Open an Amazon store in 5 steps and grow your brand. Why do you need to open an Amazon store? And what is an Amazon store exactly? 

An Amazon Store is a custom landing page within the world’s largest online retailer to showcase your brand. Your own website and social media most likely can’t reach as many potential customers as you can when you open an Amazon store. It doesn’t replace your website and social media, but when you open an Amazon store, you extend your marketing reach considerably. If you are already listing products on Amazon, but just listing, you need to open your Amazon store to stand out from your competitors and differentiate your brand.

Already have your own online store? You still want to open an online store. In fact, you probably want to refer people to your Amazon store from your online store. Why?  Because most consumers are familiar with Amazon and feel most comfortable shopping on the platform they trust the most.

The benefits of opening your own Amazon store include improved:

• Organic ratings
• Online visibility
• Customer retention and brand loyalty
• Marketing capabilities
• Mobile shopping experience

So, yes, you do need to open an Amazon store. Here’s how in five steps:

1. Create an Amazon Seller Account
2. Register Your Brand
3. Register Your Products
4. Create Your Amazon Store
5. Submit Your Amazon Store for Review

But before looking at these five steps, there are a few questions you might want to be answered in considering whether to open an Amazon store.

What to Know to Open an Amazon Store

What Does It Cost to Open a store? It doesn’t cost anything to open an Amazon store. However, you do need to select between an individual or business pricing plan to sell products on Amazon.

What kinds of businesses can open a store? Any kind. Solo entrepreneurs, nonprofits, small or large global companies can all open an Amazon store.

How does Amazon support my company after we open a store? There is a variety of selling tools available through Amazon to optimize your product listings and help increase traffic to your store.

Now let’s look at the five steps required to open an Amazon store.

1. Create an Amazon Seller Account

The registration process to sell on Amazon is relatively simple.

• Go to https://services.amazon.com
• If you’re going to sell more than 40 products a month, click the Sign up button. That takes you to the professional account. If you sell less, click Learn more, click Compare selling plans and select the individual seller account. 
• If you don’t already have an Amazon account, create an account using your email address and a password of your choice. Click Next. 
• Follow prompts to verify your account.
• Complete details asking for information about you and your business, as well as your banking and credit card information.
• Upload any requested documentation.
• You can now log in to your seller account.

2. Register Your Brand

Enroll your brand on Amazon’s brand registry. To register your brand, it is required that:

• Your brand name or logo clearly appears on all your products
• You have an active or pending registered trademark in the country or countries where you wish to sell products

3. Register Your Products

Proceed to add products and the number of products to your store. In addition, identify each product with its own unique SKU. If you have a large number of products, this is highly time-consuming. You may want to consider a consulting service that can help expedite this process. 

4. Create Your Amazon Store

You don’t need to be a builder to open a physical store, and you don’t need to be a coder or webmaster to open a store. No technical skills are required. Just follow the steps to:

• Choose a store template
• Enter your brand name, brand logo and store settings
• Select copy and graphics to display at various locations on your store landing page
• Create pages for specific product categories listed on the store landing page
• Populate your store with products. There are three easy ways to do this:
  • Automatically, using keywords
  • Manually, by search
  • Manually, by entering a list 

5. Submit Your Amazon Store for Review

Before you can open a store, Amazon must first review and approve it. Upon approval, which can take a few days, you can then open an Amazon store and start making sales.

GETIDA Amazon FBA Reimbursement

One of the things to decide before you open an Amazon store is whether you choose to fulfill orders yourself or Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). There are many advantages to FBA; however, FBA sellers are advised to carefully track reimbursements Amazon owes you due to errors in mishandling your inventories and order fulfillment.

GETIDA (GET Intelligent Data Analytics) is the largest provider dedicated to Amazon FBA auditing and reimbursement. It is a robust solution that performs a full Amazon audit of up to 18 months of all your transactions to identify discrepancies eligible for Amazon FBA reimbursement. There’s real-time visibility with an online dashboard that displays all open cases, case status, and received reimbursements, as well as FBA inventory transactions, refunds, and seller data analytics.

There’s no cost for this analysis. If you decide to move forward, a GETIDA team composed of former Amazon FBA reimbursement employees presents and follows up on your claims to the appropriate departments. There is also no charge for this service. You only pay a percentage of whatever claims are successful.

Sign up is the same as it is to open an Amazon store: it is free. Even better, you can get $400 in free FBA Reimbursements to try them out.