How to sell on Amazon in 2026: the ten steps, written by a seller who took them

The ten steps at a glance

Step 1: Register your business and sort out tax

Amazon asks for business details the moment you register. The US registration guide lists "Business license or registration" and "Tax information" next to your ID and bank account; the UK guide asks business sellers for a "Business license document". So the honest answer to "can I just try it as a private person" is: you can open the account under your own name if your country lets you trade as a sole trader, but Amazon will still treat you as a business and ask for your tax information. Whether your activity counts as a business, and what tax you owe, is a question for an accountant in your country, not for Amazon and not for this article.

What we would do first:

• Choose the legal form you intend to keep (sole trader, LLC, Ltd) before you touch Seller Central. Changing it later is paperwork you do not want.
• Get your tax number and, in the UK and the EU, decide what you do about VAT. Amazon's UK and European guides have a step called "Stay VAT compliant" for a reason: if you store stock in a country, you usually have obligations there.
• Open a separate business bank account. Amazon pays out to a bank account and verifies it, and mixing it with your private account makes bookkeeping miserable.

Country notes for English-speaking sellers:

• United States: you register on amazon.com, and Amazon describes the same account as "a North America and Brazil unified account" that also reaches customers in Canada, Mexico and Brazil. Expect the tax questions during registration.
• United Kingdom: amazon.co.uk is part of Amazon's European account, together with amazon.de, .fr, .it, .es, .nl, .se, .pl and .be. Since Brexit, FBA stock for the UK and the EU is held separately: a pallet in an English warehouse does not serve German customers. Selling on several of these sites from one account is covered in selling on several Amazon marketplaces with one account.

Step 2: Choose Individual or Professional and open the account

Amazon sells two plans, and the difference is only how you pay Amazon, not what you may sell.

Referral fees come on top in both plans. Amazon's UK pricing page suggests the Individual plan if you sell "fewer than 35 items a month"; the EU pages draw the line at 40. Our advice is simpler: if you are building a business, take Professional from the start. It gives you bulk tools and reports, and the monthly fee is small next to your first stock order. If you only want to clear a few items, Individual is fine. Prices change, so check Amazon's current pricing page for your country before you decide.

To open the account you go to sell.amazon.com or sell.amazon.co.uk and sign in with an email address, ideally a business one you will keep. Have these ready, in the words of Amazon's US registration guide: "Government-issued ID", "Internationally chargeable credit card", "Bank account and routing number", "Business license or registration", "Proof of residential address from the last 180 days, like a bank or credit card statement" and "Tax information". A phone number is required as well.

Step 3: Pass identity verification

Registration and verification are two separate things. Amazon's US guide says that "in many cases you'll be able to complete the process in just a few hours. Then you'll verify your identity as the primary contact for your business, a process that usually takes three business days or less."

Verification runs in two rounds. First you upload your ID and a proof of address dated within the last 180 days. Then you either submit a photo of your face with your ID or, again in Amazon's words, "Join or schedule a video call with an Amazon associate."

Three things save time here:

• The name and address on your ID, your proof of address and your bank account must match to the letter. A middle name on one document and not on the other is the classic reason for a rejection.
• Use a recent bank statement or utility bill, not a screenshot of an app.
• If verification stalls, answer Amazon's request in the case log and wait. Opening a second account to get around it is the fastest way to lose both.

Step 4: Decide between FBA and FBM

FBA means Fulfilment by Amazon: you send stock to Amazon's warehouses and Amazon's staff "pick, pack, and ship orders, as well as handle customer service and returns", and your products qualify for Prime. In return you pay a fulfilment fee per unit based on size and weight, monthly storage fees per cubic foot or cubic metre (higher in the last quarter of the year) and extra fees for stock that sits too long.

FBM means Fulfilled by Merchant: you keep the stock, you pack every order, you print the label, you confirm the shipment in Seller Central within your handling time, and you handle returns and questions yourself. No fulfilment or storage fees, but your time and your packaging costs.

We have used FBA on the European marketplaces since 2021, because we sell small, light consumer products and would rather pay Amazon than pack boxes at eleven at night. Many sellers run both: FBA for the fast movers, FBM for bulky or slow items. The full comparison, including the returns and Prime angle, is in FBA versus FBM from a seller who runs both, and how Amazon FBA really works walks through the FBA side in detail.

One difference nobody mentions on the sign-up page: Amazon's own Seller app sends a push notification for FBM orders, but not for FBA orders. That matters for step 10.

Step 5: Find a product you can actually sell

This is where most beginners spend months, and where most of the advice on the internet is either hype or a course. The basics fit in a short list:

• Demand you can verify. Search for the product on Amazon. Count how many listings have real review numbers and how many sellers share the buy box. If the first page is one brand with thousands of reviews, keep looking.
• A margin that survives the fees. Your cost price, shipping to Amazon, the referral fee, the FBA fee, storage, returns and a little advertising all come out of the selling price. If the numbers only work at zero advertising, they do not work.
• Small and light. FBA fees scale with size and weight, so a product that fits in a small box is forgiving; a heavy one is not.
• Simple. No liquids, batteries, fragile parts or sizes if you can help it. Each of those adds rules, prep work or returns.
• Compliance you can prove. Products sold in the EU fall under rules such as the General Product Safety Regulation, and Germany's packaging register (LUCID) is mentioned on Amazon's own German getting-started page. Check what applies to your category before you order stock, not after.

Order a sample before you order stock. Use it, photograph it, ship it to yourself in the packaging you intend to use, and see what arrives.

Step 6: Build the listing

A listing on Amazon is the product page, and you either create one or attach your offer to an existing one. If the product already exists on Amazon, you add your offer to that ASIN and compete on price and availability. If it is your own product, you create the ASIN.

What Amazon asks for:

• A product identifier. In most categories that is a GTIN, in practice an EAN or UPC barcode; if your product genuinely has none, Amazon has an exemption process per category.
• A brand. Your own brand name, or generic if you have none. Amazon's Brand Registry, which unlocks the brand tools, needs a trademark.
• The right category and product type, because the category decides the referral fee and the attributes you must fill in.
• Title, bullet points, description and images that follow the requirements Seller Central shows for your category.

Write the page for the person holding a phone, not for a keyword tool. The first bullet answers what it is and who it is for; the images show size, material and use; the title is readable. Then check your own listing on a phone before you tell anyone about it.

Step 7: Price it and know your fees

The fees, from top to bottom:

1. The plan fee from step 2.
2. The referral fee on every sale: a percentage of the price, by category. On amazon.com the full range runs from 5 to 45 percent with a minimum per item, but most categories sit between 8 and 15 percent, and the UK and EU pages use the same 8 to 15 percent for most categories.
3. If you use FBA: the fulfilment fee per unit and the monthly storage fee, higher in the fourth quarter, plus surcharges for stock that stays too long.
4. Returns, and the cost of the ones you cannot resell.
5. Advertising, if you use it.

Take a product that sells for 100 dollars on amazon.com: in most categories 8 to 15 dollars of that is the referral fee before anything else. Then subtract the FBA fee, your cost price, inbound shipping and a share of advertising, and what is left is your margin. Seller Central shows a fee preview per ASIN, and the full breakdown with a worked example is in how much it costs to sell on Amazon.

Two more things about money. Amazon pays out on a cycle, by default every 14 days, and keeps a reserve for recent orders; the first payout comes after your account is verified. The details are on the Seller Central Help page called Disbursements. And price for the margin, not for the top spot: undercutting everyone on day one is a habit you cannot afford to keep.

Step 8: Send your first shipment

For FBA, you create a shipment in Seller Central: you tell Amazon which SKUs and how many, whether each unit carries Amazon's FNSKU barcode or the manufacturer barcode, how the units are packed per box, and which carrier brings the boxes to the warehouse Amazon assigns. You print unit labels and box labels, you pack, and you hand over. Your stock becomes sellable once the warehouse has received and counted it.

The first-shipment mistakes we still see:

• Mixed SKUs in one box without telling Amazon.
• Labels that cover the original barcode only halfway, so the scanner reads the wrong one.
• Prep requirements ignored, such as bagging or bubble wrap for the category.
• Sending everything at once. Send a first, small shipment and learn from what Amazon flags.

For FBM the first shipment is your first order: packaging on the shelf, a printer that works, a carrier account or Amazon's shipping labels, and the shipment confirmed in Seller Central within your handling time.

Step 9: Launch

There is no launch button. Your listing is live the moment stock is available, and then you wait for a stranger to buy it. Three things speed that up, and a fourth ruins it.

• A fair price. Not the cheapest, but not a test of how much people will pay either.
• A small advertising budget. An automatic Sponsored Products campaign shows you the search terms buyers actually use, which is worth more than the sales it brings in week one.
• Reviews the right way. Use Amazon's own Request a Review button on each order. Never pay for reviews, never ask friends, never offer refunds for stars: Amazon's rules on this are strict and the penalties hit the whole account.
• Patience. Your first order will show up as Pending, which Amazon defines as "The order has been placed but payment has not been authorized." It usually clears in about 30 minutes, and until then you see no price. What happens next, from Pending to your first payout, is in what happens after your first sale on Amazon and what a pending order means for a seller.

Step 10: The daily routine, and how you learn about orders

Selling on Amazon is not a launch, it is a routine. Ours, every morning:

1. Orders under Manage Orders: anything Unshipped that is ours to ship, anything cancelled, anything with a return.
2. Buyer messages. Amazon tracks how fast you answer, so answer.
3. Account Health: policy notices, performance metrics, anything red.
4. Stock: what needs reordering, what needs a new shipment to Amazon.
5. Advertising: spend and search terms, once a week in detail.

The question that surprised us most as beginners was the simplest one: how do you actually find out that you sold something? Amazon's answer is less than you expect. Seller Central shows orders when you refresh it. For FBA orders, an Amazon employee explained on the EU Seller Forum, "There are no SMS push notifications for FBA, only for FBM. You can get an email every 2 hours summarizing recent FBA orders shipped, but no email as FBA orders are made." The Seller app pushes FBM orders, and even then a seller on the same forum described it as "It decides when it'll tell you, not when there is a sale made and it may decide to tell you multiple sales at the same time."

That is the gap Agent ChaChing fills: a cash register sound on your phone for every order, FBA and FBM, on every marketplace you connect, usually two to three minutes after the order is placed and often faster, with a daily counter and the number of missed orders (target: zero). It connects through Amazon's own authorisation page with one read-only role and stores no buyer data. Every way to hear about a sale, from the two-hourly email to the API, is ranked in how to get notified when you make a sale on Amazon; what the official app does and does not push is in the Seller app and its notifications; and how fast an alert can physically be is in how fast an Amazon order notification can be.

Whichever way you choose, choose it before the first order. The first cha-ching is the moment this stops being a plan and becomes a business. Cha-ching!