10 May Amazon Handmade: What You Need to Know to Sell Handmade Products

• This program is designed for those sellers who make items in an artisanal way
• Both sellers and products must meet a number of requirements to be eligible and benefit from the benefits offered by Amazon

The emergence of e-commerce brought about a change in manufacturing and sales processes that, despite the fact that they had been mechanized and professionalized, were still similar to those that had been carried out for a long time. But with the emergence of digital marketplaces such as Amazon, many manufacturers and producers who had resisted industrialization found themselves sidelined from the market.

These merchants, closer to being artists than to being sellers, generally have exclusive, unique items, made with quality raw materials and with original designs. For this reason, Amazon has decided to create a program where they can advertise and put their products on sale, accompanied by a series of advantages according to their production needs.

Below, we explain what this program consists of and all its ins and outs so that you can be part of it if it fits your needs.

Requirements that the seller must meet

The first requirement to be part of the Handmade program is to have an active Amazon account and have contracted the professional selling plan. Once this is completed, you must make a request in which you have to attach details of the production process along with images of the work where the name and/or logo of the company can be appreciated.

Any independent artisan working alone or with a group of up to 20 friends, family, or employees can join this program. This can also be done by collaborative groups of people, such as cooperatives, non-governmental organizations or social enterprises. In these cases, it will be essential to provide a link to a virtual source that contains information about the organization.

Advantages of Handmade

First of all, Amazon makes available to its artisans an audit system to control the authenticity of the production process. In this way, both sellers and Amazon ensure that everything sold there has been made in an artisanal way, eliminating possible false competitors.

Secondly, the e-commerce giant will not apply the monthly fee related to the professional sales plan, which has a cost of €39, so the artisan will only pay the corresponding fee for each product sold. In addition, this fee is also reduced compared to the rest of Amazon’s products and stands, at the time of writing this post, at 12.36% per unit sold.

Finally, this program also offers the possibility for each artisan to generate a personalized profile where they can publish all their products.

Product Requirements

The main characteristic that all products must have is that they cannot have been manufactured by any method of mass production. Despite this, the use of hand tools and light machinery is allowed, as long as the work is carried out by a craftsman or by a group of people of less than 20 people, as indicated above.

On the other hand, it is possible to sell prefabricated and manually altered products, that is, those basic products that have been modified to add value, such as, for example, making personalized mugs or t-shirts.

Both recycling and the use of second-hand products are also allowed, as long as their value is increased through the use of filters or upgrades. Such a case would be restoring and painting a second-hand table.

Finally, it is also allowed to reuse products for a completely new use, such as making a bowl from a vinyl record or a jewelry box from an old book.