We know that a good majority of the visitors to our site have never sold an item on Amazon. You might be doing some research because you had a friend tell you about selling online. You might be ready to make your first purchase and just don’t know exactly what to do. You could have just randomly stumbled upon this blog from a Facebook post or website. No matter how you got here or what stage of the starting process you are in, this blog series will help you get your account set up and get you selling items through Amazon in no time.
Step 1. Opening an Amazon Seller Account
Before you can sell through Amazon, you have to actually have an account on the seller side of things (this is not the same as a purchasing or personal account). There is a different website you will have to visit and login to when you are ready to start selling.
The web address you will need to visit is: www.sellercentral.amazon.com. This will bring you to the Seller Central portal and we can start the registration process. The screen should look something like this:
Once you are on this page, you will want to click on the “Register now” link that is located in the blue box under the login information. Clicking that will take you to this page:
Now here is where some people get confused. There will be two different types of accounts you can register for: Professional and Individual. The differences between the two accounts can be seen below:
One thing to consider is the pricing of these plans and the benefits they provide. My personal recommendation is to start out with the Individual plan and get your feet wet. Once you start actively selling, you will want to upgrade to the Professional plan. This should happen once you start selling 40+ items per month on average. This way you don’t pay a monthly fee until you get started and then you can start saving $0.99 per item after your 40th item (cost savings of using the Professional plan).
Once you have decided on the type of plan you would like to register for, simply click the link and you will land on a page list this:
You will have the option to either login with your personal/purchasing login information or create a separate account just for selling. Either way will work just fine, but I prefer to reduce the amount of login information I have to remember so I use my personal login. Once you put in your email, click continue to get to this screen:
Here you will need to input your legal name and agree to the terms of service. If you currently have a business, you can also input the business name into the legal name field. I will also be writing a post about starting a legal entity down the road for those who want to separate personal and business. You can change this information down the road, but you will need to input it to get started. You will then get to this page:
You might be wondering why they are asking for your credit card information. They need it to bill you for any expenses your sales do not cover (aka: Shipping, prep, etc). There is a strong possibility that you will be billed during your first shipment and pay period. Amazon only credits your account once an item has shipped and there are expenses that occur (such as shipping) before you can sell an item through the fulfillment services (there won’t be this lag on the merchant fulfilled orders). Once you are done inputting this information, you will get to this screen.
This is where you are going to input your Amazon store information. You will need to create a store name that will be seen by all of the customers of Amazon. I would suggest making this something that represents you (funny or professional) and check to see if you can get the name. You will also need to fill out the location information for your store. This will determine your shipping location at first (it can be changed later) and it should match your personal or business address. Once you fill this out, you will get to this screen.
In this section, you will be verifying your identity. You will simply put in your phone number and an automated call will be made to your phone. Answer the phone and follow the prompts. Once that is complete, click next and you will get to this page:
If everything looks correct on this page, click continue. If there are errors, make sure you go in and edit that section. Once you click continue, you will get to this page.
And you are in! You have now successfully set-up your account. There are a few more steps to take before selling, but this will at least help you get the account up and running.
Stay tuned for the next post in this series where I will walk you through the next steps you need to take before selling.
Until then,
CW
John, I have benefited from your posts, however I need more basic training on the amazon seller site. Also I could use some more information about buying lists and thinking about Christmas – when do I start to send up my Christmas toys and other stuff? Thank for youronline posts they are great.
Hey John, Thanks for the posts! My partner and I are in the process of starting together selling on Amazon, however the only option is to either input a business name or personal tax information… How do recommend adjusting the setup process when partnering when with other people? Thanks!