Shopware Agency
Shopify Agency
JTL SHOP 5 Agency
Gambio Agency
Magento Agency
WooCommerce Agency
PrestaShop Agency
Xentral Service Partner Enterprice
VARIO Service Partner
Odoo Agency
Amazon Agency
eBay SEO
Otto SEO
Google SEO
Google Ads
Social Media
Facebook Ads Agency
Instagram Ads Agency
ChatGPT Agency
Link Building Agency
Ecommerce Tutorials
eCommerce Podcast
SEO Tools
AI Tools
eCommerce Facebook Group
Amazon FBA Complete Guide
How to get started as an FBA merchant
In this Amazon FBA Step by Step Complete Guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to master on your way to becoming an FBA merchant. From business registration, to Amazon listing. If you don’t want to miss this, watch the video until the end.
Amazon FBA Complete Guide - explained step by step
In this article, we’ll take you step-by-step through the processes that an Amazon FBA merchant has to master. From finding the right product, to customs clearance and listing on Amazon itself. If you are already interested, and I assume you are, otherwise you would not have clicked on the video, then you probably know roughly what is meant by Amazon FBA. Basically, as an Amazon FBA merchant, you are an online retailer without a warehouse. That means you are responsible for the integration of the products on Amazon – so which images are used, how do you set the title, which products do you sell at all, do you sell other people’s products or your own products, these are all your decisions. But everything that has to do with fulfillment, Amazon takes care of itself.
So the storage, shipping, returns, etc. Nevertheless, there are a few things to consider in advance to ensure that the FBA sale is successful.
The business and Amazon registration
So much for the theory. But what do we start with now?
Since you intend to make a profit with it, your first step should be to go to your local trade office. However, this is not a big deal and will end up costing you a maximum of 50€ and just 30 minutes of your time. Then, as already mentioned, a registration in the Amazon Seller Center is necessary. The steps to be followed are described in detail by Amazon, so this is self-explanatory. But so that you are prepared, the question: What do you need for it?
Your business registration, that is, this must be completed, a business account including. Credit card and a sales tax ID.
Once you have taken care of the bureaucratic necessity, you should think about what you want to sell in the first place.
Three approaches will help you choose products. The first most important approach, which we now call premise once is – the profit. The sale of this product must make a profit. How high the margin is is secondary for now. The only important thing is that a profit is generated. The second criterion is the percentage of competition. So how many competitors are there and what is your chance of market share anyway?
The three core criteria in the selection of the product
And exactly opposite – the demand. Because these two factors are in a certain dependence. If the level of competition is low, perhaps low demand is enough.
However, if this is too high and there are too few buyers, it is not worth betting on the product, even if it has a high margin. So those are our 3 most important metrics for now. But how do we determine them?
One of the most widely used tools for Amazon is Helium 10, which in turn includes many other sub-applications, such as the listing optimizer “Scribbles” or product research tools like “Blackbox” or “Trendster”. Or the sales data research tool Xray, also from Helium 10, which you can use for example to find out more about your customers. can determine is the total sales for a particular product, the search volume and the number of distributors that make a profitable turnover. Attentive viewers will have noticed that we would then have already covered points 2 and 3.
That is, search volume gives us an overview of how many people search for that product in a given time period. The total sales gives us knowledge about how many actually bought and the number of high individual sales of the respective products gives us knowledge about how high the chance of market share is.
For our profit, i.e. point 1 of our premise, the question must be asked, would customers be willing to spend more for a product. Because the more expensive the products are, the larger the margin becomes.
Amazon FBA Complete Guide - Get Product Ideas Here
You can check this by looking at how much sales a high-priced product of the same assortment makes and how much a low-priced product makes.
If the retailer generates a lot of sales with this product for an above-average price, this is a good indication. You can determine all this with the help of the XRAY Helium 10 tool. So now you have your tool with which you can analyze every potential product according to the 3 criteria just mentioned. But where to get the ideas in the first place. The key here is not to think too complicated and simply use what Amazon already provides. Because once you go on Amazon, you’ll see the “Buyer” category, which in turn can be applied to every single subcategory. Whether garden, home improvement, games, pets or specific clothing. Here you can see what sells well and get new ideas at the same time.
That means we’ve now registered our business, we’ve registered with Amazon, we’ve learned where to find inspiration for new products, but also what three criteria we can use to analyze them. Now the question is: How do you get the goods? So where should you buy the goods?
This is how you calculate the applicable fees with Amazon FBA
Again, there are several options here, but we’ll break it down for you for this article.
The most common website where you can look for cheap products is Alibaba. You’ve probably heard of this, but what is it anyway?
In the end, you can think of Alibaba as Amazon, but not for end customers, but for merchants. So it’s a B2B marketplace. However, this also means that there are certain purchase quantities. But how do you know now whether this product, for example. is profitable. First of all, there is a certain parameter, which is 25%. That is, the product should cost only 25% as much in the purchase as you want to sell it afterwards. The only thing is that you need to factor in customs fees, FBA fees, freight fees, etc. in your calculation. But you don’t have to do this manually either. Instead, the profitability calculator will help you. Here you only need to enter the sale price and the manufacturer price, which is what is displayed to you at Alibaba. Then the storage costs, the FBA fees and the transfer fees will be shown to you and, above all, calculated in. The only thing you have to enter are the customs duties, because this differs from country to country.
Amazon FBA Complete Guide - Request Samples
At the end you will have the possibility to pay additional costs, such as Enter advertising costs for Amazon PPC. By the way, if you want to learn more about this, our tutorial is linked in the video description. The bottom line is your net profit and below that your margin and you can judge if you should bet on this product or not.
So if you have found your first products for the beginning, you should not make the mistake and blindly order 500 pieces each. Instead, you can contact the manufacturer or supplier at Alibaba and request a sample for a small fee. So you can test this and convince yourself of the quality. Or you can complain about the defects and have them send samples until you are satisfied with the quality.
The transport of goods
Let’s take another look at our step-by-step overview. Amazon account is created, products were found, products were purchased. This means that transport is now on the agenda.
You must contact Amazon directly in advance to find out which warehouse you can send the goods to. Then you contact your supplier and give the address.
All you have to do now is to choose a transport option, i.e. train freight, air freight, sea freight, truck transport. What you have to weigh there are the costs and the time.
Air freight is faster, but more expensive. Sea freight takes longer, but saves you money. The situation is similar with train transport. Or, once again, you can rely on Amazon. Amazon Global logistics makes it possible. This means that from your Seller Central you can book air or sea freight at a lower price than the competition.
What are customs duties?
After you have decided on the variants and the carrier of your choice, the bureaucracy continues – topic “customs”.
What is this now?
Let’s get a definition for that.
“Customs duties are among the tax charges in Germany that is usually levied on products from non-EU countries. Here, these fees are not based on the country or the person who sent or ordered the package, but solely on the goods ordered. The customs fees are intended to recoup benefits that may result from omitted taxes from other countries.”
Amazon FBA Complete Guide - Apply for the customs number
And to do this in an orderly and traceable way, you need a number again. This used to be called a customs number and is now called an “EORI number”.
It can easily be applied for at the General Customs Directorate via a form and must then be passed on to your carrier or Amazon if you have opted for AGL. At first glance, this means even more bureaucratic effort, but then the forwarder takes over the customs clearance. That means you don’t have to deal with it any further.
Now, in the end, all Amazon FBA relevant factors and steps have been done. However, what is not yet in place, but which in principle affects every merchant, is the Amazon listing.
This is what you need, whether you are an FBM or FBA merchant. There will be a separate video from Lorenz about this, but we’ll outline what’s important anyway.
Amazon FBA Complete Guide - The Amazon Listing
The listing is virtually your product presentation page. Somewhat comparable to a product detail page in a store.
The only difference is that you don’t have to program or configure anything yourself, which is your big advantage with marketplaces.
But let’s take a closer look at this for X arbitrary product. First of all, the image(s) primarily catches the eye. You have the possibility to upload 6 pictures + 1 product video. Then we have the product name, features and bullet points. If you are using Amazon Enhanced Brand Content, you will not have the option to publish visual content under the first section, which may look like this. For the bullet points, as well as product images on Amazon and the A+ content, we have provided separate landing pages and blogs for you in the video description. Have we forgotten anything else then? In fact – the reviews, too, are part of the listing and are one of the most important factors for you as a merchant. Now, as a new retailer, you are at a huge disadvantage compared to more established retailers who have been selling the same product for some time. Because how does it come to the purchase? Let’s go through this for a robot vacuum cleaner. The customer goes to Amazon, types in “robot vacuum cleaner” and gets a whole bunch of results. Why is this and this and this product so high on the list?
Sponsored vs. organic
Here we need to distinguish between organic and PPC results. You can always tell by this “Sponsored” notice. This is a PPC ad. This simply means that Amazon advertising buys visibility. The organic ranking is composed of many individual factors. Among other things, your performance, i.e. how often was your product bought, how often was it clicked on, how many reviews exist, how good are the ratings, etc.. On the other hand, it also depends on whether you use the respective keyword often enough, but not too often in your listing. So if you want to be found for “robot vacuum cleaner” as a search term, then this keyword should also appear at least in the bullet points and in your product name. From this info, we can get two insights. First, yes you are at a disadvantage as a new merchant because you may have no sales, no reviews, no clicks and will most likely rank on page 4/5/6. But that’s exactly why it’s important to optimize your listing as accurately as possible. That means relying on high-quality product images. They must be able to explain the product at the first go. Because visual impressions are stronger than textual ones. This means that if the customer can already see from a picture whether the jacket is waterproof or not, he gets the information faster than if he has to read through the bullet points first and is more willing to buy. Furthermore, product images should arouse emotions. Only cropped images against a white background will not be enough. Therefore, it is worthwhile, especially as a new merchant, to spend more time optimizing your listings or to contact an Amazon agency, such as eBakery, and let them do it for you. But as already mentioned, there will be another expert episode with Lorenz to optimize the listing, so it’s worth it for you to subscribe to the eBakery YouTube channel.
How to get Amazon reviews
But what can you do now to overcome this disadvantage?
Exactly what this very merchant we found on page 1 / rank 1 did, namely use Amazon PPC.
Thus, with the right strategy, you will be placed on the most coveted rank for this keyword, that is, ahead of the merchants who are organically ranked best. As Lorenz explained to us in the last episode, it’s not about making a big profit, but using this visibility to get an organic boost. That means at the beginning one does not get along without the other. Is your listing incl. of the product images are bad, then PPC ads won’t help you either. But if your listing is good, but no one sees it, you will not be able to generate sales or organic reach. This means that you cannot avoid these two steps. However, we will conclude with another point that you can only influence indirectly. The ratings or reviews. Because these are so important in the first days after the product launch and can give you quite a boost, everything possible has been tried in recent years to push its own reviews. Of course, this was not what Amazon had in mind, which is why they also implemented a very intelligent algorithm that detects and deletes false reviews. This may include reviews from family and friends as a courtesy. Therefore, although this would be obvious, it always represents a risk. From that point of view, we do not recommend it.
Pay attention to the authenticity
However, if you should still take the risk and ask distant acquaintances if they would like to act as product testers, then make sure that you have at least a 1:10 purchase-review ratio. So per 10 purchases, one review, because otherwise that would be very unrealistic and stand out on Amazon. Otherwise, there is the possibility to provide a limited number of products on product test pages. That is, customers purchase the product with 100% discount and then give a rating for it. Of course, this can then also be a bad rating. Therefore, there is also a risk here. But if you have generated your first real sales through PPC, then you can use a tool that again comes from Helium 10.
Helium 10 Follow Up
Follow Up is an automated review request tool. This means that you can create automations, such as. implements sending a review request by mail after X days after the delivery has been made. Of course you are also free to add a small goodie + flyer to the product, saying who you are, what your vision is and why it is worth supporting you with a product review. However, the whole thing should not be written too penetrating. You should not try to get a good rating, but you should show that you are convinced of your product and its quality and that you want to have this reflected in your reviews.
Amazon FBA Complete Guide - Summary
So there are several approaches you can take to boost your overall performance on Amazon. So let’s summarize the individual steps once again. At the beginning of your Amazon FBA Journey, as with any business, are the bureaucratic and administrative processes. So the business registration and the opening of an Amazon Seller account. Then it’s a matter of finding a product. A product should have a high demand and be calculable enough to make a profit for you in the end.
But make sure that the market is not too saturated. A tool that can help you not only with this is “Helium 10”.
Further summary
Once you have found the ideal product, you need to find a supplier or manufacturer. The most sought-after port of call for this is Alibaba – a Chinese B2B platform. Once you have found it, use the profitability calculator to check which purchase price would be profitable and then negotiate it directly on Alibaba. If you have reached an agreement, however, request a sample in advance so that any quality defects can be determined and objected to. If you are satisfied, nothing stands in the way of your order except the choice of transport and customs clearance. Again, a cheap option would be to run the whole thing through Amazon. Amazon Global Logisitcs made possible. All you have to do is to make sure that you have an EORI number, i.e. that you are registered for customs purposes. This must then be passed on to Amazon. The goods would then already be in the Amazon FBA warehouse and you can take care of your listing and the marketing of your products.
Amazon FBA Agency eBakery
I hope we were able to give you some insight into what to look out for in terms of Amazon FBA with this blog.
For Amazon SEO issues please have a look at our Amazon SEO Playlist, for Amazon PPC issues our Guide already exists, for everything else the eBakery Amazon experts will be happy to take care of it. If you are having issues with your Amazon account, we can create an Amazon action plan with you.
Do you have questions or need an individual offer? Do not hesitate to contact us.
Haben Sie Fragen oder brauchen ein individuelles Angebot? Zögern Sie nicht, uns zu kontaktieren.
