Amazon created something called Fulfillment By Amazon that works much like eBay, but is MUCH better in my opinion.

For a while, eBay was the only place to sell things online. eBay is great, but it requires a lot of work on your part: sourcing, listing, shipping, customer support, etc.

If you plan to sell online, you should seriously consider Amazon’s fulfillment program called FBA. FBA stands for “Fulfillment By Amazon”, which makes it a fulfillment company. A fulfillment company provides storage and shipping services for its customers’ products. FBA is unique in that Amazon is also the marketplace for those items, so they take an active interest in seeing the items sell. What makes FBA even more extraordinary is that your items are also eligible for Amazon shipping promotions, including free Super Saver shipping and Amazon Prime.

It’s important to understand how FBA works and how other businesses use FBA.

Amazon shoppers use Prime to get free shipping. They easily spend more on things like spices, coffee, tea, socks, toilet paper, towels, detergent, etc. They spend a lot more because they absolutely TRUST Amazon. This is good for sellers because it means you will make more and sell more.

Amazon is a master of Internet commerce and has set the bar high for its customers, vendors, and owners. Customer service is critical to them and we are taking advantage of this through Fulfillment by Amazon. You, as the seller of the product, no longer have to deal with customer service after the sale. You just keep sending more products to Amazon and they take care of the rest.

This article will only cover setting up your Amazon account for FBA. We’ll go deeper into shipping your products to Amazon, storing and shipping your products on Amazon, and managing your FBA inventory in upcoming articles.

1. Open an Amazon account

If you’ve never bought or sold on Amazon and don’t have an account, simply go to the Amazon website and click the Sell on Amazon link at the bottom of any page.

2. Set up your Amazon account

Once you have an Amazon seller account, contact Amazon customer service to set up your account for FBA. Having a real FBA representative on your account will help you with any problems in the future. The representative will walk you through your first shipment.

So if you get that far, you’ve done your initial due diligence and have a FBA account.

I’ll be back soon with more suggestions for moving forward with Amazon FBA.