- How to set up your
Amazon seller accounts
step by step.
What's happening, guys?
I'm Dan Rodgers.
I'm an Amazon seller and a
part of the Just One Dime team.
Now this is a very important video.
This is the very first step
to your selling on Amazon venture.
Now, regardless of where
you live in the world
or where you want to sell, this video
is going to clear everything up
in terms of you setting
up your Amazon account.
I myself have gone through a
huge amount of verification
for both Europe and North
America, and what we wanna do
is give you guys all
this information upfront
so you minimize mistakes and get selling.
Now this video is step one
to your selling venture
but if you want to expand
further, so once you set up,
what are the next steps,
check out other videos
on this channel.
And you can also check out
the Just One Dime membership
in the description.
There, we go into much more
detail of the subsequent steps
of building your business,
regardless of where you live.
We actually have members from
over 100 different countries,
all building their own Amazon businesses.
So that said, let's jump into this.
Now I am gonna reference a
lot of material in this one.
So I'm gonna drop all the
links in the description
for you, so it's nice and easy.
You can check them out there.
So step number one is to
choose your marketplace.
Now, I wanted to remind you about this.
If you're new to FBA, when
you use Fulfillment by Amazon,
FBA, to fulfill orders,
your personal location does not matter.
So don't let that hold you
back or determine which market
you actually sell in
because in all likelihood,
your inventory is gonna
go from your manufacturer
to Amazon's fulfillment center.
You're not even gonna
see it most of the time.
So currently, there are
actually 16 Amazon marketplaces.
We have the USA, we have
UK, we have Germany, France,
Canada, Japan, India, Italy,
Spain, Mexico, Brazil, China,
Australia, the UAE,
Singapore, and Netherlands,
and on top of that, there's
another three, referenced here,
as you can see, which
okay are KR, TH, and TW,
being Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan.
Now, those are listed, but they don't seem
to have a fully functional site yet.
Now, when signing up,
there are unified accounts,
and this means that when you
sign up, you actually sign up
for a group of these
marketplaces we just mentioned,
not just one of them, and
then you can access each one
of those individual
marketplaces from one dashboard.
So for example, the North
American unified account
holds the USA, Canada, and Mexico,
while the European unified
account holds the UK, Germany,
France, Italy, and Spain,
and I expect Netherlands
to actually be added to
that very soon as well.
So again, those are one
Seller Central dashboard
and you can access all of
those Individual markets
from the one dashboard.
So overall, the choice is yours on this,
but I personally make more
from North America than Europe,
and you can see, even if we use Prime Day
as an example here, the US is
just leaps and bounds ahead
of the other markets in
terms of pure sales volume.
If a product sells 10
times a day in the UK,
it might sell 30 times a
day in the US, and yes,
US does have more competition,
but that still remains my recommendation.
If I was signing up and starting today,
I would start with a North
American unified account.
And step number two is to
choose your entity type.
This means how are you applying to Amazon?
What type of entity are you?
Now the choice to sell as an individual
or a company actually lies with those
who live in Amazon-accepted countries,
and let me explain what I mean.
Each Amazon region has a list
of accepted seller registration countries
and any person or business
within that accepted country
can actually sign up for an
account and sell on Amazon.
Each region also has a different list
of supported currencies,
and this determines
whether Amazon can disperse
your payments from the sales
you make to your business'
bank account in the currency
that you want to receive those funds in.
So in short, depending on where you live
is going to limit your options here.
It's either gonna give
you the ability to sign up
as an individual or a
company, or it may limit you
to only being able to
sign up as a company.
I'm not gonna delve too deep
into all of these nooks and crannies
'cause, as you can probably tell,
the situations are
diverse, but in a nutshell,
here's what you want to do.
Check if your country is accepted.
Any person or business registered
in one of the following
countries can sign up
for an account.
Here's the list for North America.
And here is the list for Europe.
Now, if your country is mentioned there,
then what it means for that marketplace
is that you have the
ability to choose to sign up
as an Individual or as a
company, but if it is not there,
then what you're gonna need
to do is set up a company
in an accepted country.
It's totally doable.
This is actually how I
eventually got my start
when I was still setting
up from South Africa.
I had tons of problems.
I ended up setting up
all different companies,
but it does work.
So it is doable, that is an option.
Now pro tip here, while you're at it,
you may as well check both the European
and North American accepted
list, as we just went through,
and set up in a country accepted by both.
That way, if in the future,
you want to expand and sell
on a different marketplace, you
want to sell on all of them,
your company's country is
accepted by all of them already.
So secondly here, whether your
country is accepted or not,
putting that aside, something
else you need to check
is whether or not the bank account
or the proposed bank
account you're gonna use,
whether or not that
bank account's currency
is gonna be supported by Amazon.
In other words, can Amazon
pay you your earnings
in your home currency?
So here is the list for North America.
And here is the list for Europe.
Now if your country and
currency is there, then great.
In most of those cases,
Amazon's actually gonna be able
to directly pay you your earnings out.
If not, then you need to
bolt on an extra service,
an online payment service,
something like WorldFirst
or Payoneer, and that type
of service is gonna allow you
to receive practically any
currency like USD, GBP,
euros, et cetera, and then
convert it within this tool
and then disperse it from
there to your home country
or to your actual bank
account in that currency.
Now the second pro tip here
is sometimes it's actually
worth doing that anyway.
You can get a better
currency conversion rate
using something like
WorldFirst, where you determine
when that currency is
converted, and at what rate.
This is something I do, so
if you're already selling,
then that's something you can do
just to boost that income
further or just kind of ensure
that you're not losing a lot
on that foreign exchange.
Now in terms of Payoneer or WorldFirst
or any of these payment
solutions, remember,
they offer individual
and business accounts,
and you need to choose the correct one
in accordance with how you're gonna sell.
If you're running a company,
you need to choose their business account.
If you're doing this as an individual,
you need to choose their
individual personal account.
And here's one more option
on the currency saga.
This is actually a new
option, but if your currency
is listed on this page over
here, which is actually the same
between North America
and Europe, by the way,
then you have the option to use something
called Hyperwallet,
and this is a currency
conversion service that Amazon
is currently integrating
to make this easier
for international sellers.
Now, you can see the
instructions below here,
but in your Seller Central
account, what you want to do
is go into the settings,
and then you're gonna choose your country
in the bank location drop
down, and it's gonna allow you
to sign up for Hyperwallet,
and you just continue
the process from there.
So I know we haven't
actually got into the signup,
but it's really important to
understand the groundwork here,
but at this point, you should
be clear on where you wish
to sell, your entity types,
so individual or company,
as well as your currency support,
and what you might need to do there.
Now it's best practice
to get all of this set up
before moving on to step
three, and everything's ready
to input and just be streamlined.
So step number three, sign up link.
So where do I actually sign up?
There's two really easy places
where you can start sign up from.
The fastest way is to just
type in services.amazon.com
or services.amazon.co.uk,
depending on where you want
to actually sign up for.
You can find those links in
the description below as well,
but once you're on the
page, as you can see here,
you can then just hit Start selling
from any one of these links.
The other way to sign up is
you can simply actually go
to the bottom of amazon.com,
the homepage of amazon.com
or.co.uk, and you'll find a section
that says Make Money
with Us, and under that,
you can find Sell on Amazon.
That link is going to take
you to that same location.
Now at this point, you do need to know
that there are two types of accounts.
You can sell as an individual
or as a professional,
and so you can have an
Individual Seller account
or you can have a
Professional Seller account.
Now with the Individual Seller account,
you don't have to pay
a monthly fee of 39.99,
but you pay a closing fee of
99 cents per unit you sell.
On the other hand, with the
Professional Seller account,
you do not pay that 99
cents per unit you sell,
but you pay the 39.99 per month.
So in effect, the more you sell,
the cheaper the
Professional Seller account
actually becomes.
The Professional account
is what I recommend.
I actually really would
recommend you stay clear
of the Individual Seller
account for so many reasons.
The first of which is that
as soon as you're selling 40
or more units a month, the
Individual Seller account
becomes more expensive.
The second reason
is that your Seller
Central account features
are very limited with
an Individual account,
as opposed to the Pro account.
And thirdly, there are
certain disadvantages,
like with the Buy Box
to Individual accounts,
so overall, just go with the
Professional selling account.
Now, once you click on Start selling here,
this actually begins the setup
of a Professional account,
and you're gonna want to
click on Create New Account
at the bottom here.
Then you want to enter
a name and email address
and a password here.
I recommend using a dedicated
email address for this,
just for this Amazon account.
Now you're going to need to receive an OTP
to that email that you've just put in.
So that's gonna come through.
Try to use that relatively quickly.
If it does time out, you can
of course just resend that,
but once that's cleared,
you can click on Next.
Step number four is you're
gonna input all your details.
Now here, you're gonna want
to choose your business' location.
So whether you have an
incorporated business,
something like a US LLC,
or a UK limited company,
any other type of company,
or if you're trading
as a sole proprietor, also
called the sole trader,
or just you as an individual,
you still wanna select here
where is that business based?
Where does that business operate from?
Next here, you're gonna want
to choose your business' type,
and here, most of you
are going to choose
privately owned business
if you have an LLC or a
limited company or the like.
Any of you starting as
individuals, you're gonna sell
as yourself, you're going to choose none.
I am an individual.
If you're signing up
as an individual here,
you want to input your
name exactly as it is
on your passport or ID
document because, remember,
you may have to upload that document later
and you want them to match exactly.
Those of you starting with companies here,
LLCs, limiteds, et
cetera, you're gonna want
to input the registered company name here.
That is the name on top of
the legal documents you have,
for example, the Certificate
of Incorporation.
Now an easy way to spot
it is it's going to end
with a company suffix like LLC or Limited,
so it could be, for example,
Click the Like Button LLC.
Once that's done, you
can agree and continue.
So from here, I actually continued
the process as a company,
because between individual and
company, the company process
is going to be more complex,
but the process for individuals
should be simpler and it
should be very similar.
Now on the following page,
you need to input the
company registration number.
Again, this is something you're gonna find
on that legal document.
Make sure you double check it.
This needs to be accurate.
At this point, you're gonna enter
your business' registered address.
Now individuals can just put
in their personal address.
Those who run companies
are going to input
their company's address.
Now remember, your company address
might still be your personal
address, that's fine,
but it is the registered address,
meaning it is the address,
again, on your legal documents.
I want to give you the third pro tip here.
Take a very good look
at your bank statement
that you would use for verification.
Now, obviously, that needs
to be a bank statement
in the name of the entity
that you're applying as,
so you or your company,
but take a very good look
at the address on that
statement, and you actually want
to input the address
here, exactly as it is
on that bank statement,
down to the letter.
It needs to line up absolutely perfectly.
At this point, you want to
input a telephone number.
So this can just be your phone number,
because you're a primary contact
person for this business.
You'll see that there is a drop down
for different countries.
Now if at this point,
you don't actually have a
specific telephone number
for a certain country
and that's what you need,
what you can also do is
use Skype phone numbers,
or other online phone number services.
Next here, we're gonna choose
a method of verification.
SMS works really well for
cellphones, and the call feature
is actually really good for instances
where you can't receive text.
For example, some Skype phone numbers
can't actually receive SMSes.
So they will actually call you.
Then you're gonna click on Send SMS.
It's gonna bring up a box
where you can input that OTP,
input it, and then it should say
Verification Successfully Completed.
Now at this point, you want
to input your primary
contact person's name.
That does not have to be
you, but you want to put it
in exactly as on that
person's ID document.
We are gonna upload
the primary contact person's ID doc later,
so it needs to match exactly.
Pro tip number four, I have
had situations with sellers
where they run into a real brick wall here
because they do not possess an ID document
that is in an accepted country.
Now if you do run into this
problem, you need to consider
if you know someone who
has that ID document
in an accepted country that you need.
They could become your
primary contact person
and it's going to help
you get through this part
of the verification process.
Now we can click on Next.
Now you need to choose
the country of citizenship
for that primary contact
person from the drop down.
Now remember, those drop
downs are not universal.
So I'm gonna scroll through
them slowly for you now
so you know exactly what is in
these lists as of March 2020.
You need to have a primary contact person
with citizenship or government-issued ID
in one of these countries.
Now input the country of birth
as well as the date of birth,
choose the proof of ID document.
This is often gonna be passport,
and then input the document's number
and the date of expiry.
Then you're gonna choose
the country of issue
from this list here and at the bottom,
choose whether this contact
person is the beneficial owner
or a legal representative
of this business.
Then you need to state
whether or not you've added
all the beneficial owners.
And finally, you're gonna click Save.
Now on this screen, you can
select which marketplaces
you wish to sell in.
You probably already know at this point
where you wish to sell.
So select that.
I would avoid unnecessarily
adding more here.
You can always do that later.
Now at this time,
it appears Amazon's
actually running a promo
where you can register for
North America, Europe, and Japan
all at once for 39.99, which
is a great deal, but remember,
that could change, so once selected,
you want to click on Next.
Now this page is where you want
to input your billing info.
You can input your card
details and billing address.
Now Amazon accepts Amex,
Visa, and Mastercards
but do not accept online
payments like PayPal.
So you need to use one
of the major cards here.
It can be a debit card or a credit card.
Since this account and
paying for this account
is a business expense, the
business should be paying for it.
Now that might be your personal
card if you're running this
as an individual, but it
should be your company's debit
or credit card if you're
running this as a company.
Now, it doesn't make a huge
difference at this point.
You can do either, and
always change it later,
but it is good to start thinking that way,
that your company should
be paying for its expenses.
You should not be paying
for your company's expenses.
So a quick note here.
This card will be charged
for the first month
or until you make sales,
but in the future,
what's quite nice is once you
have a balance from sales,
this amount's actually
gonna come off the balance
that you have in your
Seller Central account,
so it will no longer charge this card,
it's just gonna come off of your balance.
So once that's done, we can click on Next.
Here, we're gonna want to
input our store information.
Now the first thing we want to do here
is choose our store name,
and a lot of people get really confused
about the store name, but
really, it's just a name shown
on your listings and you may
well have seen it like this,
sold by store name and fulfilled by Amazon
or sold by Smash the Like
Button and fulfilled by Amazon.
It's also near the top of your listings,
but it can be changed at any time,
and there's no real reason
to stress about this,
but I did want to give you
pro tip number five here.
If you already have a brand name in mind,
then making the store name
the same as your brand name
is a great way to go.
Think of it like this.
If you see Nike products sold
by or under the Nike store,
that only adds credibility.
It's a good cohesive whole,
it's a good way to brand.
So if you do have a brand name,
that's the way I would do this.
Additionally, store names
can only be taken once,
so it's really subject to availability.
So if you have a specific brand name
that you're in love
with and that's gonna be
on pretty much most of
your first products,
then why not grab that
while it's available
and sell your products beneath that?
That brand name is on your
products and on your store.
Now I'm gonna throw in
pro tip number six here
because if your brand name
is taken in lowercase,
try it in uppercase,
because the availability
is case-sensitive.
In other words, if it's
taken in all uppercase,
you can probably still
get it in all lowercase.
Now if you don't have your brand name yet,
what you can do is check out
my video in the description
on exactly how to create
your Amazon brand name.
This is a really easy
but fun process as well.
So I think you'll enjoy it,
and then you will have
something really solid
to not only put on your products
and potentially trademark one day,
but also to fill in
here as your store name.
But do not let the store name hold you up.
You can always adapt this later.
Put something in here for now.
Remember, you can always change this
even if you end up selling
multiple private label brands
under this one store.
Then you can change that store name
so it's a different kind of cohesive whole
to these different brands.
You can do that later.
For now, you just need something in here.
Now for the next questions
here, it really actually depends
on how you're looking to sell on Amazon.
Are you doing arbitrage?
Are you doing private label?
Now I focus entirely on private label.
So that's what I'm gonna
focus on, and that's the way
I'm going to approach
these next questions.
I'm gonna select yes for do you have UPCs
for all your products?
Now, I wanted to give you
pro tip number seven here.
I highly recommend that
you use GS1 UPC codes
to add products to Amazon, specifically,
if you're doing private
label final products.
If you're doing arbitrage
or things like that,
then GS1 codes, which are more expensive,
might not make sense, but
overall, I really recommend,
for private labelers, you
guys use GS1 UPC codes.
I will put a link to my GS1
video in the description as well
if you want to learn more about that
and how to get those codes.
And for the next question,
I will also select yes here
for are you the
manufacturer or brand owner
because as a private labeler,
you will be the brand owner.
Now, if you do select that,
it's going to actually
open up the next question,
which is do you have the trademark
for those branded products?
Now, if you do, you want to say yes here
'cause you're gonna be able to streamline
into brand registry already.
If not, then you're gonna say no here,
and pro tip mumber eight, I think,
so getting your trademark
is a huge advantage.
Don't put off selling because
you don't have a trademark,
but it's definitely something
to start considering,
start thinking about, and pushing toward.
If you don't know much about trademarking
or brand registry or the benefits thereof,
I'll also put my video
related to that below
so you can see what brand
registry is all about,
what the requirements
are, and how to apply.
So now we can click on Next.
At the top here it reads
this is for the sole owner
or primary contact for this account.
So here you can see an
overview of your registration,
and you're going to need to
select the ID document type,
or upload the requested ID document type.
Often, this is going to be a passport.
Then you're gonna need
to provide any additional documents.
Now these vary between
situations, but in this case,
we can provide either a
bank account statement
or a credit card statement.
Remember, this is why
we wanted to make sure
the earlier address that
we input would line up
with the document we upload
here, and the address
on that document.
So once you've uploaded these
and double checked all the
details of your submission here,
you can click on Submit.
And then after this, the
verification team goes to work.
They're gonna look at your info.
They're gonna verify as much as they can.
They're probably gonna ask
you for one or two more things
and might have a few questions
and they're gonna reach
out to you via email.
So keep an eye out for them there.
Now, I know a lot of
you are really proactive
and you want to get things ready,
so if that's the case, in the meantime,
you can prep some commonly
asked for details,
things like bank statements
and utility bills
proving bank account ownership or address.
These are often easily
downloadable from your bank,
and the main thing here is make sure
they're as recent as possible.
They cannot be any
older than three months.
With Payoneer or WorldFirst
or any of these online payment accounts,
they also issue letters
called letters of ownership,
so you can ask them for
those and they are used
for the same purposes with Amazon,
proving account ownership and address.
You may also be asked for an EIN,
which is an Employer
Identification Number.
You can get this by heading
over to the IRS website.
Now these can be issued
to individuals in the US,
but they can also be issued to companies,
whether those companies
are in the US or abroad.
So for example, if
you're a foreign company,
you can go download the
document from the IRS website
that matches your company's country.
Then you fill out that
document and what you do
is you call the IRS' number
and you're going to verbally
give back your answers
to that same document, and they
are going to issue your EIN
over the phone.
So now you are well on your
way to selling on Amazon.
I wanted to ask you guys
to please share this video
with someone you know who's
interested in selling,
or who thinks they cannot sell
because of their location.
So I hope this cleared
up all the ins and outs
of setting up your Seller Central account.
Remember, guys, once you are set up,
if you want to take those next steps,
check out other videos here.
Also check out the Just
One Dime membership below
if you are looking for a community
of like-minded entrepreneurs,
other people doing
exactly what you're doing
from all corners of the
globe, but in any case,
I hope this helped you
make that first step
and I wish you many sales in the future.
I'll see you guys in a future video.
(exciting orchestral music)
