How to sell on Amazon in the UK

Selling on Amazon is a great way to generate extra income and secure your financial future, whether you want a secondary revenue stream or are looking to grow your small business.

UK small and medium enterprises selling on Amazon recorded over £3.8 billion in export sales in 2023, and there are currently around 100,000 SMEs selling on Amazon in the UK. Many of these entrepreneurs initially started their businesses as a side hustle or alongside working full-time jobs.

If you’re thinking of selling on Amazon, here’s everything you need to know to get started.

Once you know what you are going to sell, getting started is straightforward — anyone can start a business on Amazon.

Firstly, sign up on Amazon Seller Central. All you need is some basic information such as contact details, proof of identity, a credit or debit card, and a bank account number.

 
When you register as an Amazon Seller, you’ll be asked to choose between two different plans: Individual or Professional.

The Individual plan, which charges sellers 75p per sale, is ideal for people who just want to get started, plan to sell fewer than 40 items a month, and don’t need advanced selling tools.

The Professional plan, on the other hand, is designed to provide more advanced tools and programmes for established businesses who are a bit further along in their journey and plan to sell more than 40 items a month. This plan is £25 per month.

No matter which way you choose to get started, you can easily switch plans at any time. For both plans, additional selling fees will apply to the flat rates.

 
Once you register as an Amazon selling partner, you’ll gain access to your Seller Central account. Think of Seller Central as your go-to resource for selling on Amazon. It’s a one-stop shop for managing your selling account, adding product information, making inventory updates, managing payments, and finding helpful content to help you navigate your business. It’s also where you list all the products you’re selling.

Here are a just few of the things you can do from Seller Central:

• Keep track of your inventory and update your listings from the Inventory tab
• Download custom business reports and bookmark templates you use often
• Use customer metrics tools to monitor your seller performance
• Contact Selling Partner Support and open help tickets
• Keep track of your daily sales for all the products you sell on Amazon
  
  

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To sell a product on Amazon, you must first create a product listing. You can do this either by matching an existing listing (if somebody else is already selling the same product on Amazon) or by creating a new listing (if you are the first or only business selling the item).

To create a listing, the first thing you need is a clear product title that features your brand name and your main keyword, so shoppers know exactly what they’re looking at before they click on the full listing.

You can then go into more detail in the product description. This is a great opportunity to include relevant keywords that your target customers will be searching on Amazon, and you can list the product’s detailed specifications.

Every product listing needs at least one image, but it’s best if you can include a few—and a video if appropriate—to give customers a clear picture of your product before they buy.

Amazon has unified its online European stores, which means you can sell, create and manage your product offers and control your inventory throughout Europe, all from one European selling partner account.

This includes VAT tools and services to help you navigate VAT easily and efficiently (at no extra cost) and translation services to help you build stronger relationships with customers speaking other languages.

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Amazon sellers have two options for getting their products into the hands of customers. You can do it yourself, maintaining your own inventory and shipping products to customers directly, or have Amazon take responsibility for packaging, labelling, and shipping products through Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). Each method has its own set of benefits; you just need to decide which is right for your business.

Around the world, Amazon has more than 175 fulfilment centres which contain more than 150 million square feet of storage space. With FBA, you get to store your goods on those shelves. You also gain access to Amazon’s world-class customer service and returns, along with other advantages (like automatic Prime eligibility and Free Super Saver Shipping) to help you scale your business, fast.

Did you know there are ways to make money on Amazon besides selling products?

One such way is by joining Amazon’s affiliate marketing programme, which helps content creators, publishers, and bloggers monetise their traffic through product recommendations.

Amazon affiliates use easy link-building tools to direct their audience to products they recommend, allowing them to earn money from qualifying purchases and programmes.

Simply sign up and start sharing products with your followers to earn extra income from commissions.

Or, if you’ve got a story you want to share, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is an easy, fast way of self-publishing your own book and making it available for readers to discover in the Amazon store.

KDP is an easy-to-use self-publishing service that helps writers become published authors. Authors can retain their copyright, maintain creative control, distribute globally and in multiple languages both in digital and print, and earn royalties of up to 70%.

To get started, visit the sign-up page.

This article is for information purposes only and does not guarantee any particular outcome. Profitability of any seller account is based on a variety of factors, including demand, pricing, product quality and compliance.

Find out more about the latest news at Amazon and learn about Amazon’s generative AI listing tools for sellers.