Sell on Amazon FBA – Learn How To Get Started Now!

by Brandon | Last Updated: September 4, 2021

As we are approaching what is shaping up to be a historic Q4 in terms of sales on Amazon (and supply issues, toy shortages, etc) I feel like I should talk about Amazon FBA real quick. Quick fun fact, did you know that 50% of all sales on Amazon come from 3rd party sellers? Just like me and hopefully you, soon, now is a great time to learn how to sell on Amazon!

What Is Amazon FBA?

Amazon FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) is when you send in items to Amazon’s warehouse for them to distribute out to customers. Anytime you see something shipped as Prime but NOT sold by Amazon.com, that is Amazon FBA in action. When you ship items in you can get really discounted UPS rates through Amazon which usually works out to roughly $.50 per pound.

Example Of Amazon FBA Buy Box (Not my company BTW)

There is also something called Amazon FBM (Fulfilled By Merchant) that you may see mentioned from time to time. This means you are selling on Amazon, but fulfilling the orders yourself. When an order comes in, you have to box the item up nicely – no reusing Walmart boxes or anything like that as you might do for eBay. You are buying the shipping and you are dropping it off wherever to get shipped.

Both have their pros and cons and I’ve done each extensively. If you’re reselling, FBA is the clear winner in my opinion. If you were doing something like a print on demand t-shirt business, then fulfilling orders as FBM may be necessary, but that is a topic we’ll get into another day.

There are a lot of nuances to selling on Amazon which we’ll get into down the road.

And chances are, as I’m writing this on September 3rd, 2021 and you’re probably reading this much much later it’s probably too late for you to cash in on 2021 Q4.

HOWEVER, all is not lost! Believe it or not, you can sell on Amazon all year round. 😉

Preparing To Do Business

I started off writing out everything in this post on how to select a business name and get set up with your state and then to also apply for a resale certificate but the section just made this page so long so I made it a separate post, Find a Great Business Name Using AI and hey, I figured it might be useful to share the page again for other side hustles I’ll be writing about.

So anyway…

Signing Up To Sell On Amazon

The first step to selling on Amazon is you need to get yourself signed up. Duh.

Click here: Apply For An Amazon Seller Account

Hit the Sign Up button and let’s get started.

DO NOT SIGN IN WITH YOUR PRIME ACCOUNT

You want to select “Create your Amazon account” and use a different email address. Your seller account needs to be completely separate and you DO NOT want a Prime Subscription attached to your seller account. When you sell on Amazon a lot of what we will be doing is buying FROM Amazon.com (directly, not a 3rd party) and reselling back on Amazon. Sounds weird, I know…but it will make more sense later. Just trust me on this for now.

The information you need to fill out here is pretty straightforward. I’ll highlight the most important parts.

Select a professional seller account. If you sell over 40 items in a month, this is the cheaper option. And if you’ve made it this far, I’m pretty sure you have expectations of selling way more than 40 items a month.

After you’ve created a new account, the process will start like this:

• Business location – Select United States
• Business type – Select privately-owned business
• Name of Business – you are going to enter your business name here. I would enter it exactly as the department of state website has it. So if on the state website it is GIANT DEALS INC then that is exactly what I would put here, caps and all. No extra punctuation either.

After you read through the policies, agreements and notices, you’ll click Agree and Continue.

Company Registration Number: This is the number that the state assigned you when you filed your articles of incorporation. For example, in Florida, the registration number looks like P0004025076 – that is what you would include in this field. Do NOT enter your federal tax id number here.

Jurisdiction of business – this is the state you filed your incorporation papers with.

Then you will need to enter your business address. It would be best if this address matched what the articles of incorporation have on them. If you followed my guide, this will be a UPS box that gives you a legit looking street address.

Next you will need to verify a phone number with them either via SMS or Call. They’ll give you a code to enter and you’ll be all set.

Personal Information

This whole section should be pretty straight forward.

Proof of Identity – Driver’s License or Passport, for most people it will probably be easier to add their Driver’s License number.

You’ll want to check the box that you are a beneficial owner of the business.

If it is just you running the business, you can click Yes to “I have added all the Beneficial Owners of the Business.” If you have business partners then go ahead and click No and add the other partners’ info.

Marketplace Specific Details

By default all three of North America, Japan and Europe are selected. They’re included in the professional fee and can always be changed later if Amazon decides to charge for this (they used to charge extra.)

Billing Information

You do need to have an active debit/credit card on file with Amazon at all times. If for whatever reason your card expires or they cannot charge it, they will move your listings to inactive until you fix this.

Store Information

Store Name: This can be whatever, it does not have to match exactly like the state documents. You obviously picked the name of your business for a reason, so I’d probably just name it quite similar. If you want to stay Anon, name it anything you want. Pepe’s Shop for example.

Do you have UPC Codes for all your products? Go ahead and click yes.

Are you the manufacturer or brand owner for any of the products you want to sell on Amazon? Yes would mean you are only doing private label products or products you created. No would mean you are reselling other brand’s products. Some of them would mean you are doing a mix of both.

Final Steps

They will also require you to upload documents proving your identity to sell on Amazon. Driver’s license card or Passport and then either a recent bank statement or credit card statement. You shouldn’t have a problem uploading a credit card statement that is your personal card (if you don’t have any business bank account statements yet) – just make sure the address matches your driver’s license address if you go that route.

I have heard of cases where they are now sometimes requiring a video interview to get your account setup. I don’t know why this is or what triggers it. Just keep that in mind that is may be required.

You should now be well on your way to becoming an Amazon seller.

For more side hustles check out my list of 70 and follow along as I try to write about most of them.