How To Sell on Amazon

This conversation provides a comprehensive guide to selling on Amazon, detailing every step from initial setup to ongoing growth. They begin by introducing the marketplace's potential and the fundamental tool, Seller Central, while explaining the two primary fulfillment models: Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM). A significant portion focuses on product research, emphasizing data-driven strategies to identify profitable, high-demand, low-competition items and their subsequent validation through profitability calculations and compliance checks. The documents then outline the process of sourcing products, including finding and evaluating suppliers, before moving into creating optimized Amazon listings with attention to titles, images, and keywords. Finally, they cover launching and marketing strategies such as Amazon PPC and review generation, culminating in advice for ongoing optimization, inventory management, and business expansion to ensure sustained success.

There are other practical filters to narrow down ideas: prefer standard-size, lightweight items (to keep FBA fees and shipping manageable)​, avoid highly seasonal products (you want consistent year-round sales)​, and be cautious of products that are dominated by big brands or are in restricted categories (compliance risk – more on this later). You are encouraged to “validate with data” – don’t rely on gut feeling alone. Use Amazon’s free tools like the FBA Revenue Calculator to estimate fees and profit for a sample product idea, or scan customer reviews of existing products to identify pain points you could solve.

Objectives:

• Learn how to systematically generate and evaluate product ideas for Amazon.
• Understand the key criteria (demand, competition, profit potential) that make a product worth pursuing.
• Practice using simple metrics (price, sales, reviews, size) to filter out poor opportunities and highlight promising ones.

Key Takeaways:

• Always back your product ideas with real data – use sales estimates, pricing, and competition metrics to choose wisely.
• Look for a “sweet spot” product: in a popular category with steady demand, but where you can offer something better or different than existing sellers (e.g. improve quality or listing).
• Use guideline benchmarks: target ~$20–$70 selling price for workable margins​; ~300+ sales/month to ensure demand​; and niches where top competitors have relatively low reviews or obvious weaknesses you can capitalize on​.

Follow-Up Resources:

• 🔍 Jungle Scout Product Research 101 – Step-by-step guide on finding high-demand, low-competition products (criteria like price $20-70, >300 sales/month, etc.) ​junglescout.com​
• 📊 Amazon Best Sellers & Trend Reports – Free Amazon lists that show trending products in various categories (great for idea generation).
• 🛠️ Amazon FBA Calculator – Tool to plug in a product’s price, cost, and size to estimate FBA fees and profits for validation ​junglescout.com.
• 🎥 Jungle Scout Academy (Product Research module) – Video walk-through of using data to identify a viable product opportunity (for visual learners).

Transcript

how-to-sell-on-amazon 

Welcome to the Evolution Studio podcast series. Today we are featuring the How to Sell on Amazon presentation that was made by Lou Paris, the Director of the Volusia County Division of Economic Development in May of 2025. This presentation has been converted into a two-person conversation, making it easy to follow and to understand.

Thank you for listening and have a wonderful day. So, you've probably thought about Amazon, right? I mean, the scale is just huge. We're talking, what, two out of three American consumers shopping there.

And like, over half would pick Amazon if they could only shop at one store. Today we're really going to cut through all the noise and give you a direct path, a roadmap, to tapping into that. Specifically, the private label route, launching your own brand, your own product.

Yeah, absolutely. Our mission here is basically to take all the great advice from sources like Amazon Selling 101, maybe a detailed comprehensive study guide, and synthesize it. We want to give you a really clear step-by-step guide for selling on Amazon.

You know, from just having the idea all the way to actually growing the business long-term. Think of this as your shortcut, helping you avoid getting totally overwhelmed by information and just get to what actually works. Okay, let's unpack this then.

Before we even get into products, we need like a whole base, a command center. And that's Seller Central. That's the main interface, the dashboard, for pretty much everything you do as a seller on Amazon.

Listings, inventory orders, checking your business health, it's all there. It really is. And I think what surprises a lot of new folks is just how much control Seller Central gives you.

It's not just a simple dashboard, it's really the Merv Center. You list products, manage stock, handle the orders coming in, keep an eye on performance. So the obvious question is, how do you even get started? How do you set up an account? Good question.

And it's actually pretty straightforward. You've basically got two main options for account types. First, there's the individual plan.

This one's probably best if you're just starting out, maybe testing the waters, selling less than, say, 40 items a month. No monthly fee, which is nice. But you do pay a dollar at 99 fee for every single item you sell.

Then, if you're serious about building a business, there's the professional plan. That one's $39.99 a month, and this is key, there's no per item fee. So once you start selling more, it quickly becomes a better deal.

Right, it makes sense. And that decision kind of leads into the next big one. How are you actually going to get your products to the customers? We're talking FBA versus FBM.

FBA is fulfillment by Amazon. Basically, you ship your products in bulk to Amazon's warehouses. They then handle the storage, the packing, the shipping often with that prime speed customers love, and even customer service related to those orders.

It's super hands off for you, gets you prime eligibility, big pluses. But of course, there are fees involved for all that service. Okay, so that's FBA.

What about the other one, FBM? Right, FBM is fulfillment by merchant. So you, the seller, are responsible for everything after the sale happens on Amazon. Storing your inventory, packing the orders, shipping them directly to the customer.

You use Amazon's site for the transaction, but the physical side is all you. The upside, more control, maybe lower costs, especially if you have really big or heavy items where FBA fees might be high. The downside is, well, it's a lot more work.

You need space, you need a shipping setup, you handle customer service increase yourself. Gotcha. So think about someone just starting out.

What's the main takeaway here? It sounds like FBA might be easier to begin with, just to avoid getting bogged down. That's often the recommendation, yeah. Starting with FBA lets you focus on product and marketing without worrying about packing boxes right away.

But, you know, some sellers actually do a mix. They might send most inventory to FBA, but keep some stock on hand for FBM. Maybe as a backup if FBA runs out unexpectedly.

It really comes down to that initial trade-off. How much convenience do you want versus how much control? Okay, foundation laid, seller account, fulfillment sorted. Now, the big one, finding the product.

This feels like the most critical part. Maybe the place where people get stuck or make mistakes. How do we approach this smartly? It absolutely is the most critical step.

And you said it, you can't just guess or go through gut feeling. It has to be data-driven. The core idea everyone talks about is high demand, low competition.

Find something people want, but where there isn't already a ton of established sellers. But here's a nuance. Look for consistent demand, not just something that spikes for a month.

Products that sell steadily, maybe around 300 units a month, or roughly 10 a day for the top listings are often better long-term bets. If you were stock issues, steady income. Consistent demand, okay.

Makes sense. What else? How do we validate an idea? Right, validation. Three key things to check.

First, profitability. A good rule of thumb is the rule of threes. Roughly, aim for your selling price to break down into one-third for Amazon fees, one-third for your actual product cost, landed cost, and one-third for your profit.

And try to price between, say, $20 and $70. Under $20, the fees can really eat your margins. Over $70, people might be hesitant to buy from a brand they don't know yet.

Okay, rule of threes, $20 to $70 price point. What second? Second is demand. We mentioned looking for those 300 units a month, 10 a day sales.

Check the top competing listings. Are they consistently selling? Are they getting new reviews frequently that shows ongoing interest? And third, competition. This is crucial.

You want to find niches where the average review count for the top sellers is an astronomical, maybe under 500 on average, and ideally you'd see at least a few products in the top results with very few reviews, like under 50. That's your opening. Also, look closely at those top listings.

Are there titles bad, images blurry, descriptions weak, star ratings low, maybe under four stars? Those are all signs you could potentially do better. Ah, so you're looking for weaknesses in the existing competition too. That's smart.

Any other practical things to filter by? Like product type? Yeah, definitely. Practically speaking, it's often easier to start with standard size, lightweight items. Avoid higher FBA fees and shipping complexities.

Also, be wary of highly seasonal products, unless you have a specific strategy. And definitely steer clear of categories dominated by huge brands or those with lots of restrictions, like certain electronics or supplements, unless you're prepared for the extra hurdles. Got it.

So, let's say we have a potential idea that passes these initial checks. How do we really validate it before pulling the trigger? Okay, this is the deeper dive validation. First, confirm that demand.

Don't just rely on the Amazon sales estimates. Check keyword search volume using specialized tools. Maybe look at Google Trends to see if interest is growing or stable.

Really verify those monthly sales figures for the top competitors. Second, analyze the competition again, but this time, read their negative reviews. What are customers complaining about? Can you source or design a product that fixes those specific problems? That's how you differentiate.

And double check are there really no super dominant listings with thousands of reviews locking up the market? Third, calculate your profit margin meticulously. Get real quotes for sourcing costs, maybe from suppliers on Alibaba. Factor in shipping, duties, and all the Amazon FBA fees using their official FBA revenue calculator.

Aim for a solid 25-30% net margin minimum, better if it's higher. And finally, check restrictions and compliance. Seriously, check Amazon's own restricted product list.

Does your product need certifications? Safety testing. Especially for things like kids' toys, food items, electronics, you have to be compliant. Wow, okay.

That's a thorough process, but it makes sense. It really is about minimizing risk. You know, it's much, much cheaper to spend time researching now than to spend thousands on inventory that doesn't sell or gets you into trouble.

Pivoting at the research stage is easy. Pivoting after ordering inventory is painful. Okay, so we've done the hard work, validated the product.

Now we actually need to get the product made. Sourcing. Where do you start? Right, sourcing.

Three main steps here. Step one. Finding suppliers.

The go-to place for most private label sellers is Alibaba.com. It's just the biggest B2B marketplace globally. Use your main product keywords to search. And definitely use the filters.

Look for verified suppliers or trade assurance suppliers. That adds a layer of protection. Don't just talk to one.

Reach out to say five to ten different suppliers. Send them a clear message with your product specifications, the quantity you're thinking of ordering, and ask for their unit price, the cost for sample, and their production lead time. Okay, contact multiple suppliers.

Then what? Just pick the cheapest. No, definitely not. That leads to step two.

Evaluating samples. This is non-negotiable. I mean, it never skip ordering samples.

From the initial responses, narrow it down to maybe your top two or three most promising suppliers. Then order physical samples from each of them. Yes, it'll cost you maybe $30 to $100 per sample with shipping, but it's worth every penny.

When the samples arrive, you need to scrutinize them. Check the build quality, materials. Does it work correctly? Does it match the customizations you asked for? And just as important, pay attention to how the supplier communicated during this process.

Were they responsive? Clear. That tells you a lot about what working with them in a larger order will be like. Right, so sample quality and supplier communication.

That's crucial. Absolutely. I heard a story once.

A seller skipped samples, relied on photos, ordered 500 units, and they all arrived defective. Total loss. A $50 sample could have prevented that.

It's your insurance. Okay. Message received.

Get the samples. So once you evaluate it and you're happy with one. Then it's step three.

Placing your first order. You choose the supplier that offered the best combo of product quality, good communication, and a fair price. For a first order, you don't need to go huge.

Ordering maybe 200 to 500 units is often a good starting point. That gives you enough inventory for a few months of sales. Let's you test the market properly without tying up too much capital.

And how does fulfillment tie back in here, FBA versus FBM? Good point. If you decided on FBA, this is where you'll create your shipment plan inside Seller Central. You'll need to coordinate with your supplier or freight forwarder.

They have to follow Amazon's specific rules for packing and labeling the boxes that are going into the FBA warehouses. It's quite detailed, proper barcodes, box labels, etc. If you chose FDM, then the supplier ships the order directly to you, or wherever you plan to store at your home, a small warehouse base, whatever.

And you need to have your system ready for when orders come in, packing materials, shipping labels, getting things out the door quickly and reliably. Okay. So the bottom line for sourcing seems to be do your homework, get multiple quotes, vet the suppliers carefully, and always get those samples before placing a bulk order.

Exactly. Source smart. Don't cut corners on quality checks.

All right. We've sourced the product. Maybe it's even on its way or has arrived.

Now we need to actually sell it on Amazon. How do we create a listing that actually converts? The Amazon product listing. This is where presentation meets persuasion.

It's hugely important. First, the basic listing setup. In Seller Central, you'll go to catalog, then add a product.

You'll likely choose I'm adding a product not sold on Amazon. You pick the right category. This is important for visibility, and you'll need a product identifier.

Usually a UPC or EAN barcode, which you typically buy beforehand. Basic setup done, then the optimization part. What makes a listing good? Right.

Optimizing the content. This is where you win or lose. Let's break it down.

First, the title. It's massive for SEO and first impressions. You get up to 200 characters generally.

Pack it with your most important keywords, but make it readable. Include your brand name, what the product is, and key features or benefits. Like that example, brand X, stainless steel, insulated water bottle, 20 ounces, BPA free, keeps drinks cold for 24 hours.

Clear, informative, keyword rich. Okay, title is key. What about visuals? Images.

Maybe even more critical than the title sometimes. People buy with their eyes. You get several image slots, usually seven to nine.

Use them all. Your main image is crucial. It must have a pure white background.

Products should fill about 85% of the frame. No extra text, logos or graphics on this one. Just the product.

Then your secondary images are where you show the product off. Lifestyle shot someone using it. Infographics calling out key features.

Images showing the size or scale. And make sure they're high resolution. At least a thousand pixels on the longest side, so Amazon's zoom feature works.

Blurry images kill sales. White background main. Lifestyle and feature images for the rest.

Got it. What about the text sections? Bullet points. Bullet points.

Usually you have five. These are a prime real estate for hitting key features and benefits. Think benefits first.

What does the feature do for the customer? Use concise language. Maybe even sentence fragments. Start each bullet with a strong hook.

Maybe in CFPs to grab attention. And weave your keywords in naturally here too. Okay.

Five benefit driven bullets. Then there's the longer description section. Yeah, the product description.

This is space for more detail. Maybe your brand story. More specs.

And yes, more keywords. Now, if you have brand registry, which is something to aim for, you can use a plus content here instead. That lets you add enhanced images, formatted text, comparison charts.

It looks much more professional and converts better. But even if you don't have a plus content yet, still fill out the standard text description. It's indexed by Amazon and important.

Oh, and don't forget back and keywords. In Seller Central, there's a section where you can add search terms that aren't visible on the listing page. Use this for synonyms, related terms, common misspellings, maybe.

Don't stuff irrelevant keywords though. Wow. Okay.

So it's really a combination of everything, title, images, bullets, description, keywords, all working together. Exactly. You could have the best product in the world.

But if you're listing is weak, bad photos, confusing text, wrong keywords, nobody will find it or buy it. Keywords get you found, Amazon SEO, images get the click and build desire and the text converts them. You really have to nail all of these.

Investing time here is non-negotiable. Okay. The listing is live.

Looks great. Products ready. Now.

Silence. How do we get the ball rolling? Get those first sales. This is the launch phase, right? Precisely.

The launch phase is critical because of sales velocity and bestseller rank. BSR. Amazon's algorithm heavily favors products that start selling quickly.

Early sales tell Amazon your product is relevant and desirable. This improves your BSR, which in turn boosts your organic ranking and search results, leading to more sales. It's a feedback loop you want to kickstart.

So how do we kickstart it? Just hope people find it. Hope is not a strategy here. You need to be proactive.

One common tactic is to run a launch promotion. Maybe offer a significant discount, like 20% or 30% off for the first week or two. Or use Amazon coupons, which show up as little clickable tags on the listing.

The goal is to incentivize those crucial first purchases. Okay. A launch discount helps.

What else? How do people even see the listing to get the discount? Yep. That's where advertising, specifically Amazon PPC, paper click, comes in. It's pretty much essential for a new product launch to get initial visibility.

Sponsored product ads are the most common. They make your product appear right in the search results or on competitor product pages. You bid on keywords and you only pay when someone clicks your ad.

For campaign types, a good starting point is an automatic campaign. You let Amazon automatically show your ad for searches that things are relevant. This is great for discovering which keywords actually convert.

Then, based on that data, you create a manual campaign where you specifically target the keywords that proved effective in the automatic campaign. Gives you more control. PPC sounds powerful, but may be expensive.

Do you need a huge budget? Not necessarily to start. You can begin with a modest daily budget, even just $10 or $20 a day, just to gather data and get some initial traction. The key with PPC is that it's an iterative process.

You can't just set it and forget it. You need to constantly monitor performance. Which keywords are getting clicks but no sales? Pause those.

Which ones are converting profitably? Maybe increase the bid or budget there? It's all about optimizing over time. Okay, so launch discounts and PPC drive initial sales. What about reviews? They seem incredibly important on Amazon.

Oh, absolutely critical. Generating reviews is the other pillar of a successful launch. Reviews are the social proof, the trust signal.

They are the lifeblood, truly, and getting them early is key. Why? Because early reviews during launch provide a powerful signal to Amazon that your product is legitimate and engaging. It can give you a significant ranking boost that's harder to achieve later.

Amazon has its own request to review button within Seller Central. For each order after a reasonable time, you can click this button and Amazon sends a standardized policy compliant email asking the buyer for a product review and seller feedback. You should absolutely use this for every single order.

Okay, the official request to review button. What else is left? If you're enrolled in Amazon's brand registry program, you can use Amazon Vine. This program lets you provide free units of your product to a pool of Amazon's most trusted reviewers, called Vine Voices, in exchange for their honest unbiased reviews.

Great way to get initial credible reviews. Another common tactic is using a product, insert a small card inside your product packaging. You can use this to thank the customer and politely ask them to leave a review if they're happy with the product.

Just be super careful here. You absolutely cannot incentivize reviews. No discounts, no free gifts in exchange for a review, just a polite request.

Amazon is very strict about this. Your initial goal should be to get those first five to ten reviews. That seems to be a threshold where customers start to take notice and trust the listing more.

Got it. So launch is about driving sales with discounts and PPC and getting those crucial early reviews through legitimate methods like request or review, Vine or inserts. Exactly.

And all these activities work together to create that flywheel effect we mentioned. Initial sales improved rank, reviews increased conversion rate, higher conversion rate and rank lead to more organic sales, which leads to more reviews and so on. It builds momentum, which naturally leads to the question, once you've got that flywheel spinning, how do you keep it going? How do you sustain and grow? Right.

It sounds like the work isn't over after the launch phase. What's the key for long-term success then? The key is realizing that optimization is ongoing. It's never really done.

Your work absolutely continues long after launch. Okay, so what kind of ongoing optimization are we talking about? Well, two main areas initially. Listing and PPC optimization.

For your listing, you should consider AB testing elements. If your brand registered, Amazon has a tool called Manage Your Experiments that lets you test different titles or main images to see which performs better. Even if not, you can manually track changes and results.

Keep doing keyword research, too. Are there new terms people are searching for? Update your backend keywords accordingly, and for PPC, it's continuous refinement. Keep analyzing those campaign reports.

Pause keywords that spend money but don't lead to sales. Increase bids or budgets on the ones that are profitable. Your goal is always to improve your ACOS advertising cost of sales.

ACOS, right. That's the ad spend divided by ad sales. Lower is better.

Generally, yes. A lower ACOS means your ads are more efficient. If your ACOS is, say, 25%, it means you're spending 25 cents on ads for every dollar of sales generated by those ads.

You want that number to be sustainable within your overall profit margin. Okay. Continuous listing in PPC tweaks.

What else is critical for sustaining the business? Inventory management. This is huge GE. You absolutely must avoid stockouts.

Running out of stock is like hitting the brakes on that flywheel. Your sales velocity drops to zero. Your BSR plummets.

And it can take significant time and ad spend to recover your ranking once you're back in stock. It can be really damaging. So you need to monitor your sales rate closely and figure out your reorder timing.

Factor in your supplier's production lead time and shipping time. A common rule of thumb is to start the reorder process when you have about maybe three months' worth of stock remaining. Gives you a buffer.

Also, be mindful of FBA storage fees. Amazon charges monthly fees and even higher long-term storage fees for inventory that sits too long. So don't over order either.

It's a balancing act. Avoid stockouts, manage reorders, watch fees. Got it.

Anything else in the operational side? Yes, customer service and account health. Even if you use FBA where Amazon handles shipping and related service, you still need to monitor your overall seller feedback. And keep an eye on your account health dashboard in Seller Central.

Metrics like order defect rate, late shipment rate if you do FBM, policy violations you need to keep these within Amazon's targets. Staying compliant and keeping customers happy, even indirectly via FBA, protects your account and ensures you can keep selling long-term. Makes sense.

Maintain the engine. Keep it healthy. So once things are stable, how do people typically grow beyond just one product? Great question.

That's about expanding and growing. Once your first product is humming along nicely, there are a few paths. One is product expansion within the niche.

Maybe introduce a new variation, a different color, a different size, a bundle pack. Leverage your existing listing and customer base. Another is to launch a second related product.

Start building out a brand line. If you sell a great water bottle, maybe next you launch a lunchbox or a coffee thermos under the same brand. This builds brand loyalty and value.

Then there are Amazon programs. You can explore Amazon global selling to expand to other countries like Canada, Mexico or Europe. Or participate in big sales events like Prime Day or run lightning deals for temporary sales boosts.

And fundamentally commit to continuous learning. Amazon is always changing. They update policies, launch new advertising tools, change algorithms, you have to stay informed to stay competitive.

Read the seller's central news, follow industry blogs, keep learning. So it evolves from just selling a product to actually building a sustainable brand with multiple products, potentially across multiple marketplaces. Exactly.

That's the bigger picture. A single successful product is great, but a portfolio of successful products under a strong brand. That's where you can really build significant long-term value and revenue.

It becomes a real asset. Wow. That was definitely a deep dive.

We've really covered the whole journey, haven't we? From just getting set up on Amazon, understanding seller central and FBA, FBM through the crucial product research phase, then finding suppliers, getting samples, creating that optimized listing, launching effectively with PPC and reviews, and finally keeping it all going with ongoing optimization, inventory management and eventually expansion. We certainly cover a lot of ground. I think the core theme, the main takeaway, is that success on Amazon isn't really about luck or just having one great idea.

It's about following a system, being data-driven, learning constantly, and adapting. It's a journey of continuous improvement, which maybe leads to a final thought for you, the listener, to consider. If you could take just one principle we talked about today, maybe the intense focus on data before acting, or the idea of non-stop optimization, or maybe even just the importance of getting those first reviews and apply it to something else you're working on, maybe even outside of business.

What principle would it be, and what might change if you applied it? Something to chew on.