What D2C is, how it works, examples of companies that use it and why you should consider joining this trend.

Indeed: We are mainly going to look at D2C focussed on ecommerce. Because, if there is one thing we know about here at BigBuy, it’s online selling.

Let’s get started.

What is D2C (Direct-to-Consumer)?

D2C, also known as DTC (Direct-to-Consumer), is a sales model in which a brand or manufacturer sells their products directly to the consumer without intermediaries or distributors of any kind.

To clear up the confusion over the acronyms: In most cases, D2C is the equivalent of B2C (Business-to-Consumer sales). Brands that used to sell to an intermediary (B2B), “skip” this intermediary and sell to the end customer.

How D2C came about

D2C sales already existed before the pandemic, but it was in 2020 that online D2C sales skyrocketed.

From 2019 to 2022, the percentage of consumers that bought directly from the brand (and not an intermediary) grew from 49% to 64%.

Why?

Because, with the lockdown, sales through ecommerce grew exponentially. Brands, faced with the closure of the traditional channels through which they sold their products, were forced to speed up direct sales.

But let’s look a little further back.

Why Digitally-Native Vertical Brands (DNVB) are Closely Related to the Boom in D2C

Digitally-Native Vertical Brands (DNVB) are dedicated to the sale of one product category.

Why are we talking about them in this article?

Because their growth (and subsequent boom) is closely related to the boom in direct-to-consumer sales.

We are talking about brands like Dollar Shave Club in the United States, Hawkers in Spain, Shanty Biscuits in France. There are hundreds of examples.

From 2010, with the “democratisation” of ecommerce, an increasing number of brands emerged that decided to specialise in a very specific product category (glasses, mattresses, confectionery…) and sell directly to the end consumer.

These businesses knew their product and sector extremely well and, thanks to their command of online advertising channels (especially on social networks), they knew how to build a very close relationship with their consumers.

They had (and still have) complete control over the customer experience. They only sell through their ecommerce, and avoid having to rely on third parties (including Amazon).

And some did it so well that they started to gain ground on the big brands.

In this battle of David and Goliath, Goliath had two choices:

• Buy these businesses: Get rid of the competitor and access all of their data, like Gillette did with the shaving products brand, Dollar Shave Club.
• Develop their own D2C strategy

Focussing on buying any company that represents a threat is an option, but not in the long term. That’s why many companies opted to define a direct sales strategy.

With the arrival of the pandemic, some (such as Nike) had already developed this model. Others (the majority) still had a long way to go.

The advantages of a D2C model

A D2C model has many advantages for brands or manufacturers.

• Higher margins, as they don’t need to pay an intermediary.
• Control of the complete consumer experience
• Increased customer loyalty and strengthening of the brand
• Collection of first-party-data: Data collection is key. By selling directly, you have access to much more information about your customers, about shopping preferences, leading products.
• Better time-to-market: By controlling the distribution, it is easier to start selling a product or to make changes.

Examples of D2C companies (to inspire you)

Let’s look at some examples of D2C companies that have been able to make the most of this model of selling directly to the consumer.

They are very diverse, but they all stand out for three reasons:

1. Comprehensive knowledge of the target sector and consumer.
2. Meticulous communication and marketing campaigns.
3. An excellent shopping and after-sales experience.

Nike

Nike was one of the few established brands that were able to launch its D2C sales model in time. In 2017, it launched a project called “Consumer Direct Offense”, a global strategy that aimed to boost its direct sales to the consumer via ecommerce.

And boy did it achieve it!

It strengthened its digital channels. Sales were so high that, in 2019 it decided to stop selling on Amazon.

At the end of 2021, its direct-to-consumer sales had grown by over 500% with a turnover of 16 billion dollars.

Freshly Cosmetics

Let’s move on from Nike and look at a smaller company: Freshly Cosmetics.

Freshly is a brand of natural and sustainable beauty products. It was founded in 2016 with its own electronic commerce, but nowadays it also has its own physical stores.

It has based its growth on a fantastic command of social networks, where it has an enormous community.

Saveur Bière

A French brand that was founded in 2007 and is dedicated to selling beer.

As with most successful D2C brands, it has been able to base its growth on well-thought-out marketing campaigns.

Like this beer advent calendar.

Happy Socks

We have already said that D2C businesses usually focus on one product category.

Is there anything more specific than Happy Socks?

This Swedish brand launched onto the market in 2008 selling nothing but socks. Later on, it added swimwear.

In addition to its online store, it has gradually introduced physical stores, with hundreds of its own stores in the world’s major cities.

Happy Socks has based its strategy on meticulous design, as well as collaborations with celebrities. It has some great marketing campaigns that you can take inspiration from, such as the men’s swimwear promotion with David Hasselhoff or the Happy Socks that celebrate the 50th

anniversary of the Yellow Submarine by The Beatles.

The challenges of a D2C business model

For traditional brands that have based their growth on a sales strategy using third parties, D2C can be daunting.

Otherwise, the pandemic wouldn’t have been so challenging for so many companies that suddenly saw their sales plummet and didn’t have the infrastructure to sell directly through ecommerce.

Let’s analyse the challenges of a D2C model.

We’ll also tell you how we help you to tackle them here at BigBuy.

Catalogue synchronisation with marketplaces

On a technical level, D2C poses many difficulties.

One of the most important aspects is the technical side of things.

Beyond the usual technical requirements involved in setting up an ecommerce, there is an aspect that goes a step further: synchronising your catalogue with marketplaces.

Many brands that want to sell using direct selling want to sell on marketplaces like Amazon.

(Because not all companies can afford to do what Nike did and break away from their collaboration with this platform).

But, in doing so, they come across a problem: Product Information Management (PIM) and catalogue mapping.

In order to be able to synchronise your catalogue to a marketplace’s catalogue, you have to “map” each one of your categories, attribute groups, attributes and values.

We are talking about thousands or hundreds of thousands of elements that you have to review for the marketplace to allow you to publish your products.

If you want to sell on several marketplaces, multiply this task by the number of marketplaces.

If, in addition, you have to translate your content into several languages, it all becomes even more complicated.

How does BigBuy help you?

Here at BigBuy, we have technology that enables you to synchronise your catalogue with more than 200 European marketplaces.

And how does it work?

1. You “map” your catalogue once, so it meets the requirements of BigBuy’s PIM software.
2. Once the mapping is complete, you can start selling on multiple marketplaces in different countries, in less than 24 hours.
3. All your listings will be optimised on each sales channel without having to do any more mapping.

However! We always recommend starting out gradually. First, launch to one marketplace and, gradually, open up others.

Why?

Because you risk not being able to cope with the sales. It is better to start slowly and make sure you are able to provide your customers with good service.

Centralised management of the inventory

A problem for many brands is inventory management.

Let’s imagine you sell in four marketplaces: Amazon Spain, Amazon France, ePrice and Carrefour.

You have also set up your own ecommerce on Shopify.

If you sell the last unit of a product in Carrefour, all the other channels should stop showing this product as available. In real-time.

How BigBuy helps you

We give you access to an online tool that enables you to manage your inventory from a single platform.

It also guarantees that all your sales channels will display up-to-date information.

You can establish pricing strategies per channel, view the stock for each product and make sure that all your channels are updated and there are no cancellations or problems.

You can also view the status of all your orders in real time.

Handling shipping and returns

By shopping online, the level of consumer demand when it comes to logistics is extremely high.

For brands, the end-to-end management of logistics can be too big a challenge.

You will have to make sure that the packaging is correct (to prevent breakages), that they are dispatched on time, that the price of shipping doesn’t eat into your profits, that the returns process works properly…

How BigBuy helps you

At BigBuy, we offer our Fulfilment by BigBuy service, where we take care of everything: we store your products, we prepare them and handle the shipping.

We have agreements with more than 50 international logistics operators, so you can always access the best shipping conditions.

Oh! And we also take care of the returns.

So you only need to worry about selling. We deal with all the rest.

Channel conflict

Last but not least.

By selling directly to the end consumer, you have to tackle potential conflicts with your current distribution network.

By becoming “competition” for your distributors, there are bound to be frictions or issues. This is particularly the case if you provide offers or promotions that your distributors can’t compete with.

This conflict is inevitable. It’s another step to deal with when defining a D2C model and each brand gets around it however they can.

How BigBuy helps you

If you decide to sell via a D2C business model, we can help you to deal with the conflict of channels.

How?

By helping you to control your pricing strategy at all times. On different channels.

With our online software, you can analyse shipping costs in real time, the commissions of each marketplace, the activity of the competition and taxes by country.

That way, you can set prices that are tailored to each channel and avoid losses.

The Future of Selling Directly to the Consumer

D2C is a trend that isn’t going to disappear.

In fact, it is highly likely that brands and manufacturers increasingly move towards this sales model, which allows them to have much better control over their sales and generate a higher margin.

And in all likelihood, they will do so using an omnichannel strategy, which includes their own ecommerce, selling on other online channels (mainly marketplaces) and physical stores to maintain direct contact with the customer.

Here at BigBuy, we provide solutions to these companies. We help them to sell on marketplaces in different countries, to manage challenges, whether logistical, technological, tax, and much more.

Get more information about our D2C services

La entrada What is D2C? A Complete Guide To Selling Directly to the Consumer aparece primero en Blog Dropshipping y Ecommerce para tu negocio | BigBuy.

Which of these two options is better?

Both Shopify and Amazon are top platforms for e-merchants.

But, which one is better? Amazon or Shopify?

In this article, we are going to suggest another approach to you.

Amazon vs Shopify: An introduction

Amazon is the most popular marketplace in the world, with over 300 million customers.  Amazon’s market share is no less than 41% in the United States.  If you would like to find out more about selling on this marketplace, we recently published an article about how to sell on Amazon.

On the other hand, Shopify: is the most widely used ecommerce platform in the world, available in 175 countries and with a market share of 18%.  Over a million people use Shopify for their business.

Looking at these figures, it’s normal to ask yourself which is the best one to sell on. We are going to offer you a suggestion: Why not sell on both?

Why should you sell on different online channels?

Multi-channel sales mean that the same business is present on many online sales channels.

Which channels do we mean?

• An individual ecommerce (such as Shopify)
• Marketplaces (whether Amazon, eBay, or leading marketplaces in certain countries, such as Allegro in Poland)
• Social media
• Comparison sites like Google Shopping

This trend has gained a lot of momentum in recent years for various reasons:

1. It allows you to adapt to consumer preferences.
2. You are present throughout the purchase process, from the initial consideration to the purchase: in ecommerce, the customer does not usually convert immediately, they normally need several “contacts” with the brand before they make the conversion. If you are present on different channels, you have more opportunities and are present in all of these contacts.
3. You are not dependent on just one sales channel: if, for example, you are solely dependent on Amazon, and Amazon closes your seller account, you have other channels to continue generating sales with.

We won’t lie to you though. Carrying out a multi-channel strategy has its challenges. One of the most significant challenges is how to integrate all your channels so that the information is always updated in real time.

Having the sales channels integrated is compulsory when it comes to avoiding stock outs and other problems that may arise. It is the simplest way of controlling your inventory, your prices, etc.

Suppliers like BigBuy offer you the option to sell on more than one digital channel at the same time, whether on marketplaces or ecommerce platforms. What’s more, with just one tool you can sell on over 200 sales channels, and you don’t need to choose between Shopify vs Amazon.

What does this mean?  BigBuy’s technology enables you, among many other things, to keep your inventory updated in real time. For example, if you sell the last unit of a product through Amazon, your Shopify store should show that this product is no longer in stock.

If you don’t know where to start to connect Shopify and Amazon, we have the solution here at BigBuy.

How to connect Shopify with Amazon

Here at BigBuy, we have developed some cloud software (the Multi-Channel Integration Platform) which doesn’t just allow you to connect Shopify or Amazon, but also with more than 200 sales channels such as eBay, AliExpress, Wix, etc.

That said, at this point there are two common situations:

Option 1: You don’t have your own stock and you want to do dropshipping on Shopify and Amazon in an integrated way

If you want to sell, but you don’t have a warehouse to store your products (in other words, you do dropshipping), this option is for you.  You can choose from the 200,000 products we offer and sell them in an integrated way on both platforms.  You can find ideas for products to sell in BigBuy’s  Top-selling section as well as in  New Products.

 Would you like to learn how to find the best products to sell on Amazon? We show you how

To do dropshipping on Amazon and Shopify in an integrated way, you will need to use our technology. This synchronises your ecommerce platform (like Shopify) and your seller account on marketplaces (like Amazon), and enables you to configure everything easily.

You can choose which products to sell and where, as well as define your pricing strategy and much more.

All the information will appear updated in real time on all of your sales channels.

Do you want to start dropshipping? We can help you

Option 2: You have your own stock and you want to sell on different channels in an integrated way

If you already have stock, at BigBuy we offer the option of selling your stock exclusively using our integration platform.

The process is very simple:

Firstly, you synchronise your stock with BigBuy.  Once you have done this, you can manage your sales on different channels through our online platform, all in real time and in a centralised way.  This is what is called the DTC (Direct to Consumer) model, a commercial strategy which is becoming increasingly well-known and where you sell directly to the customer.

Discover our solutions for brands and suppliers with stock

The Multi-channel Integration Platform – What it is and why it will change your life

We have already explained the basics, but now let’s look in more detail:

Supported by amazing technology, this tool developed by BigBuy enables you to configure and manage everything from ecommerce software to Shopify, and marketplaces to Amazon in an automated way.

It offers you the option of integrating the sales from all your channels in one place. With this tool, synchronising your store will be simple through BigBuy’s control panel or directly by logging into the platform.

Let’s analyse some of the features of this tool:

Catalogue management

With this tool you can manage and publish up to 30,000 products in your online catalogue. You can choose from over 200,000 products from the BigBuy catalogue, including many top brands. All at wholesale prices and with fast delivery.

In our catalogue you will find:   New products,   Top-selling products, products from our own brand InnovaGoods, Winning Products and top brands from many categories such as health, beauty, pets, sport, electronics and much more.

With this tool, from the platform, you can manage and publish the whole BigBuy catalogue on the different sales channels in just a few clicks, and it has many advantages:

• Our catalogue is translated into 24 languages
• Personalised selection of products and categories
• Automatic mapping of categories with marketplaces
• Over 200,000 products and 5,000 brands

With this tool, data synchronisation takes place in real time. If there are any changes to the stock, price, images, description, etc., it will automatically synchronise on all your channels. So you can see that, here at BigBuy, we help you to boost your sales.

Define your pricing strategy

You can define your pricing strategy based on our recommendations, to guarantee that you get a good profit margin.  You can also have a different strategy on each sales channel and the prices are updated automatically.

Synchronisation in real time

We know how important it is for all the information to be updated in real time, especially to provide customers with the correct information at any given moment.  For that reason, our tool enables you to synchronise stock, prices, images, descriptions and any changes there may be.

Order management

All your orders, whether from Shopify or Amazon, will be centralised on one platform. We make it soooo easy for you!

Carriers

You can integrate your ecommerce with a wide selection of carriers. You choose the company you want to work with!

[Conclusion] Shopify vs Amazon – Discover our technology and sell on over 200 online channels

As you can see, with BigBuy, selling on both on Amazon and Shopify (and on many more channels!) is easy. The only thing you need to do is take out a contract on any of our Wholesaler Packs and you can start selling in minutes.

To conclude, we remind you once again of the importance of carrying out an automated and synchronised multichannel strategy, so you “only” have to worry about selling, selling and selling some more. The more sales channels, the better, as long as you can cope with the workload.

It is important for you to be able to rely on the support of a trusted supplier that gives you all the guarantees and tools to make your business a success. In our case, this is the Multi-Channel Integration Platform, our extensive catalogue, delivery times and our excellent customer service.

Whether you are a dropshipper or a company with your own stock, here at BigBuy we have a solution for you. Discover it now!

La entrada Shopify vs Amazon: Which is better? And why not sell on both? aparece primero en Blog Dropshipping y Ecommerce para tu negocio | BigBuy.

Read the full article and discover a comparison of the best tools for carrying out good keyword research on Amazon.

💡​ By the way, if you are interested in finding out how much it costs to sell on Amazon, in our guide we will analyse its fees, the margin you can make and the profitability of the marketplace. 

How to identify keywords for Amazon 

Making your product appear within the first search results on Amazon is essential if you want to generate sales. It is no easy feat, but it is possible, of course. To make this happen, it is almost essential to have the tools for identifying the best keywords in order to position your products on Amazon. 

What are Amazon keywords used for? 

Be aware that Amazon has become another search engine and, as such, it prioritises the best results so that its customers can find the most relevant products.   

In order to do this, the marketplace also has its own algorithm, and in this respect it is also very similar to Google. The use you make of your keywords is the main tool that Amazon has to know what type of products you sell and which users may be interested. Of course, there are many other variables (positive ratings, fast deliveries, etc.) that influence the algorithm, but your first point of entry is your product keywords.  

This process is a bit like a dog chasing its own tail:  

1. If you have a good keyword strategy it will improve the position of your products in the search results and, therefore, improve your visibility and traffic to your product.
2. More visits means more sales.  
3. The more sales you get, the more chance you have of receiving ratings from customers and improving the score for your products. 
4. If your product is among the best rated ones it will always have a better position than those of your competitors. 

Identifying the best keywords for your products

When it comes to doing good keyword research and making an SEO plan for Amazon, it is important not just to analyse the main keywords, but also which products have sold best and had better ratings within the category, studying the best descriptions, seeing which ones use the shoppers in their searches and being able to identify those that are not so highly competitive, among which you may find a niche to position yourself more easily. 

The latter are the ones we call long-tail keyword, and although they have smaller search volumes, they don’t tend to have as much competition and are easier to position. Additionally, this type of keyword often implies a search intention that is already closely related to a purchase and, therefore, it may help you to improve your conversion. 

This whole process is part of a successful strategy. But you have to start at the beginning. At BigBuy, we can help you to better understand  how to sell on Amazon, step-by-step.  

Come what may, what is clear is that you are going to need to use tools that will help you to localise the best keywords for your products. And this is the purpose of this article, so keep reading to find out which ones are the best.  

Seven keyword search tools on Amazon 

In this case, order does matter. Although it is true that no one tool is better than another and each one offers its own features, what is certain is that each one of them stands out for a different functionality. For this reason, we have organised the tools according to their use and versatility when it comes to dealing with the main goal: positioning your products and gaining the highest profitability on Amazon.  

Let’s get started! 

Helium10 

Helium 10 is one of the most comprehensive and widely-used tools. This software offers a set of solutions for ecommerce, such as identification of products, research into keywords, analytics, etc. 

Some of the advantages of Helium 10 are: 

• Simple graphics for viewing sales trends.  
• Analysing product seasonality. 
• Keyword classification in relation to the competition.
• It has a Chrome extension so that sellers can create adverts by copying the ASIN en masse. 
• It also enables profitability to be calculated according to a number of variables such as product weight and dimensions and the fees for FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon). 

The most relevant tools for keyword searches offered by Helium are: Cerebro, Magnet and Misspellinator. Let’s look at them more closely: 

Cerebro by Helium10 

Cerebro is one of the Helium tools that specialises in keyword search. It differentiates itself from its counterparts by what it does from the ASIN. This means that, with the code of any other Amazon product, you can single out all its keywords whether they are organic or paid for.  

Misspellinator by Helium10 

Misspellinator: the Helium10 tool that searches for keywords with errors

The special feature of this tool is that it allows you to integrate the most frequent errors into your keyword search and add them within the listing.  

Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that users increasingly write with more errors or with poor spelling, or lacking coherence by wanting to shorten sentences. So the Misspellinator knows how to take perfect advantage of the situation to convert those errors into an advantage that allows you to enter those that you had previously rejected into your keyword listing.  

Magnet by Helium10

The search on Magnet

And last but not least, Magnet is one of the most widely-used tools in the sector. It differentiates itself from the rest by its extensive keyword analysis, which expands their full potential. 

With Magnet you can view: 

• The exact volume of searches. 
• The most searched-for related terms
• The Magnet IQ Score

Additionally, another of our favourite Magnet functions is that you can select the number of words that are included in the keyword, so you can filter and prioritise long-tail keyword searches with 3 or more words.  

Jungle Scout 

Jungle Scout, which also has its own version of an extension for Google Chrome, is another of the most important Amazon tools. As well as searching keywords, through tools like the Opportunity Finder, it is perfect for finding winning products that you can start selling on this marketplace.

But let’s focus on the important things: Jungle Scout has a keyword analysis tool: Keyword Scout. This platform will help you to identify the keywords with the most potential for conversion, as well as to create a good strategy for having an extremely optimised product listing that you can use to improve your ranking on Amazon. 

In fact, the tool enables you to obtain a rating for your listing that scores the title of your product, the description, the main features, the keywords, the images, etc.so that you can identify areas for improvement.  

You will also be able to obtain a very comprehensive report with all the keyword strategies that are being carried out by your competitors so that you can make much more accurate decisions within your own strategy.  

The main advantages and opportunities offered by this tool are:  

– You can explore the results by filtering using your competition’s ASIN. 

– The keywords are based on real niches that are looking for real buyers. 

– You will not only find the keywords with the greatest volume, but also the number of sales and the capacity for income from those keywords.  

– You will also be able to explore by keyword type: organic or paid; and to find out their cpc, volume, etc.  

– You can investigate keywords for different markets, such as: the United States, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Mexico, etc.  

Jungle Scout is not a free tool, but it has different plans that can be tailored to any budget. You can get the Basic Plan from € 24/month. 

Sonar 

You are looking at one of the best keyword searchers for Amazon. Sonar has a very useful advantage: It’s free!  

As you can see, Sonar is a free keyword planner that you can use to search for keywords by ASIN, find synonyms or related words that are profitable, etc. 

It has a database containing over 180 million terms. However, as it explains on its website, “the tool only includes keywords for which the ASIN is classified on the first page of the Amazon search results at the time of the most recent database update”. That means that you will never find information about a product that has recently been uploaded or that only has a few stars and is poorly rated.  

Another advantage of Sonar is that you can search your keywords free of charge in various markets, such as Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom, France or Italy.     

AMZ Scout 

The benefits of AMZScout 

This tool is very similar to the previous two and also offers a wide range of possibilities for Amazon keyword searches. Like the others referred to above, AMZ Scout also has its own extension for Google Chrome.

The function for doing keyword research on this platform is called AMZ Scout Keywords Explorer and it is very easy and intuitive to use. The tool offers very similar features to Jungle Scout and Helium10. 

What can I do with AMZ Scout?

– Find related keywords within a specific niche.  

– Find keywords through ASIN.

– Quickly view changes in position of the keywords at a glance. 

– Find winning products to add to your catalogue. 

One of the AMZ Scout features that we most like is that you can make adjustments to the performance of your campaigns quickly and easily, based on the organic listings, by eliminating keywords that don’t need publicity. In this way, you can avoid an unnecessary cost for those keywords that convert well and that don’t need to be part of paid campaigns to be profitable.   

AMZ Scout has an extremely affordable basic plan costing €16.50 per month, that you can use to begin to find your way around a tool that offers very competitive solutions.   

Ahrefs 

Ahrefs is another star tool for finding keywords and it offers great SEO solutions that are as good as other giants such as SEMrush, Sistrix and Moz. 

In relation to Amazon, Ahrefs offers a tool called Site Explorer through which you can investigate the keywords that generate the most organic traffic to Amazon and carry out an extensive analysis of your competitors’ strategies.  

Undoubtedly, this is one of the most comprehensive tools that you can take out a contract on in order to optimise all your business SEO, if you also have a website. Ahrefs has a lite plan from €89/month.

Keywordtool.io

The Amazon browser for keywordtool.io

Keywordtool.io is a very easy tool for finding keywords on most search engines and platforms. You can find keywords for Amazon, Google, YouTube, Bing and the app downloading platforms, as well as the most searched-for hashtags on the main social networks.  

It is very easy to use, as it has an intuitive browser that offers all the information that is of most interest to you when doing keyword research. In addition, you can change easily between Amazon and another search engine by navigating between tabs.  

With Keywoordtool.io you can segment your products by category, volume and market, distinguishing between different countries. The only problem that we found was that, unlike other tools that we have seen in this article, with Keywoordtool.io you cannot search by ASIN, at least not for now.  

Scientific Seller 

This free tool calls itself “the slowest keyword searcher in the world”. And, unlike the other tools mentioned, Scientific Seller carries out exhaustive research to offer you different and original results that will help you to increase your conversion. 

This software is perfect for finding long-tail keywords. Although these don’t have a large volume of searches, they have little competition and, therefore, offer an opportunity to start positioning yourself.  

To conclude: what to expect from an Amazon keyword tool

Amazon has become a very competitive market, so working on thorough keyword research, understanding the search terms that have a greater search volume and performance and creating a strategy for your Amazon store is essential if you want to be successful doing dropshipping. 

After analysing every Amazon keyword tool and comparing them with each other, we can come to some conclusions about choosing the best one for your project: 

An Amazon keyword tool has to be simple and offer competitive keywords

As you have seen, the terms with the highest search volumes are not necessarily the ones with the highest performance for your business. The best keyword tools are those in which you can find a balance between search volume and long-tail keywords with little competition and with a lot of potential. 

It is important that it allows you to do a keyword search by ASIN

The majority of tools allow you to search their database through the ASIN, that is, the product identification number assigned by Amazon. This function is very useful for analysing the SEO strategy being followed by other sellers on Amazon.

If it can help you with searching for winning products, that’s even better.

Apart from searching for keywords, some of the tools analysed, like Jungle Scout or Helium10 will also help you to search for winning products to add to your Amazon listing.  

We know that finding products to sell on Amazon is not easy, but here at BigBuy we have an extensive catalogue of over 200,000 items and top brands that you can do dropshipping with directly on Amazon. The main advantages of relying on our catalogue are:  

– We are not intermediaries and we have all the stock centralised in our European warehouses, with all the benefits this brings, particularly when doing dropshipping: fast shipping, products with guarantees and certifications, lower percentage of returns, etc.     

– We have a customer service team and an after-sales service with support in more than 24 languages.  

– We give you access to an online tool to integrate the management of all your sales channels from one place.  

➡️​ Discover the BigBuy catalogue

That’s the article on searching for Amazon keywords.  Apart from the ones we have analysed, do you use any other keyword tools? Tell us in the comments about your impressions and experiences of these. We hope that your strategy on Amazon is a resounding success! 

La entrada The best keyword search tools on Amazon aparece primero en Blog Dropshipping y Ecommerce para tu negocio | BigBuy.

In this article we will look at a number of points that are very important for any Amazon Seller:

1. All the fees that Amazon charges you for selling on its marketplace.
2. We work out how much money you need to sell on Amazon
3. We explain how to calculate your margin
4. With all this done, we carry out a final assessment: Is it profitable to sell on Amazon?

💡 A note before we continue: If you want to know more about how to sell on Amazon, read our complete guide.

How much it costs to sell on Amazon: The Fees

The first thing you need to know before you start selling on this marketplace is what its seller’s fees are and what determines the profitability of your strategy on Amazon.

When we talk about selling fees on Amazon we are talking about many different costs. There are costs for selling commission, services costs, campaign costs, advertising… Let’s take a look at them.

The costs for an Amazon Seller: Your seller plan

Right, first of all, we need to look at the fixed costs: to be able to sell on Amazon, you will need to choose a selling plan. There are two options available:

• Individual selling plan: You don’t pay a fixed monthly fee, but Amazon will charge you what they call a “closing fee”: or €0.99 for every product you sell, which is the same thing.
• Professional selling plan: The one we recommend if you want to sell professionally. This is €39.99/month. In what situation would this plan be suitable for you?
  • If you sell more than 40 products a month (which, for a professional seller is a more than acceptable amount). Why is this? With an individual selling plan, if you sell 41 products,
    you would have to pay €40.49 just in commissions. So it’s more profitable to get the Professional plan.
  • If you want to access APIs and advanced tools.
  • If you want to create paid campaigns to promote your products on Amazon.
  • If you want to choose to enable your products to be bought with one click (this function
    notably increases the conversion rate).
  • And, basically, if you want to dedicate yourself to selling on Amazon in a professional way.

If all this makes your head spin, you can always start off with an Individual Plan and extend your account to the Professional Plan later on.

Referral fees

When making a sale on Amazon, you will have to pay a “referral fee” for each product sold, regardless of whether you have an Individual or Professional Seller’s plan.

This referral fee is a percentage of the total sale price and includes both the cost of the product and any charge related to shipping or gift wrapping.

The percentage referral that you need to pay will vary depending on the category under which your product sells. If you look at the percentages table, you will see that it varies greatly depending on the product you are selling, but it tends to remain within a range of between 7% and 20%, with commissions up to 46%.

👉 Here are a few examples: electronics (7.21%), DIY (13.39%), health and personal care (8.24% for products priced below €10, and 15.45% for products priced above €10), sports and outdoors (15.45%). By far, the highest commissions are those for accessories for Amazon devices (such as Kindle), which is at 46.35%.

It is very important that you bear this point in mind when choosing which products to sell on Amazon.

Bear in mind that, in all cases (except for a few exceptions), Amazon charges a minimum fee of €0.30 per item. That is the minimum fee that you will pay, regardless of the sale price
of your item or its category.

Are these fees too high to make a profit?

If you do things properly, the answer is no. Those percentages may seem high but, in exchange for them, you will get all of the potential of Amazon.

This means that you will benefit from all of its traffic, its checkout which is super-optimised for conversion and its beyond-excellent brand reputation. That is no minor thing.

The importance of checking the commissions that Amazon charges you

This is a relevant point: Unfortunately, it is quite normal for Amazon to make a mistake and charge you more commissions than it should. You can view this in your seller panel by going to Reports / Payments / Transactions.

If this occurs, you need to send a claim to Amazon.

🙌 If you would like us to explain how to send a claim to Amazon, leave a message in the comments for us and we will prepare an article with step-by-step instructions.

The fees for sales of multimedia items

If you sell items in the Books, Music, Video and DVD, and Software and Videogames categories, you will need to pay a fixed cost for each sale. This fixed cost will be added to the referral percentage that we explained in the previous point, and it will vary according to the type of product (although, in these circumstances, the €0.30 fee will not be applied).

The fixed fees charged by Amazon for these product categories are as follows:

•  Books: €1.01 (+ the referral fee of 15.45%)
• Music: €0.81 (+ the referral fee of 15.45%)
• Video and DVD: €0.81 (+ the referral fee of 15.45%)
• Software y videogames:
  • Games and accessories: €0.81 (+ the referral fee of 15.45%)
  • Consoles: €0.81 (+ the referral fee of 8.24%

Fees for logistics management

With this point, we need to make a distinction based on whether you work with Amazon FBA or opt for managing fulfilment yourself.

Fees for selling on Amazon FBA

Before going into how much it costs to sell with Amazon FBA, we will summarise what this consists of and what the service includes.

Amazon Logistics is a service through which Amazon Sellers can outsource the logistics management of their orders through this marketplace. How does it work?

1.  The seller sends their products to Amazon’s Fulfillment Centers (logistics centres).
2. A customer makes a purchase.
3. Amazon takes care of the whole process of packaging and shipping to the end customer.

In exchange for this service, it charges you a series of costs that we will describe below.

Now that we’ve looked at this, let’s move on to the prices:

To begin with, you will need to have a Professional seller’s plan (which, as we mentioned earlier, costs €39/month). If you already have this, let’s look at the following costs:

Storage fees

Storage fees are paid according to the average daily volume of your merchandise and are measured in cubic feet. The volume is measured based on the total size of the product once it is packaged and ready for shipping.

If the products you sell are hazardous goods, the storage fees will vary.

Bear in mind: Fees tend to be charged between the 7th and 15th of the month following the billing period.

And another thing: Amazon has a calculator that you can use to calculate the costs of using its logistics services.

Fees for extended storage

If you have products in Amazon’s logistic centres for more than 365 days (counting from the date that the product is received at the logistic centre), Amazon will begin to charge you an additional monthly fee (for products that are not multimedia). This is added to the storage fee.

The larger of the two fees below will be charged:

• A monthly fee of €170 per cubic metre
• A minimum fee of €0.10 or £0.10 per unit.

The date for evaluating the inventory will be the 15th of each month. Amazon will send you a prior notification so that you are up to date on which products are going to go over the 365-day limit.
This way, you can send a request for removal (which incurs a cost, of course, and which they call “Removal Fee”) before you reach the limit date. Sending the request is sufficient. If for whatever reason, the removal has not been fully completed when you reach the 365 days, you will not be charged the fee for extended storage.

Fees for logistics management (shipping costs)

Amazon calculates its shipping fees based on 10 package sizes.

For shipping, you will need to pay a flat fee per unit which varies depending on the type of product, its dimensions and the package weight (the total weight, which includes both the product and its
packaging). Shipping fees vary greatly depending on the type of product, which country you are selling in, etc. To consult the fees in more detail, we recommend checking the Prices page on the Amazon website.

Fees for returns

Try to avoid these wherever possible, but you will always have to manage returns. Amazon will charge you a return fee that is equivalent to the fee for logistics management.

Fees for Fulfillment by Merchant sales (FBM)

Do you manage your own fulfilment? If so, you are responsible for setting your shipping costs (except for Books, Music, Video and DVDs). When you make a sale, you receive an Amazon credit which is equal to the shipping fee you have set.

Important! Bear in mind that the percentage of the referral fee is applied to the total price of the sale, so if your shipping costs are high, you will need to pay a higher commission.

How much money do you need to start selling on Amazon?

As with everything, the money you will need depends on the type of business. If you are going to sell through dropshipping, the initial outlay is much lower (you will see this below). But for those that have their own private label, what is the cost of selling on Amazon?

Once again, it depends! We’re sorry that we can’t be more specific. It depends on your strategy, the type of product you want to sell, whether you are going to use FBA or FBM, which countries
you want to sell in…

💡 At BigBuy, we help brands and suppliers with stock to sell more on Amazon. Take a look at all the services we offer to boost your online sales.

With the fees we have given you throughout this article, you can calculate how much it would cost you to sell on Amazon (only at the level of commissions and the actual platform costs). To all of this, you should add the costs of purchasing the product, registering the brand, and many other aspects.

In a general sense, we would say that a minimal amount to start a business would be between €500-€1,000. However: always bear in mind that the money you invest will determine your rate of growth. The greater the investment, the greater the growth.

What happens if you sell through dropshipping?

If you do dropshipping on Amazon, the initial investment will be much lower. You won’t have to pay for the product until you have registered a sale. In this sense, the dropshipping supplier you choose is key.

BigBuy is a supplier that specialises in dropshipping on Amazon. Moreover, we are a leading dropshipper in Europe. How does BigBuy differ from other suppliers?

• 200,000+ products: We make products from all types of categories available to you.
• Stock in Europe: All our stock is in Europe, which allows us to ship faster, in 24/48 hours.
• Synchronisation technology: We have a solution for synchronising Amazon with the rest of your online sales channels, in real-time through a single platform.

What would it cost to do dropshipping on Amazon with BigBuy? You need to take out a contract on a Wholesaler Pack (our monthly subscription, which would give you
access to all our tools) and an Amazon connector that you use to synchronise your Amazon Seller account with BigBuy. This would allow you to synchronise your catalogue, prices, shipping costs and much more in real-time.

Contact us if you would like to do dropshipping on Amazon.

What margin do you need to sell on Amazon?

Okay, this is important. Before we go on to anything else, how do you calculate the margin for each sale?

You need to take:

• The total cost of the product: That is, specifically how much the product costs you.
• The referral fee: Find the percentage that Amazon charges you according to the product category, and calculate the amount the commission would cost. Remember that this referral fee is applied to the final product (including shipping costs and gift packaging).
• The cost of the shipping (without VAT).
• If you have an individual seller account, €0.99.
• If you sell multimedia products, the fixed cost applies to each category.

Add up these figures, and subtract them from the final product RRP (without VAT). The resulting amount is the net margin you have left.

What percentage margin should you aim for?

Before we state any amount, we want to specify something: this is not applicable to dropshipping. Dropshipping is a business model focusing on volume and with naturally low margins. If you do dropshipping, your aim should be on generating a lot of sales and not so much on achieving a high margin.

If you have your own private label, then you should set yourself a higher margin. You’re heading in the right direction if you are starting from around 15%. If you manage to reach around 18% (or more), your margin would be considered to be very good.

To conclude: Is it profitable to sell on Amazon?

There is no “Yes” or “No” answer to this. Is it profitable to sell on Amazon? Yes, it could be. Yes, if
you do things well. To do this, you will need to train, make mistakes and learn everything that you
need to learn about Amazon.

Whether your strategy is profitable or not will depend on many factors:

• How much the product costs you
• Who are your competitors
• How much money do you invest in advertising
• Whether you have good reviews (more reviews mean more sales, and less needs to be spent on advertising)
• Whether you manage shipping or you use FBA
• The product categories that you sell
• Your returns rate

And many more. In this sense, the margin you have is key.

That’s all for today!

If you have your own brand and want to sell on Amazon (or in other marketplaces on a European level), BigBuy can help you. If you are into dropshipping, we can help you too. Get in touch with us!

👉 I am a brand and I want to sell on Amazon

👉 I am a dropshipper and I want to sell on Amazon

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Introduction: Taking your first steps on Amazon

Okay, so you’ve decided to take the plunge and you’re going to open your Amazon store, at last! It’s time that your business and your eagerness to get started in your business venture begin to bear fruit. What better way to do this than through the largest and most powerful marketplace in the world.

Selling on Amazon is a way of earning money that is within your reach, although undoubtedly, not without a great deal of hard work, time and investment. Is Amazon a good choice for your business? Of course! All kinds of brands sell on this marketplace: from big brands to emerging ones, as well as small and medium sized businesses.

However, many businesses that embark on this adventure encounter the problem of which products they should sell on Amazon. Many even become “paralysed” because they are afraid to take the plunge because they haven’t found the perfect product.

Don’t be one of these!

But before we go any further…

Winning products for Amazon: Advice on how to find them

In this section we explain what distinguishes a winning product on Amazon from one that isn’t.

A winning product is a product that stands out from the rest, one that generates sales and leaves you with a good margin. Before choosing the winning product to sell, you need to bear a number of factors in mind:

Search for a product that is in demand

What is the most searched-for item on Amazon? What keywords would your ideal customer search for? Which products or categories are the most sought after by consumers? It is important to remember that we are not interested in searches carried out on other browsers, only on Amazon, as this is the platform on which you are going to sell your products to its users.

The easiest way to search for high-demand products is to go to Amazon and look at the list of the best-selling products.

This is the easiest way, but there is a problem with it: it’s what several thousand other Amazon Sellers do, and because of this, competition for these products will be extremely high.

We recommend delving a little deeper and using Amazon’s advanced analytical tools, such as Jungle Scout or Helium 10. This type of tool allows you to find out the number of sales for each product, which ranking position they hold, their sales evolution through time… They are really handy tools for gathering extremely useful information when it comes to choosing a product.

The products should be novel (as long as they have a search history!)

This is not an essential requirement, but it is recommended. If your product is original, it will stand out from the competition and, therefore, it will be easier to attract the attention of consumers and, as a consequence, generate sales. However, bear in mind that your potential customers should be aware of the product. If they are not, then they won’t search for it on Amazon.

In this regard, we could make an exception:

Innovative products that are gaining visibility

Let’s look at the example of: Silicone lids for food preservation. This product became fashionable a few years ago. Nobody was aware of it before this time.

Before it became more well-known, this product worked very well for social selling: you will make an impact on an Instagram or Facebook user with a video or an image which shows this product in operation, and the user could make an impulse purchase. However, this product didn’t work well for selling on Amazon at the time.

Why not?

Because nobody was searching for a “silicone lid” or similar keywords, as they were not aware that this product existed.

Years later, when this item became better known, people began to search for it directly. It was then possible to sell it through Amazon and for the users to find you. If you can manage to be there at that time, competition will be very low and you will be able to position yourself and generate quick sales. When the rest of the sellers detect the product’s potential, you will already have reviews and will have the advantage.

Products that already exist but to which you provide a distinguishing feature

Let’s say that you want to sell a bedside table, but there are already many sellers with a very similar product to yours. An option would be to search for a way of giving this product an additional feature: you could add a small matching lamp and sell it as a set.

However, this option won’t work for dropshippers, only for Sellers who buy their products wholesale and who have their own private label.

Don’t enter a saturated market

In a perfect world, you would find a product with a great supply and little competition. Obviously, this isn’t always possible.

But it will always be interesting to review who your competitors are. Bear in mind:

• Not to compete with Amazon. If you compete with Amazon’s own brands it will be almost impossible for you to position yourself.
• Dismiss products from competitors that have lots of positive reviews: We’re talking about competitors with 800 to 1000 reviews and an average of more than 4 stars. It would be very challenging for you to beat those figures. It is better to choose products with competitors that have lower figures, such as 200 reviews or or less favourable reviews, to make it easier for you to position yourself.

Ensure that you have a big enough margin

Your product should be competitively priced while leaving you with a sufficient margin to cover your costs and make it profitable.

If you register with BigBuy you will be able to view the cost of each product and, therefore, it will be easier for you to calculate the final cost.

Register on BigBuy to start selling our products. Important! To calculate your margin, you need to take more factors into account, such as: shipping costs, your fixed costs, etc.

Review the sales trends

When choosing a product to sell on Amazon, it is essential that the choice is based on real statistics and market research. You need to know what sells on Amazon and look at whether the sales trend is going up or down.

Remember that there are seasonal products that work very well at certain times of the year. Are you going to look at return to school products? Perhaps it might be better to wait until August or September. How about air cooling fans? Then the summer is your time. Remember to bear the season in mind when choosing your product.

You can use tools like Google Trends, Helium 10 or even the Amazon website, which you can browse to begin to discover the top selling products.

All these websites will provide you with the data you need to choose the perfect product to sell on Amazon.

Here is an example of Google Trends:

As you can see in the example, we have searched for a seasonal product like swimming pools. On the graph, you can see that there are distinguishing peaks which coincide with the hotter months of the summer. On Google Trends, you can filter by country and, in this way, you can see how many searches have been made for the product that you are interested in within the market that you are planning to sell on. This is a very useful tool from Google… and it’s free!

Use good graphic materials

The essence of a winning product is that it sells just by being viewed, so the graphic materials need to be perfect. With this in mind, you will need to ensure that:

• Ideally, there should be at least 7 images per listing.
• The images should be square (1:1 ratio, and 2000×2000 px in size).
• The main image should have a white background. The rest should show the product in use.
• The product should occupy at least 85% of the photograph (to make sure that it can be seen clearly).
• Ensure that the photograph represents the product appropriately: the colour, the size… If not, this may lead to confusion and, subsequently, to returns.

If you sell products that are already listed on Amazon, check that the graphic resources are suitable. If you are looking for products to create your own private label, you will need to prepare all the resources yourself.

Take returns into account

There are some products that are more likely to be returned than others, for example, those that come in various sizes or colours and, of course, electronic products!

It is much easier for electronic products to become damaged or broken and, for this reason, they tend to have a higher returns ratio. This is something that you need to bear in mind. If you are starting out, we advise you to opt for another type of product so that you don’t have to manage too many returns and to simplify the process.

Examples of winning products to sell on Amazon

Here is a small sample of the products that are very successful on the marketplace. These products are ideal for starting to sell on Amazon:

InnovaGoods magma lamp

A truly great product to sell through Amazon. We found it in the Home and Kitchen category, which is one of the most visited categories on the whole marketplace. Although this item is already known, it is very innovative and continues to occupy a good position among the top sellers.

Posture corrector

The posture corrector from InnovaGoods is one of the most successful products. It is designed with high-quality materials which make this posture corrector the perfect solution for poor posture habits. There are tools, such as Helium 10, that you can use to look for the number of searches for a product. Black Box is one of the Helium tools, simply enter a keyword into it for the product you want to sell, and…Voilà!

Mini fridge for cosmetics

 If there is a trending product to sell on Amazon, it undoubtedly has to be  the mini fridge for cosmetics. This product is very much in fashion and every home should have one.

Treat dispenser toy for pets

This is the ideal product to sell on Amazon if your target is focussed on animal enthusiasts. A highly entertaining gadget, as well as being original and innovative. The treats are placed inside and, as it is shaped like a maze, it makes it more difficult to get them out and therefore lengthens the play time.

Portable folding barbecue from InnovaGoods

A product that everyone would like to have… particularly during the months of good weather.  The folding barbecue from InnovaGoods is one of the top selling products during the summer season.  It has many advantages, including the fact that it doesn’t require a lot of storage space and it is easy to transport.

Body massager and shaper

One of the best-selling categories on Amazon is “Beauty”. This body shaper is the perfect product for an impulse buy. As an Amazon seller, you need to know which products are likely to be winning products and we have no doubt that this item from InnovaGoods has all the requirements to be a best seller. Add it to your catalogue and start selling on Amazon.

Portable cup blender 

This product can also be found in our list of winning products to sell on Amazon, and we’re not at all surprised by this! Sales of products like the portable blender by InnovaGoods keep increasing, and so do the searches. This shows that this product could be a huge success in your store. Hurry, and don’t let other sellers beat you to it!

Mobile phone stand with stabiliser

The word sale goes hand in hand with this product, an item that is beyond profitable in the world of electronic sales.  As you may already know, when you’re going to sell on Amazon it is always recommended that you avoid electronic products because it is easier for them to be damaged and, because of this, the returns ratio may increase. However, the same is not the case for mobile phone accessories, which is a very successful category.

For this reason, we recommend that, as an Amazon seller, you evaluate the wins you could achieve with this product, as this may be the time to add it to your catalogue.

Okay, now you’ve identified products that you would like to sell on Amazon. Where are you going to find them?

Where to find winning products for Amazon

You know the features that make a successful winning product on Amazon and you have seen some examples of these. Now, one of the stages that most frequently cause a stumbling block is the actual search for winning products.

Search on wholesalers’ websites

You can search for winning products to sell on Amazon in several ways. The easiest of these is by searching the website catalogues of wholesalers, such as BigBuy.

First of all, the most important thing is for us to briefly tell you who we are and what makes us different from the rest.

If you browse through our platform, you will be able to view which products are the ones that sell the most, as well as view the new items that are added to our catalogue. We have new products available every week!

Bien, ya tienes identificados productos que te gustan para vender en Amazon. ¿Dónde los encuentras?

You can buy these products wholesale or sell them through dropshipping. We have experience in both options. We also have technology for synchronising with Amazon, so we help you to easily connect your seller account with our catalogue.

Here is some further information for you:

• If you want to do dropshipping on Amazon
• If you want to buy wholesale to resell on Amazon

Social network accounts on winning products

You can search for products that have gone viral or are winning products on Instagram or TikTok accounts. You should also browse through the reviews on YouTube for products like those you want to sell to find out what your potential customers think of them. Other options for doing your market research are to join Facebook or Telegram groups with offers on websites such as Chollómetro.

Specialist website for products to sell on Amazon

There are websites that can help you to work out which products to successfully sell on Amazon and which of these are winning products. All tools are very similar as, each day, they offer a selection of products that have been carefully compiled by professionals.

These are trending products with a lot of potential to become blockbusters.

Both Ecomhunt and Thieve.co are specialist websites for finding winning products to sell on Amazon. A team of professionals and experts contribute to make a selection of the best products to sell on Amazon.

These websites save you time when searching for products. However, you should still carry out all the other points in order to purchase and reach your own conclusions about which the best product is to sell on the marketplace.

Search tools

As you can see, there are many tools to help you to find the product that will win you customers. There are tools (which incur a cost) that take you a step further in your product strategy. On the one hand, you have Seller Pulse, a website that searches for the most popular products on the largest marketplaces worldwide: Amazon and Aliexpress.

On the other hand, Adspy is the world’s largest search database for Facebook and Instagram adverts. So you can explore which product adverts work best on these platforms.

Something to bear in mind: Products from China vs Products from Europe

Relying on a supplier that has their warehouses in Europe is essential for your business. Often, mainly due to price, sellers tend to work with suppliers in China, but this can become costly in the long-term.

Why do we always recommend working with a European supplier?

• They will guarantee the quality of the products, given that they all comply with European Union quality and guarantee certificates. This will prevent you from having problems, returns and poor reviews. With suppliers in Asia, it is very common to find that you have poor quality or counterfeit products.
• In contrast with the products coming from China, shipping times are also much shorter. With a supplier whose warehouses are in China, product delivery tends to take a minimum of 20 days.

At BigBuy we currently have over 200,000 products in our catalogue and over 5,000 brands, all of them in stock at our warehouses located in Europe.  We also offer you products from all types of categories, and we support you in all areas of your business: catalogue, logistics, synchronisation, marketing resources, deliveries, after-sales service and more.

Conclusions

When you decide to sell on Amazon, you need to bear mind that it’s not child’s play. You will need to carry out in-depth research of what it means to become a seller: fees, logistics, how to ship, payment methods…  In this research, the products you choose are crucial.

Taking the plunge means having done prior research and an investment in time and money on your part, so you should be certain about the product that you are going to choose, the market in which you will sell, your competition, and who your customers are.

In this article we have shown you some tools that will help you to choose the perfect winning products, and we have told you about the importance of having a reliable supplier like BigBuy.

BigBuy is a supplier that has its headquarters and warehouses in Spain, and it offers you the solutions you need to start selling your products on Amazon: advice, products, technology, after-sales service and a great deal of know-how.

Make sure you read the articles where we talk about relevant issues, such as selling costs on Amazon, calculating margins, the secrets of Amazon FBA and many more subjects of interest, so that your experience as a seller on Amazon is a great success.

La entrada How to find products to sell on Amazon and 8 foolproof examples aparece primero en Blog Dropshipping y Ecommerce para tu negocio | BigBuy.

We have put together the expertise of BigBuy’s Amazon professionals, with 10+ years of experience in online selling.

We’ll explain how to configure your professional Seller account, give you information about the selling fees, explain how to find the best products, and much more.

Before we get more technical, let’s start with the basics.

What is the Amazon Marketplace?

The Amazon marketplace is a platform through which external business can sell their products on Amazon.

It is fully integrated with Amazon, so a buyer could easily buy a product without being aware that they are buying it from a third party.

There are two ways of selling through Amazon: Amazon Seller and Amazon Vendor.

Amazon Seller Central

This is the option you are probably looking for.

On Amazon Seller Central, sellers can sell their own stock (or stock from a dropshipping supplier that carries out the shipping anonymously and directly to the end customer).

Within this category, there are two types of businesses:

• Those that manage orders and shipping: Those that do what is called Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM). They control the storage and shipping processes themselves.
• Those that outsource orders and shipping: It is possible to outsource this entire service to a third party, such as Amazon itself (with its Fulfillment by Amazon, FBA, programme, which we will talk about at the end of this article, and that involves a series of costs) or an external company.

Here at BigBuy, for example, we offer our own Fulfillment by BigBuy service, which many businesses who have their own stock that they want to sell on Amazon take advantage of, without worrying about these aspects.

We also offer dropshipping service, which saves the Amazon Seller the need to handle storage or shipping.

By selling as an Amazon Seller, you will need to maintain excellent product delivery and customer service metrics.

Amazon is extremely strict in this regard and, if your rates are below certain minimum parameters, you could be penalised or Amazon could even close your account.

Amazon Vendor Central

This option is only available to select wholesalers and manufacturers who gain access by invitation from Amazon.

Through Amazon Vendor Central, vendors sell their products directly to Amazon at wholesale prices. Once it has this stock, Amazon resells it at a price it establishes itself.

These vendors have access to exclusive benefits, such as large sale volumes, or access to a more advanced advertising platform.

Pros and Cons of Selling on Amazon

As with all sales channels, selling on the Amazon marketplace has its advantages and disadvantages. We list them for you below.

The Advantages of Selling on Amazon

The Disadvantages of Selling on Amazon

How Much Does it Cost to Sell on Amazon?

Amazon charges different amounts for all types of features.

These costs vary according to the seller plan that you are on. Some of these are fixed monthly expenses and others are sales commissions.

Below, we list all the types of costs. In the next section, we will explain which ones apply to each sales plan.

• The fixed monthly subscription fee: The fixed cost that you will have to pay Amazon every month. It costs €39.99 and only applies to the professional plan.
• The sale closing fee: It costs €0.99 per product, which is deducted from the profit. This fee is only charged to sellers with an individual plan.
• Referral fee: For each product sold, you will pay a percentage of the total sales price. This percentage varies greatly depending on the type of product you are selling, but it is usually within the range of 7% and 20%. With commissions of up to 45%.
• Per-item selling fee, only applicable to books, music, DVDs, software and video games: A cost per sale, which ranges between €0.81 and €1.01.
• Logistics management fee: These fees vary depending on whether you decide to work with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) or whether you prefer to manage it yourself (Fulfillment by Merchant, FBM). If you choose FBA, you will pay for the services you use. If you opt for FBS, Amazon charges you shipping fees depending on the product category and the shipping service selected by the end consumer.

What Selling Plans Does Amazon Offer?

Amazon offers two different selling plans.

Depending on how many products you are planning on selling and whether you want to access advanced tools or other advantages, you should choose one or the other.

Amazon’s Individual Plan

On this plan, instead of paying a fixed monthly amount, you will pay a closing fee of €0.99 per product sold.

The individual plan is only recommended if you don’t want to advertise yourself or use advanced tools and, above all, if you sell fewer than 40 products per month.

Why?

For a simple reason: if you sell more, the numbers just wouldn’t add up:

€0.99 in commission x 41 products = €40.49. And the professional plan costs €39.99!

The individual plan might be a good option if you are just starting out, but later you should seriously consider upgrading to the professional plan.

Amazon’s Professional Plan

The professional plan costs €39.99 per month + VAT. By paying this fixed cost, you won’t pay a closing fee per sale.

Additionally, Amazon allows you to advertise your products, use advanced selling tools (like API or reports) or sell products from restricted categories (such as vehicle parts, food or many others).

Another (very important) advantage is that you will be able to opt for your products to be bought with one click, which is a crucial factor when it comes to increasing the conversion rate.

👉 If you want to know more about how much it costs to sell on Amazon, check out our article.

How to start selling on Amazon step-by-step

Now that you know the basic aspects of how to sell on Amazon, let’s take a step-by-step look at what you should do to start.

Create Your Seller Account

How do you open a seller account on Amazon Seller Central?

Firstly, go to the Amazon Seller Central official page, click on “Sign up” and create an account.

The process is very similar to creating a personal account on Amazon, where you will be asked to provide your name, your email address and your password.

Once you have done this, you need to complete a process in which you are asked for information about your business.

You need to provide information about your company and the person responsible (location, address, contact telephone number, Tax ID…).

Next, you need to provide your payment method details.

Finally, you will be asked to enter your store name.

And that’s that!

Choose Which Products You Are Going to Sell on Amazon

If you have already created an account, it’s time to choose the products you are going to sell. Knowing which products to choose is essential when it comes to learning how to sell on Amazon.

The good thing is that once you have chosen them, if you optimise them properly, it is highly likely that you will generate sales.

This is because of the purchasing intention of its users. A person who is on Amazon is (highly likely) a person who is close to making a purchase.

Indeed, you need to perform a proper analysis of the products you choose, optimise them and make sure that the after-sales process takes place without any issues (if you dropship with BigBuy, we take care of the logistics aspect).

What is a Winning Product for Amazon and How Do You Find it?

Okay, this is important: when talking about social selling, or products to do dropshipping with, we are always talking about innovative products.

In the case of Amazon, there are certain types of very innovative products that are not necessarily the most suitable.

Why?

Because, on Amazon, people reach your product via a direct search (unless someone has recommended it through external advertising).

This means that they need to know your product and the name to search for. In this sense, a winning product for social selling won’t be the same as a winning product for Amazon.

On social networks, innovative products work very well.

You display an advert to a user on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok and, if the product is innovative enough, meets a need and is suitably priced, it is likely that we will get an impulse purchase.

The WOW factor works really well in generating this type of sale.

However, Amazon isn’t governed by the same rules. On Amazon, we don’t display products that are unknown to the user via advertising. Instead, users perform specific searches (just like on Google Shopping).

Let’s look at an example:

At BigBuy, we sell this water-filled kettle bell from InnovaGoods. It is the perfect product for social selling.

A user is on Instagram or Facebook, and suddenly sees an advert for this product and it attracts their attention.

It is an innovative, affordable item and it meets a need. They purchase the product.

This product, which is a winning product for social selling, is not a winning product for Amazon.

Why?

Because people don’t know it exists and won’t search for it. They will search for “kettle bell” or similar keywords, but not “water-filled kettle bell”.

If in the future this product becomes fashionable and searches increase, we could indeed consider selling it on Amazon.

What is the main takeaway from all of this?

On Amazon, we are guided by user searches (and we have many tools at our disposal that can help with this).

The good thing about all of this is the purchase intention of someone looking for a product is much higher than that of someone who we simply impact with an advert they haven’t requested.

Which Products Can You Sell on Amazon?

All types of products. If it helps, some of the categories that work incredibly well are:

• Baby products
• Beauty
• DIY
• Sports and outdoors
• Luggage
• Home and kitchen
• Garden
• Products for pets
• Health and personal hygiene

But there are many more that can be useful to start with. Remember that Amazon has restrictions for certain products, which will vary in each country. You can find all this information in the Help section on Amazon’s Seller Central.

How Do You Find Winning Products for Amazon?

Finding a product is very important when it comes to knowing how to sell on Amazon.

However, it is typical for many sellers to get stuck on this part because they don’t make a decision and spend weeks trying to choose the best product.

Don’t fall into this trap: obviously, choosing a good product is important, but we could go a step further and go as far as to say that there are no good or bad products.

There are different seller profiles, and your job is to find the one that best suits what you are looking for.

If it works, then great.

And if not, you will have learned a valuable lesson to find other better products for the future.

Although we deal with this issue more in-depth in other articles, below we give you a few ideas that you can bear in mind when choosing the best items to sell on Amazon:

Option #1: Browse on BigBuy

At BigBuy, we have more than 200,000 product items from all types of categories, and we add more each week.

Here is an example of a product card:

This is the product card for a fan from the InnovaGoods brand, for example.

If the summer months are approaching and you want to sell fans, you could get to this file, where you can see the specifications for this particular product and, if you are logged in, the selling price to the distributor.

If you aren’t sure what product to sell, you can browse through the Top-Selling section or Hot Deals section to get some ideas, filtering by price, category, brand or other features.

We also send you weekly newsletters with product ideas, giving you a preview of the latest trends, so you can get your business ready.

For example, at the beginning of summer, we will send you a newsletter with back-to-school products, so you can buy them in advance, and get your campaigns ready on time too.

Why Should You Buy Products on BigBuy?

At BigBuy, we are a supplier that specialises in working with Amazon Sellers. Some of the advantages we offer are:

• An extensive catalogue: If you are looking for products, we have more than 200,000 items from all types of categories that you can buy in single units.
• Stock in Europe and fast shipments: All our stock is in Europe, which enables us to ship quickly in 24/48 hours.
• Synchronisation technology: We have a solution for synchronising Amazon and the rest of your online sales channels, in real-time and through a single platform.
• Dropshipping service: We are a leading dropshipping supplier in Europe. We take care of the fulfillment and logistics, and we ship to the end customer anonymously.

Option #2: Find Ideas on Social Media

We are talking about social networks in the broadest sense. YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. There are accounts that create reviews of innovative products. Let’s say, for example, that you find this post on Instagram:

You can see it has engagement and that people seem to like the product. If you go onto BigBuy and you search “pasta strainer”, you will easily find the same product or a similar one.

And, if you are logged in, you will be able to see the wholesale price (DP, Distributor Price), which is the basic price so you can calculate your profit margin.

There are many websites that perform product curation. They are constantly searching for trending products, or products with selling potential, and make a selection of the best. An example is Ecomhunt.

Option #3: Research Specialist Websites

Many of these websites redirect you afterwards to Chinese suppliers so you can make the purchase.

We always recommend working with companies that have stock in Europe: this guarantees that the product will be of high quality and hold all of the relevant European certifications and that it will be shipped on time.

Option #4: Use Amazon’s Analytics Tools

Tools like Helium 10 or Jungle Scout are extremely important, and it is important to talk about them in order to explain how to sell on Amazon.

They enable you to filter products by keyword or by many other features, giving you a list of many products.

Once you have this list of ideas, you can review them and choose your favourite ones to sell on Amazon.

The first thing you would need to do is indicate on the tool which country you want to sell in. In this image, you can see an example of some of the details that Helium 10 would give you for Amazon UK:

A screenshot taken from a Helium 10’s product search

Some important aspects you should consider:

• Monthly sales
• Monthly invoicing
• The number of competitors. If there are many, it might not be worth you selling that product. This is where it is important to look at whether Amazon has its own brand that sells this product (and if so, it’s best not to even attempt it! It will be extremely difficult to compete)
• The number of products sponsored through paid campaigns
• Reviews: the total number of reviews and the average score.
• Sales trends (Is a product seasonal? A passing trend? If it’s November and you can see a product sells well during the summer months, you would need to choose another one and leave that one for later)

👉 Do you want to know more about how to find the best products to sell on Amazon? Check our article

Create your product listing

The next step in learning how to sell on Amazon: if you have already chosen your products, it’s time to create your first listing.

We will distinguish between how to do it if you’re working with BigBuy and if you’re not.

We will distinguish between how to do it if you’re working with BigBuy and if you’re not.

If you work with BigBuy

For an Amazon seller working with BigBuy, creating the product listing is really easy.

This will be done via an online platform (the Multi-Channel Integration Platform) which enables you to centralise all the management of your sales on online channels (whether through marketplaces, ecommerce platforms like Shopify or shopping engines like Google Shopping).

1. The first thing is to choose the country you want to sell to (Amazon Spain, Amazon France…) and that you want to synchronise.
2. Next, complete the details requested: your seller ID, username… You can get this information from Amazon’s control dashboard.
3. Then choose the products you want to sell and those you don’t.
4. The next step is to configure the shipping costs (later on we will explain more about Amazon logistics).
5. Finally, define your pricing strategy. By default, BigBuy creates prices based on our Recommended Retail Price. Of course, you can set your own pricing rules. You can configure them according to different features:

And that’s it! All you need to do is click on Publish.

Our technology takes care of displaying all the information about the products you have chosen to sell on Amazon. The stock, price and all relevant information will update in real-time.

If you also sell on other sales channels (like eBay, a Shopify store or others), we make sure that everything is updated in real-time. So, if you sell one unit of a product on Amazon and there are no more units of this product in stock, this detail will automatically be updated on all your sales channels.

You will also be able to view all your multi-channel orders in one place, the status of your shipping, and much more.

If you don’t work with BigBuy

You don’t work with BigBuy? Then this is the process you should follow:

#1 First, you need to go to your seller account and to “Inventory” / “Add a product”. Amazon will allow you to choose a product by searching for the name, barcode or EAN.

*If you are the manufacturer, you should create the product from scratch. The same applies if, for whatever reason, the product you want to sell hasn’t been registered yet.

#2 Then, upload the photographs. This is essential. Upload a minimum of 7 good-quality images. The first image should contain a white background, and the size of the shortest side of each image should be 100px.

Photographs are vital because they help you to increase the conversion rate. If done well, they will help you to reduce the number of returns: if you convey the product information graphically, you will minimise returns from users who are expecting something different to what they have received.

#3 Set the prices.

#4 Configure your shipping strategy. If you are going to work with Amazon logistics (Amazon FBA), you should establish this as well when uploading your product listings.

How to Manage Shipments for Your Amazon Orders

An important point that we haven’t covered is Amazon logistics and the shipping fees associated with it.

In terms of shipping your products, you will be able to choose from two options:

Fulfilment by Merchant (FBM): You Manage Your Shipments (or Through an External Provider)

Using this option, you manage the shipping. Rather than paying the commission charged by Amazon logistics, you take care of it yourself.

When should you choose this option? FBM is recommended for businesses that:

• Have experience and control with regard to their logistics.
• Can offer excellent customer service.
• Want to have greater control over the whole purchase process.
• Sell large or heavy products: if you sell very heavy or large products, it is better to handle the logistics yourself (this is because the logistics commissions charged by Amazon favour sellers with small or lightweight products).

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA): Use Amazon’s logistics

What is Amazon FBA, how does it work and how much does it cost? This is essential when it comes to learning how to sell on Amazon.

By working with Amazon FBA, the seller sends their products to Amazon’s Fulfillment Center. If you buy wholesale from BigBuy, we take care of preparing your order so it meets Amazon’s requirements.

Fulfillment by Amazon takes care of the whole packaging process, delivery, returns and much more. It is an extremely practical format and allows you to improve the conversion rate (by being able to label the product as Prime).

However, it comes at a cost:

• Of course, you need a professional seller account (€39/month)
• There are also monthly storage fees depending on the average daily volume that your inventory takes up (that’s why we recommend selling products in large volumes).
• Long-term storage fees: if, in addition, your products take time to sell, you will also have to pay these. This fee is paid in the event that products are in the warehouse for more than 365 days (you must pay a monthly fee of €170 per cubic metre, or a minimum fee of €0.10 per unit – you will be charged whichever is the highest amount).

The FBM and FBA options can be combined. An Amazon seller doesn’t have to sell all their products via FBA or FBM, they can use both.

Before you make a decision, we recommend you take a look at all the official information that Amazon provides about its costs. This stage is very important in order to know how to sell on Amazon.

How to promote a product on Amazon

There are many options for Amazon sellers to promote one of their products.

Some examples include:

Create a store for your brand

If you have your own brand, you can create your own store free of charge. However, you will need to be registered in Amazon’s brand registry.

The store is created from Amazon’s advertising dashboard for sellers, but it is not compulsory to have advertising campaigns set up in order to create it.

• Through advertising campaigns: Did you think there would be no more costs? Of course, you can create paid campaigns so your products or brands appear as sponsored.
• You can use communities, such as the one offered by Jungle Scout or Viral Launch. They are designed for launching products.
• Affiliation is also a good system. There are some affiliate networks that you may find useful. We recommend going to niches so the conversion rate is higher.
• You can promote your products on Telegram channels for “bargains”. There are many of these and, if your offer is quite good, you can generate a lot of sales. It is a good way of getting reviews quickly.
• Of course, you can capture traffic with social ads, like those on Facebook or Instagram.

Conclusion: Learning How to Sell on Amazon is a Long Process

In this article, we have covered some of the basic aspects of how to sell on Amazon, and yet, we haven’t managed to cover everything. We encourage you to read other articles from our blog, where we give you more specific key aspects, including logistics, costs, or the best tips for finding products.

BigBuy is a supplier with a wealth of experience in helping Amazon sellers.

Get in touch with us if you would like us to help you to take your online sales further than ever before.

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