How does the Amazon marketplace work?

Access to millions of potential customers and unrivalled visibility whilst benefiting from the marketplace’s know-how and from services to retailers: these are the promises made by Amazon to its partners. 

The Amazon marketplace works quite simply. Below is the 4-step process:

1. Create an account on Amazon Seller Central. This will become the management interface for your professional retailer account. Registering means you can offer an unlimited number of products to users, in return for a monthly subscription amounting to €39 ex-tax and for a commission taken from each sale.
2. Add your product sheets to Amazon’s marketplace. You may use existing references or create new ones (so long as you have an EAN code for each new product). The use of a product feed manager such as Lengow is highly recommended: this tool will enable you to send in your product catalogues and be sure that all platform-specific attributes are properly stated.
3. Manage your orders using the Amazon Seller Central interface, or using the one in your Lengow feed manager for higher efficiency. You will be provided with numerous marketing and reporting tools to optimise your sales and better control your presence on Amazon’s marketplace.
4. Dispatch your orders. You can dispatch purchased products yourself, or entrust this task to the platform: this is known as the “Dispatched by Amazon” option (Fulfillment by Amazon). This powerful logistical tool helps you save on storage, and grants access to all European countries without needing physical on-site presence.

Though it may be simple, this procedure does not exempt you from marketing tasks that will highlight your products within Amazon’s marketplace. As such, you should be very attentive when writing your product sheets, make sure they comply with the platform’s prerequisites (with some help from a feed manager), value customer reviews and perhaps even invest in advertising so your products are well-positioned in internal searches.