Selling successfully on Amazon? These 10 tips are a must for beginners!
You need to arm yourself with knowledge if you want to sell successfully on Amazon. Our 10 tips will give you a head start! Here you will learn about the structures that exist on Amazon, which products you should sell, how to promote them, and how to outshine your competitors.
Briefly about Amazon
On the sales platform, there are other well-known sellers besides Amazon, such as Medimops, Rebuy, CSL-Computer, AnkerDirect, Pearl, and many more. However, smaller and medium-sized providers also contribute to Amazon’s success – Amazon Germany knows of another 100,000 online retailers. Already in 2018, nearly 60% of goods in international trade on Amazon were sold not by Amazon itself, but by marketplace sellers. These sellers offer from a few to many thousands of items and use the marketplace as a side job or as their main source of income.
Setting up an Amazon shop is quite easy. It becomes more complicated when the battle for customers begins. But let’s be honest, it is a lot of fun to watch the business grow. Moreover, those who are well-prepared can save time. However, there are some basics and tricks that you should keep in mind to sell profitably on Amazon. Our tips will give you a boost!
Our tips and tricks for selling on Amazon
1. Useful – The agony of choosing Amazon products
Even before you can start the registration process with Amazon, you should be clear about which product you want to offer. Make sure to include items in your assortment that are not only seasonal or trendy but can also be monetized in the long term. Otherwise, selling on Amazon could become a short-lived pleasure – despite all the tips. No one talks about fidget spinners anymore, right?
For this, take a look at Amazon. Categories that always do well are household, technology, fitness, toys, and pet supplies. There you can look for bestsellers on Amazon and get inspired. It is always advantageous if you already have some prior knowledge of certain categories so that you can later present your products appealingly to customers. However, even without it, you can easily choose a category and familiarize yourself with the products. Once you have gained enough experience, you can also expand your portfolio with items from other categories.
If you are just starting to sell on Amazon, the rule is: beginners should ensure that their desired products are neither too cheap nor too expensive. With very expensive products, you have a very high capital commitment. With products that are too cheap, the margins are so low that they only make sense on a very large scale.
Therefore, a rule of thumb states that the selling price should initially be between 10 and 30 euros to sell successfully on Amazon. Two tips on the side: an Repricer can help you set the optimal selling price – however, consider carefully where your price floor is so that you do not achieve too narrow a margin.
2. Easy to start – Registering as a seller on Amazon
Have you decided on a product or a specific category? Then, in the next step, register as a seller on Amazon.
However, anyone who decides to sell on Amazon after reading our tips should also be clear about how much they want to sell. For a small side income, the Individual plan at 99 cents per sold item is worthwhile. This plan includes all the basic features – product listing, own shipping, and own customer service. If you stay below 40 sold items per month, this option is just right for you.
If you believe that you will sell more and want to use additional features from Amazon, then the Professional plan at €39 per month is more suitable for you.
The Professional plan includes, among other things, a better overview of sales figures, the ability to run advertisements, and access to additional categories. This plan is worthwhile when selling more than 40 products per month, and you should set this minimum goal for yourself.
3. Important to note – The rules of the game on Amazon
When it comes to “selling on Amazon,” tips regarding the platform rules should not be missed: Before you go all in with selling on Amazon, you should first familiarize yourself with the prevailing guidelines there. Because these are serious and should not be taken lightly. Failure to comply can lead to product or even complete seller account suspensions.
But even in other areas, the marketplace sets its own rules. Thus, Amazon’s algorithm decides which product appears at the top for which search query or which seller occupies the shopping cart field (engl. Buy Box) on the product page.
Whoever wants to get the Buy Box must really put in the effort and be the best seller for this item. The best seller offers, among other things, fast shipping, the best customer service, and the best price. Since many sellers often sell the same product, but there is only one Buy Box per product, this is highly competitive. Even though this algorithm is not transparent, you should engage with it to sell your products on Amazon as effectively as possible. All further tips can only be effective then.
Want more tips? Find out here how to assert yourself on Amazon during Black Friday week: Black Friday and Christmas Business 2020: How to Achieve High Sales in the Most Purchasing-Powerful Time of the Year!
4. The World Outside – The International Amazon Marketplaces
Do you already know where you want to sell? Amazon is not just Germany. Especially for professional sellers from Europe, Amazon offers selling in countries such as France, England, Spain, and Italy. If you want to expand into these countries, you can use the Pan-European Fulfillment and sell on the country-specific Amazon pages. You can find tips on this in this blog post: Selling Internationally on Amazon.
If you do not speak a second or third language, simply start with Germany and ship from there to other countries. Orders are often placed through Amazon Germany from Austria, Switzerland, and also from neighboring countries.
One of the hottest tips for selling on Amazon is perhaps: FBA sellers of commercial goods do not even necessarily have to be proficient in the local language! Because in the Pan-EU program, Amazon takes care of fulfillment and customer service. It couldn’t be easier.
This is how you optimize your metrics and win the Buy Box on Amazon!
Download our free workbook now and learn everything important – from the minimum requirement to the ideal value to the correct calculation!
5. Capitalized – Customer Service at Amazon
The customer is king. This is also enshrined in the guidelines mentioned above. There should be as few returns as possible and rarely any negative reviews.
The rates for negative seller reviews and returns are particularly painful to bear at the beginning. With few orders, this can quickly result in a letter from Amazon stating that these rates should be improved. Failure to comply can even lead to Amazon suspending the account.
Therefore, always make sure to sell high-quality products and provide good customer service. It doesn’t hurt to listen to Jeff Bezos before new sellers sell their products on Amazon. Such tips are meant seriously:
Start with the customer and work backward.
Jeff Bezos
Amazon Founder
To ensure that customer service and shipping are right for Amazon, it is worth getting to know Amazon FBA. FBA or Fulfillment by Amazon is a service of the marketplace where Amazon provides you with its own storage capacities while simultaneously taking care of customer service and shipping. Amazon is known for its customer service – as a result, using FBA leads to the best customer service and fast shipping.
6. Fast to Ship – It Must Be Amazon Prime
Shipping is also mentioned in Amazon’s guidelines. Most customers are accustomed to shipping with Prime and want to receive the package as quickly as possible. There is also a rate here that describes late shipments or orders that are not delivered on time.
This rate is one of the most important metrics that sellers must manage to sell successfully on Amazon. Our tips for this: If you want to reduce stress, you can switch to Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and have the goods shipped directly with a Prime label from the Amazon warehouse. According to Amazon’s guidelines, shipping with Prime within Germany takes 24 hours and to Austria 48 hours. With the Prime logo, customers know that Amazon guarantees this – and are automatically more willing to buy.
With your own shipping, you can choose a shipping service provider. Here, you decide which provider is the most cost-effective for you and has a post office nearby. With the standard shipping methods, the customer receives the package after 2-3 days.
The middle ground – between self-shipping and FBA – is the Prime shipping method by sellers. After qualifying during a trial phase, you ship your items with Amazon shipping labels featuring the Prime logo. To obtain and keep the logo, you must always ship your products on the same day.
Calculate carefully which shipping method is worthwhile for you. Besides the costs, it depends on the products whether FBA, FBM, or Prime by sellers makes more sense. If the products are bulky or stay in stock longer, they are hardly suitable for FBA – with this service, the fees are calculated based on the price, size, and weight of your items. However, for commercial goods, FBA is partly essential to compete against the competition.
Another one of our tips for selling profitably on Amazon: Don’t get overconfident! If you are just starting out and don’t need a large warehouse yet, shipping from your own living room can also be an option for you.
Selling Your Own Products on Amazon – Tips for Private Label Sellers
7. Truly Convincing – Images, Bullet Points, Description on the Amazon Product Page
Once you have decided on your products, it’s time to get to the core – uploading the items to Amazon. For this, you need, among other things, a SKU (self-created item number), an EAN (identification number for the product), product information, images, and texts.
While EAN and SKU serve to identify the product, the other data is used to describe the product attractively for the buyer. Images, on the other hand, give customers a first impression of the product.
The images should be high-resolution, as customers like to zoom in to take a closer look. In addition to classic product images, it is always advisable to show images of the product in use and to highlight any awards or advantages in the images to sell as many products as possible on Amazon. Tips recommending hiring a professional photographer should definitely be considered. Because often, the decision to buy or not is made based on the image.
The bullet points are essential because the customer gathers their first information about the product here. The most important information and purchase arguments must be stated briefly and concisely. What color is the product? What material is the item made of? What can the product do? How does it make the customer’s day easier or bring joy to their pet? These are all noteworthy points.
The description, which is located a bit further down, provides additional space to go into more detail about the benefits of the product and for storytelling about the company. Feel free to check what competitors have written and get inspired. Customer feedback on the competition is also invaluable. What do customers particularly like, and what has bothered them about the products? Your product could be the new perfect solution.
8. Nothing to Hide – Making the Product Discoverable with SEO
While Amazon offers simple ways to present products to ready-to-buy customers, some effort must be made to achieve a good ranking in search results and increase traffic. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a cornerstone for ensuring that your products can be listed from the start and that you can sell as successfully as possible on Amazon. Our tips for this:
All these measures will already attract the first visitors to your page. However, you should consider external ads or marketing measures to get more traffic to the page. But be careful! Too much traffic without purchases will lead to your product being ranked lower compared to competing products.
For external marketing measures, keyword-optimized blogs with links to the product, affiliate, and social media advertising are suitable. Those who rely on Amazon’s internal marketing measures must first secure the Buy Box. Unfortunately, before that, neither advertising nor prominent promotions can be launched.
Amazon Optimization: Sales, Prices, and Inventory
9. Leave the Competition Behind – Obtain and Retain the Amazon Buy Box
Always keep an eye on the competition. Price adjustments by your competitors can lead to you losing the Buy Box. Adjusting prices minute by minute is not a solution due to the time involved. However, optimizing the price is essential for selling profitably on Amazon. There are hardly any promising tips for making price adjustments manually. It makes more sense to delegate this task to a repricing tool.
The Repricer calculates the appropriate price and changes it automatically. The dynamic Repricer from SELLERLOGIC does not calculate the lowest price, but the optimal one to always stay one step ahead of your competition.
10. Save Time – Help with Amazon FBA Inventory Issues
Now you are well-equipped to sell successfully on Amazon, know valuable tips, and can implement them. Lastly, you should remember this: Amazon makes mistakes too!
For example, a product can be damaged in the Fulfillment by Amazon warehouse, an item can disappear unnoticed in the warehouse, or shipped orders can contain errors. Only a few damaged products or errors are reported by Amazon to the seller. To ensure that this is not a hidden loss for you or that you do not have to check the inventory daily with utmost precision, our Refund Manager Lost & Found detects undiscovered errors in the FBA warehouse and informs you about them.
Since communication with Amazon customer service is not always easy for sellers, the tool does not stop here. To save you time, Lost & Found also assists you in contacting Amazon customer service so that the refund process goes quickly and smoothly.
Conclusion: Get started!
Now it’s time to get started and use your new basic knowledge about Amazon, which paves the way for your success on the marketplace. Find the product that suits you. Start your business on Amazon and experience the joy when your sales increase and your products sell better on Amazon day by day. With our tips, hopefully, you will succeed faster than others!
Amazon offers you many support options such as FBA, so that you as a seller can drive sales forward. However, when selling, do not forget that at Amazon the customer is always the focus. If you satisfy them, things should run smoothly for you as well.
Gradually, you can optimize and automate sales with the right Amazon tools. This way, you will be on the first page of product searches in no time, hold the Buy Box firmly in your hand, ship packages to satisfied customers, and can expand with new products or into other countries.
By the way: The tools from SELLERLOGIC can also be used internationally. There is nothing standing in the way of internationalization.
Good luck with Amazon!
Image credits in the order of the images: © Tierney – stock.adobe.com / © 103tnn – stock.adobe.com / © alphaspirit – stock.adobe.com / © PureSolution – stock.adobe.com
