Selling Your Products on Amazon: Know Your Options
Published: October 8, 2018
Author: Nathan Singer
Amazon is a juggernaut in the e-commerce space, yet there is fear, uncertainty, and doubt when it comes to advertising on this platform – much of it surrounding the advertising options available and which are the best fit for brands.
With over 300 million Amazon users and 44% of U.S. households being Amazon Prime users, Amazon has become a top brand marketing channel. No matter your reason for hesitation, Amazon will continue to grow, and now is the best time to take advantage of that.
In that spirit, this post will provide a breakdown of advertising options to help you get your products in the Amazon game.
Are you a Seller or a Vendor?
Getting started is easy, but first you need to know one thing: are you a Seller or a Vendor?
Basically, a Vendor is a brand that pre-sells their products to Amazon and cedes control from there — the prices, shipping, and fulfillment are all under Amazon’s management. Brands do have some control in Vendor Central; they can update inventory, manage images and titles on product pages, etc.
Sellers haven’t sold their products to Amazon; they’re just offering them on the platform. This means that the Seller sets the prices and decides whether or not to hand fulfillment over to Amazon. Sellers manage their products (images, details, titles, etc.) in Seller Central, which has a cleaner, more intuitive UI and more functionality.
While Vendors do give up control to Amazon, they get something back: more avenues for selling, more bells and whistles, and fewer fulfillment headaches. Here’s a breakdown:
Getting Started
Signing up as a Seller
Simply go here to start the process. Once you click “Start selling,” you will need to log into your Amazon Account.
Once logged in, you will need to fill out the below information, which includes tax information and both a credit card and bank account:
Next, you’re onto the “product upload” stage. You can upload your products one SKU at a time or through bulk uploads.
Once your products are uploaded, you can start making your Campaigns.
Signing up as a Vendor
In order to sign up as a Vendor, you must be invited. You can request an invitation here by clicking “Sign In”:
Select the Advertising Console option, and request an invitation:
Once you have access, you will need to create a Vendor Central login and upload your products through there.
Got ‘em uploaded? Next step is to read this post on how to build and optimize Amazon campaigns.
