How to sell on Amazon?

The easiest, quite convenient and an inexpensive way to start your business online is to sell your products on Amazon.

Amazon is an online retail marketplace with sharper retail tack. Amazon provides tools to support third-party sellers become part of a seamless shopping experience for customers. Also, its deep eCommerce knowledge base is there to educate, equip and empower Indian sellers.

Sell online with Amazon, and reach out to potential customers across India. Grow your business in India and internationally by selling your products on Amazon.  

Why sell on Amazon?

Amazon is an eCommerce giant. Since 2000, Amazon has been a great platform to sell products helping both individuals and businesses to expand their sales and reach new potential customers. 40% of Amazon’s total unit sales come from third-party sellers. Global exports from Amazon Sellers in India went up by 224% in 2017.

Subscription:

• For Indian sellers, Amazon asks for NO subscription fee.

How it works:

• Decide what you want to sell
• Register and set up your store on Amazon
• Register for GSTIN, It is mandatory
• File for GTIN exemption (GTIN is a 14 digit number which can be used exclusively with barcodes)
• List your own designed products on your Amazon store
• Receive an order from a customer
• Place the order with Printrove
• Printrove prepares the product (print-on-demand)
• Product gets packed at Printrove
• Printrove ships the product to your customer
• Receive payment from Amazon
• Grow your business

Find Products to Sell on Amazon

The first step to sell on Amazon is to list the products. There are many ways to sell profitable products on Amazon. You can follow the traditional method of selling products by manufacturing (or) handmade. The next option is to resell wholesale goods. But there are a variety of creative ways to sell your products here.

The different sourcing methods are:

1. Retail Arbitrage

2. Reselling Wholesale Goods

3. Private Label

4. Manufacturing & Handmade

5. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is the easiest and inexpensive way to sell your products on Amazon. But unfortunately, this option is not for everyone. Drop shipping is best for Startups or experienced dropshippers with low cost. Drop shipping works like, when you list an item for sale, your dropship vendor packs and ships it for you. Once the process is complete, only then you will be charged for the item.

With all advantages, it has few pitfalls too. The main issue you might face will be finding the perfect dropshipper that can meet Amazon’s rigid requirements. Because you might face product quality complaints, shortage of inventories and delay in shipment!

When you opt for print-on-demand, the products will be printed only after the order is received from the merchant. So, you might not find the shortage of inventories or out of stock.

Printrove is one of the leading drop shipping companies in India. It takes care of fulfillment, packaging, and delivery on time with best quality products in the industry.  If there is a situation where products are running out of inventories, updates will be sent to the Merchants before hand.

Consider all measures and decide the perfect drop shipper for your business:

Select and Set Up Your Amazon Seller Account

Amazon.in offers Individual Seller account. Product fees and GST are applicable for all the items.  

You can set up your seller account by registering and following Amazon’s setup wizard. Once you complete all the steps, You’ll get access to your Seller Central Dashboard. You can now start listing your products to sell on Amazon.

Create Your Product Listings on Amazon

Amazon sellers can create new product listing for print-on-demand products, since the sellers come up with unique products.    

Create a new product listing manually

Amazon sellers can create new product listings for items not already sold on Amazon. This is a time taking process, but you can add your high-quality listing that sells by your own keyword research, product images, and detailed item description.  

Upload products in bulk

For selling few items manual listing is fine, but you’ll need a bulk upload for large or changing collection. You can upload product listings in bulk using a Spreadsheet or using product feeds available in the Seller Central Dashboard.

Once your product listing on Amazon is added you will need to manage your inventory.

Manage Your Inventory on Amazon

The key to your success in Amazon is managing your inventory. Your seller rating will be lowered by Amazon if you fail to ship an item which you show in stock. You have numerous choices for managing your inventory.

Keep your inventory updated no matter whichever the sourcing method is. This helps to get high seller rating on Amazon.

You have to manage your inventories wisely. If you are selling only on Amazon, then you will get the right count of items that are sold. On the other side, if you use the same stock to sell on your website you must have a tracking or a better inventory management solution.

Printrove reduces your effort by managing your inventories. Everything is taken care of from creating the tracking ID to delivering the product to the customers. There are no out-of-stock issues since the product is printed only after you receive an order.

Ways to manage your inventory:

Manually adjust inventory: You can manually adjust inventory within your seller central dashboard inventory screen for few products.

Bulk upload or inventory feed: To manage and balance the inventory between Amazon and your website store, you must have a better solution. This is applicable when you have a large number of products and they have to be reordered frequently.

E-commerce platforms or inventory software:  You can use Amazon seller tool to manage and upload your products to Amazon, as there are plenty of options available for your convenience. You can also use solutions like Easyops, Browntape, etc to make the inventory and accounts management simpler.

Once your product listing and inventories are set, you need to get products to your buyers.

Fulfil Your Amazon Orders

Fulfilling your Amazon orders is the last major step. Amazon is completely a customer-centric company. It demands that you fulfill the orders on time. Your seller rating will suffer if there is any delay in order fulfillment. You must ship products by yourself or outsource to a trusted partner to sell on Amazon.

1. Fulfilment by Merchant (FBM)

Fulfillment by Merchant is where Amazon sellers ship orders by themselves.

Amazon makes it super easy for sellers to handle the shipping on a small scale. You can set your own shipping charge. Before shipping, the packing materials have to be ready with shipping boxes (any white labelled packaging), packing tape, filler such as paper or bubble wrap, a shipping scale, and easy access to shippers for package drop-off, or a secure place for pickup.

Packing has to be done on time, packing few items each week is not enough. To avoid these hassles, you can choose the next option – Fulfillment by Amazon.

2. Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA)

Fulfillment by Amazon works easier, you just need to ship your products to Amazon. Your items are stored, packed and shipped for you by Amazon. FBA fees are added to your Amazon selling fees.

Sellers can also order products in bulk from Printrove to reduce the cost. Printrove will print, pack and send it to the seller’s location. Later the sellers can have them sent to their registered Amazon Warehouse. Then Amazon will deliver the package to the customers as and when you receive an order.

Amazon has many major sales-driving perks with FBA.

• Prime-eligible product listings
• Buyers look for Prime
• Free shipping to Prime buyers
• Higher rankings for product listings
• More Buy Box listings
• Trust factor
• Higher sales potential

Using FBA, your work is reduced and your product gets higher ratings. FBA not only saves time but also reduces the risk of packing and shipping your products by yourself.

Being an FBA seller, you should have a clear plan. Your products have to be prepared correctly without any damages or defects and sent to Amazon. Amazon’s requirements have to be matched with your products like printing barcode labels, bagging or packing items.

3. Use a Third party Fulfillment partner:

The third option to fulfill your products is using an outside third party partner. This fulfillment partner does the same work as FBA like storing, packing and shipping your products for you. It is considered to be fulfillment by Merchant, but you choose your own fulfillment company of your choice by opting out of the Easyship shipping settings. Your COD orders would get disabled too in this case, which would keep the order returns to a bare minimum.

Choosing a fulfillment partner is a good one, for low-volume Amazon startups. Be aware of this option in case your growth takes you beyond strictly selling on Amazon.

How to use Printrove to sell on Amazon

Cataloguing

Printrove provides you an option to sell on Amazon and to keep track of the orders using SKU (stock keeping unit). The SKU library in Printrove enables you to map your products from your store or Amazon to the Printrove system through the SKU.

You do not have to link products individually from your store to Printrove. You can name your products using the product code and design codes and upload them into the SKU library. To list your products in bulk, you can create an excel sheet with all the product’s SKU and upload them on Amazon. This process maps all products to corresponding product types and design codes.

When you get orders from Amazon or from your store, you can mention the SKU for repeat orders. This will save your time and make the complete process easy and quick.

Shipping

There are two options of shipping that can be used with Amazon when you opt in for “Merchant Fulfilled” listings. 

1. Easy ship

Enabling Easy ship on your Amazon account instructs Amazon that you would like Amazon to pick up the products from your registered address and Amazon pickup executives would come to pick up your products and deliver it to the customers themselves. Since the shipping is completely taken care of by Amazon, you would be eligible for COD orders too. 

It has to be noted that the pick up address in the case of Easy ship orders can only be set to an address of the same state of the registered business. In this case, you would need a GSTIN in Tamil Nadu if you would like to opt in for Easy Ship through Printrove. 

2. Self shipping

In the Self shipping mode, you instruct Amazon that you can take care of the shipping yourself and hence you would get only prepaid orders. Once you receive the order on your Seller Central, you can place the order on Printrove’s merchant panel. After the order is processed by Printrove, you can go ahead and update the tracking ID given by Printrove for the corresponding order. 

Bottom Line

Amazon is an incredible platform that welcomes all kind of sellers. It is suitable for both individuals sellers to sell few items and power sellers who are moving thousands of products every day.  

There are many ways to sell on Amazon as discussed above. You must keep in mind that the competition is extreme and Amazon is a demanding Marketplace.

You need to approach from the profit perspective by figuring out the cost of the whole process. And add to that the time value of sourcing products, creating listings, managing inventory, and shipping orders. Once you understand your costs, you can make decisions to help balance efficiencies, increase net profits, and find ways to grow your business.

If you are an Amazon seller or want to become a new seller on this vast platform, follow the steps which are suitable for you and enjoy a big hike in your business. Before that, take your time to research and analyse best options to have an exponential growth.