A Guide to Getting Started with Amazon Advertising

Why You Might Use Amazon

Before we kick things off, why would you/a brand choose to use Amazon in the first place? Well, there are several reasons why a brand might choose to use Amazon for selling their products:

• Large customer base: Amazon has a massive customer base, with over 200 million active users worldwide. By selling on Amazon, brands can reach a vast audience of potential customers.
• Convenience: Amazon provides a convenient platform for brands to sell their products. They take care of the payment process, shipping, and handling, which can save brands a lot of time and effort.
• Trust and credibility: Amazon is a trusted and well-established brand, which can lend credibility to the products being sold on their platform. Customers are more likely to trust products sold on Amazon than on an unknown website.
• Competitive pricing: Amazon's competitive pricing strategy can be beneficial for brands, as they can often sell their products at a lower price on Amazon than they would be able to on their own website

From a human behavior perspective, Amazon's popularity and convenience can be particularly appealing to customers. People often seek out the easiest and most convenient options when making purchasing decisions. Additionally, Amazon's review system can provide social proof for potential customers, as they can read reviews from other customers who have purchased the same product. This can be a powerful motivator for customers to make a purchase.

Things to Consider

Before jumping into the creation process, there are a few things you must consider:

#1 Fulfilment by Amazon

The first step is to consider if you will use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA - Amazon will manage storage, shipping, and customer support), or Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM - handling all storage, shipping, and customer support yourself). 
Note: each of these should be chosen depending on numerous variables, e.g., the size and weight of the product. You can find more information on which may be better suitable for your business on the amazon seller central website - https://sell.amazon.co.uk/fulfil.

#2 Number of Monthly Sales

Next, you’ll need to consider how many items you will sell per month. If you intend to sell less than 40 per month with no advertising, then an individual account will be fine. 
However, keep in mind that you will never be able to win the buy-box (if multiple sellers are selling the same product, you will compete to show your own listing! - this is based on various factors, including the quality score of your detail pages, and whether you are running advertising or not). For anything above this, you will require a professional account (£25 p/m fee).

Creating Your Account

Once you’ve considered the above, you’re ready to move on to creating your account! First, make your way over to https://sell.amazon.com with the below information at the ready:

• Valid government-issued ID or passport
• Recent bank account or credit card statement 
• Chargeable credit card 
• Mobile phone

After selecting your email address and password, you will need to verify your email address which is done through a code sent which will be sent to you. Once completed, you will move into the first layers of account verification and defining more about your business.

First, you will need to share more information on the location and type of business you run - publicly-owned business, privately-owned business, charity, etc., and provide a name. We suggest using the name of the business owner or the name of the individual to who the business bank account is tied to. Following this, you’ll then be required to verify numerous personal details, including:

• Your name
• Country of citizenship
• Country of birth
• Date of birth
• Identity proof (e.g. passport)
• Your residential address
• Your phone number (also to be verified by pin)

After finishing this section, you will proceed to the billing section, where you will specify the bank account for depositing funds and a credit/debit card for paying your subscription fees. It is crucial to ensure that the bank account you provide is either under the name of your business or the contact person you mentioned in the first section (which is why we suggest placing the account in their name if not yours!).

Once you have provided and verified your credit card information, you will be prompted to answer a few questions about your Amazon store and the products you intend to sell. To proceed to the next phase of the Amazon seller registration process, you will need to provide the following information:

• The name of your Amazon store (this can be changed later, so no need to worry too much about it)
• Whether you possess UPC codes for your product(s) or not (if unsure, choose "Yes")
• If you hold any diversity certifications
• Whether you are the manufacturer and/or brand owner of the product(s) you plan to sell
  • If you answered "Yes" or "Some of them", you will be asked if you have a government-registered trademark for the branded products you wish to sell on Amazon.

After you have supplied the necessary information to the questions, click on the 'Next' button to proceed. You will be requested to verify your identity by submitting pictures of your ID (license or passport) and a bank statement (yep! More verification!).

Once you have uploaded all the required documents, click the 'Submit' button. Subsequently, you must complete an Identity Verification process through a video call with an Amazon associate. This is necessary to verify the accuracy of all the information and documents you have submitted. This call will be in English.

Upon successful verification, you will gain access to your Amazon seller account. For enhanced security, enabling 2-step verification on your account is advisable. Once your business and personal information have been verified, you can quickly start by logging into https://sellercentral.amazon.com.

There you have it! YOU’RE IN! But you’re not ready just yet…

Other Things to Consider 

Amazon Prime, of course!

If you utilise Amazon's FBA program and have sufficient inventory to distribute through its fulfilment network, your product will be eligible for Amazon Prime. This is a critical component of success on Amazon since it ensures that your products are delivered to customers within 1-3 days (sometimes even on the same day). Moreover, your listings will feature the "Amazon Prime" badge, increasing your chances of selling your product since customers prefer fast shipping.

Even if you sell FBM, you can still use the Prime service by becoming a Merchant Fulfilled Network seller. However, to do so, you must apply to Amazon's Seller Fulfilled Prime program.

We’d also highly recommend reviewing your account settings once set-up has been completed. Here, you will be able to add important information, such as gift options for customers, apply your tax settings, and include additional information or policies for potential buyers.

Lastly, we’d look into whether stores are appropriate for your brand - stores act as a dedicated shop-front. However, they are only available for registered brands on the platform. To showcase an example of a store page, we have typed in “running shoes” and clicked navigated to a seller's store on the platform:

As you can see, this page is similar to a dedicated ‘website’ for this brand. We do not extensively cover stores in this article. However, you can find more information here.

Adding Your Products

Now most of the gruelling admin is out of the way…

It’s time to add your products to Amazon! Well… maybe. 

You should be all set if your products have a barcode/UPN. However, if you have not yet added barcodes or this does not fit your business model,  you’ll next have to go through the GTIN exemption process, which is only available for registered brands on Amazon (the brand registry is a whole-new section! You can find out more information here.

Aside from this, there may be other admin pieces to complete based on what you are aiming to sell. For any assistance, please feel free to reach out!

Creating Your First Listing

Now, finally, let’s create your first product listing. To begin, log in to your Seller Central account and navigate to the Inventory dropdown menu, where you can select "Add a Product".

The "Add a Product" page offers three options. The first option allows you to add a product already available on Amazon by searching for it by name or product ID. The second option is to create a new product listing by selecting "Create a new product listing", located below the search bar. This option is ideal for uploading a brand-new product not currently available on Amazon. The third option is the "bulk upload" feature, which enables you to upload multiple products simultaneously and is located on the right-hand side of the screen.

If you select the "Create a new product listing" option, you must assign your new product to an appropriate Amazon category. There are two ways to locate the relevant category: either by using the search feature or by browsing through the categories.
Once you have entered your product in the search bar, you will be presented with all the potential categories for that particular product. For instance, if you are looking to sell a pair of shoes, you will be given various options, such as sports, running, tennis, and so on, that best fits the type of shoes you are advertising.

On the following page, you will see that your listing information is separated into seven tabs: Vital Info, Variations, Offer, Images, Description, Keywords, and More Details. You will need to fill in this information and a range of other sections (product description, title, upload imagery, and more) before your products will be eligible to serve.

In terms of best practices for any products you upload, we would suggest you always ensure you follow the below best practices:

• Upload 7 or more images, with the first image uploaded having a blank white background
• All shorter sides of images to be greater than 1,000 px
• Title text to exceed 150 characters
• At least 5 bullet points in your product description
• Description itself being more than 1,000 characters

Following the above will give you the greatest chance of winning the buy-box, and, if you are committing to using Amazon Advertising features, this can positively contribute towards your overall cost of sale.