How to Start Selling on Amazon UK

How to Start Selling on Amazon UK – A Step by Step Guide

It goes without saying that Amazon holds a massive amount of potential business for retailers, but it can be pretty overwhelming to get started. This can be especially true since Amazon seller central does not have a great reputation for being very user-friendly.

After becoming an Amazon Professional Seller and expanding our expertise into the world of Amazon – we wanted to share what we learnt and create this simple step by step guide on all the basics to get you started selling on Amazon (UK).

1. Your Business Goals 

It is essential when starting a large venture to outline your business goals for the project. You need to consider the amount of time and money that you are willing to put in and what you expect to get out of it. 

Once you have set out a budget, this can help inform your decisions on selling your products. 

When selling with Amazon, there are two possible options for fulfilment: 

Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) – Amazon stores, packages, and ships your item. This method means you are eligible for prime delivery and buy box (This is where Amazon places your product on other listings with the option for customers to “Buy Now”). It also means Amazon holds responsibility for delivering the product.  

Fulfilment by Merchant (FBM) – You must store, package, and sell your product. This method allows you to have more control and lower costs as you do not need to pay amazon fees for fulfilment. 

FBA is ideal if your items have a fast turnover, are small and expensive and if your business does not have the workforce or scale to sell and ship effectively. The opposite applies to FBM. 

You also will need to choose where to get your products from, either private label, wholesale, or your own business. This decision depends on whether you are digitalizing your existing business or looking to set up a new business selling current products. 

Amazon also has a fee calculator available, which can be an excellent resource for budgeting and grasping the level of fees involved with selling on Amazon.

2. Product Research 

You may be thinking that if your business already has products, this will not apply to you, but it is still important to consider that there might not be demand for your products on Amazon.

A great tool for this is Jungle Scout. This software allows you to search through Amazon’s database of products through filters and create product tracking groups where you can track and categorize products to measure sales, price revenue, etc. They also have an extension that lets you search directly through Amazon’s site in real-time and see all the product figures. 

Jungle scout also has a variety of videos in their academy, but they also have a YouTube channel with tutorials on how to start selling on Amazon that you can access without a subscription.

Amazon also has specific products that have restrictions to limit the number of sellers in each category. This is because they want to maintain the quality of the products in these categories. Head here for a complete list of the categories with and without restrictions.

3. Set Up Amazon Seller Central Account 

Once you have identified demand for your product, you can move to the next stage and become an Amazon seller. 

The sign-up process includes the following: 

• Choose your plan 
• Seller agreement 
• Seller information/profile 
• Billing / Deposit 
• Tax information 

The plan you choose is dependent on the scale of your business. 

Once you have set up your account, you can ensure your account is secure with Amazons two-step Authentication. You can grant access to your account for your employees, and you can edit, revoke, or change user rights anytime. 

On your account, you will have access to multiple pages where you can manage your inventory and orders and add new products to your catalogue.

4. Creating Product Listings 

If we’re completely honest, this process can get a bit tricky, especially since Amazon’s criteria for listings is very specific. Amazon requires a Global trade item number for each new product listing such as a UPC or EAN (Product barcode). This is to identify the item you are selling and ensure you do not match an existing listing. 

For a new listing, the essential information you will need for each product is: 

• GTI number (Product ID)
• Product Name
• Unit Count
• Unit Count Type
• Price
• Quantity

A key point to note is that if you sell a product that already has a listing on Amazon, you will have to create your product listing under that same listing. If you are selling an existing product, the listing process is much easier since you use the existing listings information. 

When you start selling on Amazon (UK), it can be hard to differentiate your product from an existing listing. This is why it is important to try and rank as the lowest price or be eligible for prime delivery.

5. Manage inventory, stock, and shipping. 

Once you have successfully set up the listing, it will reside in your product inventory, where Amazon automatically updates your stock level with each sale. 

If you have chosen FBM, you need to make sure that you have all the necessary shipping postage and packaging processes set up before you make your listings active. You must also be aware that for standard shipping in the UK, Amazon requires that you ship to non-mainland UK (E.g. Channel Islands) and that all regions must have the same shipping prices.

It is important to keep track of your stock levels as it can be unhealthy for your listing to keep going out of stock. If you do go out of stock, it may be worth relisting the item as Amazon may push your listing further down in results if it has varying stock levels.

Are you ready to start selling? 

It can be a rocky process becoming an Amazon Seller, but we hope this simple step by step guide has given you the chance to get the ball rolling on how to start selling on Amazon UK.

If you are having issues, do not forget to consult customer support. Amazon has a dedicated help page that offers a range of services such as the call-back feature, support panels, FAQs etc. 

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