If you’re interested in selling more online, you could be starting from a few potential points.
Here’s why it’s worth it.
- Low Initial Investment
Amazon is friendly to new sellers without much to start with. There’s an active market for used and refurbished items. If you have some skill with rebuilding or refurbishing, all the better.
Amazon’s listing fees are relatively low, and as an individual seller, you won’t have to pay until something sells. Once you’re ready to move up and start competing, a Professional Seller account is just $39.99 a month and opens up some powerful selling tools.
- Reach Millions of Customers
Amazon is the first stop for millions of people shopping online and boasts millions of active customer accounts. 200 million of these users are devoted enough to their Amazon shopping to invest in an Amazon Prime, the amazon subscription that includes access to special benefits.
What does this mean for you as a seller? It means creating product listings on Amazon gets them in front of the eyes of millions of interested shoppers. That’s the kind of exposure that just can’t be beaten, especially for a growth-minded business!
When selling on Amazon’s Marketplace, please note the different fees available by product categories, this can make a big difference when calculating the profit margin, especially for sellers doing retail arbitrage.
Related read: what is the best selling product on amazon
- Benefit from Amazon’s Reputation
Those millions of customers we just mentioned wouldn’t be shopping on Amazon if they didn’t trust the company. As an Amazon seller, you can gain some of that trust for yourself, which really helps when new customers are considering “taking the plunge” and buying from you the first time.
Amazon enforces a lot of rules to make its marketplace a safe, reliable place to shop. Buyers appreciate this and know that Amazon sellers have to meet these standards to continue selling. Your presence on Amazon helps mitigate the risk some customers perceive about online shopping, so you can enjoy the benefits of Amazon’s customer service, and that’s a great thing for your business
- Fantastic Shipping with Fulfillment by Amazon
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a system in which you send your inventory to Amazon and they handle the picking, packing, and ship your products directly from their warehouse. Not only does this take the packing and shipping burden off your shoulders, but it also means you can offer Prime shipping to those 200 million Amazon Prime members — who on average spend over 4 times as much as non-Prime shoppers.
Using FBA also means Amazon takes responsibility for any problems that arise during shipping, like late shipments, damaged items, or other issues. Your reputation as a seller doesn’t take a hit.
- Amazon Does its Share of the Work
When selling on Amazon, your customers are Amazon’s customers first and foremost. Amazon handles most of the technical details, to begin with, but they also do much of the customer service — especially if you use FBA. Amazon will take care of address changes, customer inquiries, order problems, and more.
With Amazon on your side, you’ll find much of your valuable time freed up to work on other aspects of your business. You’ll get a lot more done when you don’t have to spend hours each day packing and shipping items or dealing with customer questions of the type Amazon itself could answer.