBM) sales and shipping model, and how to handle returns.

It is worth remembering that you can always seek the help of a sales optimization company on Amazon, which will do all the work for you. Additionally, they will give you some valuable advice that will allow you to be named seller of the year.

Amazon brand registry

An important part of selling on Amazon is brand protection with the Amazon Brand Registry. Amazon itself allows you to protect your registered trademarks. This will help you increase consumer confidence in the company’s products. With the Brand Registry, you get the use of professional tools that allow you to detect potential intellectual property infringement.

What is the Buy Box?

Buy box as the name suggests is a box that is located on the product page where customers start the buying process. It is very common for the composition of an offer to be duplicated across multiple sellers who compete with each other for a place in the Buy Box. Amazon’s algorithm selects one seller to whom it awards the Buy Box. This allows it to streamline its sales process and attract several million customers.

How do I advertise my products on Amazon?

Amazon’s platform allows you to promote your products in the marketplace. The most popular ad formats are Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brand. The first form of advertising – Sponsored Products works on a similar principle as Google Ads. The Amazon seller pays for each view of their product. When you decide to promote your products, customers will find your offer faster than other sellers. Namely, it will be displayed at the top of the search list (in this case, the keywords entered are taken into account).

Inne formaty promowania na Amazon

Amazon SEO

The Amazon platform has its own search algorithm, called A10 or A9. To get your company’s listing to the top of the search results, you need to consider a number of factors. First of all, keep in mind the conversion, which means that the higher the sales of a product, the higher its ranking. The title of the product also turns out to be extremely important, in which all keywords should be included. Some products must also have an optimized description. Remember about product images as well. Their attractiveness draws customers’ attention.

Amazon Vine

Amazon Vine is a program that can be used in collecting feedback on the products offered. Through it, the item sold can be reviewed. In addition, each Vine Credit allows you to send 30 pieces of free product to reviewers so that you get 30 product reviews. This allows you to get more positive reviews and start selling internationally.

Amazon – changes in 2022

The year 2022 greeted us with many changes not only on the Polish economic and political market. Amazon has also succumbed to the pressure and started to care about the environment! Starting in 2022, every seller who offers their products in Germany and France must comply with the Extended Producer Responsibility regulations, and failure to do so may even result in the blocking of your account! The new environmental policy introduced by the European Union aims to improve the quality of the environment and take care of waste reduction and recycling. In Poland, this regulation is included in the Waste Management Act. An example of Extended Producer Responsibility is the WEEE Directive 2019, which talks about the recovery of used appliances and their proper collection. Its implementation is handled by ElectroG.