February 14, 2020

The Beginner’s Guide to Selling on Amazon with Amazon FBA

Breaking into the ecommerce sector can often be nerve-wracking for someone with little to no business experience. Even for someone who has years of business experience, the process can still be a little tricky. That being said, it doesn’t actually have to be that way. The Amazon FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) service is a great business model to start off with to ease the learning curve of starting an ecommerce business from scratch.

It works just like any other ecommerce business but without some of the most complicated aspects of running an ecommerce business such as logistics, warehousing, packaging and shipping to customers. Does it sound too good to be true? Well, if you understand the basics of how the Amazon FBA system works, you could have your own business up and running successfully in less time than you thought!

This guide will take you through the steps of understanding what Amazon FBA is, how it works and how you can start selling through it. So, let’s dive right into it!

What is Amazon FBA?

FBA stands for “Fulfillment By Amazon” and their motto is “You sell it, we ship it.” Amazon has worked towards creating a fulfillment network that is jam-packed with several advanced features that have proven to be useful to all types of ecommerce merchants. With the Amazon FBA service, merchants can store their inventory at the Amazon fulfillment centers and Amazon uses their expertise to pick, pack and ship the merchant’s products to their customer addresses. They even provide customer service for the shipped products! This service is a great way to scale any business and target potential customers around the world.

How Does Amazon FBA Work?

In order to use the Amazon FBA services, ecommerce merchants need to go through the following steps:

Set Up Your FBA Services

In case you don’t have a Selling on Amazon account already, you’ll need to create one. Once you do so, there will be an option to add FBA to your account—just follow the steps and set it up. It’s an extremely simple process and you will be guided through the steps on the website—it only takes a few minutes.

Create the Product Listing & Inventory

You can either add individual products to the Amazon catalog one at a time, or you can add them in bulk. A really great feature that Amazon provides is that if you are already using an inventory management software, you can link it with Amazon’s API for easier integrated product and inventory listing.

Prep the Products to be Delivered

Your products should be prepared the way you want them to be received by the customer, as in, they should be “ecommerce ready”. If you need certain supplies to ensure that the product is safe and secure during the transportation process until it reaches the customer, you can even place an order on Amazon for their “preferred prep and shipping supplies” that will be delivered to you quickly.

Send Your Products to Amazon

In order to do so, you will need to create a shipping plan which would involve things like finding the right shipping carriers. Amazon has partnered with several carriers that provide discounted rates to FBA clients, making it cheaper and easier to ship and track your items all the way to the Amazon FBA Centers. You can use Amazon’s online seller tool for more guidance.

Customers Order Your Products & Amazon FBA Does the Work

As with all the other Amazon Prime eligible products, Prime customers get the same free shipping and super fast delivery for your products, just as they would for any other Prime listed product on the Amazon marketplace. Amazon has an amazing web-to-warehouse picking and sorting system that works efficiently and at a high speed to ensure that the orders are fulfilled as soon as possible. At this point in the Amazon FBA process, all the necessary shipping and tracking information is sent to the customers.

Amazon FBA Provides Customer Service for Your Products

Amazon provides 24/7 customer service for all orders placed on the Amazon Marketplace no matter whether it’s inquiries from the seller or the buyer, refund requests, returns, or any other customer care related query. This makes it easier for all parties involved and a more streamlined service for the customer.

Why You Should Use Amazon FBA

There are a lot of advantages to using the Amazon FBA services. The company prides itself on being able to provide the growth capabilities ecommerce businesses need to be global players in the industry while being able to save ecommerce merchants a lot of time in the process.

Cost-Effectiveness and Simplicity

The main charges that are levied are for the storage space and the orders that Amazon fulfills—it works on a pay-as-you-go system. Shipping fees are included in the main fee, therefore, there are no extra charges for any orders that are eligible for Amazon Prime (free shipping). However, please note that there may be fees for selling on the Amazon platform and any other additional services that you may opt for.

Higher Scope for Business Growth & Development

Amazon focuses on handling the finer details of each transaction so that you can utilize your valuable resources, such as your time and energy, on the things that truly matter and will benefit your business. Since there is no minimum amount of units that you need to send with Amazon FBA, the fulfillment centers truly function with the ecommerce merchants in mind.

World Class Customer Service & Easy Returns Facility

As mentioned earlier, Amazon’s FBA service deals with all customer service requests, returns, and refunds that have to do with the platform. To ensure that customers are aware that Amazon handles the shipment to them (everything from packing, delivery, customer service, returns, and refunds) the listing on the website is marked with both the Amazon and Prime Logos.

Multi-Channel Fulfillment

One major advantage of using Amazon’s FBA service is that they also provide Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) which can help your business grow exponentially. The company gives you access to their global fulfillment network, their expertise in operations and execution, and varied shipping options for your products. As a Multi-Channel Fulfillment Client, you can access these services whether you sell on Amazon’s Online platform or even through any other sales channels.

MCF is a proven method of improving customer experience as it provides the same efficiency of Amazon Prime listed products. Customers can opt for 1-day, 2-day or the standard 3-5 business days delivery options.

MCF, along with the Amazon Marketplace Web Service, lets you connect your website, or any other online sales channels, through an API. This lets you centralize your operations as you get to use a singular inventory source that you can refresh, place any orders from, deal with shipping and fulfillment from, run reports through—all while freeing up your time and energy for other more important tasks at hand.

Amazon also boasts about the fact that your business becomes instantly scalable when you work with their platform as your fixed costs remain the same even when there are seasonal spikes.

Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment pricing varies from the standard Amazon FBA pricing, but still provides the same capacity for scalability and competitive rates. The table below explains the pricing system for standard-sized products and oversized products with Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment. The Amazon FBA pricing will be listed later in this guide.

Amazon FBA Multi Channel Fulfillment Pricing

How to Start Selling with Amazon FBA

How to Find Products to Sell on Amazon

Search for Products
One of the first and foremost hurdles that sellers need to overcome is the dreaded yet extremely important question: “What should I sell?”

While some people may advise you to base your selection on hard stats and facts over a hunch—or vice-versa—in reality, choosing the right product needs to be based on finding the balance between your hunch and the numbers.

The idea or inspiration to sell a certain product might strike you anywhere. Keep an eye out for the products that you or your friends use frequently and can’t seem to do without, or when you’re out shopping for groceries, or even just browsing the internet for something. It could be the smallest of products or even something much bigger. Start formulating a list of every idea you have and you can start narrowing it down from there.

Consider Product Trends
Think about the psychology of why some products do better than others: What makes a product or trend go viral?

One way of going about the product choosing process is to check the current trends and products that have gone viral. Oftentimes, you can find the root cause of why certain products do well and then apply that matrix to see if your chosen product has the same “viral potential”.

There are several factors that influence the virality of a product which range from emotional impact to visibility that the product delivers. Most importantly, a viral product means more sales for you.

  • Emotional Impact: Anything that elicits an emotional response with people will automatically form a connection with them. After a stressful or bad day, people want to be able to destress and have something that helps them brighten their day. When a product is able to provide that emotional release it is more likely to go viral.
  • Practical Value: A product that is truly useful and helps solve a problem for users or helps them be more productive, is more likely to be recommended by them. Practical value can beat the aesthetic or face value of other products and can help a product reach that viral stage. Oftentimes, competing brands within the same product category or industry build on the basic practical value of a product and add the aesthetics to boost sales and give customers exactly what they want. This helps build the viral status of the product.
  • Social Currency: When a product helps establish the consumer’s image as someone who is “with the times” and ahead of the social curve, it establishes itself as a must-have item. This attribute helps in the virality of a product immensely.
  • Visibility and Recognition: A product that stands out and is easily recognizable by customers is a product that has the potential to trend, as the brand positioning is apparent.

Is the Product in Demand?

There are several online sales estimator tools that help you get a general idea of the possible monthly sales for a listing. If you search a product on any online sales platform and run the top 10-20 listings through the online estimator, you should be able to determine if the product has any demand.

The total number of sales for the top listings should be between 3000-6000 per month. If you do the math, technically that would amount to 10-20 sales a day which is a really good target for merchants to aim for.

Anything between or higher than 10-20 sales would mean that it’s a really good product to be selling as there is a high demand for it in the market. Next, you want to determine how well the sales are spread out thus, checking the depth of the market.

Out of the 3000-6000 sales, if the majority of sales belong to the top few listings, then you know for a fact that the sales aren’t very well spread out, indicating that unless you are in the top positions, you won’t be doing very well in the segment. Ideally, you should have a well-spread sales graph, meaning it will be relatively easier to penetrate the segment.

Analyze Your Competitors

If you choose a product that falls into a highly competitive niche, then there are a few things that you should be considering. These are the things you should think about before entering a competitive market (if your product can with withstand the following questions, chances are that you have a shot at profiting in a competitive market):

  • Does my product or service solve a specific problem for a specific set of people?
  • How competitive is the market and is there room for more businesses?
  • What are the startup costs associated with this business?
  • How long before I can become profitable?
  • How can I be innovative in this pre-existing market?

These questions provide a basic framework to tackle a saturated market and to come up with a strategy that will work in your favor. (B-Plans)

Secondly, you should also check out your competitors. Again, do a basic search in the Amazon search bar for your chosen products and analyze the top listings. In the best-case scenario, the top product listings should have a handful of reviews—about 10-100 are a good start. Some listings may even have a couple hundred more, which is okay, too. But in the case of certain listings having 1000+ reviews, you know that the particular seller that the listing belongs to is a big fish in the market.

The number of reviews on a listing shows the engagement level with a brand and the purchasing patterns, intentions, and decisions of the customers which is a great scale to judge the competition with. Remember that if you do end up settling on the product, it will take a lot of time, energy and efforts to match up to the reviews of the top listings and to accumulate the same kind of engagement.

The best product to settle on would be one that has a high demand and low competition. Fair warning: These are extremely difficult to come by.

Is the Product Only Seasonal?

While checking the demand for the product, it is important to understand that there are several other factors that may come into play, as well. While stocking your inventory with holiday decorations around October may sound like a great idea due to the sales numbers and projections, what happens when it’s the first week of the new year and you are left with products nobody wants to buy anymore because it’s not the season?

Seasonality is really important to factor in and identifying whether a product is a seasonal one need not be a difficult task. One simple and free tool at everyone’s disposal is Google. You can scour Google Trends to check the annual trends and the search volume graph for any product or term you would like to know about.

While this may not be an accurate depiction of the sales based on the seasons, it still does give you an overall sense of consumer spending and buying patterns. For some products, search volumes will show you steep changes around certain times of the year, which is generally a good indicator of seasonality.

When it comes to seasonal products, however, it is important to keep in mind that it is subjective: Clothing, for example, can be seasonally popular in different times of the year in different places depending on weather, climate, hemisphere, etc.

Stocking seasonal products is not necessarily a bad idea if you think you can clear them out by the time the season is over. In fact, as your business grows customers may look forward to the time of the year when you are selling certain products and you can expect a huge bump in sales during that time. Just be wary of basing your brand solely around seasonal items.

Verify Your Chosen Product

Verifying the product is a good way of being certain about your choice. One way of doing it is to keep track of sales numbers, listings and competitors over a period of time that will help give you a well rounded and more realistic view of the market, niche or segment.

Another way to go about it is to get in touch with a couple of potential suppliers or customers to check out their sentiments for the products—this exercise acts as a survey of sorts.

When you can confirm that there are no statistical anomalies, the sales numbers are consistent and there are no major volatile changes in the market (sudden monopoly by one company, etc.), you can take the next step towards selling the product on Amazon.

How to Find a Supplier

Once you have decided on the product you’re going to sell through Amazon FBA, you need to start looking for a supplier to source it from. While conducting your research for the individual products on your “potential product list” there is a chance that you may have come across suppliers for the said products—in which case you have a starting point for supplier contacts. However, if you haven’t come across any contacts, you could always look for your suppliers online—websites such as Alibaba & AliExpress are two of the most popular choices to source products from. A quick Google search can give you even more options, or check out this USA-based manufacturer directory for more leads.

Alibaba has consistently been one of the highest-rated—as well as currently the biggest—marketplace for any and all kinds of products. Manufacturer search results are usually more fruitful on Alibaba and the Gold Supplier option lets you filter out the fluff and get a more suitable list.

Creating an Alibaba or AliExpress account is extremely easy and you don’t even need to be registered as an LLC to start looking for suppliers.

The next step is to actually contact the suppliers. Send out as many emails, make as many calls, visit as many warehouses as you can. The more involved you get in this process, the more you start learning and picking up on the terms and get integrated into the process. Make sure you draft a pleasant yet strong introductory letter, clearly stating what you are looking for and ask the questions you need to. Don’t hold back on the questions until they reply, rather include them in the first email and this way you aren’t wasting time waiting for them to get back to you.

Things that you might want to ask in your email include:

  • If they produce sample products & the pricing for it
  • The price of 100, 200, 500, 1000 units, respectively.
  • Do they provide discounts on a certain amount of units produced?
  • Do they have a minimum order quantity?
  • Is there an order limit?
  • What their shipping charges are
  • Can they customize a product for you and incorporate specific changes?

The supplier’s reply will tell you a lot about them. Was their written communication good? Were they polite and prompt in getting back to you? Did they clear all your doubts and provide clear and logical answers to your questions?

Make a note of all the information that you receive from each supplier you contact in an excel sheet or something similar, just so it’s easier for you to compare later when you’re deciding which supplier is best to work with.

Most suppliers will be more than happy to send you samples if you pay for them (some even for free). If you are asked to pay though, it’s not a bad idea to pay a small sum ($25–$150) to be sure of the quality of the product that you are potentially going to build your business on. Get as many samples as you can and leave a comment in your notes about the product’s quality.

Pick someone who deals with the top-notch quality products, as high-quality products yield a higher level of customer satisfaction which means a lower rate of returned items. Product reviews and testimonials can go a long way to boost business, therefore, having a good quality product is imperative.

Another point to look for is whether suppliers have the technological capabilities. When choosing your vendor, make sure that they have the technological capabilities to keep up with the times. If you need to scale your business, it would be a shame if you need to break a great business partnership with your supplier, just because they can’t keep up with your growth.

These tips should help you identify the right product and supplier, which means that you can finally place your first order—your first real step to starting your Amazon FBA business!

In most cases, the suppliers will usually agree and even try to lock down a 50-50 deal, which essentially means that you pay 50% of the total cost upfront before the production starts and 50% after the delivery to the dedicated location is made. However, suppliers may also be open to 40% upfront and 60% after and in some cases even 30% upfront and 70% after.

As far as payment methods go, using PayPal, Stripe or Payoneer is acceptable for samples or extremely small orders. Larger orders, however, incur a 5-7% fee if you use those payment channels. For actual non-sample orders, you may choose to perform a bank transfer. Avoid Western Union or other money transfer services as there is no accountability and you are completely liable if something goes wrong. Try to get your supplier to give you something called trade-insurance, which basically ensures that you get your money back if something goes wrong with the shipment (Alibaba and AliExpress sellers usually provide trade assurance). Check out this guide to safely sourcing your products from Alibaba to learn more about the best payment methods.

While you should have already settled on the production and delivery time with your supplier, the general window is about 4-8 weeks.

Calculating Your Revenue

Before you place your orders to stock your inventory, it is essential to know how much of a cut Amazon will be taking. Amazon FBA has made it easier for you to calculate your revenue by creating the Amazon Revenue Calculator. These numbers are important to know so that you calculate how much profit is left after you deduct all the costs and fees possible, which puts you in a better position to negotiate with your supplier, as well as keep aside a budget for other things like shipping.

This video explains how to use the Online Amazon Revenue Calculator:

Creating Your Amazon FBA Seller Account

The two accounts—Amazon Seller Account and the Amazon FBA Account—aren’t the same thing. In order to access the FBA services, you need to first create the Amazon Seller Account. While creating the Seller Account, you will be given two options, either getting the Individual Account which is basically free, or the Professional Account where you have to pay Amazon $1 for every sale you make. Your first thought might be to start with the free Individual Account but if you are serious about scaling your business then you might as well choose the Professional Account. The latter happens to be the cheaper alternative in the long run and you have more value for your money and time by having several tools at your disposal. Just follow the simple steps on the website to create and set up your account.

The first step after creating your account is to create your first listing by adding your products through the catalog. Make sure that you aren’t dealing with retail arbitrage. Below are Amazon’s Fulfillment and Monthly storage fees.

Amazon FBA Fulfillment and Monthly Storage Fees

Creating and Optimizing Your Listings

Your listings are a crucial part of the entire Amazon FBA process. The way you present your product on the Amazon FBA platform will determine your company or brand’s image in the customer’s mind. Create a new listing and be sure to add the names of the product, your brand’s name and the name of the manufacturer (if different from your brand) in it.

Note: When shipping products abroad, especially to China, you will need a manufacturer part number. This number can be created by you and is used for very specific products.

Branding and Names
If you are looking for the right business or brand name to sell under, refer to this A Better Lemonade Stand article on How to Come Up With a Business Name. Here is a short excerpt from it:

Popular Styles of Business Names

With the explosion of the world wide web in the ’90s, we saw a boom in the number of start-ups popping onto the scene, especially in the ecommerce segment. This prompted several styles of business names to evolve, some that were common and others that were never seen or heard of before. Here are some of those popular styles of business names that have come up over the years:

The Obvious One

A business name that gives clarity on the function of the company or the product/service it provides, is an obvious choice. A few things to consider when going for this kind of a name is that, due to its obvious nature, there might be a high possibility that it has already been taken. While, this style may still be the go-to choice for a business person who wants to keep it simple and to the point, the name can appear to be boring and even common, since it might be a different variation of a name already in use.

Name-Based Business Names

Several companies are named after their founder/owner, muse, etc. This method of naming the business may help retain and reflect the roots and history of the company, as well as make it stand out if the name is unique. Such a style is also used as a strong backing for the branding and PR side of things as it helps give the business a face to go with the name—which can also be fictitious. As with the “obvious name” style, two more people can have the same name, leading to the same or at the least similar company names too. Furthermore, pronunciation and spellings of a single name can vary which could also be a little tricky. Such a style has obviously worked for some of the bigwigs, eg. JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Walt Disney, etc., but if you are starting out small and are unsure of where your business may lead you, it might be wise to steer clear of a business name based on a person’s name—if you ever plan on selling your company in the future, there might be an issue when the ownership changes.

The Trendy One

This is definitely a very popular business name style amongst startups, especially in the tech arena. The nature of most start-ups is to be on the cutting edge and knowing the pulse and beat of the latest trends and fads. There are two things to consider when using this style to name your company—firstly, trends are subjective (Who decides what’s trendy? Are they the ruling authority on trends?) and secondly, trends themselves are volatile in nature (something that is “trendy” now can become passe tomorrow, dragging your company down too).

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Many companies prefer to use initials, acronyms, and abbreviations for longer phrases or names. While this may serve as a great mnemonic tool for the target audience to remember a longer descriptive phrase, business owners sometimes fail to realize that mnemonics may be shorter to write, but they aren’t always shorter or more efficient in terms of pronunciation, eg. “www” has nine syllables while “world wide web” has only three. Another thing to remember is that mnemonic tools aren’t just used as business/brand names but also in other places globally—an unfortunate example would be the private equity firm in the UK which was called ISIS until 2014 when they decided that they no longer wanted to share their name with the Islamic State Terrorist Organization.

The Compounds

This style of naming involves putting two or more words together to make a name. In most cases, one of the words, usually the first in the order, is the lead and the focus is usually on it. The possible pairings could be noun-noun, noun-verb, adjective-verb, etc. This style is popular due to the high number of possibilities and combinations that can make interesting names. They are usually descriptive of the company or at least provide some context and apart from being longer than other business name styles, there aren’t very many drawbacks to this style. Most well-known examples of such names are Facebook, YouTube, WordPress and Google Talk.

The Blend

Similar to the Compound style business names, this model uses more that one word to come up with the name. The difference, however, is that this style involves often using only a part of each word—the recognizable bit—and sometimes overlapping them. Microsoft (microcomputer + software), Wikipedia (Wiki + Encyclopedia), Skype (Sky + Peer-to-peer) are some famous examples of this style. The blend works just as well as the Compound business names but if not constructed carefully, can be awkward and hold no meaning.

Unrelated-Real Word Names

This category uses names and words that a majority of the people are already familiar with and then tie them to their brand. Certain brands such as Amazon, Apple, Shell & Twitter are now household names and they have capitalized off the familiarity of the word by linking it to their business—these brand names are popular, easy to remember and often replace the actual definition. People are more likely to associate Amazon with an online store and Twitter as a social media platform than their actual definitions—the name of a rainforest and a sound, respectively. The drawback of trying to pick such a name now days is that the domain name is most likely to be unavailable due to its familiarity.

Prefixed and Suffixed Names

A relatively simple and perhaps one of the most “done-to-death” naming styles—attaching a prefix/suffix to a word. Some of the most famous of these affixes are -ify, -ster, and -r. Research showed that the number of company names with the suffix -ify went from 5 in 2007 to over 300 by 2014, of which Spotify was perhaps the most recognized and successful brand. Due to their simplicity and ease of use, too many companies with such affixes have cropped up, saturating the market with this style of names. There might still be some unique names with a prefix and suffix, however, if not thought through well, they may seem a bit too abstract.”

Having a universal brand name is extremely advantageous as you can sell multiple types of products under the same brand umbrella, thus you don’t need to be concerned about ever-changing your brand name to suit what you’re selling.

UPC Codes & Barcodes

The next step would be to purchase UPC codes. When creating a listing on Amazon FBA, you will be asked to enter a Product ID. The Product ID is a unique product identifier, or the UPC (Universal Product Code), which is a barcode that is used to identify specific products and to track trade items in stores in countries around the world, including United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the continent of Europe, and more.

You can buy the UPC barcodes in the official marketplace called GS1, which is the recognized provider by Amazon, but the prices for the codes are usually on the higher side. While there are several third-party sellers of UPC’s which claim to have much lower prices, the process to obtain them can be complicated.

After purchasing the barcodes, you can enter the price that you would like to set for your products, save, and finish creating the listing. If you go back to the “Manage Inventory” section of the listing, you will be able to access a menu to print labels for the corresponding listed items. While in the printing process, you will be given an FNSKU barcode which is the only barcode that Amazon asks for you to put on your product’s packaging.

Once you obtain the FNSKU code, you can give it to your supplier and ask them to either incorporate it into the packaging by either printing it on there (recommended) or just sticking it on.

Product Execution
The way your product is packaged and delivered does a lot of good for your brand in the long run. To be able to set yourself apart and stand out amongst the competition, it is important to have an impressive custom product packaging. It takes anywhere from 2-6 weeks for suppliers to produce this for you, so it’s important to get started on this as soon as possible. Most suppliers will have a plethora of options of packaging types/styles for you to choose from and usually have templates at hand to show you—all you have to do is get your designs made.

If you have any technical graphic design knowledge, you can just create your own designs, but if you are looking for a freelancer to do the job then platforms such as Fiverr are a great place to get started on the search for a designer. You can get a bunch of things such as the logo, packaging, business cards and other digital graphics designed at the same time and maybe even at a discounted price. Make sure that the designer incorporates your logo, the name of your brand, product and the location of production on the packaging. Other legal or important information must also be included.

Another aspect of the product execution will be the way the product is displayed on Amazon or any other platform. There are several photographers that specialize in product photography and will know the specifics of how the products should be framed for online selling purposes—85% of the image should be the product and should be against a white background, ideally. Try to add different angles and types of shots to get a well-rounded view of the product. Showing the product being used by people in the images is also a way that consumers may be able to relate to your products. You can add up to 9 images along with your listing so try to keep the images simple, interesting and engaging.

To complete your listing make sure to add a catchy or keyword-optimized title and an informative description with the main keywords. The better these bits are, the better your product will rank. Read up on the basics of SEO and how to implement keywords in your listing, for better effect.

Creating a Strategic Amazon FBA Shipping Plan

To create a shipping plan, head to the main page for the Amazon Seller Central and you should get an option to “Create a New Plan”. Add your supplier’s address in the “Ship From” section and continue with the page. A very important part of this process is to enter the number of units you want to get sent to the Amazon warehouse, correctly. Suppliers usually pack your units (individual products) in cartons for easier handling and transport so make sure you don’t mix up the unit numbers with carton numbers.

Once you’ve entered all the details, you will be made aware of any fees that Amazon will charge for storage, etc. Continue further on the page and you will be asked for the FNSKU codes that we obtained earlier. There will be an option where Amazon can get the FNSKU and apply it, but having your supplier do it is a cheaper method—Amazon charges 20 cents on each unit.

Amazon will have sent you an address and you can send that to your supplier, too so they can ship it for you. You can also utilize a third-party shipping or freight company to do so, as well. Be sure to review your shipment details and whether you would like to ship the products as one box or multiple boxes (more commonly used). The number of box labels needs to be the same as the number of boxes—you can forward the details you get to your supplier as well, and that’s it! Complete the form and you are done setting everything up.

Check out this link for all the shipping requirements for Amazon FBA products and this link for information on shipping requirements for LTL (Less Than Truck Load) and FTL (Full Truck Load) deliveries.

Making Your First Sale with Amazon FBA

Selling on Amazon with Amazon FBA relies heavily on two main things: Sales and reviews. When you sell more, the more people know about your product, the more ratings and reviews you get and, in return, even more people buy your products (if the reviews are generally positive).

To start making your first sales, you’ll need to put in a little effort. You can start with Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising and set up a small digital marketing campaign for your brand. Use all the tools at your disposal: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, email campaigns, etc.

Amazon has its own PPC service that you can use and for $20 a day you can even set up an automated campaign through the website to promote your brand and products.

It’s important to get the word out there and have people engage with your brand on Amazon’s website, through ratings and reviews so that people can verify that you are a trusted seller with good quality products.

Conclusion

So there you have it, the beginners guide to selling on Amazon with Amazon FBA. Selling on Amazon instead of setting up a dropshipping business of your own from scratch has one major plus side: The global giant already has the eyeballs and foot traffic that you require to quickly start making money, instead of starting from scratch when it comes to acquiring customers.

Hopefully, this guide has helped you realize the freedom and the power of ownership that you can have by selling on Amazon FBA. Go ahead and find those great product ideas that can potentially turn into money-making machines!

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