Drop Ship News

Dropship Home Business: eBay, Amazon or Your Own Website?

Do you want to start a dropship home business and are unsure about which venue is best---eBay, Amazon or your own website?

This is a very common question about newbies to the world of ecommerce and it has a multifaceted answer. Knowing something about the basic structure for sellers on Amazon and eBay, along fees, policies and which categories you can sell in will all help make up the bigger picture and make it easier for you to decide which is best for your dropship business.

Let’s take a look at each venue and weigh the pros and cons of each.

Dropship on Amazon

The Pros:

• Sheer volume of traffic will help get global exposure for your dropship products. You could not possibly hope to duplicate the amount of traffic found on this giant venue.

• The name is famous and respected around the world and some of this cachet would rub off on you by virtue of selling there, boosting the trust and confidence of shoppers who view your products.

• Marketing and SEO are largely something you won’t have to worry about if you dropship on Amazon. You should still incorporate good SEO into your titles and descriptions, though.

The Cons:

• Very little personal communication with your buyers, which means it will be harder to build a repeat customer base.

• Fees are a little high, so you will need to set your prices high enough to allow an ample margin for profits.

• Policies are fairly strict, but if you are a good, honest seller this really shouldn’t affect you.

• The categories unavailable to list in are pretty standard, such as prescription drugs. Some categories require approval by Amazon prior to listing.

Dropship on eBay

The Pros:

• As with Amazon only to a somewhat smaller extent, there is a huge flow of global traffic that will get you’re a lot more exposure than you would get on your own.

• While using SEO on eBay in your titles, product descriptions and other content will certainly help you to make more sales, it isn’t as crucial as it would be with your own website. Ditto for marketing.

• eBay is well known and although it has lost some ground, remains a very popular online shopping mall for the world in general. This lends you a certain amount of credibility by association if you dropship on the site.

The Cons:

• Fees are not as high in some categories as they were prior to the Spring Sellers Update, but higher in others, especially if you sell in large volume. Policies are extremely rigid and almost unrealistic in some cases.

• You are discouraged (to put it mildly) from having any communication at all with your buyers, making it almost impossible to forge a connection that would lead to repeat purchases.

Your Own Dropship Website

The Pros:

• You can personalize and customize your website to suit yourself.

• You aren’t bound by someone else’s rules and policies and don’t have to worry about unfair or undeserved feedback trashing your business or getting you shut down and banned from selling as you do on eBay or to some extent, Amazon.

• You can make a more personal connection with your buyers and encourage repeat business.

• No fees.

The Cons:

• You cannot reasonably expect to get the amount of traffic generated on Amazon or eBay.

• You will have to be much more aggressive about marketing, SEO, website maintenance and more.

So, as you can see, each venue has something top recommend it and some points not really in its favor. When you start your home dropship business, weight each of the pros and cons about eBay, Amazon and your own website; then choose which seems best for your purposes.

Home Business Ideas: Can You Dropship on Amazon?

If you would like nothing better than to escape the drudgery and low pay of your present 9-5 job in favor of being your own boss with a home business, you might be wondering if you can dropship on Amazon.

The answer is short and sweet: Yes.

Yes, you can. In fact, many dropship sellers are enjoying tremendous success on this giant marketplace and you can, too!

First of all, if you are considering Amazon as your dropshipping venue, you’ve already taken a step in the right direction. This amazing online marketplace gets a huge volume of global traffic 24/7. In fact, the site gets an estimated 20 million visitors (global) on any given day, with about 132 million visitors a month from the United States alone.

Wow! That is a LOT of traffic and if you dropship on Amazon, you can count on getting much more exposure than on a smaller website, or your own website.

You will have to pay fees to dropship on Amazon, as well as adhere to their strict policies and rules for sellers. But, these policies are really nothing except good customer service and being an honest, reputable seller---something you should strive for anyway. If you are a good seller and run a service oriented dropship home business, you will have no reason to chafe at Amazon’s rules.

You may have heard that dropshipping was forbidden on Amazon because the seller had to have actual physical possession of the goods being sold. Listen up! This is no longer the case.

It is perfectly permissible nowadays to dropship on Amazon as the site no longer insists on a seller having possession of the products sold.

Unless you plan to sell in very large volume, the basic pricing plan should be sufficient to your needs. Here are the steps you will need to take in order to dropship on Amazon.

• Set up a seller account. You will need: Your business name, address, and contact information. An internationally-chargeable credit card with valid billing address. A phone number where you can be reached during the registration process. Your tax identity information. Choose your plan, the $39.99 a month plan is what many dropship sellers choose.

 

• Once this registration process is complete, list your products. Be sure to use excellent descriptions and good, clear images.

 

• Your next step is pricing. Stay competitive, but don’t try to undercut all of your competitors since this is a poor business practice. Amazon has some rules about pricing, but as long as you don’t vary drastically from the fair market retail price of your products, you won’t have anything to worry about.

 

• Once you have priced your products, register to collect online payments from your buyers.

 

• Select a shipping method. For dropshipping, this will be the method used by your wholesale product source to ship the products you sell. If you are within the U.S. and select the Domestic Standard shipping time, your U.S. buyers should expect to receive their items in 4 to 14 business days from the time payment is made. There are various other shipping methods with associated expected delivery times.

You have some big advantages if you dropship on Amazon, namely that customers all over the world know the site and trust it.

If you are looking for a great home business idea, consider getting set up to dropship on Amazon today for great profits!

Amazon: Dropship Central & a Great Ecommerce Marketplace

If you want to earn a comfortable living working from home and being your own boss, you may want to consider Amazon: Dropship Central and a fantastic ecommerce marketplace!

If you’re even to the point of seriously considering working from home, you’re already on the right track to personal and financial freedom! Too many people spend their working lives making money for somebody else but never enough for themselves. With a home business in dropshipping, you can change your life for the better.

One of the most crucial aspects of success with ecommerce is traffic. Driving traffic to your website or dropship product listings is vitally important because without that traffic, you will not have potential customers and won’t make enough sales to make your dropshipping business viable.

If there is one thing you can count on with Amazon as your online dropship marketplace, it’s that there will definitely be plenty of traffic.

In fact, an estimated 188 million global visitors flow through the site on a daily basis and this provides a humongous opportunity for you to sell your dropship items.

Here is how selling on Amazon works, directly from the website:

“Upload your Inventory

With Selling on Amazon, it's easy to upload your inventory. Once you've registered, use tools in Seller Central to get up and running fast.

Customers view and purchase your products on Amazon.com

Your products will appear on Amazon.com. With features like 1-Click and a brand millions of consumers trust, we help customers make quick, easy, worry-free purchases.

You Ship Products to Customers

Amazon notifies you by email when an order has been placed. You simply pack and ship your item to the customer (Or you can sign up for Fulfillment by Amazon and let Amazon do the shipping for you).

Amazon Transfers Payments to You

Amazon deposits payment into your bank account at regular intervals and sends an email notifying you that your payment has been sent.”

Of course, if you are a dropship seller, you can skip the part about packing and shipping the products you sell on Amazon, because your wholesale product supplier will take care of that for you.

Here is a look at the fee structure for Amazon sellers:

“Selling Fees Per-item fees

Professional Selling Plan: no per-item fee Individual Selling Plan: $0.99 fee for each item sold

When your item sells, Amazon collects the amount paid by the buyer (including the item price and any shipping, gift wrap, or other charges). Amazon platform shipping rates apply to media products (books, music, video, DVD, software, and video games) sold by Professional Sellers, and to all products sold by Individual Sellers.

See Shipping Credits by Category for a table of Amazon platform shipping rates. Shipping Fees (Fulfilling Orders)

When you fulfill orders yourself, Amazon platform shipping rates apply to media products (books, music, video, DVD, software, and video games) sold by Professional Sellers, and to all products sold by Individual Sellers. We charge these shipping rates based on the product category and shipping service selected by the buyer, and then pass the amount on to you.

For products that Amazon fulfills for you, in addition to the Selling on Amazon fees, you will be charged fees for order fulfillment, storage and optional services.

Fees for Media Products

Referral Fees

Sellers pay a referral fee on each media item sold. For media products (Books, Music, Video, DVD, Software, and Video Games), Amazon deducts as a referral fee a percentage of the item price, excluding any taxes collected through Amazon tax collection services.

Variable Closing Fees

For each media item that is sold, sellers also pay a variable closing fee.

The referral fee percentages and variable closing fees for media products are shown in the table here.”

If you plan on dropshipping more than 40 items a month on Amazon, there is a $39.99 plan that should serve very nicely and be sufficient for your needs.

As far as categories, there are some things you can’t sell on Amazon. You can see more about the Restricted Categories here.

Anyone who wants to dropship products on a booming online marketplace should take a look at Amazon: Dropship Central!

Work From Home With Amazon Webstores: Dropshipping Made Easy!

If you want to quit the Daily Grind and be your own boss, you can work from home with Amazon Webstores---dropshipping made easy!

Many people are joining the work at home revolution and throwing off their corporate chains because they are tired of toiling away and making a lot of money for somebody else but never enough for themselves. Ecommerce has opened up the world of retail business to anyone with access to a computer and millions of people all around the globe are finding financial as well as personal freedom working from home in an ecommerce business.

A dropshipping home business offers an even easier and faster to start making money than a regular ecommerce start up simply because:

You aren’t required to buy inventory up front
You don’t have to house any inventory
You bypass the expense and hassle of packaging and shipping the dropship products you sell
You can literally start making money right away

As you can see, ecommerce rocks and dropshipping takes it up another notch! Amazon Webstores provide a fantastic way to get started in ecommerce and get income flowing in immediately!

About Amazon Webstores & Dropshipping

Amazon is a giant online marketplace with a huge amount of traffic flowing through it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Bear in mind that this is global traffic, meaning that you have exposure to potential customers from all around this big blue marble. What a big advantage this is over a traditional retail brick and mortar store that must basically rely on very limited, local traffic only for its sales.

When you use Amazon Webstores for your home dropship business venue, you will reap the benefits of its incredible stream of global traffic, as well as its brand recognition as a marketplace. You can bet that in most civilized parts of the world where people are shopping online, almost all of the people have heard of Amazon and most of them have bought from it.

This, in and of itself, is an enormous help to you with dropship sales.

Why? Simply because one of the biggest obstacles to be overcome when dealing with online shoppers is their natural hesitation and doubt about buying online. This is understandable because we all hear horror stories of internet consumers being scammed or having their sensitive data hacked. When someone shops with you on Amazon Webstores, though, you have the cachet of being associated with a business known and trusted internationally.

Needless to say, this will help tip the scales in your favor when someone is debating whether or not to pull the trigger in a purchase from you.

Although Amazon has several pricing plans for its Webstores, you would probably be better served by the one designed for Small Businesses. It is extremely user friendly! Here are some of the features of the Amazon Webstores Small Business Solutions that would be a safe bet for a dropship business:

• Exposure to some of the 188 million people who shop on Amazon

• Easy payments with no other gateways required. All your payments are handled directly through Amazon and the funds deposited into your bank.

• The fast, ultra professional store builder is customizable and offers you pre-built templates and widgets.

• No worries about not being a techno geek, because it’s all drag and drop! You can simply drag and drop widgets and other elements onto each page of your dropship store.

• All the capabilities and merchandising feature you need to make a success of your home dropshipping business.

If you want to join the ranks of the worker bees that have dropped out of the Rat Race and are enjoying all the perks and privileges associated with working from home and earning a comfortable living---check out Amazon Webstores---dropshipping made easy!

Home Business Idea: Dropship Kids Educational Software

If you want a home business idea that will help you earn a comfortable living from the comfort, privacy and security of your own home, try this one: dropship kids educational software.

This is a wide open niche with a wealth of potential for any wannabe ecommerce entrepreneur!

If you dropship kids educational software, you will have a steady, year round flow of potential buyers who want and need this product. One thing we can always count on---as long as there are parents, they will be thinking about helping their children in one way or another. Buying educational software that will give kids a foot up the ladder in the area of learning is one way responsible parents help their children.

Types of Kids Educational Software

There are tons of possible product choices if you decide to dropship kids educational software. Here are just a few of the various types of products available to sell online:

• Spelling
• Reading
• Math
• English
• Science
• And More

Plus, there are all kinds of kids educational software out there to dropship for all ages---toddlers through high school.

Sales of educational software for kids is booming as more and more emphasis is put on early learning and the importance of children getting excellent grades in school.

The students who get the best grades and score highest on tests are the ones who get the plum scholarships and most financial help with college. In view of the fact that many colleges around the USA have increased their tuition costs by as much as 50% recently, higher education is becoming almost out of reach for the average kid in America, without some help from scholarships and/or grants.

Where to Dropship Kids Educational Software

The sky is basically the limit as far as a venue if you want to dropship kids educational software.

Amazon, eBay, Bonanza, Overstock, your own website….you can more or less pick and choose. If you perform a search on Amazon for “educational software” you get an astounding 21,853 results!

Looking them over, these results seem to be right on target and provide you with a good idea of what a hot niche this is. In case you’re thinking that there would be too much competition, look at it this way: do you want to try and dropship something nobody wants?

eBay, on the other hand, returned a mere 1,208 listings and under Related Searches showed “Whiskey Stones.”

Really, eBay?

Whiskey stones are related to educational software?

Sheesh. Yet another classic example of the train wreck eBay calls a search engine. You may want to consider this when it comes time to choose a marketplace to dropship kids educational software.

This is a niche that will have a nice, steady stream of traffic. That being said, it will probably pick up around the time for schools to start around the world. Still, you can almost certainly count on enough of a year round demand to keep you in sales aplenty.

Dropship kids educational software for a profitable ecommerce home business niche with a steady, year round demand!

Looking for a Dropship eBay Alternative?

Are you tired of the exorbitant fees, seller unfriendly policies, totally dysfunctional search engine and all the rest of the current CEO’s “disruptive innovations” and looking for a dropship eBay alternative?

If so, take heart! There is life after eBay, as many sellers who have already jumped ship can testify.

True, eBay does still get a lot of traffic and according to some news tidbits you red; the site has pulled out of its slump and is growing. But, try telling that to sellers.

Well, we’ll rephrase that: try telling that to smallish sellers. The huge corporations eBay has wooed strenuously for the past several years are going great guns. They love eBay and why shouldn’t they? Most of them aren’t required to pay the outrageous fees imposed on smaller sellers.

So, if you happen to be one of those smaller sellers, there is a good possibility that you’re paying more and selling less.

A Dropship eBay Alternative

If you’re disenchanted with FeeBay and actively scouting around for a viable dropship eBay alternative, you do have some options:

Amazon: Amazon has about the same fee structure and seller policies as eBay, but their site actually works, which is a huge plus. Amazon’s search engine kicks booty and shoppers on the site are able to enter a word or phrase into the search box and---wonder of wonders if you’re used to eBay---find it!

The thing about search is that if someone can’t find your dropship listings when they search for products you are selling, it’s a lead pipe cinch you aren’t going to sell many.

eBay has worked arduously to pattern its business model after Amazon but for some reason, hasn’t been able to implement a search algorithm that does what it is supposed to do. This is a source of frustration for buyers and sellers alike. Buyers because they can’t find what they’re looking for and sellers because they can’t sell their stuff.

Advantage: Amazon

 

Amazon is the hands down winner over eBay in the search department, which will be enormously helpful to you in dropshipping sales.

Another benefit of Amazon as a dropship eBay alternative is the amount of global traffic. Any way you care to slice, dice, chop or cut it---more traffic means more potential customers which means more money in your pocket. This is a good thing. We like money.

According to an article from Compete Pulse:

“1 in 2 consumers who visit Amazon in a month conduct an onsite search and are exposed to a search results page according to new Compete research.  At first glance, you would expect the number to be higher. However, Amazon has done an increasingly effective job of bringing searchers directly to products or category landing pages based on keywords. There are also those consumers that are conducting external searches that direct them to a product.”
Source: Compete Pulse

See how important a working search function is on a website? This is, as noted above, definitely an area where Amazon has a clear advantage over eBay. During the past several years, if eBay manages to get a search engine that delivers reasonably relevant results at least some of the time; they immediately begin tweaking it again until it’s right back to its old dysfunctional self.

Some sellers claim that eBay’s motto is: “If it ain’t broke, break it.”

This certainly seems to be the case with their internal search engine.

Amazon is an excellent dropship eBay alternative!

Want to Dropship Fun Products? Try iPads & Accessories!

If you want to break way from a humdrum, stodgy niche and dropship fun products, maybe you should take a look at iPads and accessories!

One thing is for sure, iPads are popular and sales are booming!

People all around the world are buying and enjoying iPads, so this should certainly qualify them as fun products. Of course, they are also terribly handy for business use, as well.

This means that you have a broad target market of potential customers if you decide to dropship fun products such as iPads and their accessories.

iPad Accessories

What are iPad accessories?

There are quite a few accessories available for iPads. That being said, the most widely used are these:

• Cases
• Docks
• Ear Phones
• Stands
• Portfolios
• Screen Protectors
• Display Cases

Bear in mind that the above are only the most used, there are plenty of others you might want to offer in your online dropshipping store or in your eBay or Amazon listings.

Benefits of Accessories

There are some hefty benefits to offering iPad accessories if you are going to be dropshipping iPads. Think about it. If someone is buying an iPad, there is a very good possibility that this customer will also be in the market for a case, stand or other accessory---maybe several accessories.

So, this gives you, an eager beaver ecommerce entrepreneur, a golden opportunity to boost sales by such techniques as:

• Bundling
• Cross Selling
• Up Selling

When you sell someone an iPad and then show them a bundle with desirable accessories at a lower cost than purchasing each item separately, you are likely to close the deal and end up with more sales and profits because you sold multiple items.

Yay!

Sales Stats for iPads

If you are wondering about how well dropship fun products such as iPads and iPad accessories would perform for you, you’ll probably be interested (and encouraged) by some of these sales stats and info from Apple and Techcrunch.com:

• Last March, Apple announced sales of 3 million iPads in just 3 days.

• Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray said last year that the firm was forecasting as many as 66 million sales of the new device in 2012, up from the earlier prediction of 60 million.

• Munster also forecast that Apple will ship 12 million iPads this quarter alone to reach 66 million by year-end. By 2015, that number will reach 176 million, he says.

• Apple CEO Tim Cook noted during the launch of the iPad that Apple sold more iPads in Q4 than any single manufacturer sold in Pcs.

• Gartner Research showed that PC shipments were on track to grow just 4.4% in 2012 to 368 million units, as consumers would prioritize buying smartphones and tablets over desktops and laptops.

So…..we can safely assume that you will have a red hot niche if you decide to dropship fun products like iPads and their accessories!

Where to Sell iPads and Accessories

Where do you want to sell them?

You can dropship iPads and accessories on eBay. Amazon, Overstock, Bonanza, your own website or any number of other venues. Regardless of your marketplace, you can be sure of a steady flow of traffic and plenty of sales when you dropship fun products like these!

Are You Looking for a Dropship eBay Alternative? Try Amazon!

If you are tired of the high fees and seller unfriendly policies and looking for a dropship eBay alternative---try Amazon!

If you are considering jumping ship at eBay, you aren’t alone. Many eBay drop shippers and plain old garden variety sellers are voting with their feet and leaving the site in search of greener pastures and friendlier skies.

So, if you’re fed up with eBay, what are the alternatives? Are there any viable alternatives to eBay for dropship sales?

Yes!

There are some alternatives to eBay if you simply do not wish to start your New Year off there. Amazon is a very attractive dropship eBay alternative. Let’s take a look at some of the features to be found for dropship sellers on Amazon:

Amazon---Amazon is HUGE. Absolutely humongous and still growing. In fact, Amazon has been eating eBay’s lunch for several years now. No surprise to seasoned eBay sellers, Amazon started leaving eBay in the dust shortly after the current CEO took the helm at the Bay with his disastrous “disruptive change” policy.

Now, if you want to leave eBay strictly for smaller fees, you’re out of luck at Amazon because the fee structure is about the same. That being said, there is more traffic than eBay and wonder of wonders---Amazon’s search engine actually works! This is a boon indeed to beleaguered eBay dropship sellers whose sales are down because shoppers are unable to find the products they have listed due to a woefully dysfunctional search feature.

Amazon has a ton of categories and will accommodate almost any dropship niche. As it will be much faster and easier to tell you which categories you can’t list under rather than the ones you can; here are some of the categories that are off limits on Amazon:

• Alcohol
• Gambling and Lottery
• Animals
• Human Parts
• Burial Artifacts
• Postage Meters and Stamps
• Tobacco and Tobacco Related Products
• Hazardous and Dangerous Items
• Drugs and Drug Paraphernalia
• Currency, Coin, Cash Equivalents
• And More

Actually, not many more. If you are in doubt as to whether or not your dropship product is on the restricted list, you can contact Amazon and make inquiries.

If you are listing less than 40 items per month, you pay $0.99 per sale plus other selling fees. For more than 40 listings per month, you move up to the Professional rank and pay $39.99 per month plus other selling fees.

To add items to Amazon, here are your options:

• Use the Add a Product feature on Seller Central to create one product at a time
• Use the Seller Desktop, which is a free, easy-to-use desktop application that can be used to manage and upload inventory one product at a time or in bulk.
• Use inventory files to create multiple products simultaneously.

You can download a free guide to getting started selling on Amazon here.

You should be aware that customers may leave feedback on Amazon although it doesn’t seem to be the big deal it is on eBay. Amazon gives you a performance rating, same as eBay. In fact, eBay has attempted to pattern itself after Amazon without quite managing to do it well.

Amazon is a great dropship eBay alternative, so check it out today!

Dropship News: The Shape of Things to Come for Ecommerce

2012 has been a fairly tough year for retailers in traditional brick and mortar stores, but e-tail stores and ecommerce endeavors such as a home dropship business have experienced growth.

Ecommerce analysts have studied the situation and made certain predictions for success in online business in 2013. If you want your online dropship business to keep abreast of the pack, or better yet, pull ahead of your competitors, here are a few suggestions:

• During the next year, you can reasonably expect to see more and more shoppers accessing the internet to browse and buy via mobile devices. It is therefore vitally important to the health of your ecommerce home business that you make sure your website is mobile friendly and accessible to devices such as iPhones and iPads. This is very much a case of you snooze, you lose; because road warrior shoppers will drop you like a hot potato and head for a site that is compatible with their mobiles if you don’t get with the program.

• Back in the day, many people would take a friend along when they went shopping in order to get the benefit of a second opinion. Nowadays, though, instead of inviting a friend or two to tag along, people shopping online can take their entire social network along for lots of other opinions. Sites such as Pinterest have become real popular real quick and many people are “pinning’ favorites and making lists online that guide others within their spheres of influence to a buying decision. You should definitely make sure you are on board with this!

• Social media marketing is huge. Make no mistake about it---it’s here for the duration. But, here’s the thing: in the coming year, you should be putting more emphasis on engagement with fans and followers and less on the number of fans and followers you accrue. Internet researchers all agree that in today’s society, shoppers want to interact, so give them what they want and engage with them (and their friends) to drive traffic to your dropship website and make sales. This works equally well if you sell on eBay or Amazon or another venue.

• 2013 is expected to see a significant increase in video usage. Now that more internet users have faster speeds and dial up is basically a dinosaur for the majority of the online global population, videos slowing your site down is no longer a concern or problem. People generally react very well to videos, so be sure to use them wisely to boost dropship sales for your home business.

• Not only is the way we shop online changing, but so is the way we pay for the things we buy online. Payment options will be more important than ever in 2013. Naturally, you will want to continue to accept all major credit cards, but you should also consider Google Checkout and if you don’t offer Paypal as a payment option---you’re losing sales! Paypal, by the way, is fully integrated with mobile devices.

Use these trend predictions tips to make sure you have a successful and profitable new year for your dropship business!

Work at Home: How to Dropship With Amazon

If you want to work at home, how to dropship with Amazon should furnish you with some solid info and plenty of motivation to make it happen!

First of all, you should know that Amazon is the giant marketplace….bigger than eBay and according to sellers who have used both venues, easier and slightly more seller friendly.

Learning how to dropship with Amazon isn’t rocket science, but there are some simple steps you must follow in order to get set up and start making money; and then to continue running a profitable enterprise.

What Can You Dropship With Amazon?

Some categories are copacetic and some are not allowed on Amazon, so if you have decided you want to dropship with Amazon, be sure to choose a product niche that is allowed.

Here are the categories that are open to all sellers on Amazon:

• Amazon Kindle
• Baby Products
• Beauty
• Books
• Camera & Photo
• Cell Phones & Accessories
• Consumer Electronics
• Everything Else
• Grocery & Gourmet Food
• Health & Personal Care
• Home & Garden
• Kindle Accessories
• Music
• Musical Instruments
• Office Products
• Personal Computers
• Software
• Sports and Outdoors
• Tools & Home Improvement
• Toys & Games
• Video, DVD, & Blu-ray
• Video Games

Some categories are okay provided you get approval from Amazon first.

Subscribers to Professional accounts may sell in these categories with permission:

• Automotive Parts & Accessories
• Clothing, Accessories & Luggage
• Collectible Books
• Entertainment Collectibles
• Gift Cards
• Industrial & Scientific
• Jewelry
• Shoes & Accessories
• Sports Collectibles
• Watches
• Wine

If you don’t see it on either of the two lists above, just figure that you can’t sell it on Amazon and choose another product.

Amazon Seller Account Features

Here are the features included with a Professional Seller’s account:

• Ability to create new products and add them to the Amazon Catalog

• Fulfillment by Amazon enabled

• Use of feeds, spreadsheets and other tools to load inventory

• Access to order reports and order related feeds

• Seller customized shipping rates (for products other than Books, CD and Vinyl, Video and DVD products)

• Promotions, Gift Services, and other special listing features

• Eligible for featured merchant status: this is necessary to win the Buy Box on product detail pages

This plan costs $39.99 monthly, plus other selling fees. An individual selling account only includes the first two features shown in the above list. However, you wouldn’t need the Fulfillment by Amazon, so basically you would just be getting the “Ability to create new products and add them to the Amazon Catalog.” This is sufficient for most home based dropship businesses.

There is no monthly fee for the individual selling account. You pay $0.99 per sale, plus other selling fees.

Uploading Your Products to Amazon

It’s fast and easy to upload your dropship products to Amazon. Here is the scoop on this aspect of selling on Amazon, straight from their website:

“There are several ways to add your products to Amazon.com.

• Create one product at a time via Seller Central's Add a Product
• Use the Listings Loader in Seller Central if you are listing many products that are already in the Amazon Catalog
• Use Inventory File in Seller Central if you are listing many products that are not yet in the Amazon catalog (not available for Individual Sellers)
• Work with the easy-to-use Amazon Seller Desktop application to list single or bulk products”

How About Payments?

You might be wondering how you get paid through Amazon and how long it takes. So, again we go directly to the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Here is the lowdown on payments per the Amazon website:

“Amazon settles your account between 7 and 21 days.

• It usually takes about 3-5 business days for the funds to appear in your bank account
• Make sure you have entered valid information in Seller Central for your U.S. bank checking account”

So, there you have it! Dropship with Amazon, work from home and enjoy all of the perks and privileges that come with being your own boss!