Business with Amazon, How to Start + Tips
Business on Amazon is currently one of the most interesting job opportunities on the Internet. Amazon is the world’s largest retail portal founded by Jeff Bezos. Nowadays, around 2 million retailers trade through it, and yet there is still plenty of space for other enterpreneurs. In this article, you can read a brief tutorial on how to start a business with Amazon. You will also find the advantages and disadvantages of doing business through this portal + my several tips and advice on how to become succesful.
However, Amazon is not just a retail portal, but a huge media company and a logistics tycoon too. Its history dates back to 1994, and in the last year it recorded sale of 2 million items and a turnover of $ 88.99 billion. In total, Amazon employs more than 183,000 employees.
Incredible power and sales force of Amazon can be expressed in numbers. For example, the past Cyber Monday (the Monday following the US holiday of Thanksgiving) the sale achieved saleability of 300 items in a second at Amazon. In 2012, when Amazon experienced breakdown for 49 minutes, the loss of potential earnings amounted to $ 5.7 billion. Amazon’s total value is estimated at $ 25 billion. In short – Amazon is one big opportunity. But there’s a need to go about the right way.
How to Start Doing Business with Amazon?
In spite of its huge size (2 million retailers), Amazon is still an interesting option and its potential will continue to rise in the coming period. Only 2% of retailers are really using all the tools that Amazon offers to them and which they can do business with successfully and efficiently. So, how to start?
1. Selection of Suitable Goods
The first step on the way to successful business with Amazon is selection of suitable goods. Ask yourself what you want to sell and whether or not the people would buy stuff like that. A well-sold product should have natural competition, good rating, reasonable price and easy storage. The goods should also be rather smaller and lighter (and therefore easy to store and transport) and technically unpretentious.
On Amazon, you can also find the category “handmade”. That is opportunity for hand creators and various creative products. If you are handy and you like to produce different things with your own hands, try it. I have several articles about handmade on my site.
2. Search for a Suitable Manufacturer
Then find a suitable manufacturer to produce the required goods. You will encounter a large number of manufacturers on the market, so choose carefully among them. Send your queries to multiple factories and choose the best one from the received offers.
You can use three possible strategies to find a vendor. First, you can ask the local manufacturer, which is the simplest possible strategy. On the other hand, with your local manufacturer, you may not get such favourable terms such as a low price.
Second, you can search for the manufacturer in the area where you want to sell. The most advantageous market is the United States, where again you will not get such promising pricing conditions. Third, you can turn to Asian manufacturers who produce basically everything for everyone and offer the best prices.
3. Negotiation
As soon as you select the manufacturer, negotiation begins. During the entire negotiation period, keep in mind that you need everything to end in your favour.
Before you negotiate, check the manufacturer, look at his website, reviews, and public registers as well. It is advisable to ask for some samples.
Keep on asking when negotiating, let everything be documented in writing (what is written, it is given) and save the documentation. Do not deal only in writing, but also arrange a personal contact, such as Skype. Then conclude the contract with the supplier and agree on the conditions of the transport.
4. Build Your Own Brand!
A branding is a very important step in building an effective business on Amazon. By building your own brand, you will be able to get the product outside of Amazon in the future for additional sales portals, such as Ebay.com, Aliexpress.com and others. So, think about Amazon business as a good way, but it’s not all just about Amazon.
When building your brand, start with selecting its name. It must be something simple, clear and unique (something that fits into your market and respects market habits).
When choosing a name, be sure to check if someone is not already using it. You can verify it on Amazon, Google, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (www.wipo.int). Then, register a domain with the same name as the brand name. Create brand logo design and product packaging.
To store the product, Amazon requires product logo and colour, website, e-mail, country of origin, instructions for use (also for storing and warning), product size and weight, product volume and UPC / EAN code (i.e.base barcode).
5. Sign Up!
We are now getting to the field of Amazon itself. Before you start trading, you need to create your account. You have either a professional or individual account to choose from. These two types of accounts have different fees.
A professional account will cost you $ 39.99 a month, but you will not be charged for the goods sold. The individual account requires a $ 0.99 fee for each item sold. The cost of the parcels and storage are then added to the price of the account.
Registration on Amazon is quite simple. But if you do not know how to do it, you can find help on Google or Youtube.
6. Sale Begins!
The sale of the product begins with the product listing, creating a product e-shop. To do so, you will need keywords, titles, descriptions, bullets, and photos.
Never forget the keywords. Thanks to them you will appear to customers who enter them in Amazon’s search engine. Use keywords when creating a description, headlines and bullets of the product. The classic rule applies – the more the keyword appears, the higher the likelihood of a good search placement.
In regard to product photos, do not underestimate anything. It is said, “The photo sells.” And it is true, so do not be afraid to use the services of a professional photographer. The sale of product, especially the long-term one, is also influenced by reviews. They can also influence the order of your product in the search engine.
What Are the Advantages of Amazon Offers?
Let’s now summarize what benefits Amazon offers. First of all, you do not have to produce your own products. Thanks to this, you can save some money because the cost of making your own products is often devastating. Conversely, buying quality products at very low prices may be an interesting business. In addition, you do not have to test whether your goods will be demanded. Just look at what people like and what they buy.
Another advantage is that Amazon will take care of the delivery to customers. All you have to do is ensure transport of goods to Amazon, which can also be provided by the manufacturer under the correct delivery clause.
Unquestionable advantages are the low costs needed to start a business and the possibility of a quick start. And moreover, Amazon customers are loyal.
Does the Amazon Business Have Any Disadvantages?
Business on Amazon can also bring some disadvantages for you. One of the problems lies in the goods. More precisely, the fact that the goods travels from the manufacturer straight to the Amazon and Amazon directly sends it to the customer while you are responsible for it. Thus, the item will not be checked and you will not get in touch with it, so you need to choose the manufacturer wisely. You certainly do not want the manufacturer to deliver a fake, an illegal copy or a not ordered item.
Conclusion
Amazon business is a very interesting way how to start doing business online. But as with any other business, it is also necessary to work, make good advertising, take care of customers, etc. It should also be taken into account that competition can easily overrule you. On the other hand, as I have already mentioned, effective traders are very few, so the chance for success is great.
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Amazon is not only a huge e-commerce platform, but it is also a gigantic logistical company employing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Many of the people working for Amazon, work remotely – from the comfort of their home. If you are not particularly interested in becoming self-employed and you would prefer to be employed by Amazon, working the usual office hours of 9-5, check out my article Working for Amazon full-time from the comfort of your own home. This article contains several useful tips on where to find such job offers.
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My name is George and I currently work from home as a freelancer for a PR agency selling advertising. I also freelance as an online marketer for an e-shop, and I am actively involved in creating this website. I am always looking for interesting opportunities on how to make money online. I share my findings with my readers on this website. I consider this to be my hobby. I hope, that you can find some legitimate work from home, or perhaps you might be able to earn a little extra money.