Amazon Seller Central Tutorial For New Sellers
One of the first things new sellers on Amazon will come across is Amazon Seller Central. After your application to sell on Amazon is approved, you will be able to log in to Seller Central and start listing products.
What is Amazon Seller Central?
Amazon Seller Central is the platform that Amazon sellers use to list, sell and fulfill their products to millions of Amazon customers. All sellers on Amazon have to be proficient with using Seller Central to maximize sales and grow their business.
When a seller logs in to seller central this is what they will see:
The homepage of Seller Central provides sellers with a glimpse into how their business is doing. This will include the amount of open orders, sales, buyer messages, balance and more. The main dashboard for Seller Central is also a good resource to get any important news about selling on Amazon. Generally, if there’s a big change coming to sellers, you will see it on your Seller Central dashboard. The homepage of Seller Central also gives a good idea of what you can do to grow your business. For example, the screenshot above shows that listing globally can be a huge way to increase revenue for a seller.
You can explore each part of Seller Central by hovering over the menu above (i.e. catalog, inventory, pricing, etc.). You can also do this by scrolling down to the bottom of Seller Central and there will be links to each relevant aspect of using Seller Central.
As a new seller, you won’t need to know every part of Seller Central as soon as you start. You can take your time and learn each aspect as you go. For example, you can learn the inventory section when you are fulfilling your first product to an Amazon FBA warehouse. It’s important to focus and learn the knowledge you need. Focusing on everything at once will overwhelm you and you won’t accomplish anything. We will explore each section of Seller Central below and highlight when you might need to use them.
Catalog
The first thing you will need to know is how to use the catalog. As an Amazon seller, you will interact with the catalog on a daily basis. Being comfortable with it will allow you to do product research quicker, list products faster and start making your first sales on Amazon. The catalog consists of three pages: add products, complete your drafts and view selling applications.
Adding products
Adding products is the main thing you will need to know about the catalog because this is where you will search for products and list them. When you click add products on the catalog, a new search page will appear where you can search any product on Amazon.
Searching the brand name or the product description will show you all the products listed on Amazon. When you search a product, it will let you know if you can sell it on Amazon or not. Below is a sample search I did for Spiderman toys.
As you can see, I can sell some products and other products I need approval for. Generally, there are some categories that you will need approval for and some brands that you will need approval for. As you progress on your journey as an Amazon seller, you will unlock more of these gated categories by submitting applications. You can see from the screenshot above that I can sell the first product in a new condition. Once I click on sell this product, I will be led to another page where I can list the item.
To list an item, you will have to select the condition, set your price and decide whether you will fulfill the item once it’s sold (FBM) or if you will send it to Amazon to handle it (FBA). If I’m unable to sell the product, I can apply to sell the product by clicking on apply to sell. This will lead me to a new page where I can submit an application.
This leads us into the next portion of the catalog: view selling applications. View selling applications is the place where you need to go to check the status of a selling application. If you’ve already been approved to sell on Amazon, you know how picky Amazon is about applications. If you don’t provide the right invoice or you give incomplete information, your seller application for a category or brand will be rejected. In the view selling applications page, you will get an overview of all the previous and present selling applications on your Amazon Seller Account.
This is where you should go to view, make changes and do anything related to selling applications. If your selling application for a particular brand is rejected, you can view why it was rejected and submit another one. Although this can be tedious, it’s well worth it. If you can get approved to sell in a lucrative brand like Nike or Legos, you can make a killing because many sellers aren’t able to sell in those categories.
Complete Your Drafts
The complete your drafts portion of the catalog is where you can go to make changes on your drafted listings. When you are listing a product on Amazon, you may not have the full details of your offering yet. Amazon allows you to save your incomplete listings as drafts and finalize them. The complete your drafts portion gives you a dashboard of all of your drafted listings and you can take bulk actions on them from there.
Inventory
The inventory portion of Amazon Seller Central covers everything that has to do with listing, managing your listings, shipping to Amazon and more.
Manage Inventory:
Manage inventory is the first portion of the inventory page. When you click on it, you will be able to see all of the active and inactive listings for your Amazon seller account. Manage inventory shows you a glimpse of each listing and you can search for specific listings (by title, SKU, etc) on your Amazon account. Below is an example of a listing that you can see on Amazon Seller central:
You will be able to see if this product is in stock for you, your pricing for the product, any FBA fees and more. By clicking on the product, you can take action on it. This includes shipping it to Amazon, matching the lowest price and deleting the listing entirely. Manage inventory is the place you need to go to do most actions on your listings.
Manage FBA inventory: Manage FBA inventory is another form of manage inventory, but only for listings that will be sent to Amazon. You can take similar actions in manage FBA inventory as manage inventory and you can products to Amazon from this page.
Improve listing quality: Improve listing quality is where you go to discover issues with your listing and make changes. This is not a huge concern for new sellers unless they have a private label product or a product where they are the only seller. You will likely have to get familiar with this in the future, but this is where you can go to make changes to your listing to generate more sales.
Orders:
The orders section of Amazon Seller Central allows sellers to manage orders, returns and related claims. Orders are created when a seller is fulfilling the product directly to the customer (fulfilled by merchant). It’s important that sellers manage orders properly to avoid negative impacts on their account health.
Manage Orders: Manage orders is the homepage for orders. It provides sellers an overview of all of their orders and what status they are in (pending, shipped, cancelled, etc). On this page sellers can take actions on particular orders and make any necessary changes.
Order reports: Order reports allow sellers to analyze all of their orders based on Amazon reports. Sellers can view their order reports based on date and see what they can do to maximize sales.
Upload order related files: Upload order related files allows sellers to make changes to orders in bulk by uploading a file. These changes can include shipping changes, cancellation changes and adjustment changes. This is primarily used by sellers that do a lot of order fulfillments by themselves.
Manage returns: Manage returns is where sellers go to for all things related to a seller-fulfilled order being returned. If you fulfill products yourself, you will likely come across returns. This page shows all orders that are being returned and what you need to do as a seller from your end.
Manage Safe-T claims: SAFE-T (Seller Assurance for Ecommerce Transactions) claims occur when a seller requests reimbursement from Amazon if they disagree with Amazon’s decision to refund a customer. Sellers can manage these disputes in this area.
Advertising:
As your Amazon business grows, you will likely start using advertising at some point for your listings. There are a variety of advertising options for sellers. Some of the advertising functions you can do in Seller Central include:
Campaign manager: Campaign manager is where you can get started with Amazon advertising. In campaign manager, you can view all of your existing marketing campaigns for your listings. You can track spending, sales, clicks and more. Amazon offers up to $50 in free clicks when you start using campaign manager for the first time.
A+ content manager: A+ content is when Amazon allows sellers to use advanced promotions on their listings like high-def videos, enhanced images and more. This leads to increased sales for almost all listings if done correctly. You can manage all of the A+ content on your listings from the A+ content manager.
Early reviewer program: The early reviewer program is the Amazon approved way to get reviews. When you create a new listing with a product, it takes time for your listing to start actually making sales. Sellers have previously used tactics to get reviews for their product to mess with Amazon’s algorithm. Amazon will ban your account if you ever do something like that. The early reviewer program is an Amazon approved way to get real reviews for your product.
Vine: Amazon Vine is a program only available to Amazon registered brands. It’s similar to the early reviewer program and it gives sellers the ability to get more reviews on their products, drive traffic and improve conversions.
Deals: Amazon deals is another way for sellers to promote their product. In Amazon deals, sellers can craft promotional deals for Amazon customers to get more sales. In this area, you can manage all of the deals for products and make any changes to them.
Coupons: Coupons is another promotional avenue available to sellers. Amazon allows sellers to create coupons for their products here and promote it for a given period of time. You can customize coupons based on your budget, products and more.
Prime exclusive discounts: Prime exclusive discounts is a way for sellers to provide discounts tailored to Amazon prime members. Sellers can offer discounts to prime members for single products or a collection of products.
Promotions: Promotions is the final page of advertising. In promotions, sellers can create promotional offers like buy one get one free, percentage off and more. You can manage your promotions, the promoted products and more in the promotions page.
Stores:
Stores is a great way for sellers with brands to increase their brand by creating a personal store on Amazon. By registering for Stores, Amazon will give you a custom Amazon.com URL for your store and provide you with a ton of resources on maximizing your store. Only registered brands can use the Stores feature.
Manage stores: Manage stores allows you to manage of all of your Amazon Stores from one interface. You can design your store without code and use Amazon’s customers to establish your brand.
Reports:
Reports is where Amazon sellers can go to find in-depth analytics on their business and access resources like Amazon Selling Coach. Some of the pages within reports include:
Payments: Payments is where sellers go to see everything related to their Amazon payments. Amazon gives sellers payments every two weeks. You can see exactly how much Amazon will give you and you can get further insight into your profitability and more.
Amazon Selling Coach: The Amazon Selling Coach is a resource for sellers on Amazon Seller Central. The Amazon Selling Coach basically just analyzes your Amazon business and gives you recommendations based on that to grow your business.
Business Reports: Business reports is the best place to go if you want to get full-depth reports of your Amazon business. In business reports, you can analyze the entire sales history of your Amazon business. You can compare your sales to your previous years and more. You should review this every so often to get a look at your progress on Amazon.
Performance:
The performance area of Amazon Seller Central is a place every seller should get familiar with. Managing your performance should be one of the top priorities for all sellers. The last thing you need is to get your account suspended because this will take weeks to get back. The pages of performance include:
Account Health: Your account health page shows if you are meeting Amazon’s performance metrics to sell on their site. This page shows how your customer service, policy compliance and shipping performance is doing. Amazon has certain metrics you need to meet for each of these and you can see how you are doing on this page. If your account ever gets suspended, it will show up on here and on your main Amazon Seller Central dashboard.
Feedback: The feedback page is where you can see your feedback manager. Your feedback manager shows you your feedback rating from Amazon customers and how you have performed over the past 30 days. You can also view buyer emails here.
A to Z guarantee claims: A to Z guarantee claims are guarantees from Amazon to the customer that they will receive products in a given time and condition. If this guarantee is broken, the customer can file an A to Z claim on a seller. This page allows sellers to see all of the A to Z guarantee claims on their products.
Chargeback claims: A chargeback claim is when an Amazon customer contacts their bank to dispute an order made on Amazon. The customer requests a reversal of the funds and this becomes a chargeback claim. Sellers have to respond to this relatively quickly or the customer may win the dispute. You can address all of these claims in the chargeback claims page.
Apps & Services:
Apps and services is a very underutilized part of Amazon Seller Central. This part of Seller Central provides sellers with a variety of apps and services that are dedicated to helping sellers grow their business.
Official mobile app: The first page in apps & services is the official Amazon seller mobile app. This is just a page advertising for the mobile app. All sellers should already have this, so you can ignore this page.
Discover apps: The discover apps page is a page where you can explore apps on the Amazon Marketplace App Store. Developers and companies have apps on the Marketplace App Store that is designated to help seller succeed in a particular area. There are apps that help with listing, taxes, advertising, feedback and more. Basically any part of your Amazon seller account, you can find an app to help with that.
Manage your apps: Manage your apps is where you can manage all the apps you are using under one roof. You can limit the amount of data an app has to your seller account. You can authorize new developers from this area also.
Service provider network: The service provider network is basically like a Yelp page for Amazon seller service providers. You can explore different providers based on your needs. You should always look at reviews prior to selecting a service provider.
Develop apps: Develop apps is where you can go to if you are interested in making an app for Amazon sellers.
B2B Central:
B2B: The final portion of Amazon Seller Central is the B2B central. The B2B Central is one of the most underappreciated aspects of Amazon Seller Central. Amazon has a thriving B2B ecommerce business that has grown rapidly in the past five years. It generates over $10 billion annually and nearly half of those sales come from Amazon sellers. Amazon sellers who can focus on B2B can build significant business and service enterprise clients that shop on Amazon.
B2B Central: The B2B Central home page is the first thing sellers will come across. On the dashboard, it will give you a sales snapshot of your business customers on Amazon. Amazon does a really great job at helping sellers increase their sales to business clients. You can see your performance by customer segment, your top B2B products and more.
B2B Product Opportunities: B2B product opportunities is where Amazon recommends products for you to sell to business customers. There’s a recommended for you portion and a products not yet on Amazon portion. Each of these will provide you potential items for you to sell based on Amazon’s analytics. Below is an example of what you may see on B2B product opportunities.
Manage quotes: The second portion of B2B central allows you to manage quotes from business customers. Since business customers place larger orders, they can request sellers to give them a discount on orders. This portion of B2B central allows sellers to see the requests from business customers and provide them a quote. Doing this can lead to significantly more sales.
Business profile: Your business profile is where you can provide business customers information about your business. This includes an about us portion and you can also upload a logo. This is not required, but it can establish credibility and increase trust for business customers.