02 Nov Amazon Vendor: How to Open an Account

Brands can only open an Amazon Vendor account at the invitation of Amazon, which buys products in bulk from the brand and then sells them directly to end users.

The manufacturer or distributor only publishes their items on the marketplace, without worrying about final prices, logistics or shipping costs.

Although starting to sell on Amazon may seem like a simple task, the truth is that, depending on the type of account you have, it will be more or less complicated to do it successfully. It doesn’t require the same efforts or technical knowledge to sell products to the end customer using the Amazon platform to create a Seller account as it does to sell them directly to Amazon so that it is the company itself, and not the seller, who takes care of the entire process as it happens in Vendor accounts.

The Vendor account modality is aimed at suppliers and manufacturers who do not deal with the end customer, but sell their products wholesale to Amazon so that it is the US company itself that offers them directly to its users using its platform and labeling them as “Sold and fulfilled by Amazon” items.

In this case, the sale is limited to Amazon as a distributor and, automatically, this product becomes Prime with all the benefits that this entails. Therefore, the Vendor does not assume the costs of shipping to the customer, nor does it have to track these same shipments. But, on the other hand, it cannot exercise any kind of control over the sale prices of its products, nor have information on the purchase conditions that are being offered to users. You will also be responsible for the costs of shipping to Amazon’s warehouses and tracking such shipments to the warehouses.

Who can open an Amazon Vendor account?

Not all brands can open an account in this modality. Access to Amazon Vendor Central is limited. It is Amazon itself who selects the sellers who can participate in it through a prior invitation that they can receive via email or phone. Once the terms of the contract have been negotiated between both parties, Jeff Bezos’ company is responsible for opening the account for the country that has been agreed upon and provides access to the control panel for the provider.

Normally, Amazon is interested in sellers who already have a large volume of sales in its Seller mode and offers them to become a Vendor. It also does so with well-known brands, with interesting suppliers that they find through their Seller data or with manufacturers of products for which they are interested in putting their own brand such as Vendor Manufacturer.

Unlike those who open a Seller account, Vendors do not have to pay a fixed monthly fee, they will only have to do so if they want to access certain services such as advance stocks, have premium Analytics reports or create campaigns in AMS or AMG, among others.

Once the Vendor account has been opened, the manufacturer or supplier must publish the products on the platform indicating the transfer price for which they sell each item to Amazon and the recommended price for the final sale to the customer. From that point on, the products will not appear directly active on the platform. An approval period will have to pass, which can last more than 30 days, for Amazon to analyze the demand for each of them and decide to buy them, order them, store them and, finally, sell them at the price stipulated by its sales algorithm.

We’ll tell you the differences between Seller accounts and Vendor accounts on Amazon so you can assess the one that best suits your business.