The Ultimate 2024 Guide to Selling on Amazon UK

Amazon is the world’s most popular online marketplace, and the UK is one of its most profitable markets. With this in mind, many want to become Amazon sellers—in this guide, we’ll explain how to sell on Amazon UK, why you should do it, and give you some tips and tricks to help you increase your sales. Pay attention!

Why Sell on Amazon UK?

When you become an Amazon selling partner, you establish a presence in the largest online marketplace, joining millions of other businesses, emerging brands, and independent vendors. Moreover, you market your products to millions of customers shopping on Amazon on a daily basis, ensuring great product visibility.

Amazon sellers can build their brands on the platform, as the Brand Registry provides tools for growing and personalising your brand. You can also trademark a brand and protect intellectual property, but you’ll need to pay Amazon seller fees to the UK platform.

But better yet, by selling on this platform, sellers can increase their market share, as the UK marketplace isn’t the only one where their products will be sold. All European markets are unified on Amazon, meaning that besides the UK, you can sell your products in four other European markets.

How To Sell on Amazon UK: The Ultimate Guide

Now that you’ve seen what some of the benefits of selling your products on Amazon are, you may want to know how to get started on the road to becoming a selling partner and establishing a passive income stream.

To make your life easier, we compiled a step-by-step guide for becoming a seller on Amazon in the UK marketplace. Continue reading and make sure you follow the steps!

Decide What To Sell

Brand owners don’t have to ponder over this, as it’s only normal that they sell their own products or branded products manufactured by third parties, which is known as private labelling.

However, even if you’re not a brand owner, you still have a chance of becoming an Amazon seller in the UK. You can opt for white labelling—selling generic products under a brand name—and look into some of the best items you can buy and sell for profit. On the other hand, you can also start dropshipping—receiving orders and then outsourcing them to a third party that fulfils them.

Register at Amazon

Before becoming a seller, you must register at Amazon, for which you’ll need a business email address, chargeable credit card, valid ID or passport, and company registration details, including a VAT number. Make sure you abide by the legal obligations in every country you sell in—this might mean you’ve registered for a VAT number in each country where you sell your products and you’re responsible for paying taxes in each country.

Price Your Products

Before you start worrying about Amazon selling fees in the UK, you should price your products before they become widely available on the market. When determining the price, you need to consider several things—the demand for the product, the competition and competitive prices, the expenses and fees you’re eligible for, and the state of the market you’re selling in.

Choose a Selling Plan

When you become an Amazon seller, you need to choose a selling plan. Depending on how much they plan on selling, sellers can choose either the Individual Plan or the Professional Plan.

Individual Plan

The Individual Plan is best suited for entrepreneurs who estimate they’ll be selling less than 35 items per month or are still deciding on their products. This plan doesn’t have any advanced selling tools or programmes, so it’s suitable for beginners. If you opt for this plan, you need to learn what is the Amazon referral fee, which we’ll talk more about later.

Professional Plan

The Professional Plan, on the other hand, is better suited for those selling more than 35 items who need access to APIs, selling reports and selling programmes. However, you can switch plans at any time if you feel the plan you’ve chosen doesn’t suit your business’ needs.

Choose a Fulfilment Method

Choosing a fulfilment method is an essential step in the process of becoming an Amazon selling partner. In essence, this means choosing who delivers your products to the buyers. You can choose between two methods—Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) and merchant fulfilment, i.e., fulfilling your own orders.

Fulfilment by Amazon

If you choose Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA), the company will be responsible for storing, packaging, labelling, and shipping your products. If you’re selling on Amazon UK and wondering what method to choose, FBA can be quite cost-effective, and you’ll get to use Amazon’s customer service and return policy.

But better yet, when you choose FBA, your products are stored in one of Amazon’s fulfilment centres, and they can be shipped out to all the other European markets.

Merchant Fulfilment

The second option you have is merchant fulfilment, meaning you’ll be responsible for packing, labelling, and shipping your products, as well as maintaining inventory. Amazon will determine the shipping rate based on the product category and the shipping service the customer selects and notify you of it so you can go ahead and ship the order to your customer.

Listing the Product

If you’re becoming an Amazon seller on the UK market, you need to learn about listing your products. For each product, you need to create a product listing—if someone else is selling the same product, you can match an existing listing, but if you’re the only one selling the product, you’ll need to create a new listing.

Product Listing Components

Each item should have a product ID, i.e. a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN)—you may have seen this listed as UPC, ISBN, or EAN—which is used to identify each product. If you want to sell a completely new product on Amazon, you’ll either need to purchase a UPC code or request an exemption.

In addition to this, every item sold on Amazon should have a product title and description, images of the product, but also relevant keywords and search terms.

Accessing Seller Central

When you start to sell on Amazon UK, you gain access to Seller Central, which is a portal where you can manage your seller account, list your products and add product information, make inventory updates, keep track of sales, and manage payments. There’s also plenty of content that can help you lead a successful Amazon business.

Get the Amazon Seller App

Amazon has designed a mobile app specifically for sellers. The Amazon Seller App allows you to fulfil and track orders, discover new products for sale, edit product images, create new product listings on your phone, and answer customer questions.

Key Takeaways

How Much Does It Cost To Sell on Amazon UK?

Now that you’re familiar with the process of becoming an Amazon selling partner, you may be interested in what the costs of selling on the online marketplace are. Although this is one of the most cost-effective side hustles on the UK market, you’ll still have some expenses.

Depending on what and how much you’re selling, you’ll be responsible for several different fees.

Subscription Fees

We already mentioned each seller needs to choose a selling plan, i.e. a subscription. The Individual Plan will cost you £0.75 per item sold, while the Professional Plan costs £25 per month— VAT excluded—regardless of how many items you sell.

Selling Fees

The selling fee is charged per item sold—this includes the referral fee and the variable closing fee. So, what is the Amazon referral fee and what is the variable closing fee?

The referral fee is a percentage of the selling price, and although it varies depending on product category, most fees are between 8% and 15%. The variable closing fee applies to media categories only, and as its name suggests, it varies as well.

Fulfilment Fees

The fulfilment fee depends on whether you’ve chosen merchant fulfilment or FBA.

If you’ve opted to fulfil your own orders, Amazon will determine the shipping rate based on the product category, shipping address, and the shipping service the customer selected, and pass this amount on to the merchant in the form of shipping credit.

For those that have chosen FBA, Amazon will charge a flat fulfilment fee determined by the product type, dimensions, and weight. In addition to this, sellers also need to pay a storage fee, which is charged per cubic foot per month.

Conversion Fees

Besides the Amazon selling fees for the UK, sellers who offer international deliveries and are paid in foreign currency are responsible for paying a currency conversion fee to Amazon. However, the seller can avoid paying this fee by using borderless accounts that allow them to hold different currencies in their account.

Selling on Amazon UK: DOs and DON’Ts

We already provided you with the essential information on creating your Amazon seller account and all the costs you’re eligible for when you become an Amazon partner.

However, before we wrap up this guide, we wanted to give you an insight into some of Amazon’s best practices. Below, you can find out what to do (and what not to do) when you start selling your products on Amazon.

Amazon Seller DOs

When you become an Amazon seller, you should:

• Upload clear product images – The photos of the product should be high-quality and clearly show the product from all angles.
• Optimise your content – The product description should contain relevant keywords to help your product rank higher than other similar products.
• Use bulleted points – It’s a good idea to list the product’s features in separate bullet points, so customers get a clearer overview.
• Encourage customer reviews – Many buyers rely on reviews by people who’ve bought the product, so encourage your existing customers to leave reviews.
• Provide ‘Deals’ – Make sure to provide ‘Deals’ and discounted prices on your products from time to time. Forget the Amazon seller fees for the UK and other expenses— you’ll attract more customers by providing deals!

Amazon Seller DON’Ts

If you’re an Amazon selling partner, you shouldn’t:

• Add text to the images – The images displayed on Amazon listings are small, so text will appear blurry and difficult to read.
• Include a website URL – Even if you have a website where you’re selling your products, you don’t want to refer your Amazon buyers to a third-party platform.
• Break policy rules – Regardless of the circumstances, make sure you don’t break the Amazon policy rules.
• Offer low-quality products – This should go without saying, but we need to emphasise it—if you offer low-quality products, you have no chance of success.

Equipped with knowledge on what to do and what to avoid doing, you can start your Amazon seller journey. And remember, the first three months are crucial—pay special attention to your account up to the three-month mark, and soon you’ll start to earn money online!

Final Words

Amazon UK is a vast online marketplace where anyone can become a seller and run a successful business. After reading this guide, you know what you need to do to register as an Amazon seller and how much does it cost to sell on Amazon UK.

Equipped with this knowledge and our tips on what to do and what not do, you can go ahead and create a successful Amazon UK seller account!