Amazon FBA 101: A Step-by-Step Guide For New Sellers

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Building physical stores are no longer necessary for you to become an entrepreneur. For people wanting to have an online store but don’t have the time to process everything, Amazon FBA is heaven-sent. Check out this guide, so you know what to do regarding Amazon FBA and also visit website for more details.

Fulfillment by Amazon Dropshipping

Fulfillment by Amazon or FBA is a service that Amazon provides for its sellers. This service takes care of storing, prepping, labeling, and distributing your products. Your products are picked up and stored in the storage warehouse that is closest to you. Sometimes it even gets distributed to different store locations depending on its demand.

It’s an excellent opportunity for a side hustle too. You only have to pay the price, then get some initial work done and after that, it’s mostly Amazon that will take care of everything else. Of course, you still have to check in with them from time to time to make sure everything is going smoothly, but it won’t take up lots of hours.

Read Also: Drop Ship and Shopify Business Marketing Course Review: Pros And Cons

How it Works

Amazon FBA 1

Step 1: Create an Account

Before filling out the registration, make sure to learn everything you can about the two accounts offered and their different details:

Individual Account

  • Free subscription
  • Amazon charges $0.99 per item sold
  • Referral fees
  • Variable closing fees

Professional Account

  • $39.99 monthly flat rate
  • Referral fees
  • Variable closing fees

If you are a beginner at online selling, maybe you should start with an Individual account. Amazon recommends this for sellers that plan on selling fewer than 40 items. However, if you are confident that your business will thrive, you could take a chance with the Professional account.

If you are a long time seller, then the Professional account is for you. You may be selling more than 40 items per month because you had already established a broad market before you even thought about using Amazon FBA.

Step 2: List Your Products on Amazon

Amazon FBA 2

Once you successfully create your account, you will then list the items you want to sell. If you’re creating an account before thinking about what products to sell, you could add in some temporary things first. It could be items from around your house that you no longer need but still works fine.

Add in your inventory and enter the product information. Crucial data you need to provide are:

  • Price – Sell your products at a reasonable price. Remember you have plenty of competition. If the price is too expensive customers might not even, consider buying it especially if you don’t have an established brand.
  • Condition (brand new or secondhand) – Your complete honesty when stating the condition of the product. Lying about it will force the customer to return the item, losing your sale plus it will cost you some bad reviews.
  • FBA shipment – You have the option to ship your items yourself or let Amazon handle it. But since we’re talking about FBA, of course, you have to pick the latter option. You have to manually select the items you want to use FBA on because Amazon does not automatically fulfill all your items. You have the freedom to choose which items you can ship yourself or not.

Step 3: Create a Shipping Plan for Amazon FBA

When you add in your second item, you will then need to create a shipping plan. You have to type in the address where your products will come from, which is most likely your home address, and the choose a packing type.

For packing type, you have two options:

  • Individual products – Choose this if you are sending products that are individually wrapped.
  • Case-packed products – Choose this if you are delivering a box that contains the exact kind of items.

Once done, every time you add in more products, you will go through a similar process. However, you don’t have to add in details repeatedly, you only have to select “Add to an existing shipping plan.”

Step 4: Ship Your Products to Amazon

Now that you added everything you want to sell to your shipment plan, you can now send it to Amazon. Go to “Inventory” then go to the “Manage FBA Shipments” and then select “Continue with Shipping Plan.”

Enter the required details:

  • Number of units
  • Who will prep the items (you or Amazon)?
  • Weight

After you label your package, you can now send it to Amazon. Once they receive it, your items are now available. Now, you wait for them to get sold.

Conclusion

Selling through FBA is not as tedious as doing it all by yourself. You only have to get through the initial step-by-step process, and most things from there won’t be difficult. Have some patience and don’t be disappointed when your products don’t get purchased on the first day. It takes time and before you know it you’ll be sending out more and more items to sell.

Read Also: 5 Profitable Green Product Ideas to Private Label & Sell on Amazon

Author: Sarah Morris

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