There are almost 10 million sellers on Amazon around the world. And there are many reasons why that number is continually increasing. Amazon is the single biggest marketplace globally, with millions of active and eager buyers in all niches imaginable, making it the ideal platform for quickly establishing a business and consistently making sales.
However, to make the most of what selling on Amazon can offer, you need to understand how to build a store that actually gets people’s attention and leads to sales. And sometimes, figuring out how to start an Amazon business isn’t as straightforward as it can seem at first glance.
With that in mind, let’s look at some of the most important considerations aspiring Amazon entrepreneurs should consider when building a store that can become a successful long-term business.
Figure Out What You Want to Sell
Before you start creating the actual store on Amazon, you need to understand what you want to sell. Setting up the store on Amazon isn’t that difficult, but without a well-defined plan, attaining success will be very hard since most niches already have well-established sellers.
Start by thinking about what types of products you would like to feature in your store. If you already have a good source for a product at a competitive price, that could be a good starting point. Otherwise, consider what you are interested and knowledgeable in, as that will make finding ways to differentiate your stores and providing a better service to customers easier.
Build an Appealing and Secure Store
Once your account is fully created and accepted, you can start building out the actual store you will use to attract customers and make sales. And the good news is that Amazon has designed a pretty seamless and effective process for sellers to get started quickly.
You can use templates to build out your product pages and categories, utilizing the convenient drag-and-drop interface to quickly make changes until you find the look and structure that appeals to you. As you become more experienced, you will likely rethink how your store looks, but for now, the important thing is to get started.
However, while having an appealing store is important, you also need to think about securing it properly. A good idea is to consider setting up Amazon Web Services (AWS) for data storage. Running a business takes a lot of data, so having secure storage that uses an AWS access key ID will help you keep your store’s assets, including customer data, protected at all times. AWS allows you to automate manual security tasks so you can shift your focus to scaling and innovating your business.
Create a Seller Account
While creating your seller account is a relatively straightforward process, in order to get your account set up you will need to provide quite a bit of information about your business.
For starters, Amazon will need your account name, business name, identity verification, and a unique tax number for the country you will be operating in. You will also need to set up the financial information for paying Amazon fees as well as collecting the deposits for your sales.
Determine Your Target Customers
Once you know what you’ll be selling, you can start thinking about the ideal customers for your products. The more detailed you can get about the people you want to attract, the easier your branding, marketing, and product selection decisions will become.
Start by performing competitor analysis and looking at how they position products, who their buyers are, and what their brand looks like. You can then use this information to identify gaps or opportunities in the Amazon marketplace to fill a currently underserved need.
To have a chance against more established sellers, you’ll need to create a strong brand and a solid USP, as you will need something that entices people to buy from you.
Register Your Brand
A big part of succeeding with selling on Amazon is having a distinctive brand you can use to build a loyal audience. But to have a unique brand on Amazon, you need to register on the Amazon Brand Registry, which is reserved for sellers who have registered a trademark and are capable of using a logo on their products and packaging.
However, while becoming a registered brand on Amazon takes quite a bit of extra effort, it’s usually well worth it. You not only get a great way to differentiate yourself from others but also gain access to powerful Amazon seller features like gated product categories, advertising options, and various marketing assets.
Optimize Your Products
Finally, before you can get started and go live with your restore, you will need to upload each of your products and create detailed descriptions.
This is a crucial step because it will ensure that your products can be found by people looking for similar items on Amazon and that once they get to your store, the products look appealing and well valued.
Bottom Line
Starting an Amazon store may not be a technically complex process, but it does have a few obstacles you will need to overcome in order to succeed.
Namely, you need to know exactly what you want to sell, who you are targeting, and how your brand should look if you want to make sales consistently and build a loyal following.
