How To Register As A Seller On Amazon

Chapter 2 – Registering as an Amazon Seller

Registering as an Amazon Seller

Now you lot're ready to movement forward with getting signed up or "registered" as a seller. So, what happens when you lot register? What is now expected of you lot equally an Amazon Seller? What steps should you take immediately to ready your store for customers?

We'll cover that shortly. But first, let's starting time by defining a few of import terms for this chapter:

Referral Fee: Every time you sell an item on Amazon, you have to pay Amazon a referral fee. The fee typically ranges betwixt eight% and twenty% of the total price (production toll + aircraft cost) you charged the client. Included in that fee, Amazon will handle credit card fees for your transactions, also as investing some of it on search engines for pay-per-click ad, helping to brand your products more visible online.
Gated Category: Not all categories on Amazon are open to every seller. Some categories require permission from Amazon. Before you register on Amazon, it is well worth your fourth dimension to read up on Amazon to find out which categories are gated, and figure out if your items would fall into those categories. If your items are in gated categories, you volition want to read the instructions on what it takes to apply to get ungated for those categories. Realistically, if you're looking to sell items primarily in gated categories on Amazon, you volition need to first the ungating request process immediately after registration. Be aware that asking to be ungated hardly guarantees that you will be granted permission, so you lot may discover that Amazon isn't available to y'all as a sales channel.
Brandish Name: While yous will likely end up registering your business with your state authorities, the legal name y'all choose for your business does non need to exist the proper noun you employ on Amazon to present your offers. Many sellers on Amazon use a dissimilar proper noun on Amazon than the legal name they've used for their state paperwork. Instead they utilise a faux display name to assist link their products to a company name that sounds more customer-friendly or suitable for selling on Amazon.
Taxation Nexus: Every bit Benjamin Franklin said, "In this world zero can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." And selling on Amazon is no different—there are tax implications for any selling yous do here. We aren't tax accountants, and we encourage you to talk with your own—information technology's of import to understand that you will need to provide Amazon with your reseller tax ID number as part of your registration process. And if you choose to collect state tax for relevant states in which you accept a presence (or "taxation nexus"), y'all will want to have your tax ID numbers bachelor for Amazon for each of these relevant states. Remember, while Amazon can aid y'all collect tax on customer orders, you alone are responsible for paying your taxes.

The Signup Process

More than than 98% of all sellers that join Amazon become through a self-service registration procedure—that is, they don't deal with an Amazon sales person to get registered. For those sellers that register outside of the self-service registration process, it's because the Amazon sales squad has reached out to them to invite them to join Amazon—something that commonly happens just for large or strategic companies whose selection Amazon is targeting.

To sign upwardly, you tin utilize a few different self-service options:

Go to http://services.amazon.com, then click on either the "Selling on Amazon" link or "Sell on Amazon" box

2. Go to http://sellercentral.amazon.com, then click in the bottom left on "Selling on Amazon"

3. Click on the "Sell" button at the top of the Amazon.com home page:

It doesn't really matter through which of these pages you lot start your registration procedure.

Seller Blazon

Next, yous will need to decide what type of seller y'all want to be: a "Professional" seller or an "Individual" seller. Hither are the differences betwixt these 2 seller types.

Professional Seller
- Professional sellers are typically sellers that plan to list more than few handfuls of products, and wait to be regular sellers into the future
Individual Seller
- Individual sellers are typically sellers that have a small supply of product that they want to sell and and so be done with selling. Peradventure you lot're a college student who wants to sell some used textbooks at the end of term, or you're cleaning out cupboards and found some old gifts you lot don't want so you lot make up one's mind to sell them on Amazon, rather than selling them locally.

Professional vs Private Accounts

There are five subtle but important tradeoffs betwixt selecting a Professional Seller and an Individual Seller business relationship:

Monthly fee.
Professional Sellers pay a $39.99 monthly fee for their accounts to be active, even if they don't listing or sell anything. Private sellers don't take this monthly fee to argue with.
List fees.
Individual and Professional Sellers pay the same referral fees on product sales, but Private sellers are charged a $0.99/per item fee for each unit sold. Professional person sellers don't pay this fee. An Private Seller pays no monthly fee for your seller account, you lot will pay a per-detail $0.99 fee on each auction in additional to the usual Amazon referral fees. If you plan to sell more than 40 units a month, yous may want to consider getting a Professional Seller account just to salve on the per-item fee (plus there are many other advantages being a Professional Seller). Also go on in mind that yous're allowed to flip dorsum and along between being an Individual Seller and Professional person Seller—for instance, if you make up one's mind to terminate selling as a Professional Seller for some period of time, and don't want to be charged a monthly fee during that no-sales catamenia.
Shipping rates.
Only professional sellers tin set up their own shipping rates they charge Amazon customers. If yous plan to make shipping a profit center for you, it tin can be very important to exist able to set your own aircraft rates that you charge Amazon customers. But recollect, Amazon charges you referral fees on the combined production toll and shipping cost, so you'll want to cistron that referral fee into your shipping rates.
List new products.
Apart from a few minor exceptions, merely Professional Sellers can create new listings for products never offered before on Amazon. Private sellers tin can just add together their offers to listings already created on Amazon.
Gated categories.
Only Professional Sellers can apply to be allowed to list and sell in roughly 10 product categories that are currently gated on Amazon. These categories include Clothing, Shoes, Jewelry/Watches, Beauty, Collectibles, Automotive, and Video.

Take These Set up Before You Start

The registration procedure is fairly straightforward and can exist completed in nether an hour, just in that location are few pieces of information you'll want to have in accelerate in order to streamline the process. The rules for signing up on Amazon differ from country to country, simply here we'll focus on what information technology will accept to become registered on Amazon.com, the Us marketplace. You CAN terminate the registration procedure partway through and come dorsum to information technology later – just it'south MUCH easier to pull together the following 5 pieces of information Before yous start the registration process:

Your legal business name, address, and contact information
An electronic mail address that tin be used for this company business relationship
An internationally chargeable credit card with a valid billing accost
A phone number where you tin be reached during the registration process
Your tax identity data

Registered and Launched Accounts

In one case yous've provided all of this data, you're a "registered" seller on Amazon. Most immediately, Amazon will encourage you to become started with listing your products, for once yous list even a single production, yous become a "Launched" seller, rather than only a "Registered, Not Launched" Seller. If you remain a "Registered, Not Launched" seller, Amazon will email you several times encouraging yous to listing products. Amazon is likely to make much more than money from you on referral fees once you lot start selling products.

Pre-List Admin Issues

Before you get to the listing process (which nosotros will discuss in the next chapter on how to launch your account), there are some important authoritative issues that are oftentimes overlooked by new sellers, including:

Selling in gated categories (or what Amazon calls "Categories and Products Requiring Approval")

As we mentioned earlier, some ten plus categories on Amazon are gated, meaning you demand to get special permission to list/sell items in those categories. If you accept products in those categories to sell, start the un-gating request process immediately afterward getting registered, and so you can take reward of the "first 30-days gratis" program that is typically available on all new Professional person Seller accounts. If your request to sell in a gated category is turned down, you should nonetheless have enough time to decide whether to abolish your Professional Seller account before you are charged a monthly fee subsequently the commencement 30 days has passed. If the bulk of the products you plan to sell are in gated categories you don't go permission to access, it may not brand a lot of sense to continue efforts to be an Amazon seller.

Sign into Seller Primal, and search for "Categories and Products requiring blessing." At that place yous volition run across links to utilise for permission to listing your products in each relevant gated category. Depending on the category for which you lot are seeking approval, Amazon will inquire you various questions or for various documents, images or URLs to evaluate whether you should be ungated to sell in those categories. It is our experience that this process is 1 of meeting the bar, rather than trying to surpass the bar. If Amazon asks y'all to show it a website on which you have at least v gated products available for auction, do just that, and brand certain every single image yous prove Amazon meets Amazon's image requirements. Y'all tin can learn more than near image requirements by searching once again in Seller Central for that topic). Respond all the questions honestly, and provide the requested documentation. If you can't provide the necessary documentation, figure out how to go it. Don't try to get approved without providing all of the required information and answering all the required questions. We've seen sellers apply over and over to get approval, each fourth dimension non properly completing the approving application process.
While you wait for your ungating request to be processed, you lot will non be able to list any products in those relevant categories, simply can listing products in any category that doesn't require such ungating.

Setting Upwardly Your Seller Profile

Once you are registered, yous can access your home page at http://sellercentral.amazon.com, Amazon's portal for sellers. As a new seller, there are a number of settings to lock down—most of which nosotros recommend you do right away as a newly registered seller.

In the top right corner of the Seller Central abode page, click on "Settings," which volition generate a drop-downwardly list of options to discuss.

Account Info
In this section, please verify that all of your contact information is correct. You lot can edit information past clicking on the right-mitt side "Edit" button. If yous plan to apply an alternating Display Name rather than your legal name, you can enter that hither. Accurate "Return Information" is critical, specially if you lot plan to use any Fulfillment by Amazon services. Customers may render products to Amazon'due south FBA facilities, and then if you designate Amazon to practise then, it tin ship those client-returned items dorsum to you; and so, make certain you have an appropriate place to which you lot can legitimately receive returned product. We have seen absurd situations where smaller sellers have generated decent volumes that generated enough returns that when returns were sent to their home address, they found that they didn't have room to store all of the returned products at once.If you plan to alter the credit carte in "Charge Method" section, please be aware that your account may be put on agree for 24 hours while the credit card number is updated in Amazon's systems. Nosotros recommend that if you change your credit card settings, you should immediately telephone call Seller Back up to notify them of the change, which can help shorten the time that your account is frozen while the new number is verified.
Notification Preferences
Amazon is fix to send a lot of emails to sellers. Just those emails are for many different purposes. And so, if you plan to have unlike people on your team address distinct problems, or you desire to separate Gild notification emails from all other emails (such as emails regarding reports, production recommendations, full general news, or changes to your listings), this is the place to set your email preferences. It is worth carefully thinking through how y'all want to be notified of what's happening in your Seller account.Because Amazon sends you a separate electronic mail for every single club you receive, it'due south easy for a fast-growing Amazon seller to miss out on other interesting and relevant messages that got lost in the midst of all of these transactional emails. The Listings Notifications and Report Notifications are critical to read, as you volition exist notified when ane of your listings have been changed past some other seller or merged by Amazon.Having your listings inverse can exist a very frustrating attribute of selling on listings shared with competitors, as a competitor may make an inaccurate change to the list that results in your customers seeing the wrong information on a product that you are selling (if that happens, make sure to contact Seller Support asking for help getting the listing modified again).
Login Settings
In case y'all need to modify your username or password to get into your Seller Fundamental account
Render Settings
Outline how you want your product returns to exist handled. While FBA returns are handled by Amazon, you lot'll need to specify how returns on orders you fulfill yourself should be handled. This volition help ensure that the communication between you, Amazon and the customer returning the product is to your liking.
Gift Options
If you program to offer gift messaging to customers who place orders you lot fulfill yourself, you volition want to fill this out. Customers like this functionality, but brand sure you lot take the technical ability to handle this feature.
Shipping Settings
As a Professional person Seller, you take the right to set your own shipping rates for orders you fulfill yourself. While you lot can set loftier shipping rates and long aircraft times, continue in mind that these tin can reduce the likelihood that Amazon customers will select your offering over a competitor's offer.
Tax Settings
While some of this will be useful groundwork to take nigh your obligations to collect and pay taxes, our main call-out here is the "View/Edit your Tax Collection Obligations and Shipping & Handling and Souvenir Wrap Tax Settings" link. At a minimum, you will need to pay land taxation on any orders beingness shipped into the states where y'all have a physical business presence ("taxation nexus"). Be sure to talk to your tax professional person for clarification on this, though taxation nexus normally includes states where your business organisation has its own warehouses, offices, or call centers.If yous want Amazon to collect the state tax on orders shipped to those specific states where y'all have "tax nexus," you volition need to provide your state tax ID data here. If you lot don't have your state tax ID set up, you will demand to contact the appropriate state tax organizations immediately to go your state tax IDs.Please remember, while Amazon tin collect your land taxation for you, information technology remains your responsibility to pay your state taxes and to find out the procedure for each state in which you will exist paying state taxation.One common fault past new Amazon sellers is to unknowingly not collect state tax on the Amazon transaction, and end up having to pay the tax out of pocket.You may decide you are comfortable absorbing this tax cost yourself, only most customers understand the demand to collect land tax on their transactions and will pay information technology, so why non collect it explicitly! Furthermore, sales revenue enhancement costs are Non included in the calculation of the buy box algorithm, so y'all aren't penalized every bit a seller if your client happens to be in a state where yous have to pay country tax.
User Permissions
In this department, yous can allow people with other email addresses to be able to access sure Seller Central sections or reports on your account. This is particularly useful if you have different people on your squad supporting your Amazon account simply you lot don't want them to see all of your information. You can provide people access to specific data on a demand-to-know basis while restricting other information that they don't run across. Go along in heed that if yous have employees with access to Seller Central, and you allow these employees go, it's up to you to remove their access to Seller Central immediately. No one wants a disgruntled ex-employee to mess upward your whole account.
Your Info & Policies
Accept a few moments to draw your visitor in the "Nearly Seller" surface area. It helps to provide a high-level overview of what you do and what types of products you specialize in for customers who aren't familiar with your company. If you check other seller storefronts on Amazon, yous can see how sellers choose to describe themselves. If you have a company logo, upload information technology here. The logo will announced next to your visitor proper noun on product detail pages. If your products take unusual characteristics, yous may desire to accost those in the "Ofttimes Asked Questions" department. If y'all're not certain what to include hither, don't worry. Typically, as you lot get started selling, customers will send yous 1-off questions to analyze production specifications or warranty terms. Y'all may choose to leave this section blank until you beginning to encounter what kinds of questions customers are asking nigh often.
Fulfillment past Amazon (FBA)
If you are going to apply FBA, you volition desire to fill in this information to brand certain returns are sent dorsum to the correct place, and product return/disposal procedures with Amazon are set upwardly the fashion you'd like.

Feedback

Equally y'all get ready for customers and orders, keep in mind that Amazon keeps track of your performance metrics, including Client Feedback. Y'all may piece together a scrappy process for asking Amazon customers to leave you feedback, only it's wise to streamline and automate the collection of feedback so you can focus on other parts of your business organization.but we encourage yous to consider using 1 of the inexpensive external tools similar:

www.feedbackgenius.com
world wide web.ecomengine.com/feedbackfive
world wide web.bqool.com/products/feedback-key

With these tools yous can go the feedback engine running efficiently. You lot want to accept a decent boilerplate feedback score, but the number of pieces of feedback will too become an asset for your growing business.

Chapter 2 Wrap-Upward: Processes To Implement

In that location are a lot of issues to think virtually when yous first register as an Amazon seller. If you don't accost them all when you gear up up your business relationship, you could observe yourself spinning your wheels or wasting time and money to set things afterwards. Nosotros encourage you lot to make certain you lot take care of:

Ungating
Get started on the ungating process for all of your relevant categories as shortly as you finish registering – if you lot find you can't get ungated, it may not be worth being a seller on Amazon.
State tax ID
Submit your relevant land tax ID information to Amazon and then Amazon can collect state taxes for you and yous don't observe yourself paying them out of pocket.
Shipping Rates
Review your shipping rates on Amazon, and update them if the default ones don't make financial sense for you.

As we mentioned in the pre-registration chapter's checklist of processes, get yourself organized with an initial subset of your itemize that y'all want to list on Amazon. This subset of products should be ones that:

Don't require you to become permission to sell in their specific categories
Come with good images and written content to use for creating listings

We also encourage you to have the UPCs or EANs (European Commodity Numbers) ready for your items. This information will permit y'all to check quickly to see if y'all need to create all new listings or whether you can piggyback off of existing listings that are already in Amazon's catalog.

We discuss the listings process more than in affiliate 8, only the quick takeaway hither is that you lot want to keep the listings process simple for yourself, and having the UPCs or EANs of your products ready to become will greatly accelerate your ability to start putting your products up for sale on Amazon.