What you need to know to sell on Amazon

Now that you've read your Amazon seller agreement and associated policies and guidelines, we want to give you additional information that is key to selling successfully on Amazon.

We find that new sellers on Amazon often bring with them their experiences with other selling services and assume that all seller services work the same. They might think that there's no need to pay much attention to the details in your seller agreement and the program policies and guidelines. As a result, we receive communications from sellers that begin with "I didn't know I was supposed to...".

We don't want you to find yourself in that position, so we are presenting you with some of the things that are most commonly overlooked by new sellers.

Things to know

• You may only maintain one Seller Central account for each region in which you sell unless you have a legitimate business need to open a second account and all of your accounts are in good standing.
• You can help build customer trust in your business by providing clear and detailed information about your policies.
• Take into account that your return policies must be at least as favorable to buyers as Amazon return policies. See the Customer service section at the bottom of this page for more information.

Things to do

• Provide the business name that will be displayed on Amazon so that customers remember your company.
• Make sure your business contact information is current (email and phone number, if available) so that we can contact you, if necessary.
• Keep credit card and bank account information current for payments and settlements.
• Provide shipping and return policies to help build customer trust.
• Describe any gift messaging and gift wrap services that you might offer.
• Upload your logo to your seller account — your storefront logo image must be exactly 120 x 30 pixels.
• Only enter company information specific to how you manage your business on Amazon.
• Set your shipping rates so that customers know what your shipping costs are.

Things to avoid

• Including website URLs in product feeds, business name, or other company information that might refer customers to your website or a third-party website.

Things to know

• Listing products in the right categories and with the correct information is critical for good customer experience and strong seller performance.
• All your listings must conform to the standards described in the style guide specific to your category. For more information, see Product page style guides.
• Amazon customers expect their products to be well-packaged and to arrive on time.
• Product detail pages do not belong to a single seller. The product title, image, and details must be specific to the product itself, not to any individual product or seller promotions.
• Set up your shipping rates, sale pricing, and promotions in Seller Central; don't include any of this information in your product listing details.

Things to do

Product titles

• Provide information about the specific product only.
• Keep it short, but include critical information.
• 100 characters maximum.
• Start with the product brand where appropriate and not the seller.
• Include a model number, when available.
• Use only plain text (no HTML formatting).
• Pay attention to correct capitalization.
• Use numerals ("2" instead of "two").

Images

• Show only the product that is for sale, with no accessories — what the buyer will actually receive.
• Use a pure white background (RGB values of 255,255,255).
• Provide images with 1,000 x 500 pixels or larger.
• The product must fill at least 85% of the image area.
• The image format must be JPEG (.jpg), TIFF (.tif), or PNG (.png). JPEG is preferred.
• Use professional photographs.

Things to avoid

Product titles

• Marketing information, promotions, or any other information that is not descriptive of the product itself (for example, "x% off", marketing messages, seller URL, or seller name in the title).
• Selecting a category for your product that does not match the existing Amazon browse tree.
• HTML code
• ALL CAPS
• Symbols (! * $ ?)

Images

• nudity or partial nudity
• Sexual and romantic kissing
• drug samples and paraphernalia or
• any offensive flags
• Showing accessories and props that are not sold with the product.
• Lifestyle pictures for the main image that show, for example, people using the product.
• A single image displaying multiple colors or views of the product.
• Colored backgrounds.
• Graphics, illustrations, or animated images are not allowed.
• Borders, watermarks, text, URLs, seller logo, or name on the images.
• Mannequins.
• Line drawings or artistic representations.

Things to know

• When you set up your seller account, you'll find information about shipping expectations that you should integrate into your order and fulfillment processes. You are also required to confirm to Amazon after shipping your orders. This enables us to inform customers about their order progress and charge their payment method for the purchase.
• You must confirm to Amazon that you have shipped the product to be able to receive payment. This confirmation will also trigger Amazon's shipment confirmation email to the customer and will set the expectation for the estimated delivery date.
• Certain of your products may need to be shipped within 2 business days in accordance with our policies and certain other must be shipped by the shipping availability date you specify. Please ensure that you keep up to date with our policies in this respect.

Things to do

• Review your default shipping settings and customize them to fit your fulfillment model.
• Check your seller account daily for new orders.
• Schedule order reports to track orders and order information.
• Ship products that intrude into a customer‘s privacy in an additional, neutral packaging and not exclusively in the packaging of the product.

Things to avoid

• Including any marketing or promotional materials within the packing materials.
• Relying only on email notification — emails can get lost or be deleted.

Things to know

• Amazon's refund policies allow for the return of new, unopened items within 15 days of delivery for a full refund. You are required to accept those returns and provide a refund, in accordance with Amazon Returns Policy (search in Amazon website).
• Amazon's refund policies allow for the return of new and unopened items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund.
• Amazon will provide all the order and shipping emails to customers; you must not send order or shipment confirmation emails. This is to avoid conflicting messaging or confusion for the customer. Remember that selling on Amazon requires less communication by you to customers, since much of the process communication is handled by Amazon.
• You must not market or advertise to Amazon customers, nor divert them in any way from the Amazon sales process. You should follow this even during permitted communications, such as when responding to buyer inquiries about your products or their orders.

Things to do

• Fulfill all orders within the promised lead time and shipping windows and ship exactly what you listed for sale.
• Clearly explain your shipping, return and refund policies and processes, along with other pertinent information.
• Do not send communications to customers other than as necessary for order fulfilment and related customer service.
• Respond promptly to buyer questions about the status of their order.
• Note that customers have come to expect the same level of customer service from sellers that they receive from Amazon. If you don't meet that standard, you may have to deal with some unsatisfied customers.
• Be courteous and patient with customers when they request information, returns, or refunds.

Things to avoid

• Bribing customers for positive feedback.
• Using customer communications for marketing purposes, or directing buyers to your own website or a third-party website in your emails.