The one about how I opened my own Amazon store...

In 2022, I began researching how to open a store on Amazon. I wanted to start an online business and having been part of the team that built and grew the online capabilities of a large South African retailer, this seemed an obvious choice.?

I read everything I could and was nearly put off by the perceived complexity of it all but I pushed on ahead. The option that made the most sense with the lowest risk was using Amazon’s ‘Fulfillment By Amazon’. This model means you as a seller only need to get your stock to Amazon’s warehouse and they take care of the “last mile” logistics (payment, delivery, returns etc.).

I was researching and building my store while working my corporate job, overseeing CX and leading a team tasked with delivering a new app and loyalty programme for my employer. In other words, this was late evenings and weekends. In hindsight, this was wild but a good growth experience that helped grow my grit.

Long story short, I eventually got there (woohoo!) The store is up and running and making sales. The business is still on its way to profitability but it's set up to grow with all the puzzle pieces in place.?

Below, I’ll share the high-level steps I took to reach this point. I’m doing this partly as a self-reflection exercise but hopefully, it gives you, the reader, inspiration to go out and try something new (or something that scares you!).

Setting up an Amazon Seller account.

First I needed to set up a Seller Central account. This was straightforward but required pre-planning and ensuring I had the right documentation. Amazon makes you jump through hoops but following their instructions meant I avoided any complications. It costs $39.99 per month plus Amazon fees (of which there are plenty) but once you’re scaling it’s worth it.

Being based in South Africa and selling to the USA market required me to set up a third-party payment processor for Amazon to deposit funds into. I went with Payoneer which was surprisingly easy. I’ve been very impressed with their product and good work has gone into their UX and CX (more on that in another post).

Amazon offers a lot of training material for sellers on their platform and tapping into those has been valuable. The model is synergistic and mutually beneficial, the more the sellers succeed, the more Amazon succeeds.

Finding and sourcing a product.

Next, I needed to find a product to sell. This is the most important step and will require investing in software to help make your decision. Selling on Amazon is a numbers game and while it may be tempting to sell something purely based on your passion or hobbies, you need to make sure there is demand for the product. Some tools to help this process are:

Helium 10 https://www.helium10.com/

Sellerboard https://sellerboard.com/

Jungle Scout https://www.junglescout.com/

Zoof https://www.zoof.com/

Once you’ve decided on your product you need to source a supplier. I went with Alibaba where opening an account is relatively easy. The product comparison tools are great and while engaging with suppliers is a learning experience it’s made fairly easy on the platform. I eventually found a helpful supplier and we’re building a solid relationship.

Getting hold of samples is a must. You can’t sell something you wouldn’t use so ask your supplier to send you a sample before finalising any agreements. There may be some back and forth as you get the product to a final state of your liking. I also used a QA firm based in China to inspect my inventory before making the final payment.

Photography, Copy and SKU numbers

Once I had a sample that I was happy with, I got a local photographer to shoot my product images and got to work on my product copy. This was a fun process and tapped into my creative side which I thoroughly enjoyed. I may well do that copywriting course I’ve had my eye on…?

At this point, I also needed to get a universal product code (UPC) for my product and I did this through GS1. The world of SKU numbers is fascinating and I went down a rabbit hole on this subject. It may make a future post.

Shipping your stock and using an interim Warehouse.?

Once I was happy with the QA report, I got my supplier to ship my inventory to the States (we agreed on this during the cost negotiation). You may want to consider getting insurance for this as things can go wrong while shipping.

?Amazon won’t accept deliveries directly from suppliers into their warehouse so I reached out to a warehouse in North Carolina to receive and store my stock until Amazon was happy to call it off.?

Again, this was surprisingly easy to get going and I highly recommend the team at Warehouse Republic.

Switching on the Amazon store

Once all the puzzle pieces are in place it’s just a case of calling off the stock from the warehouse and switching on the store. This was quite a thrilling moment and the sense of accomplishment in seeing my first order come through surprised me. The store is now up and running and if you’ve read this far you can check it out here.

This is the first of many products in the range as we build out the brand. It’s a start.?

Bits and pieces

In addition to the steps above there are things like setting up a website, domain and e-mail account hosting for which I used Wix and Namecheap respectively.

The piece that I’m continually working on is Amazon’s PPC which is a whole subject on its own. I’m sure this is where Amazon makes most of its money outside of product sales. As a seller bidding for a prime position on listing pages can prove quite costly but as one’s product makes more sales and with tweaks to SEO, organic ranking kicks in which makes all the difference in lowering PPC costs.

So there you have it, a brief, high-level overview of my journey in setting up a store on Amazon.

If nothing else, I hope it inspires you to try something new. If you want more information or have a business and are keen to get your product on Amazon, give me a shout.

Cheers.