Amazon is a selling behemoth being the world’s largest online retailer.
As of late there are 2.5+ million Amazon sellers, with hundreds of millions of products sold in the platform. That means there are tons of fortunes to be had in selling on Amazon, especially now that more and more people are switching to online shopping due to the pandemic.
With Amazon, you can make serious business by selling tangible products and services as well.
How do I contact Amazon seller performance?
Most people that attempt to reach Amazon seller performance team are those who have trouble with their seller account. They often find that other than reaching out to them via email at seller-performance@amazon.com, there is no other way to communicate with them.
How to be a successful seller in Amazon
Make sure that you have read all the terms and conditions in Amazon seller central before becoming a merchant to avoid any problem in the future. Remember: account suspension is pretty commonplace, and most of the time they don’t explain in depth their reason for removing your selling privileges.
Once you’ve identified which products would be best to sell, determine your selling strategy. You can sell directly to Amazon or sell products on Amazon.
Can you make a living selling on Amazon?
Most definitely. Figure out which services or methods provide you the biggest profit potential:
Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM) Dropshipping
FBM dropshipping is when you sell products on Amazon but do store management, customer support, and all aspects of order fulfillment yourself. This is not to be confused with FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) where you sell products and let Amazon do the shipping for you.
Dropshipping is the way to go if you want to earn a decent income when starting your side business. Since items can be added to Amazon with little setup, there’s less administrative work to do.
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
FBA works by buying wholesale products from online stores and shipping your inventory to an Amazon fulfillment center. FBA is the best way to sell products at scale: you gain marginal profits from reselling products on Amazon for a higher price than you pay for them.
Amazon’s shipping rates including additional charges for picking and packing with the major carriers are considerably cheap. You can also cash in on your competitor’s sales by selling their products on Amazon.
Amazon Private Label
Private label is the process of creating your own brand for products you produced yourself and selling it to customers. It’s also referred to white-labeling or brand-creation.
This is the way to go for those who really want to make something unique and rake in a lot of money for it. It is a gamble, but many sellers see the best results by selling their own private label products on Amazon using Amazon’s FBA network.
Since the global marketplace is becoming more competitive by the day, lots and lots of brands are spawning, encouraging innovation and creativity.
Sell wholesale goods on Amazon
Selling wholesale entails reselling products from other companies in bulk via Amazon Business. Amazon will cover shipping of these products through FBA.
For many sellers, it’s one of the most popular ways to make money on Amazon. You can move some serious product volume this way, especially if you know a particular business-to-business (B2B) vertical really well.
Online arbitrage
Online arbitrage means you’re buying products from other e-commerce stores like Ebay to sell on Amazon.
Online arbitrage is less complicated then than retail arbitrage. However, there’s a lot of competition and you might not have a lot of options.
Merch by Amazon
If you have a clever design idea for a t-shirt, coffee mug, or any item but don’t have the resources for mass production, you can let Amazon do the bigger scope of operations for you.
With Merch by Amazon, all you have to do is upload your design, select a product type and color, and wait for Amazon to create a product page for you. Amazon will handle all production, shipping, and customer service. No upfront costs needed, plus you’ll earn a royalty for every product sold.
However, this is not an option for everyone since Amazon will qualify sellers.
Affiliate Marketing via Amazon Associates
You can leverage your existing website or blog by joining the Amazon Associates program. Earn up to 10% in advertising fees from qualified purchases. Commission rates vary depending on the product category.
Millions of people browse Amazon, so you end up getting commissions on all sorts of random products if you can build high traffic sites and get lots of clicks to your affiliate links.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money on Amazon without selling anything.
Sell Professional Services via Amazon Services
Amazon is a marketplace not just for tangible products, but professional services as well. A portion of your revenue goes to Amazon for every job you complete based on your service category.
Both freelancers and registered businesses can join Amazon Services. With this program, you won’t have to pay fees like upfront costs or monthly dues.
Sell handmade goods
If you have a passion for crafting and want to make business out of it, then you may join Amazon Handmade. It has a straightforward pricing where you’ll only pay 15% referral fee for every handmade good sold.
Amazon has an artisan-only application and audit process which ensures the authenticity of every handcrafted product received.
Retail arbitrage
Retail arbitrage is the process of buying inventory from local retailers like Walmart, Target, etc. and reselling them on Amazon with a markup. It saves you hefty shipping costs from sourcing inventory from overseas.
Sellers usually take advantage of huge in-store discounts when buying in bulk for resale. It’s a competitive space and makes for a terrific side hustle if you personally enjoy hunting for deals.
What is Amazon Seller Support?
Amazon Seller Support is an in-house team of experts who offers operational and informational support on matters concerning Seller Central login problems, inventory feed upload, and general account questions. You can reach them by phoning the Seller Support number or through email.
There may be limits to what they can actually resolve for you since they are just the first point of contact. They might not be able to help you with more intricate seller issues.
What percentage does Amazon take?
There’s a difference in how much Amazon takes according to their seller pricing plans. Individual sellers pay $0.99 for each sold item on top of variable closing fees ranging from $0.45 to $1.35.
Professional sellers are exempt from the $0.99 per item fee since their plan costs $39.99 per month no matter how many units are sold. It also includes variable closing fees and referral fee percentages ranging from 6% to 25% (an average of 13%).
For sellers consistently selling more than 40 units a month, the Professional plan is the best choice.
Bottom line
Being smarter about your selling strategy in Amazon and keeping your seller performance in check will grow your sales with as much upward potential as the platform itself.
Amazon is the future. Make it your growth strategy for business and not just a part of it. Play your cards right, and you can build for yourself a 7-figure Amazon business.