Among the many opportunities available for aspiring business people, beginning an e-commerce business using Amazon can be beneficial for those who want to establish an online business. Amazon has millions of customers and already developed a strong ground – such an environment offers many ways to grow a business. However, the process can be daunting if you are planning on where to start from. Here is your one-stop shop on how to launch your e-commerce business on Amazon, where the process is outlined from basic research to running your store.
Step-by-step Process for Starting an e-Commerce Business on Amazon
1. Understand the Amazon Marketplace
Amazon is thus a large store where by sellers can sell their stocks directly to millions of customers globally. It offers numerous numbers of tools, services and fulfillment facilities that can be obtained by any business venture.
This provides the platform for sellers to list and make products available for purchase by customers across the globe via either using Amazon’s FBA or directly through the sellers shipping the product themselves using FBM. This coupled with other features such as payment processing, customer service and marketing support fully prepared by Amazon greatly ease market entry of new businesses.
2. Find a Good Product Niche
Let’s comprehend that one of the first and essential requirements to start an Amazon business is choosing the right product category. When choosing your niche in millions of products already featured on Amazon, it is the most crucial step you need to determine to ensure that your product is relevant to potential buyers.
In choosing your niche, first decide on a general product that would fit the purpose that you have at heart and the amount of money you are willing to spend. Ideally, we should consider products that offer low shipment and storage risk, such as products that weigh little and are difficult to be damaged.
3. Set Up Your Amazon Seller Account
There are two types of accounts on amazon: Individual and Professional. An Individual account is perfect for new sellers who plan to sell 40 items or less per month, while a Professional account is meant for any business that plans to sell more than 40 items monthly and offers one features like advertising tools, bulk listing and analytics.
Open your own Amazon Seller account through the Amazon Services website and follow the links. To obtain credit for your accounts receivable factoring, factoring company may ask for your Social Security Number (SSN), TIN, account with your bank, and a credit card. After this step was completed, you can go to the Amazon Seller Central page which has your product list inventory, sales figures and additional tools and features.
4. Source Your Products
After creating the account, the process of getting the products you want to sell on Amazon is known as Amazon sourcing.
The first technique is the procurement of products from wholesalers or manufacturers. You can either start calling companies individually or visit platforms like Alibaba, through which you get access to suppliers across the globe. However, if you have to source from China or from other countries then it is very important that you do your homework on the suppliers. You should opt for such a supplier who has good ratings and feedback about their service, has more flexible delivery methods and who fulfils the order on time.
Another option is private labelling, where you take an existing product and rebrand it with your own logo and packaging. This can give you more control over your brand and increase your profit margins.
5. Create High-Quality Listings
Title is the first element of a product listing and also as an important segment in the process of title tag optimization. Title has to be brief and contain some keywords that customers could use to search for this product. The search results are presently operated by A9 which selects the most suitable listings according to the keywords; the title should therefore contain words that describe the product.
Subsequently, engage in writing of product description. Within this section provide information such as, feature, specification, benefits that will assist the potential customers to make their purchase decision. Good light is equally as important for ensuring that the picture you make of the product is very good.
Last but not the least; utilize backend search terms in the product listing. They can be directly used by the search engine of Amazon, behind which is a kind of hidden keywords that can help their customers find the product. Do not use the backend Meta tags any words more than once as potential buyers might use slightly different words that need to be targeted.
6. Price Your Products Competitively
Pricing is a very sensible area of selling on Amazon. If your chosen prices are high, you may find it difficult to sell your products, but if you set prices which are low, there will be chances that your profit margins will be thin and that customers will start wondering about the quality of your products. The next step is to set the right price Strategy; you should see what other sellers are offering similar products and consider factors such as Cost, Fee and profit.
Amazon has different fees, such as referral fees, which are a percentage of the sales price. If you are an FBA seller, you will incur storage and fulfilment fees. These costs can really stack up, so it’s important to include them in your product cost structure plan. However, you may try using Amazon’s real-time pricing tool called the “Automated Pricing” found under the Hope miscellany that I have shared to be able to manage price changes while ensuring a specific set of target margins.
7. Choose a Fulfillment Method
To sell your products on Amazon there is one big decision that you will need to make and that is how to fulfill orders. There are two options to fulfil your order-:
FBA is when you send your products to Amazon, and the company takes responsibility for every aspect of the sale process, from delivering the item to the buyer. This method can be time consuming and effort consuming and on the same note you are able to access Amazon Prime membership hence millions of customers get to be delivered goods at a very fast and free of charge. Nonetheless, FBA does have some extra charges that you have to factor into your pricing equation.
On the other hand, as an FBM you gain full control over the shipping and the manner you wish to deal with a particular customer. Although it allows you to have greater control over the process and may cost less in fees – it requires more your time and energy in tracking the inventory and shipping the products.
8. Launch and Promote Your Products
As you launch your products, traffic generation to the listing is one of the biggest components you need to address. There are many tools and approaches available for this job, such as a sponsored products advert, which is a tool to place the particular advertisement of the listing inside the search results and the product selection pages.
Other forms of marketing that you can employ alongside paid include social media marketing, email marketing and using influencers to popularize the products. There is also a “Deals” tab on any Amazon site where you can offer discounts to customers. It is also crucial to get positive feedback from potential customers, “Majority of the time, people tend to trust word of mouth as the best marketing tool, so after making a sale, be sure to ask the customer to leave feedback.”
9. Monitor and Optimize Your Performance
When starting your business on Amazon, you need to follow your progress and make necessary changes if required. Monitor your sales, feedback and stock using Amazon’s Seller Central to help you monitor your sales. If this is doing well, you should look at offering more products in that line. On the other hand, if a product has not sold well, sometimes it is advisable to review the listing status, price it lower, or even drop it out of the market altogether.
Secondly, make sure to check your advertising campaigns now and then to see what campaigns are bringing the most traffic and subsequent sales. Optimize your campaigns according to ROI so that the campaigns can be made better with time.
Conclusion
A lot of people have thought of venturing into the e-commerce business on Amazon, and it can be very profitable if provided correctly. Following these steps- market investigation, purchasing products, fine-tuning the listings, setting fair prices, and taking advantage of Amazon’s fulfilment services- you can build a business in one of the biggest marketplaces on the planet. By focusing, planning, and constantly adjusting the approach, the sellers can increase their efficiency and make a successful Amazon business.
