How do you start selling on Amazon? In this episode I walk you through everything you need to know about setting yourself up and starting to sell on Amazon, from how to apply to become an Amazon seller, through deciding whether to fulfill orders by FBA or FBM, to what to do to encourage those first orders once your account is all set.

Listen in to hear me share:

• Why you should consider selling on Amazon (01:20)
• How to check if Amazon is the right marketplace for your product (02:15)
• How to apply to become an Amazon seller (03:22)
• How to decide which type of Amazon seller account you need (04:42)
• How to sign up for an Amazon seller account, and the information that you will need (07:40)
• Verifying your account, and what to do if you have issues (10:28)
• Deciding how you want to fulfil orders, FBM vs FBA (12:43)
• Things to do if you decide to FBM (15:58)
• Things to do if you decide to FBA (17:58)
• Creating your product listings (19:00)
• The format for Amazon product descriptions (19:53)
• Setting up the brand name for your product (21:00)
• Sourcing and setting up barcodes (22:03)
• Working out if you need a Safety Data sheet (23:14)
• Products that will need approval from Amazon (24:20)
• What Amazon Brand Registry is and why you might want it (25:39)
• What happens next and why pay per click advertising is worth trying (26:36)
• Free ways to spread the word (27:39)
• How I can help you get started with selling on Amazon (19:59)

USEFUL RESOURCES:

I have written a blog post to accompany this episode, which you can read here

My Amazon launch package

Amazon Seller Central

GS1 Org - for barcodes

FREE AMAZON CHECKLIST

FREEBIE: How to Successfully Launch a Product on Amazon or Rescue One That's Not Selling

Blog post about whether you should sell on Amazon

Blog post about writing product listings 

Podcast: Where’s the best place to sell your products online

Podcast: Should you sell your product on Amazon?

Podcast: Common Amazon issues and how to resolve them

Podcast: The tools I use to run my business on Amazon

HOW I CAN SUPPORT YOU ON AMAZON:

My Free Resources 

Is Amazon Right For You? Mini Strategy Session

Amazon Account Audit

Amazon Launch Package

Amazon Training Q&A Hour

Book a Power Hour with me

LET’S CONNECT:

Join my free Facebook group for product makers and creators

Find me on Instagram

Work with me 

Mentioned in this episode:

Book out soon!

Have you ever had a great idea for a product? Or does creating a product to sell appeal to you? Where do you begin? How do you come up with a product idea? Or, if you have an idea, how do you know if it’s even viable? In my brand new book Bring Your Product Idea to Life, I take you through the process of creating your product, step-by-step. From developing your product idea, to finding suppliers and launching your product, I guide you through every step of the journey. The book includes advice on how to price your product, where to sell it and how to find out if anyone will actually buy it. Designed to help you make real progress, Bring Your Product to Life is both practical and motivational. Every chapter includes clear action steps, so you know exactly what to do and when. This isn’t just a book for reading - this is a book for doing. The book will be released in June 2023 - and I’ll let you know when and how to buy it!

Welcome to the Bring Your Product Idea to Life podcast.

This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling

products, or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, product creation coach and Amazon expert.

Every week I share friendly, practical advice as well as inspirational

stories from small businesses.

Let's get started.

Hello.

I hope that whenever you are listening to this, you are having a wonderful week.

I'm recording this midweek, it's almost the end of March.

It is still really cold and grey and raining outside, and I

can't wait for spring to arrive.

So today what I want to talk to you about is getting set up on Amazon because,

um, and I know you've probably heard me mention this before, it isn't quite

as simple as deciding you're going sell on Amazon, listing your products,

setting everything up, sitting back and waiting for the sales to roll in.

And I know that if you've listened to any of my podcast episodes,

you've heard me say this before.

However, I do think it should be easier than it actually is to

get yourself started on Amazon.

So actually take the practical steps you need to do to begin selling.

So today I've decided to take you through everything you need to know,

everything you need to do, everything you need to decide to make it as

simple and transparent for you as I can, because I know that selling

on Amazon might be something that you've, we've been considering

because it is a great opportunity for some businesses, not everyone.

Um, you can sell all over the world.

You can reach customers that you might not otherwise have, you know, heard of you.

It's easier to get people to a website.

There are so many advantages, but.

I don't think you should believe all you hear or necessarily listen

to all the hype because it's not necessarily right for everyone.

And I always want to start and say that because before you start setting up an

Amazon seller account, and which we are going ti talk in this episode in more

detail about how to actually do that.

Um, I want to say as I've again, you've heard me say before, I don't

want you to spend loads and loads of time doing that if it is not going to

be the right marketplace for you, and if it's just going to be you spending

your time, perhaps some money, if you work with someone to make it happen.

Then to find out that actually you'd be better selling

your product somewhere else.

So first thing I want you to do before you go, yes, I want to sell

on Amazon, I'm going to follow all of these steps, is spend some time

looking into whether Amazon is the right marketplace for your product.

So it is really great for some products.

Some businesses you might know, other businesses, maybe other businesses in

your area or in the same categories as you that are doing really well.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's right for you.

Um, you can listen to some previous episodes I've done on how to research

whether Amazon's right for you.

Um, and I'll link to all of these in the show notes because as you're going

to hear, there's a lot of work to be done and it's going to take some time.

So I think it's well worth spending a little bit of more time figuring out

if Amazon is the right marketplace for you, even if it means stopping this

podcast episode here, coming back to a previous one and having a listen.

Remember, I also offer a service where I can help you work out for

amazon is the right place for you.

You can also access that via my website, vicki weinberg.com or via show notes.

But let's say you are with me so far.

You know Amazon is some way you want to sell.

You decide it's right for you.

You're going ahead.

Let's now talk about the practical steps you'll need to take.

So the first thing you need to do is to apply to become an Amazon seller.

And I will say now, um, because I have this conversation at least once

a week, this is something that I won't do for you and I can't do for you.

I mean, I could do it for you, but I won't.

Even if you book my Amazon launch package, which is where I help people

do all of the things I'm going to talk you through to get set up on Amazon.

The one thing I won't do is set up your account because as you'll see when we go

through this episode, you need to submit a lot of personal information, business

information, financial information that I just don't want you to share with me.

I do not need to be privy to all of that for your own privacy.

Um, I say do this bit yourself.

Um, saying that, I mean, if you were to book a launch package with me

and you wanted help here, we could absolutely get on Zoom and we could talk

through this whole process together, the process of actually applying

for your seller essential account.

That's the only bit I won't do.

Um, but we can do it together on Zoom and you can just tell them.

Just turn the screen off when you're putting in your personal

information, that's absolutely fine.

But what I will never do for anyone is, you know, ask for all this

personal information to go and set your account up because you don't need to.

This is something you can do.

What I can do, however, once your account is set up, is help you with

all the decision making, give you advice on what I suggest, write and

set up fantastic product listings, everything else I can, and will do.

So the first decision you need to make before you go ahead and set

up your seller central account is what kind of account do you need?

So you can get a professional selling account, which is 25 pound plus

VAT a month, so that's 30 pounds.

You don't need to work that out, and it is well worth it if you are

able to have this sort of account because you can run ads to your

listing, and you can sell high volume.

If you don't want to spend 30 pounds a month initially, there's also a

free individual selling plan, but that's capped at 35 sales per month.

So basically, if you sell 35 items in a month, you're listings are

then becoming inactive, or you have to upgrade to the paid plan.

If you want to, you can start with that, and then you can upgrade at a later date.

Absolutely no reason you can't.

You can also start with a professional account, so that's

the page plan, and then downgrade.

So you do have the option there, and if you decide to upgrade or downgrade,

that happens immediately, even if you are selling maybe as a hobby or

something you're doing on the site.

I do usually suggest getting professional account as without

it, you won't have the buy box.

So what the buy box is, easiest way to explain is when you go onto any listing

on Amazon to buy it, and then there's that big orange box that says Buy it Now.

Either says Buy it now or add to cart.

I forget which it says.

Um, and basically depending on what you are buying, so in you're case,

this probably won't be applicable because you will probably be the

only person selling your products.

But let's say a popular product, maybe not a Lego item, lots

of people might be selling it.

Only one person, when you click add to cart, only one person gets that sale,

and that's a seller who has what's called the buy box to see all the other

people that are selling that product.

And perhaps you want to check out their prices and their

reviews and things like that.

You would have to click other sellers for this item, which is like

a dropdown below the buy box if.

To have a free Amazon account, you will never get the buy box.

So if you are in a position where you are one of lots of sellers selling a

product, that's a bit of a problem because you are never going to get that box.

Also, even if you are the only seller of a product, because you're selling

your own products, someone will still have to click on the the offers.

For that product to be able to add your item to their cart.

So basically what I'm trying to say is, in a very long way, if you don't

have the buy box, and even if you're the only set of that listing, you're

not gonna have the buy now button.

There's an additional step someone has to go through to buy.

And as we'll know, the more things you ask people to do, um, the higher

the chance of them dropping off.

So if you can afford it, I would say, get the professional selling account.

Um, also you can't do any Amazon advertising without it.

And that might not be something you want to do and might not be something

you've even considered, but as we'll talk about it later, you are

going to have to do something to get initial traffic to your listing.

And advertising is a good place as any if you can afford to.

And also, finally, I should say that if you want to sell in the

handmade category, you need an Amazon professional selling account.

You can't sell in handmade with a free account, so that's worth you having.

So in terms of how to sign up to Amazon Seller Central, and remember, this is

the only bit that I don't do for people.

So you'd go to the Amazon Seller central site.

This will be linked in the show notes, this episode, and you click

on the orange signup button, and this will take you to registration page.

What you need to do here is enter your email address and

create a new seller account.

Um, one thing that's worth knowing is that if you have a personal Amazon

account, so maybe the one you use for shopping, you can use that email

address, but that will mean that your personal Amazon address and your

business Amazon account will be linked.

So if you had a problem with one, it would affect the other.

I suggest using your business email address for your Amazon selling account,

or if maybe you don't have a business email address, just use a different

one just to keep the two separate.

Um.

Perhaps I'm being overly cautious here, but I do think it's a good

idea because I do know people who've gone through problems getting

their account verified on Amazon, which we'll talk about in a moment.

And that actually affected the account they used to to shop with as well.

And that's not what you'd want.

I mean, I would hate to get locked out of Amazon.

I don't know where I would buy anything.

So don't, um, don't do that.

So what you'll need to select at your Amazon selling account,

because I think it's good to have all this to hand when you go in to

do it, is a chargeable credit card.

So that's, so they can bill you for any advertising, um, for your account fees.

If you're getting a professional account, you will need a passport or

some sort of national ID so they can verify you are who you say you are.

If you are a company, you will need your company registration details.

You also need your V A T details if that's applicable for you.

It's perfectly okay to be a sole trader, by the way, so don't

worry if you are not a company.

But if you are a company, you'll need those details handy.

You'll need a phone number Amazon can contact you on.

You'll also need to provide your name and your address and those kind

of details, and you have to provide your bank account details so you

can get paid when you start making.

Once you've entered all of your personal billing information,

the next thing they'll ask you to do is to name your store.

I suggest if you have a business setup that you call it your business name.

If you don't have a business name, call it something that makes sense.

Um, you can't change this down the line, you know, if you just, if you

set up, um, I had a client who set, who set up their store in the name of

their business, which wasn't the same name as a brand on their products.

And, you know, a couple of years down the line he wanted to change to align it.

We did manage to do it, but with Amazon, something to know is that

it's always better to do what you can at the start, because it's always

quicker to do it at the start than it is to go and change anything.

Anything can be changed, but nine times out of 10 is a hassle when

it takes longer than it should.

So have a good think about what you want to name it, right on the outset.

So the next step is verifying your account.

So what this means is once you've submitted everything you've been

asked for, expect an invitation to a video call with Amazon to arrive.

So they'll email you with a link, I think we get a booking link to booking the call.

And then you just have a quick video call with them and this is what they use to

verify that you are who you say you are.

You will be asked to bring, um, something along to that call and

you'll be told in advance what it is.

Um, so for example, they might say, can you bring along your passport so

you can hold it up and we can sort of look at you next to your passport.

I can't tell you exactly what they're asked for because it

does seem to vary depending on what you've submitted already.

But basically this is just to verify that you are the person who you said you were

when you were setting up the account.

So that is the kind of ID you'll be need to bring.

Know that it is not uncommon for IDs to be rejected or for your business information

to be questioned or to be asked for additional information when you're

setting up and verifying your account.

Um, maybe they won't like the bank details, maybe they won't like the credit

cards you've used, um, just to, you know, let you know this in, in advance.

I would say at least 50% of the time when I work with a new client

or setting up their Amazon account, we run into these kind of issues.

So please just.

My best advise, please just provide whatever you're asked for as

soon as you can and be patient.

It is so frustrating.

I, I know it is.

Um, plenty of times people say to me, Vicki, I just want to give up.

They're just, I don't think I'm going to bother.

It's so, you know, so annoying.

But honestly, you are so, so close.

Um.

Just send whatever they need to be sent.

If they don't like your, um, credit card details, try a different

card if you know, whatever it is.

Um, and I have an episode all about dealing with Amazon seller central

support, which is well worth a listen.

Because even at this early stage, things can crop up.

And I would just say that my best advice always is if you can get someone on the

phone because the support you get on the phone is, in my opinion, much better

than the support you get over email.

So if you can get someone on the phone, they're usually pretty helpful

with this kind of straightforward stuff and you should get it sorted.

And of course, if you run into any big issues, you can always contact

me, Vicki, vicki weinberg.com.

I'd love to help you out.

So once your account is verified and you've got, you have an active account,

the next decision you need to make is whether you're going to fulfill orders via

fbm, which means fulfilled by merchant, which in, uh, in a simple term means

that you handle the shipping and store each of your products yourself, or fba,

which stands for fulfilled by Amazon.

And this is where you send your stock into an Amazon warehouse and they store

the stock and then fulfill your orders.

I actually suggest doing both if you can, not to avoid you making a decision,

um, but well for a couple of reasons.

One is that, um, it avoids you having to send large amounts of stock into FBA

first of all, because that's like, you probably know you're going to pay for

Amazon to hold your stock and you're going to pay for them to dispatch orders.

Now it might be that you're not quite sure what the fees will be because

you can get an estimate of this before you start selling, but you

might not be sure what they'll be and how it'll impact your margins.

So you might not want to send in loads.

I I never suggest sending lots of stock into FBA initially because

you don't know how fast it'll sell.

And that's the other thing, if it ends up not selling, selling as quickly as

you thought it might, what you don't want is to be paying the FBA storage

fees for stock sitting in an Amazon warehouse, not if you can avoid it.

Um, for the first product that I sold, I actually think I sent

something like 500 units into Amazon.

And yes, they did sell, but I didn't take into account that for you

know, couple of months sales weren't quite where I'd like them to be.

It does take some time to build up on Amazon, which

we'll speak about a bit later.

And so I ended up having to pay some long-term storage

fees and they are not cheap.

Um.

So just bear that in mind.

I would not suggest sending all your stock into Amazon if

you absolutely don't have to.

And the other reason I think it's good to have an FBA and an FBM offer is that

if you are using, let's say you are using the fba, it's going great, but

you know, money side works out, um, you're super happy with it, but you run

out of stock because you actually, you know, you have to be sending in your

stock to fba, for Amazon to fulfill.

Let's say your FBA stock runs out if you have an fbm.

So that's an offer where you are fulfilling orders yourself as a

backup because the prime offer will always be the default on the buy box.

That always defaults to Prime offer.

But let's say that FBA stock runs out, it's a busy time of year, so maybe it's

just before Christmas, um, and it's going to take a while for your stock to

get to the warehouse, get checked in.

You'll still be receiving orders because you have an FBM offer and you're not

going to lose your sales ranking.

And what that basically means is every time you go out of stock and someone

buys your product, presumably they may be buying a similar product to

yours, which means that other products in your category are going to start

ranking higher, which means they're going to be more visible to customers.

Um, because Amazon loves products that sell.

And obviously if you don't have stock, you can't sell.

So that's a pretty long winded way of saying if you can do both.

Um, it's actually pretty simple to do.

You just set up duplicate listings for all your products.

One is fba, one is fbm, and you just make sure you use the same product identifier.

If that makes no sense to you, do not worry.

Um, if you choose to work with me, I can handle all that for you.

And even if you don't, you can always ask me what on earth I mean here, and I can

explain it in a much more succinct way.

If you are using fbm, one thing you'll now need to do, so now you

have your Amazon account set up, is to set up your shipping settings.

So you need to tell Amazon which shipping method or methods you'll

be using because you can choose more than one and where you'll ship to.

So, which countries and regions.

So Amazon can use that information to calculate when orders

should arrive with customers.

So as you'll probably see when you go to buy anything on Amazon, it

comes up with an estimated delivery.

And that is based on either if, if you know, if it's an FBA order,

then Amazon know that themselves.

But if it, if that order you've placed on Amazon is fbm, remember you can't

always tell at the checkout stage, Amazon will be working out when that

order will arrive to you based on the shipping method that seller uses and how

quickly they dispatch their products.

So this is something else you can tell Amazon is which days you fulfill orders.

So for example, you might fulfill orders seven days a week, or

maybe just Monday to Friday.

So you can, you have those options and you can also add in a handling time if needed.

So for example, if you know it takes a few days to make your product or pack your

products, add this in so you don't get pe, penalized for shipping orders late.

So for example, I work for a company who sells duvets and all of their duvets

are hand stuffed as the orders come in.

Which is lovely because they're, you know, pretty much bespoke, made to order.

They're not sitting in a warehouse.

They're actually filled as each customer orders them.

So they have to have a little bit of a handling time in because

they're not dispatching same day.

They can't, because they have to finish off the duvets beautifully ,ready and then

pack it ready to send to the customer.

My final point I will make on FBM is that if you can, always offer free

shipping to match the prime offer, and this is so that if your order, as I

say, if your prime order goes out of stock, you've got a comparable offer.

It also means for those customers that don't have Amazon Prime, they're not

getting penalized for not having Prime because they can still order from you.

It might take a few more days to get to them, but they're

still not paying for shipping.

Obviously, this isn't compulsory.

This is just my view.

If you plan on using FBA so fulfilled by Amazon, you will

need to set up a shipping plan.

You'll need to let Amazon know what you're sending them, so how many of each

item where that stock is coming from.

Because that helps them work out which warehouse they're going to allocate it

to, the sizes of each individual item and for the boxes you're sending them in.

So you might say, I'm sending in a hundred products, I'm sending five boxes of 20.

I had to work out the rest there.

And this is, you know, as I mentioned, in a way to each of those boxes.

You'll then get some labels which you can print, arrange for your stock to

be collected from you, and then it gets delivered into Amazon and goes,

gets checked into the warehouse.

You can't do any of the b the above without having product listings however.

Um, I spoke about shipping now because that's a decision that I

think it's worth you thinking about.

But to actually get your FBA shipping plan set up, you would need to have

some product listings in place.

So that's the next thing to do.

And I should say we are almost there.

So you'll need to create your new listing in Amazon Server Central, which is the

seller porter we've been talking about.

And this listing will display on the live Amazon site to the one that customers see.

Once you have stock in place, and by having stock in place, what I mean is

you can either manually tell them the number of items that you have, you

can sync with your stock in some way.

So for example, if you have a fulfillment center, they may well have some sort

of software that syncs with Amazon.

Perhaps your website does that.

So for example, I know Shopify has plugins.

It syncs with Amazon, so your inventory is synchronized or maybe

you're going to send stock in via FBA.

I've spoken a lot on previous episodes about researching and writing

product listings, so I'm not going to go into it in great detail here.

Um, you can find blog posts and podcast episodes on this subject, and I'll link

to all of those in the show notes for you.

So what you'll need to list your products, let's talk about that.

So the first thing, obviously, is a complete, well optimized

product description.

So the format for Amazon is a product title, five bullet

points and some descriptive text.

As a minimum, if you decide to apply for Amazon brand registry, you have

a few more options and we're going to talk about that in a few minutes.

You also need a string.

Well, you don't need, but I suggest you have a string of Amazon specific search

terms or keywords, which are used in the back of your listing to help with SEO.

And as I say, I think if you, it's well worth listening to an episode

or the writing product descriptions for Amazon, because that will explain

all of that in a lot more detail.

You will also need some great photos.

So the one image you definitely, definitely need for selling on

Amazon is the main image, which has to be the product alone.

So not showing anything at all that isn't sold with it, even if it's your hand sort

of holding the product or anything like that, that isn't allowed on a plain white

background with no text and no logos.

This is the one image you absolutely have to have.

Um, I also suggest a variety of other shots, so life style shots, maybe

infographics, depending on your product.

The other thing you will need is the brand name for your product.

Um, this might be the name you set your account up with,

but it doesn't need to be.

Do know here that you might need to apply for approval to

sell under your brand name.

This might sound daft because you know this is your brand.

You're probably the only person using that brand name on Amazon.

By the way that is something worth checking before you get started.

This is a really straightforward process and generally involves providing

your website if you have one, to a link to your website and photos of

your product showing the brand name.

If you don't have this, don't panic.

Um, you can get in touch with me.

I'll do my best to help you.

You can also ask Amazon what else you can provide just to verify that is your

brand name, but generally providing that you're not trying to sell under, I don't

know, Lego, like as I said earlier, or somebody else's brand name you should have

no problem assuming this is your product and your brand, I can't see you're going

to have any issues selling under that brand name, but just know it might take

a day or two for you to get approval.

So do build in a little bit of time.

The next thing you need to sell on Amazon is a barcode.

So you will need one barcode per skew listed.

So what I mean by this is let's say you sell one product in five colours,

you will need five separate barcode.

The only place you can buy barcodes from to use on Amazon is GS 1.org.uk.

So GS 1 is the only place that you can buy barcodes that Amazon will accept.

You used to be able to get them on.

I think you could probably buy used to buy them on Amazon,

but you could buy them on eBay.

You could buy them all over the internet.

But any barcodes that are not bought from GS 1 will not be accepted.

So please, please, please do not try and save money to buy them anywhere else.

Um, know that if you're selling a book, you'll need an ISBN rather than a barcode.

And if you're selling handmade products, you can apply for a

barcode exemption exemption.

It's actually called a G T I N exemption, where you just say to Amazon, look,

these are handmade products, they're not going to have a barcode on them.

Um, and nine times out of 10, if you apply for that, it will be approved.

So don't panic as well.

If you're selling handmade products and you think, I don't need barcodes, I don't

have barcodes, you don't always need them.

And then the final thing you may need, and you might not, but

you may, is a safety data sheet.

I'm only mentioning it here, just so you don't get scared if you

are asked for one and you think, oh, Vicki didn't mention that.

So what this is, is that there are certain products, so toiletries,

cleaning products, perfumes, um, beauty products, for example, that's

not , that's not a definitive list, require a safety data sheet submitting

before you can either, sometimes before you list the products, but usually

it's before you send them in for fba.

And what a safety data shape is, sheet is, is just something that explains

exactly what is within that product.

So Amazon can assess whether that's a product for them that's safe for

them to have in their warehouses.

You can do a bit of research before you set your product up to help you understand

whether this is required or not.

I would guess if you are selling a product that requires a safety data sheet, you

probably already have a safety data sheet.

Um, if you don't know what a safety data sheet is, it's probably I, I

hope because you don't need one.

Um, and so, but again, if you're not sure, you can always, this is something you can

always go back to your manufacturer on

also note while we're talking about this, that some products and categories

also require approval to list.

You can check this out before you start because that might be an additional step.

Um.

Usually if you apply to sell a product under a certain

category, you will get approved.

It's quite rare that you don't.

Um, but I mention it because I just want to make sure that you're building

in time to do all of this and know that sometimes things can crop up

that you just don't see coming.

Um, it always really worries me when someone comes and says, I want my products

on Amazon and I need it done within a week, because I have to tell people I,

I can do my best to make that happen.

In fact, getting your products set up on Amazon, even if it's researching,

writing the product listing.

In theory, let's assume that I'm doing it for you, um, assuming I'm not,

you know, super busy with other work.

Yeah, I can do it within that time, but things can come up on Amazon.

You might be asked for to go through additional steps, jump through

additional hoops that add on a little bit of time, and there is nothing that

I or anyone else can do about that.

Say, the best advice I can give you here is start before you think you need

to, even if you get your listing up on Amazon before your stock is ready or

before you're ready to send in anything to Amazon, um, just start the process as

soon as you can, is my best advice here.

I mentioned Amazon brand Registry earlier, so I'm just going to tell

you very quickly what that is.

So if your brand has a pending or registered trademark in the country in

which, which you wish to enroll, you can apply for Amazon Brand Registry.

So this is something that's free and it gives you access to additional

features on Amazon, which are only available to brand registered sellers.

So for example, the ability to set up a plus content, which is something

you might have seen on Amazon listings when you've been shopping.

It basically means that when you scroll through the listing, you might see

additional images, you might see Q and A's, you might see, um, comparison charts.

All of that is a plus content, and then you can only use that

if you're brand registered.

You can also set up an Amazon storefront.

You have more advertising options, and you also have better protection

for your brand on Amazon.

So if someone else tried to sell your product or maybe try to edit

your product listing, for example, you are protected against that

better if you have brand registry.

So finally, because I know I've rattled through quite a lot on this episode,

let's talk about what happens next.

I can't say this enough.

Please do not do all of this work, sit back and wait for the sales to roll in

because you're still only halfway there.

Or maybe not maybe three quarters of the way there, not halfway.

But as your listings will be brand new, as you've heard me say before, it's

not going to be that easy to find and you will still have to do something

to drive traffic to your listing or listings, or they won't be found.

And all that hard work you've done has been for nothing.

If you can afford to, I would suggest allocating a really small amount of money.

I mean, even if it's two pounds, three pounds, five pounds a day, and

whatever you can afford for Amazon sponsored products, which is their pay

for click advertising platform, um, I find that usually works really well.

And as I say, you don't have to start by spending a lot of money.

You can start on a couple of pounds a day, and as you start getting a return

on that, you can maybe put the budget up or you can drive external ads to

Amazon if you prefer, or because you might not want to spend any money at

all, you can do something for free.

So free options are things like using your email list to get people over

to your Amazon listing, using social media to spread the word, um, telling

friends and family, asking them to share your listings, whatever it is.

I guess the bottom line is you need to do something and it can take some

work to get those initial sales, but it really will be worth it.

Think of all the work you've put in to get your listings set up in the first place.

Honestly, it is worth spending a little bit more time and effort on

getting those first sales because once you get the first sales, all the

others become a little bit easier.

I promise you.

You know that it is the first sales that are the hardest to get, and if things

will get a lot easier from there on in.

So obviously if you need any help with any of this, you can reach out.

It's vicki weinberg.com.

You can also contact me via link in the show notes.

I also have a fantastic checklist, which is a completely free checklist to talk

me through everything you need to know and have to get us set up on Amazon.

So basically everything we've spoken about here, and again, you

can get that via the show notes.

So thank you so, so much for listening all the way to the end, and take

care and I will see you again next week for another great episode.

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode.

Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free resources

on my website, vicki weinberg.com.

Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it,

and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful.