How the Amazon Marketplace Works: Sellers Guide 101
Amazon is a great place to start for sellers — they can reap the benefits of Amazon’s brand credibility as they sell their goods. So, what is the Amazon Marketplace and how do you use it as a seller? Read on for a quick breakdown.
Amazon Marketplace is the third-party retailer market integrated into the Amazon platform. Here, customers see a much wider product selection from thousands of external sellers. It is so well integrated that shoppers usually don’t even realize they are engaging with it, only that it is Amazon. The difference is in where the profits go. On Amazon, all profits go to…Amazon. On Amazon Marketplace, profits are shared between Amazon and the third-party seller.
As a third-party seller, there are two options for you to sell on Amazon–Amazon Vendor Central and Amazon Seller Central. Amazon Vendor Central allows sellers to sell their products directly to Amazon at wholesale prices. Amazon then sells these through Amazon.com and keeps the profits. An invite-only program, Amazon Vendor Central usually has wholesalers and manufacturers as members.
With Amazon Seller Central, sellers sell their products directly to shoppers. In exchange for being able to list their products on Amazon, a portion of their profits goes to Amazon. Most third-party sellers use Amazon Seller Central. Here, sellers manage inventory and fulfillment or they can outsource it to Amazon using the Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) program. Amazon FBA allows sellers to ship their inventory to one of Amazon’s fulfillment centers where Amazon handles order confirmations, packing, and shipping.
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