How To Start Selling on Amazon

Selling on Amazon is an incredibly lucrative business that can be moving quickly in less than a year.

Step 1:

Find the right product(s). You want to find a product that has low competition on Amazon (less than 250 reviews averaged on the top 5 competitors in the sub-category) and that has at least $1000 in sales averaged on the top 5 competitors in the sub-category. The ideal product selling price on Amazon is $20, so finding a product that you can source (buy in bulk from a manufacturer) for $2 or under. Remember, you'll have to pay for shipping to and from Amazon, advertising, Amazon's referral fee (normally 15%), and more. We can help you find the right product here. You then have to negotiate pricing and order a test unit to your home. After you vet the manufacturer in product, you'll have to buy a minimum number from the manufacturer. You can either ship this to your home and then to Amazon or directly to Amazon. It's now time to do some research.

Step 2:

Keyword research on Amazon is the art of using tools to figure out what search terms customers will use to find your products. Our favorite tool to use for this research is Helium 10. You'll need to make a list of these keywords and their monthly search volume. We can help you find the right keywords here. The best keywords are relevant to your products and with a low amount of competitors bidding on those terms. These keywords will be used to write the copy on the product and for advertising.

Step 3:

Using the keyword research that we just did, we need to write a title that sells. Take a look at the top 10 products in your sub-category to get a sense of what customers like. Most categories allow for 200 characters in the title. Make sure to create a title within terms of service, for example, have the brand at the start of the title. We need to have the keywords that we researched in the title while being readable. Ensure that there are value-add statements in the title, as well. 

We also need bullet points and a description that sells. We need to follow the same guide as what we have for the title, but here we typically have 500 characters per bullet points and 2000 characters for our description. 

You'll also need to fill out other required attributes in the product. We especially want to fill out the search terms section of the backend of the product wherein we put 250 characters from our keyword research that are not in our title, bullet points, and description. We can help you build the right copy here.

Step 4:

Photos will be incredibly important. The first photo also known as the HERO photo will be pivotal to engaging customers. This is your product on a white background. We can help you create the correct HERO photo here. This HERO photo needs to be 1500 x 1500 or higher and showcase your product in the best possible light.

Step 5:

Now, we need to create engaging lifestyle photos and infographics that showcase our value-add to customers. We have 7 additional photos to play around with here. Each one needs to tell part of the brand story and show why the product is the one that the customer wants. We can create these photos for you here. These photos can also be used on Amazon Posts, your website, in your email campaigns, and on social media. 

Step 6:

If you're going to dominate Amazon, you need a trademark for your brand name. You do this by filing with the USPTO. If the trademark is pending, then you can file for Amazon's trademark accelerator program. If you already have a trademark, you can file for Brand Registry on brandregistry.amazon.com. We can help you file for Brand Registry here. Brand Registry gives you access to a new support team, adding extra photos to a product page, and puts you in the driver's seat on your listings.

Step 7:

Brand Registry unlocks A+ Content Description where you can showcase your product with photos and copy in several modules. The best A+ Content helps you upsell other products, tell the brand story, and showcase why your product is the one that the customer needs to purchase. We can help you create this here. This description appears on your product page to help convert visitors into customers.

Step 8:

You can add a video to the product page by using A+ Content Video. This should be a 30-60 second video showcasing your product. We can help you create this video here. This video shows up on the product page and works wonders for informing visitors of your product's unique aspects.

Step 9:

Brand Registry also unlocks Storefront creation where you can showcase your entire product line with your own URL to give to your customers and social media followers. We can create this storefront for you here. This storefront can have a large quantity of pages, so you can devout a page to each product to add videos, text, and images that sell your brand to customers.

Step 10:

Now that your product page is excellent, it's time to gain some keyword rankings. Each keyword has a series of products that shows up when you search it. When a customer finds you on a keyword, you climb the ladder on that keyword's "rankings." The fastest way to climb the ladder for each term is through Amazon's advertising platform where Amazon shows you on keyword searches, on product pages, and more. You'll want to target keywords that are applicable for your product. Until you have a large amount of reviews (15+), you'll have a hard time being profitable on this platform, but it is well worth it as each paid sale leads to 3-4 organic sales over the course of the next few quarters. We can help you setup Amazon Advertising here.