How to Make Money Using Amazon Like An Expert

Amazon is a common household name when it comes to online shopping, but do you also know that it’s a mega income-generating machine? That means, there are many opportunities for both adventurous entrepreneurs as well as regular people like you and me. In this article, we’ll discover how to make money using Amazon even with very little experience.

1 – Sell on Amazon

About 50% of products on the marketplace are sold by third parties while the remaining comes from vendors. To become a vendor, you need to be an established seller and be invited to join the program so it’s not a very common route. On the other hand, as long as you can acquire your own products, you can become a third party seller by creating an account through the Amazon Seller Central page.

Prior to that, it’s important to figure out the type of products that you want to sell. This will involve a lot of marketing research, finding products with high demand and low competition and estimating the profits that you can potentially make. There are much software and product keyword tool to help you in this process so do take full advantage of them.  

To sell in big volumes, you will also need to find out how to acquire those products in the most cost-efficient manner. There are a few options available;

1. Retail arbitrage – source products that are on clearance or liquidation from big stores and sell for higher prices.  
2. Wholesale – buy from suppliers at discounted rates and sell their brand.
3. Private label – buy generic products from suppliers at discounted rates, repackage and sell as your own brand.
4. Self manufacture – produce your own products and sell under your own brand.

After identifying the product sources, the next step is to decide on the shipping method. If you opt to be an FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) seller, then you’ll pay some fees and outsource the delivery task to Amazon. If you opt to become an FBM (Fulfilled By Merchant) seller, then you can save up on some fees, but you’ll have to handle all delivery tasks yourself.

When setting up a seller account, you get to choose between the Individual and the Professional plan. If you are starting with a small volume (less than 40 items) and don’t really need an inventory report, then go for the first plan. If you are planning to list more than 40 items that contain pre-approved products and want to take advantage of special listing features on the marketplace, then go for the latter plan which costs $39.99 per month.  

If you like to check out some free training on how to become a successful Amazon seller, learn from Seth on his videos here. 

2 – Kindle Publishing

Have you always wanted to write a book? Then you may be interested in publishing on Kindle. Amazon is home to millions of book titles and using the Kindle app is a great way to market on the platform.

To get started, you need to come up with a book idea that derives from a preexisting skill, talent or knowledge. This idea should garner interest from a large group of online audience yet, there shouldn’t be too many books with similar titles on the Kindle marketplace. Checking the rankings, customer reviews and feedback of your competitors will also provide insights on how you can produce a more appealing book for the targeted market.

During the writing process, it’s a good idea to start building a following through a blog so that you’ll have an audience, ready to sell to when the book is complete. The blog can contain all types of content pertaining to the niche and attract readers from the search engines. The other thing to work on is to hire professionals to come up with a good-looking book cover design.

When the book is ready, you need to write a compelling book description, add relevant keywords and upload the manuscript through the Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). For pricing, you may choose between earning 35% or 70% royalty. Each has its own merits which you can find out more through this table.  

Self-publishing involves a lot of online promotion and marketing BEFORE and after the book is launched – not to mention, a lot of writing as well. However, if you have the capability to plan all the tasks in an organized timeline, your book can potentially generate a passive income stream once it has established an influence on the marketplace.

3 – Amazon Associate Program (My Number One Recommendation)

If you are not much of a storyteller and don’t fancy dealing with product sourcing, then the most SIMPLE option is to promote other seller’s products on the marketplace and earn commissions from online sales. With this income model, the main focus is marketing to a certain group of audience and becoming an authority in that niche.

Inside Amazon, there is a ton of product categories and each of these is a niche/sub-niche of its own. But it’s also a very crowded marketplace for a buyer to figure out which product is best for their needs and budget. As an affiliate marketer, you can help people solve this problem by becoming a reviewer and show them the value of choosing brand A over brand B.

There’s a huge market for affiliate marketing moving forward as more people get into the habit of buying online and relying on genuine opinions to do so. Sharing experiences is something that comes quite naturally to most of us so monetizing through this route shouldn’t be too complicated.

All you need is to create a blog with WordPress, master the process of selecting the right keywords to rank on Google and just keep creating interesting content relating to your niche. As for how much you can make, it pretty much depends on the product category that you are promoting and how much-targeted traffic you can get to the product review page.

For example, if you promote a travel suitcase that sells for $100, the commission will be $7 per sale. If 10 people buy through your product review, you’ll make $70, but it doesn’t just stop there. This number can recur several times a day or multiply during peak shopping seasons. So, the opportunity for any given product is endless.   

For more in-depth information on this, please read my step-by-step guide on how to become a successful Amazon Associate.

4 – Amazon Gift Cards

If you shop a lot online, you are probably familiar with using Amazon gift cards and know what saving benefits it could bring. Here’s the good news – you can actually buy and sell these cards for a small marginal profit.

Due to the product selection and fast shipping, gift cards from Amazon is highly valuable and has a lot of market appeal. If you can get hold of them either for free (rare, but not impossible) or buy them at a discounted rate from marketplaces (the more common method), then you can resell and scale the profit.  

Besides Amazon, there are also other big online marketplaces that you can leverage from such as Walmart, Wayfair and Best Buy. So if you want to take full advantage of this industry, read my recent guide here on how to make money flipping gift cards right from your very own home.   

5 – Amazon Flex

Most people aren’t aware of this opportunity, but if you are staying nearby an Amazon warehouse facility, you can sign up through Amazon Flex and deliver packages around your area. At any given slot, you could make anywhere between $18 to $25 dollars per hours so it’s pretty neat pocket money if you have a few hours to spare during the day.

This gig is most suited for college students, stay-at-home moms, and semi-retired individuals. What’s needed is a valid driver’s license, a four-door vehicle and a smartphone to download the app. Having a knack for navigating around town would also be an extra bonus.

It usually takes about a week to get your application approved, after which you can immediately start on the delivery job. To learn more about how the process works, please read my review on Amazon Flex here.  

Earning a Piece of The Pie

Amazon is a multi-billion company that has cleverly created an intricate system that connects sellers to end-users in the online and offline space. Within this system, anyone can participate and maximize their skills to earn a small piece of the pie from the booming eCommerce industry. There’s room for everyone and from what I’ve just shown, there’s profit to be made everywhere.

I hope this article has triggered your thinking cap in an entrepreneurial way. Let us know which ones interest you the most in the comment space below or get in touch with me through this robust training platform to start making money using Amazon today.