Amazon is one of the most recognizable online retailers on the planet, and for a good reason. This mega-retailer sells everything from books to big-ticket electronics. Adding your product to this marketplace significantly increases its visibility and likelihood of being purchased. This post explores how to get started with Amazon’s FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) program and a few tips that can help you succeed once your new business takes off!
Step 1: Register a seller account
A seller account is the most critical and first step in starting your Amazon dropshipping business. You can register your seller account googling online and following relevant instructions, which will differ depending on creating a professional or individual seller account. The choice of registered entity does not affect the ability to sell successfully on Amazon.
In addition, you will need a tax ID for either type of account for your products to be eligible for sale on Amazon.com.
Step 2: Setting up your account
Before selling on Amazon, you need to set up your seller account. This step is a critical part of the process and can be rather time-consuming. You will have to go through several steps before you can sell on Amazon.
The first thing you need is to sign up for an account with Amazon. That will give you access to the site and your seller account and allow you to manage your products and Inventory.
Afterward, go to My Account – Seller Dashboard. This link provides easy-to-access information about your seller accounts, such as the quality score and sales rank.
Next, go under Manage Inventory. Here, you must select which product categories the seller account allows. Afterward, click Create a new listing.
After clicking the button, a new window will display many details regarding your listings. Here you can add any products listed on Amazon by clicking Add Product.
After adding a product, the next thing you need to do is go to: Manage Inventory.
By clicking on this link, your inventory will be listed. You must also add any additional inventory you want to sell on Amazon.
After adding an item to your inventory, the next step would be uploading your images. To do that, click on Add Product Image on the Manage Inventory page. Furthermore, go under Images and select whether you want your images displayed full size at Amazon or sized down by Amazon.
The next step would be writing a product description and keywords for your listing by going here: Manage Lists. Later you can edit it through Edit Product Detail and enter more information about your product.
Lastly, you can create variations of your product by going here: Manage Variation. You can choose from three variations: Size, Color, and Material. Creating a variation is optional.
Step 3: Find a product to sell
The next step would be finding a product to sell and dropshipping it. There are several ways of doing this, but the easiest and cheapest way is simply searching for an item on Amazon.com through Google search or Amazon’s search engine. Afterward, check the product’s price on Amazon and other online stores like eBay, Walmart, and Wayfair. If you notice a considerable difference in price between those sites, that is probably the product you should try to dropship. Another way of finding a product is looking on other websites that list the top products on Amazon. Another good way to find a product is through marketplaces like JungleScout.
These tips will aid you in finding a good, profitable product to dropship on Amazon.
Once you have found your product, listed it on Amazon, and checked the price on other websites, you can purchase the item from Alibaba. The website gives users access to wholesale suppliers from around the world at all times of the day.
The next step would be finding a supplier for your product. Try searching for vendors who have been pre-screened by Alibaba’s Verified Supplier program.
You will be able to contact a supplier via Alibaba’s messaging system, and they will contact you within the following two business days.
After finding a supplier, you can find more information about them on Alibaba’s website.
You can also find third-party dropshipping suppliers such as Nihao Dropshipping, Modalyst. Different from Alibaba, these suppliers may have better control over products, and they may offer product recommendations that differ from those of Alibaba.
Also read:
Top 13 Aliexpress Alternatives for Dropshipping in 2022
Step 4: Determine start-up costs.
If you know what the total costs of starting your Amazon dropshipping business will be, it can help you get organized. It makes budgeting more manageable and gives you a clearer idea of what is critical in starting this type of business.
The most affordable way of starting a dropshipping business is by purchasing your products from suppliers. That can be done through Alibaba, but you should be careful of scams there.
You can also buy your products from wholesalers and manufacturers in the United States or your country. However, that will give you higher start-up costs than buying from Alibaba.
Another option is to purchase or rent a warehouse space and store the inventory there. That will give you even higher costs than using the method above.
If you choose Alibaba as your drop shipping vendor, then shipment will depend on how much inventory you have of each product. The more inventory you have, the lower the shipping prices will be. However, if you are dropshipping a high-volume product, it is highly recommended to purchase larger boxes and ship in bulk.
Step 5: Sell on Amazon
Once you have found your products and built an inventory of them, it is time to start selling on Amazon. That is probably the most critical step of the entire process because this is what will make or break your business. Without buyers on Amazon, there would be no products for you to sell, so it is critical to make sure that you get potential buyers for every product you decide to dropship.
The next step would be waiting for your listings to go live on Amazon. That takes up to twelve hours. You will not see your product on Amazon until then.
After that, you can go back to Amazon and edit your product as you see fit. For example, you can add new variations of your product, upload more images and update the price of your product. Further, if you want to update your inventory list, click: Manage Inventory.
Aside from those steps above, there is not much else that you need to dropship on Amazon. The rest is up to the market and whether or not your business will grow into something bigger than what it was when it first started.
Amazon dropshipping is the perfect solution for anyone looking to start a business with little upfront investment or risk. You do not have to deal with inventory, warehousing, or customer service. You also do not need any special skills–dropshipping is as easy as setting up an account on an eCommerce platform and uploading your products.
