Setting up an Amazon shop starts with creating a seller account, listing your products, and optionally building a branded storefront page. The entire process can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, depending on how quickly Amazon verifies your identity. Here’s what you need at each stage.
Choose Your Selling Plan
Amazon offers two seller plans, and picking the right one upfront saves you money. The Professional plan costs $39.99 per month and gives you access to bulk listing tools, advertising, and the ability to sell in restricted categories. The Individual plan has no monthly fee but charges $0.99 per item sold. If you plan to sell more than 40 items a month, the Professional plan is cheaper. It’s also the only plan that qualifies you for Brand Registry and a custom storefront, so most serious sellers start here.
Documents You’ll Need to Register
Amazon’s verification process is stricter than many new sellers expect. You’ll need to provide government-issued photo ID (passport or driver’s license), a bank account statement or credit card statement, and proof of your business or residential address. All documents must be original, full-page scans or photos. Screenshots, cropped images, expired documents, or files where the name or address doesn’t match across documents will be rejected.
If you’re operating from a virtual office or a address that can’t produce utility bills, a lease agreement, or similar proof of real activity, your verification will likely stall. Make sure your bank statements and ID all show consistent name and address details before you submit anything.
Create Your Seller Central Account
Go to sell.amazon.com and click the signup button. You’ll enter your business name (or your legal name if you’re a sole proprietor), your address, phone number, and tax information. Amazon will send a verification code to your phone, then ask you to upload the identity documents described above.
After submission, Amazon reviews your documents. This can take anywhere from 24 hours to several business days. In some cases, Amazon requests a video call where you hold up your ID and answer basic questions about your business. Once approved, you’ll have access to Seller Central, the dashboard where you manage everything from inventory to customer messages.
List Your First Products
You can list products in two ways. If the item already exists in Amazon’s catalog (someone else sells the same product), you search for the existing listing and add your offer to it with your own price and condition. If your product is new or unique, you create a listing from scratch by entering the product title, description, images, price, and category.
Product images matter more than most sellers realize. Amazon requires a main image with a pure white background showing only the product. You can add up to six additional images showing different angles, packaging, or lifestyle shots. Listings with multiple high-quality images consistently outperform those with just one or two.
You’ll also need a product identifier for most categories. This is typically a UPC barcode, though Amazon also accepts EAN, ISBN (for books), or its own ASIN system for products already in the catalog. If you manufacture your own products and don’t have UPCs, Brand Registry (covered below) can let you use manufacturer barcodes instead.
Decide How to Fulfill Orders
You have two main fulfillment options. With Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you ship your inventory to Amazon’s warehouses and they handle storage, packing, shipping, and customer service. Your products become eligible for Prime shipping, which can significantly boost sales. The tradeoff is additional fees for storage and fulfillment, on top of your referral fees.
With Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM), you store and ship products yourself. This gives you more control over packaging and margins, but you’re responsible for meeting Amazon’s shipping speed and customer service standards. Many sellers start with FBM to keep costs low, then switch to FBA once they have steady sales volume.
Understand the Fee Structure
Beyond your monthly subscription, Amazon charges a referral fee on every sale. This is a percentage of the total price (including shipping charged to the buyer), and it varies by category. Most common categories fall between 8% and 15%. Here’s what that looks like across popular product types:
- Clothing and Accessories: 17% on items priced above $20, with lower rates on cheaper items
- Beauty, Health, and Personal Care: 15% on items over $10, 8% on items $10 and under
- Consumer Electronics and Computers: 8%
- Home and Furniture: 15% on the first $200, dropping to 10% above that
- Jewelry: 20% on the first $250, then 5% above that
- Books, Music, DVD, and Software: 15%
- Grocery and Gourmet: 15% on items over $15, 8% on items $15 and under
Every category also has a minimum referral fee of $0.30 per item (a few categories have no minimum). You pay whichever is greater: the percentage or the minimum. If you use FBA, storage and fulfillment fees are added on top, and those vary by product size and weight.
Enroll in Brand Registry
If you sell your own branded products, enrolling in Amazon Brand Registry unlocks important tools: A+ Content (enhanced product descriptions with images and comparison charts), a custom storefront page, and protections against counterfeit listings. You also get access to Sponsored Brands advertising and the ability to use manufacturer barcodes instead of purchasing UPCs.
To enroll, you need a registered trademark or a pending trademark application. Amazon now accepts pending applications, so you don’t have to wait months for your trademark to fully register before getting started. If you plan to use FBA with manufacturer barcodes rather than Amazon’s own FNSKU labels, Brand Registry enrollment is a requirement.
Build Your Brand Storefront
A Brand Store is a free, multi-page shopping destination on Amazon that showcases only your products. Think of it as your own mini-website within Amazon. It gives customers a place to browse your full catalog, organized however you like, with custom images and brand messaging. You need a Professional selling plan, Brand Registry enrollment, and an Amazon Ads account (free to create) before you can build one.
To start, log into Seller Central, hover over “Stores” in the main menu, and select “Manage Stores.” You’ll be prompted to sign in with your Amazon Ads credentials, then select “Create Brand Store.” From there, the process follows five steps:
- Open the Store Builder: Select your brand name from the list and choose a template or start from a blank layout.
- Design your pages: Add a hero image, brand logo, and organize your pages by product category or collection. You can create multiple pages with their own navigation tabs.
- Add your products: Pull items from your existing catalog into product grids, image tiles, or featured product widgets on each page.
- Test functionality: Preview on both desktop and mobile views, click through every link, and make sure product tiles load correctly.
- Submit for publishing: Hit the “Submit for publishing” button. Amazon reviews your store for compliance, which typically takes a few days.
Once approved, your storefront gets a unique Amazon URL you can share on social media, in email campaigns, or through Sponsored Brands ads that drive traffic directly to your store page.
Set Up Advertising
Organic visibility on Amazon is competitive, so most sellers run Sponsored Products ads from the start. These are pay-per-click ads that appear in search results and on product detail pages. You set a daily budget and bid on keywords related to your products. You only pay when someone clicks.
Start with automatic targeting campaigns, where Amazon chooses which searches to show your ads on based on your product listing. After a week or two of data, review which search terms actually converted into sales, then create manual campaigns targeting those specific keywords. This approach lets you spend efficiently while learning what your customers are actually searching for.
Launch Timeline
Most sellers can go from zero to live listings within one to two weeks. Account verification takes one to five business days if your documents are clean. Creating your first listings can happen the same day you’re approved. If you’re using FBA, shipping inventory to Amazon’s warehouses and having it checked in adds another one to two weeks. Building a Brand Store and getting it approved adds a few more days on top of that, but you can sell through regular listings while your storefront is under review.