Selling on Amazon For Dummies
Deniz Olmez, Joseph Kraynak
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Selling on Amazon For Dummies
Deniz Olmez, Joseph Kraynak
About This Book
Sell on Amazon and Make Them Do the Heavy Lifting
Selling on Amazon has become one of the most popular ways to earn income online. In fact, there are over 2 million people selling on Amazon worldwide. Amazon allows any business, no matter how small, to get their products in front of millions of customers and take advantage of the largest fulfillment network in the world. It also allows businesses to leverage their first-class customer service and storage capabilities.
Selling on Amazon For Dummies walks owners through the process of building a business on Amazonâa business that can be built almost anywhere in the world, as long as you have access to a computer and the internet.
- The basics of selling on Amazon
- Using FBA
- Getting started
- Deciding what to sell
- Conducting product research
- Finding your way around Seller Central
- Product sourcing, shipping and returns, Amazon subscription, fees, sales tax, and more
- How to earn ROIs (Returns on Your Investments)
Selling on Amazon For Dummies provides the strategies, tools, and education you need, including turnkey solutions focused on sales, marketing, branding, and marketplace development to analyze and maximize opportunities.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Getting Started with Selling on Amazon
Laying the Groundwork
Getting the Lowdown on Selling Online
Weighing the pros and cons of online retailing
Recognizing potential benefits
- Low start-up costs and overhead: You can start without having to build a store, hire employees, or develop and maintain complex operations.
- Easy access to customers (nationally and globally): You can sell products to anyone, anywhere who has an Internet-enabled device.
- Option to outsource inventory storage: Products can be stored and shipped from third-party warehouses.
- Deeper customer insights: By analyzing shopper activity online, you gain deeper insight into what they want and the effectiveness of your advertising and promotions.
- 24-hour sales: You make your own hours, while customers can shop 24/7. You can sell products in your sleep!
- No waiting in lines: Customers donât have to wait in line, which can boost sales.
Considering potential drawbacks
- Increased competition: Youâre often competing against both big businesses and individual sellers.
- Lower profit margins: According to the law of supply and demand, increased competition drives down prices, especially in popular marketplaces, such as Amazon.
- Higher costs: Although overhead costs are significantly lower, you can expect other costs, such as the cost of building and maintaining an online store, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, transaction fees on marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon, and so on. (See the later section âTabulating the Costsâ for details regarding Amazon Seller fees.)
- Reduced consumer trust: Until you become an established retailer, some shoppers may not trust you enough to place an order. Selling in a trusted marketplace such as Amazon eliminates these trust issues to a certain degree.
- Reduced customer loyalty: Online shoppers are fickle and usually swayed more by prices than by any feelings of loyalty to a particular retailer. However, over time, you can build a more loyal customer base.
Taking a tour of online stores and marketplaces
- Your own online store: You can find plenty of ecommerce web hosting services that provide the tools for setting up and maintaining your own store, such as
Shopify.com
. - Pure marketplace: A pure marketplace, such as eBay, simply brings buyers and sellers together and facilitates and secures transactions between the two. It doesnât carry or sell inventory of its own.
- Hybrid marketplace: A hybrid marketplace, such as Amazon, brings buyers and sellers together, facilitates and secures transactions between the two, and sells products, competing with other sellers in the marketplace.
- Diverse product selection at competitive prices, which attracts sellers
- Secure transaction processing for both buyers and sellers
- Access to millions of shoppers eager to spend
- Virtually unlimited scalability to accommodate any level of growth