{"id":11122,"date":"2020-12-20T10:56:23","date_gmt":"2020-12-20T10:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.sellerapp.com\/blog\/?page_id=11122"},"modified":"2025-01-23T17:33:27","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T12:03:27","slug":"things-every-expert-amazon-seller-wished-they-knew-when-they-started","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.sellerapp.com\/blog\/things-every-expert-amazon-seller-wished-they-knew-when-they-started\/","title":{"rendered":"Things Every Expert Amazon Seller Wished They Knew When They Started"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Starting to sell your products on Amazon can be very exciting. You\u2019re tapping into a huge market that has around 200 million<\/strong> monthly customers, and you don\u2019t need any technical knowledge, a giant warehouse, or e-commerce experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, things can still trip you up as a new seller on Amazon as you get to grips with how the platform works and the best way to sell your products. But it\u2019s still much quicker and easier than starting your own site and trying to attract customers to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people sell their wares through the global marketplace as a side hustle, while others do it as a full-time job. In fact, if you spend enough time on YouTube, you\u2019ll almost certainly have come across plenty of ads where people brag about how successful they\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can find plenty of success stories online, including James Fend, who started out in 2014, selling everything from dog collars to body fat calipers. But their success did not come overnight, it happened by learning what works best and what not to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If they started their Amazon businesses today, they would do things very differently. So if you\u2019re thinking of following in their footsteps, here are some of the things you can learn from them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fees, Taxes, and Profits<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business is simple – you buy low and you sell high. If you\u2019re selling pens, you might buy them at wholesale for $1<\/strong> and sell them to the consumer for $5<\/strong>. Each one nets you $4<\/strong> of gross profit. Or does it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many people don\u2019t factor in all the other costs that are involved in running an Amazon business (or any business for that matter) when they work out their financials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When selling on Amazon, you also need to factor in the Amazon sales fee<\/a>, taxes you need to collect<\/a>, shipping costs, and the cost of packaging materials. If you\u2019re using Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA) too, then that fee will also need to be factored in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you account for these, you\u2019ll need to sell the product for around $7.90<\/strong> to make a $4 profit<\/strong>. To help you get it right, you can use an Amazon fee calculator<\/a> which does the number crunching for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intellectual Property<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are plenty of people creating their own products to sell on Amazon, such as printing designs onto T-shirts, mugs, and key-rings. There are even companies that can print products on-demand and ship them directly to your customer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, you need to be careful about what you include in your designs. Some sellers, who are eager to jump on the latest trends will create designs that include characters from movies, TV shows, and video games. Except, without a licensing deal or permission from the original creator, the use of intellectual property (characters, logos, and other artwork) would be illegal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sellers should, therefore, be careful about what they include. To be on the safe side, you should only use artwork that you have designed yourself and not copy the work of others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alternatively, you can use materials that\u00a0are no longer under copyright. For example, the \u201cKeep Calm and<\/strong>\u2026\u201d designs that were popular a few years ago are ok to be used since they\u2019re more than 50 years old. Similarly, using imagery of playing cards is ok since games like blackjack are several hundred years old\u00a0and the cards themselves even older.\u00a0Some fairytales and nursery rhymes are also free from copyright thanks to their age.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, remember that if you don\u2019t stick to these rules you risk having your Amazon account suspended or facing legal trouble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barcodes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barcodes can be confusing if you\u2019ve never dealt with them before, but they\u2019re vitally important when selling on Amazon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"barcodes<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The company uses Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs) to identify each product on its website. This is usually assigned automatically by the site when you add a new product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re selling pencil cases that come in two sizes and four colours, you will have eight different ASINs, since they\u2019re tied to the individual SKU<\/a> rather than the product in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll also need to assign barcodes to each ASIN. Amazon doesn\u2019t do this for you, so you\u2019ll need to get them yourself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the product is already listed on Amazon, then you can usually just add your offer to that product, in that case, you won\u2019t need a barcode. However, if you\u2019re creating something completely new, you\u2019ll need to sort them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, it\u2019s actually quite easy. There are plenty of places online that sell barcodes, though it\u2019s worth shopping around as the prices can vary wildly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By keeping these tips in mind when you begin trading, you\u2019ll start your new Amazon business off on the right foot. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting to sell your products on Amazon can be very exciting. You\u2019re tapping into a huge market that has around 200 million monthly customers, and you don\u2019t need any technical knowledge, a giant warehouse, or e-commerce experience. Of course, things can still trip you up as a new seller on Amazon as you get to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11123,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11122","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sellerapp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sellerapp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sellerapp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sellerapp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sellerapp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sellerapp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sellerapp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sellerapp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}