As a fashion retailer, you need to be where your shoppers are. This makes it imperative to list your products on multiple marketplaces and online channels.
However, listing on marketplaces poses some challenges. Some of the common ones are:
And the list goes on. Retailers struggle with cataloging teams to ensure consistency of data and faster turnaround times.
In this series of posts, we will guide you through how to sell on Amazon in 6 simple steps right from setting up your account to final product listings. Although some products will be unique and may require additional fields, this step-by-step process will cover the basics.
Here's how to sell on Amazon in just 6 simple steps
If your company does not already have an Amazon Seller Central account, the first step is to create one. Register here or sign in with your seller account. You will be required to provide basic information about your company when registering to set up a seller account. You must list your bank account next to receive payments from Amazon.
Once you have completed your seller registration, you’ll want to optimize your Seller Central account for business. Make sure to optimize the following details as per the requirement:
You can use the seller account to list your products, manage inventory, fulfill customer needs and there are tools to create promotions and coupons, track payments and much more.
The next step is to ensure that you download the right product listing templates for your product category. Each of Amazon’s product categories has unique templates categorized by gender. These templates come in an excel format and include a list of mandatory attributes as well as optional attributes that need to be filled in for each product SKU. It is best to avoid the common mistake of choosing the wrong template, as this will ensure your feed’s rejection along with wasted time.
You are required to fill in specific details mandatorily for products such as product category, seller SKU, brand name and product ID among others. Other optional fields can be chosen to be filled or not depending on the seller.
This step requires you to upload the product listing template onto Amazon Marketplaces. This is done either by selecting ‘Add a product’ (for a single product) or ‘Add products via bulk’ (for multiple products). You are provided with a unique Batch ID and tracking information regarding the success or failure of listing for each upload.
You must create a product listing in Seller Central (or via API) to start selling items on Amazon. A product listing includes:
You'll match an existing listing if another seller has previously made the same product available (which means some details will already be in place, like the product identifier). You'll make a new listing if you're the first seller to offer a product.
Setting parent-child relationships for your products at this stage is crucial if they come in different sizes, colours, prints, etc.
Also note that every product offered for sale on Amazon gets an automatically generated ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number), which is different from a GTIN or SKU. Multiple sellers may offer the same ASIN.
This step is optional and is needed only if your product listing template has failed to list. A list of errors along with the products is presented on the platform. To complete a successful product listing, they must be corrected and submitted again.
There are two ways to sell on Amazon, you can use both options simultaneously. You can chose to ship your low moving bulky items yourself while opting for Amazon to ship lighter fast moving products.
FBA requires you to ship your products to Amazon’s warehouse and when you sell a product Amazon will be taking care of the shipping and tracking. In FBA you’ll be paying monthly inventory warehouse fees along with your service fees.
Amazon also takes care of the customer support with FBA, if you are struggling to store your inventory FBA is your way out. Fast-moving products are best suited for Amazon FBA.
The fulfilled merchant (FBM) option requires you to store the product inventory by yourself and ship them directly. You must set up system to handle customer service, addressing inquiries and any issues with your products.
Sellers who have bulkier products and which don’t sell fast opt for FBM as they are not paying for storage charges. The longer it stays in the warehouse, the seller must keep paying storage fees to Amazon, therefore it’s advisable to opt for FBM if you have a slow-moving product.
Catalogix is an AI-powered cataloging and feed management solution that gets you from products to multiple marketplace and channel listings in a couple of hours. Once your seller account is created, complex excel sheets must be filled in and uploaded to list on marketplaces. Catalogix automatically fills all the mandatory attributes, including SEO-optimized product titles and descriptions along with creating relevant image links/folders as per that marketplace's requirement. We even provide end-to-end support and handle upload and rejection management as well.
