Amazon is the world’s biggest marketplace and it allows people like you to sell products and make money online. This question is asked to me many a time that how to start selling on amazon. So, this post is a comprehensive guide on how to sell on amazon for beginners.
Table of Contents
How to Sell on Amazon?
If you have no prior experience and knowledge on how to sell on amazon, then this guide is for you. This guide is for absolute beginners and complete knowledge that is required to sell on amazon will be covered in this guide.
Why Should You Register As A Seller on Amazon?
Amazon is the biggest and fastest-growing eCommerce marketplace launched in India in 2013 and after that, the growth of Amazon drastically increases. The marketplace has more than 2 lakh sellers who are making good money by selling on amazon.
Being an Amazon seller helps your business to expand across India even across the world. But for this guide, we will only be talking about amazon India and learn how to sell on Amazon India.
Why Amazon?
- Fastest growing eCommerce marketplace
- Get access to customers across India
- Easy to register and set up your store on amazon
- Access to world-class amazon seller tools
- On-time payments
- 24 x 7 seller support
Documents Required to Become a Seller on Amazon
In case of Individual or a Sole Proprietor
A Sole Proprietor, individual entrepreneurship is a type of enterprise that is owned and run by a person.
Documents Required
- GST Registration Number
- PAN Number
- Bank Account Number
- Email ID
- Contact Number
In case of Private Limited Company
A Private Limited Company or LTD is a company that is privately held for small businesses.
Documents Required
- GST Registration Number
- Copy of Certificate of Incorporation
- Copy of Memorandum of Association
- Bank Account Number
- Email ID
- Contact Number
Private Limited Company is the most preferred form for Amazon Seller Registration as it can scale up in the future. If you wish to work for long on amazon then LTD registration will be preferred.
Amazon Seller Registration Process
Seller registration on amazon is a few simple steps process. If you have all the documents handy seller registration will not take more than 20 minutes.
To register as a seller on amazon, visit sellercentral.amazon.in and start your seller registration process by clicking on Register now but before proceeding please go through the link below to learn about each step of amazon seller registration process in details.
Click here to learn about complete amazon seller registration process step by step
How to Find Best Products to Sell on Amazon?
Amazon has more than 2 lakh seller’s and you can find almost all the products listed on amazon. The marketplace offers the opportunity to earn money by selling products online and existing sellers offer a tough competition to the new seller. So, what exactly required is the selection of the right products that can help to get sales on amazon.
Now the question comes is how to find the best products that can make money for you?
Many tools can be used for product research, but most of them are paid and I don’t want you to spend any money at the start of your selling journey. So, I am going to show you a platform where you can find amazon top selling products for every category on amazon.in
Amazon’s best seller is the platform accessible to all where you can find the top 100 selling products on amazon category wise.
Amazon’s best seller platform helps you to choose what are the top trending products on amazon for every category. Click to visit amazon best sellers and find the top-selling products on amazon for the category in which you wish to start selling on amazon.
Once you visit the amazon best sellers website at the left side of the page all the categories are listed that I have highlighted in red. Select the category in which to want to start selling and the top 100 selling products for that category will be visible to you.
How Much Does it Cost to Sell on Amazon?
I hope you have chosen the right products to sell on Amazon India. Now comes is the time to decide the selling price of the products and it won’t be possible if you are not aware of the selling fees charges by amazon.
Selling on Amazon Fees
- Amazon Referral Fees
Based on the category of your product, a percentage amount of your selling price is charged as referral fees. You can check the referral fee charged by amazon for every category by clicking here.
- Amazon Fixed Closing Fees
- Amazon Easy Ship
Easy ship fee is charged based on the weight (Actual weight or Volumetric weight) of the products and the place where delivery needs to be done (Local, Regional or National).
Actual Weight – Actual weight refers to the weight of the items in gms.
Volumetric Weight – Volumetric weight is calculated as [(Length * Breadth * Height)/5] will give you volumetric weight in gms where L, B, H are in cms.
Local Shipment – If the delivery happens in the same city you are operating.
Regional Shipment – India has been divided into four regions. This fee is applicable if the shipment moves within the same region. Click here to check the four regions.
National Shipment – If the shipment moves across the regions.
Note – All the fees which are mentioned above are excluding 18% GST
How do I calculate the selling price of my product to sell on amazon?
Now that you are well aware of the various fees charged by Amazon. You can calculate the selling price of your items to sell on amazon. Below I have shown an example which will extremely help you.
Selling Price (SP) = Cost Price (CP) + ({Amazon referral fee + Fixed Closing Fee + Easy Ship Fee} +18% GST) + GST to be paid to government
Let say we want to sell a product in category “Accessories – Electronic, PC and Wireless” which have a commission rate of 16.5%.
Let cost price of item = INR 250 (Includes input GST + Transportation charges to buy it + Storage charge to kept it)
Let say the selling price of item = INR 550
Referral fee charged on referral fee = 550 * 16.5/ 100 = INR 90.75
Fixed closing fee charged = INR 20 ( in case of (Easy Ship) excl. easy ship prime)
Easy Ship Fee
Let the weight of the item = 400 gms
Dimension = 20 cm * 20 cm * 10 cm
Volumetric weight = 20*20*10/5 = 4000/5 = 800 gms
Volumetric weight is greater than actual weight. So, Volumetric weight will be used to calculate the charges.
Let say the shipment is a regional shipment then,
Easy Ship Fee Charged = INR 46 (For first 500 gms) + INR 21 (For next 300 gms) = INR 67
Amazon Fee Charged = 90.75 + 20 + 67 = INR 177.75
GST on Amazon Fee Charged = 177.75*18/100 = INR 31.95 { Can be claimed while filing GST return}
Total Amazon Fee Charged = 177.75 + 31.95 = INR 209.74
Let say GST to be paid = 12%
GST = 550*12/100 = INR 66
Profit = Selling Price – Cost Price – Amazon Fees Charged – GST = 550 – 250 – 209.74 – 66= INR 30.26
Note – GST charged on amazon fee as well as on the cost price can be claimed while filing GST monthly return.
So Net Profit = 30.26 (Profit) + 31.95 (GST on Amazon Fee charged) + 26.78 (GST on Cost Price) = INR 88.99
Please note that I have not included the product packaging cost and the return product cost as of now. Please include these costs as well while calculating the selling price of your products on amazon.
*Return cost will be generally taken as 2% of the selling price.
*Packaging cost will be generally taken in range (INR 20 – INR 50) depending upon the type of item and material you have used.
How to Add Products on Amazon?
You can add products on amazon one by one or you can add products on amazon in bulk using a flat-file. Also, you can add your offer in the products already listed on amazon.
Confusing ????…..
Don’t worry the things will be cleared in a while
- How to add your offer in the products already listed on amazon.
- Login to your amazon seller central account.
- In the top navigation bar hover over inventory and click on” Add a Product”.
- Search for the product you want to list in the search bar under “List a new product” and click on search.
- All the products which are already listed with the same name appear on the screen.
- Browse the result and check whether the same product you want to list is already there or not.
- If the product is already listed then click on listing limitation apply.
- See the listing limitation, if your product does not fall under limitation criteria feel free to click on the “Sell Your” button.
- Enter your product information like SKU, Your price, MRP, Condition, Quantity and Select the Fulfillment channel (Easy Ship/Self Ship or FBA).
SKU stands for stock keeping unit. It is used to manage your inventory. You can use alphabets, numbers or a combination of both to create an SKU.
Please keep in mind that SKU should be unique. In case you will not provide any value in the SKU field, a unique SKU will be auto-added by the amazon system.
This is how your offer will look like.
You might be in the thought that that screenshot is showing that there are 103 offers i.e 103 sellers have added their offer for the same product. So, which seller will receive the order if someone has ordered it. Here comes Amazon buy box.
Just see above 103 offers, it is written sold by {Seller name}.
If 103 seller has created the offer, amazon algorithm decides which is the best offer for the customer and accordingly that seller will receive the buy box.
Amazon buy box keeps to rotating based on certain criteria like seller rating, price, fulfillment channel, etc.
- How to add products on amazon using add a product feature – Amazon single product upload
Click here to learn how to add product on amazon one by one
If you are adding products on amazon one by one then you are required to purchase product id. You can purchase product id from any eCommerce marketplace.
If you are not interested in purchasing the product id then you can apply for Amazon GTIN Exemption. Click here to learn how to add products on amazon without product id – Amazon GTIN Exemption.
Once your GTIN exemption request is approved you can add products on amazon using a flat-file. Click here to learn how to add products on amazon using inventory file template – Amazon Bulk Product Upload
How your Product Displays to Customer on Amazon.in?
I hope you have successfully added your products on Amazon India. If you are facing any issue while adding products on amazon you can post your query below in the comment section.
I hope you have successfully listed your products on amazon. Now let’s see how your product look on amazon
Product Search Result Page
When you search for any product on Amazon.in several results matching your query will be shown on the page. This page is known is the product search result page.
In the screenshot shown above, we have searched for “wooden fruit basket” on amazon. The picture displays the top 4 results for my query. The first two results are sponsored products having a sponsored batch right below their picture. We will discuss more amazon sponsored products in a while.
Product Details Page
When you click on any product on the amazon search result you will be redirected to amazon product details page where you can find complete details about the product.
The picture above shows how your product will be displayed on the product details page. I have tried to highlight the important things which include product title, product reviews, seller name, seller ratings, bullet points, buy box button, main and the other product images on the product detail page through arrow representation. Other things like MRP, Your price is easy to understand.
How to Get Your First Order on Amazon Seller Central?
Getting your first order on Amazon is never so simple because you have no seller ratings and product reviews to gain the trust of customers.
Don’t worry “When there is will there is a way“
If you have decided to become an amazon seller, I will bet you nobody can stop you from becoming successful.
How to get sales on amazon with zero product reviews and no seller ratings?
Product reviews and seller ratings are not under your control but there are other things as well which can be done perfectly to gain the shopper’s interest.
- Use HD quality images.
- Low Pricing
- Provide complete information about the product.
- Use bullet points to showcase the specifications of the product.
- Don’t use long sentences in bullet points and descriptions.
- Provide keywords in the keyword field
- Use at least one keyword in title and description.
- Share your products on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
- Use a platform like quora.com to answers the question in which you can share a link of your product that will also help your product get sold.
- Use sponsored ads on your products to get an initial sale.
How your Product Displays to Customer on Amazon.in?
How to Get Your First Order on Amazon Seller Central?
I thought you have followed the techniques I have shared to get initial sales on amazon and you have already received your first order.
Now comes the time to impress your customer at such a level that he/she will be self-forced to provide a positive seller rating.
Packaging plays an important role in delighting and gains customer trust. Good packaging not only beautifies your product but also helps to reduce damages that occur during transportation which helps to reduce the customer returns.
How to pack amazon orders?
You can use amazon packaging material or packaging material of your brand or any other packaging material with nothing printed over it, but you are not allowed to use the packaging material of any other marketplace.
You can refer to the amazon packaging guidelines to learn how to pack order on amazon.
Packaging Guidelines by Category
How to Ship Amazon Orders to Customers?
Amazon provides its seller 3 different ways to ship an order to customers namely Amazon Easy Ship, Amazon Self Ship and Fulfillment By Amazon.
Let us first understand the type of fulfillment network amazon offers.
- Merchant Fulfilled Network
- Amazon Fulfilled Network
Merchant Fulfilled Network (MFN) – If the seller is responsible to pack the items and uses either amazon easy ship or amazon self-ship to ship orders to customers than the product is said to be merchant fulfilled and the network is called MFN.
Amazon Easy Ship – Amazon Easy Ship is the shipping service offered by Amazon. Amazon has its own transportation company ATS (Amazon Transportation Company) which offers easy ship services to the sellers.
The service is eligible at selected pin codes. You can check the eligibility by providing your pin code during the registration process.
If you have opted for Amazon Easy Ship Services then you are required to pack your orders and schedule their pickup at a particular date and time within your SLA. If the SLA gets breached, your seller performance metrics get affected, even the order will be canceled if you have not shipped it post 24 hours the SLA is breached and you will be charged 8% of the order total value as penalty.
Once you have scheduled the pickup for your easy ship order, the courier person from amazon will come at your registered address to pick the item at your selected time slot.
You can learn about amazon easy ship charges by clicking here.
What if easy ship services are not available at your Pincode?
If the easy ship services are not available at your Pincode you can opt for Amazon self-ship services.
Amazon Self Ship – If your Pincode is not eligible for amazon’s easy ship then you can opt for amazon self-ship and use third party courier services to deliver your orders to customers.
Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) – Most of you have heard about amazon prime, its benefits, one-day delivery, two day delivery as an amazon customer and you all are being aware of how to become an amazon prime customer.
Now we are going to learn how to become an amazon prime seller. It is simple. Yes, Trust me.
Amazon has a world-class fulfillment center where they allow Amazon sellers to store their inventory and operate their business from these fulfillment centers. Once you receive any order Amazon will pick, pack and deliver it to your customers. Also, the product returns and customer support are managed by amazon itself. This is how a seller can become an amazon prime seller.
Learn more about amazon fba, its benefits, fees etc in detail
How to Manage Returns on Amazon?
Returns are the biggest concern for every seller selling on amazon. You can only reduce the number of returns by adding extra efforts in packaging, on-time delivery, etc but you cannot achieve zero percent return rate on amazon seller central.
Types of products returns
- Customer Returns
- Undeliverable Order Returns
- Rejected orders Returns
Items that are returned by customers are referred to as customer returns.
How to manage returns and issue refund to customers?
There are three ways to manage returns on amazon namely
- You can authorize each request
- You can allow amazon to automatically authorize all requests that meets amazon return policy.
- You can allow amazon to automatically authorize all requests
In case you are authorizing the return request, the parcel will be returned to you and based on the return item condition you can generate a refund to the buyer.
Also once customers request a return they are required to print Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) and print on the top of the package. Under the return setting, you will be asked to for RMA Settings.
- I want Amazon to generate a RMA Number
- I want to provide RMA Number
If you want amazon to generate the RMA number you can select the first checkbox and vice versa.
To access the return setting in amazon seller central
- Login to your amazon seller central account.
- In the top navigation bar hover over Orders and click on Manage Returns
- Once you click on Manage returns you will see an option of “Edit Return Settings”. Click on it and you can manage the return settings.
How Amazon Process Payments to Sellers?
Amazon first settles your account balance after 14 days once you received your first amazon order, after that the settlement process repeats after 7 days.
There are two modes of payments
- COD Transactions and Non-Transactional Fees – It includes payments of all the cash on delivery(COD) orders.
- Electronic Transactions – It includes payments of al the orders which are paid using Credit Card/Debit Card/Net Banking etc.
To access the payments statements
- Login to your amazon seller account.
- Hover over Reports in the top navigation bar and click on Payments.
- Once you click on it there are two payment modes as discussed above “COD” and “Electronic”.
- Select one of the payment modes.
Now you can see the statement view. You can select the date range (in weeks) to view the statement view of that particular week. By default the current week is selected.
The statement will show your Beginning Balance (Remaining balance of the previous week). This balance is held to refund the customer in case a return request will be generated. Other things which are included are product charges, amazon fees, TCS, amazon easy ship charges, refunds, etc. At the bottom, you can view the closing balance which will be transferred to you in the next settlement date.
Under the payments, you can also view the Transaction View for each order. Every transaction related to every order can be seen in the transaction view.
As a beginner, this would be enough to learn about payments. There are some more things to be discussed which I will share with you in a separate post on amazon payments.
Meanwhile, you can watch the below video to understand amazon payments better.
Advertise Your Prdocust on Amazon
Amazon Sponsored Products
Amazon sponsored products are an easy and effective way to target your products to potential customers. With amazon sponsored products you can target the customers which are relevant to your products and thus increase your sales.
How to create Sponsored Ads on Amazon?
Creating sponsored ads on amazon are a few simple step process but proper knowledge about different terminologies will be required before creating amazon sponsored products campaign because without proper knowledge you can lose your money gaining nothing.
Amazon Sponsored Ads Placements?
Amazon Sponsored products appear on the top and bottom of the product search result page and at the bottom of the product detail page.
Amazon Sponsored Ads can be identified with the sponsored batch which appears the between product image and the title.
Top of Amazon Search Result Page
Bottom of Amazon Search Result Page
Bottom of Amazon Detail Page
Getting Started with FBA
Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA)
Fulfillment by Amazon is one of the best programs of amazon where sellers can store their inventory at amazon’s world-class fulfillment centers. Amazon will store, pick, pack and ship orders across India and also all the returns and customer service are managed by amazon itself.
Benefits of Amazon FBA
- Amazon Prime Tag
- No Packaging Overhead
- Increases chances of getting more sales
- Increased chances of getting a buy box
- Amazon will handle all customer related issues
- Sellers can participate in lightning deals
- Hassle-free storage and transportation
- Helps to build customer trust
So, guys, this is all for this guide. I thought you have read the full guide and you are now quite confident to start your eCommerce store on amazon. This is a beginner guide on how to sell on amazon and I have tried to cover almost all the topics that will be required to be known at the beginner level. There are many things which still need to be known to become a pro amazon seller so don’t forget to subscribe to the blog to receive the latest post notification on your email.
If you any query which is related to this post or amazon marketplace please feel free to post your query in the comment below. Also, request you to share your thoughts about this post in the comment below.
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Frequently Asked Questions - How to Sell On Amaozn
A Seller is generally exempted from providing the GST registration number if the seller is selling only Books. Even sellers selling books may be required to register, the rules for registration vary from state to state sometimes. Please contact your tax advisor to determine your obligations.
Current Account is not mandatory to sell on amazon. However, experts recommend having a current account.
The legal business name is the name that appears on your GST certificate.
If easy ship services are not available at customers’ Pincode, then you can use self-ship to deliver your orders. You will only receive orders from such areas only if you have opted for amazon self-ship.
Seller registration, product listing (up to 1 lakh products) on amazon are free. However, Amazon will charge a small fee for every product sale. This fee will depend on the category and sub-category of the product.
Amazon has a reimbursement policy (Amazon Safe T Claim) to reimburse the seller from the losses incurred due to the buyer. Easy Ship sellers can file a claim against the order for which the shipments get lost, damaged, original item not returned to claim reimbursement from Amazon. Learn more about amazon’s safe t claim.
The first payment will take 14 days after which sellers will be paid every 7 days.
Amazon sponsored products are a way to advertise products on amazon. Using amazon sponsored products sellers can showcase their products to relevant shoppers and thus increase sales on amazon
To become an amazon prime seller, you must register for amazon FBA. Amazon FBA is an Amazon program where amazon seller stores its inventory at one of the Amazon fulfillment centers. Amazon will store, pick, pack and deliver products to customers on the seller’s behalf.
Yes, Amazon offers the app for their seller namely “Amazon Seller” which is available for both android and ios platform. This app is really helpful to manage your seller account from your phone.
You will be required to register amazon fulfillment center as an additional place of business in your GST account.
Product Variations are created for similar products that are available in different colors, sizes, etc. For eg. T-shirts, Shoes. Creating variations helps to increase the chances of product sales.
You can watch this video to learn how to create variations on amazon.
A negative rating will impact your seller performance metrics. Try to contact the customer and ask them to remove the negative feedback.
Yes, Amazon offers a B2B program through which you can sell to amazon verified business customers. You will need to enroll for the Amazon B2B program to get B2B orders.
There is no charge to create amazon sponsored ads. The seller will only be charged when someone clicks on the sponsored ad. The amount charged is equal to 1 paisa more than the next lower bid from your bid.
To create image links you can visit postimage.org, upload the image and copy the link with .jpg extension. You can also use a dropbox or google drive to create image links.
SKU stands stock keeping unit. It is used to manage inventory. You can use alphabets, number or a combination of both to create an SKU. If you left the SKU field empty a unique SKU will be auto-generated for you.
You must have a registered brand for this purpose. You can apply for the Amazon brand registry. Once your request will be approved, no other seller can add their offer in your amazon product listing.
If you have a registered brand on Amazon, then you are eligible to create headline search ads and your amazon store page.