Selling through online marketplaces

The Amazon marketplace allows you to sell new, used, collectable and refurbished items to Amazon's large customer base. Third party sellers make up approximately 40% of total sales alongside Amazon's own stock.

Before actually selling your items it is important to consider a number of factors.

Decide what you want to sell

There are more than 20 product categories open to all sellers. Each category may have certain rules and conditions that apply.

Choose a selling plan

Amazon has two selling plans - Professional and Individual - giving you the flexibility to sell a single item or many items.

Professional plan

The Professional plan is if you sell more than 35 items per month. It's ideal if you're selling regularly online. Pricing for the professional plan includes the following fees:

• A monthly subscription fee - as a professional seller, you pay £25 per month.
• Referral fees - sellers pay a referral fee on each item sold. This fee depends on the category the item belongs to and it will be charged on the total sum paid for the item by the buyer, including all applicable taxes and customs fees.
• Fulfilment fees - this fee depends on whether you plan to ship your products yourself, our use Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) to handle your logistics and offer Prime shipping for your products. You set your own shipping rates except for books, music, video, and DVD products.
• Other fees - You may have to pay other fees such as long-term storage fees or pay for optional programmes like advertising or premium account services.

Individual plan

The individual plan is if you sell fewer than 35 items per month. The plan gives you maximum flexibility to sell when and if you want without any commitment to a monthly fee. This pricing plan consists of the following fees that are charged per item and when the product is bought:

• Per-item fees - sellers pay 75 pence per item sold.
• Referral fees - sellers pay a referral fee on each item sold. This fee depends on the category the item belongs to and it will be charged on the total sum paid for the item by the buyer, including all applicable taxes and customs fees.
• Fulfilment fees - this fee depends on whether you plan to ship your products yourself, our use Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) to handle your logistics and offer Prime shipping for your products. You use Amazon’s set shipping rates for all products. You have to ship orders at the set rate even if the shipping credit is less than the total shipping costs. 
• Other fees - You may have to pay other fees such as long-term storage fees or pay for optional programmes like advertising or premium account services.

Complete your profile

You will need to prepare a seller's profile. A good seller's profile will have:

• a logo - approximately 120 pixels wide
• an 'about' section used to describe the seller
• a shipping information section, including information about carriers and shipping times
• a return and refund section
• a privacy policy

Register and start listing

To register on Amazon you need to create your account on Seller Central. This is Amazon's web interface where you will also manage your selling account.