As a small business owner, deciding how to get your product out there is one of the most important decisions that you’ll make. If you opt to sell through your own site the hardest part is driving up demand and letting your potential customers know that you exist! One option that many small businesses use is listing their products on Amazon.
Amazon is so well known, and has such a huge amount of traffic, that it can be an easy way for small businesses to get their goods seen.
Casual or professional seller?
If you decide to sell your products on Amazon, it’s important to know that there are two types of seller: casual and professional. If you are selling fewer than 35 items a month then you are considered a casual seller, and all you’ll pay is a commission on each item that you sell.
Businesses that are selling over 35 items a month are considered professional sellers, and if you are a professional seller, Amazon recommends that you pay a monthly subscription fee to become a ‘pro-merchant seller.’ By becoming a pro-merchant seller you have access to bulk upload tools for your goods, as well as the ability to sell in more of the Amazon marketplaces (depending on where you are starting your business from).
In addition to the monthly subscription fee, professional sellers will need to pay a commission on each item that they sell.
Optimizing your listing
Once you’ve worked out which kind of seller you are, it’s time to create your listings. It’s important to create amazon listings that are optimized to appear at the top of the result page when potential customers search for your product. After all, when was the last time you looked beyond the first or second listing when shopping on Amazon?
When you’re getting started you can give yourself an advantage by working with an Amazon marketing agency like Nuancedmedia.com, which will be able to advise you on:
- How to optimize your listing so that it is seen by the most people.
- Increasing your brand awareness and your ROI (return on investment).
- Measuring the results of your Amazon campaigns, and using that information to keep refining them for optimal results.
- Educating consumers about your products.
Retain control of your brand
Amazon is a fantastic vehicle for small businesses to get their products out there, and it also gives you a strategic advantage.
According to an article by Forbes, if you don’t list your product on Amazon, then the chances are that someone else will be buying it wholesale and then listing it themselves. This could not only lose you a potential revenue stream, but it could damage your reputation if the third party doesn’t manage the listing well and provides bad service.
The best way to avoid this is to list your products yourself.
Greater reach and trust
By listing on Amazon, small businesses have greater reach for potential customers because so many people are already using the platform. This is something that it takes a long time to build up for yourself, through extensive work on marketing campaigns and on building your reputation.
Not only this, but the potential customers who you are reaching will already have a level of trust in you and your product simply because it is listed on Amazon. This kind of trust is something that is usually hard-won and takes a lot of work and sustained effort.
By using a platform that is already trusted, you are essentially accessing a shortcut that allows you to start selling at levels that would have taken you much longer to reach through other means. This in turn means that you can start seeing profit more quickly.