Selling on Amazon is simple to start but not easy to do profitably. Anyone with a government-issued ID, a bank account, and a credit card can open a seller account in a day or two. The hard part comes after: sourcing products that actually sell, navigating Amazon’s fee structure without eroding your margins, and keeping your account in good standing under strict performance rules. Here’s what the process really looks like so you can decide whether it’s worth your time.
Getting Started Is Straightforward
Opening an Amazon seller account is one of the easiest parts of the entire process. You need a government-issued ID (like a passport), an email address, an internationally chargeable credit card, a bank account with a routing number, and your tax information. Amazon also requires proof of your residential address from the last 180 days, such as a bank or credit card statement.
After you submit your information, Amazon verifies your identity. You’ll either take a photo of your face alongside your ID or join a video call with an Amazon associate who checks your documents live. Most sellers get through this in a few days. A Professional selling account costs $39.99 per month plus selling fees, which is the plan most serious sellers choose because it unlocks advertising tools, bulk listing features, and eligibility for the Buy Box.
So yes, the barrier to entry is low. That’s actually part of the challenge: millions of other sellers face the same low barrier, which means competition is fierce from day one.
Fees Add Up Faster Than You’d Expect
New sellers often underestimate how many layers of fees Amazon charges. Beyond the monthly subscription, you’ll pay a referral fee on every sale, which is a percentage of the sale price that varies by category (commonly 8% to 15%). If you use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you also pay per-unit fulfillment fees and monthly storage fees.
FBA fulfillment fees for standard-size products range roughly from a few dollars per unit for small, light items to significantly more for larger ones. In 2026, Amazon raised FBA fees by an average of $0.08 per unit. For standard-size products priced between $10 and $50, small items saw a $0.25 per-unit increase while large items went up about $0.05. Products priced above $50 saw steeper increases.
Storage fees matter too, especially if your inventory sits in Amazon’s warehouses for months. Monthly storage runs around $0.48 to $0.57 per cubic foot depending on the warehouse region. Let inventory age past 12 months and you’ll face surcharges of $0.30 per unit per month (or $6.90 per cubic foot, whichever is greater). Past 15 months, that climbs to $0.35 per unit or $7.90 per cubic foot. If you pick the wrong product and it doesn’t sell quickly, storage fees can quietly destroy your profit margin.
On top of all this, most sellers spend on Amazon’s pay-per-click advertising to get visibility. Without ads, new listings tend to sit on page five of search results where almost nobody looks.
Choosing a Fulfillment Model Shapes Your Workload
How you fulfill orders determines how much daily work selling on Amazon requires. You have two main options.
With Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you ship your inventory to Amazon’s warehouses and they handle storage, packing, shipping, customer service, and returns. This is the closest thing to “passive” selling on the platform, but it comes with trade-offs. You lose control over packaging (Amazon uses its own standardized boxes), you can’t customize the customer experience, and Amazon decides whether to accept returns even when the buyer clearly damaged the product. You’re also at the mercy of Amazon’s storage fees and inventory limits.
With Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM), you store and ship products yourself. You handle customer service emails, process returns on your own terms, and can use custom branded packaging. The upside is more control and potentially lower costs if you already have warehouse space. The downside is real, hands-on work: packing orders, printing shipping labels, answering customer questions, and managing your own inventory. For someone hoping to run a low-effort side business, FBM can quickly feel like a part-time job.
Most new sellers start with FBA because it removes the logistics burden, but the fees eat into margins on low-priced products. The math only works if your product has enough markup to absorb referral fees, fulfillment fees, storage costs, and advertising spend while still leaving you a profit.
Finding a Profitable Product Is the Hardest Part
The single biggest challenge for new Amazon sellers isn’t setting up an account or learning the platform. It’s finding a product that people want, that you can source cheaply enough, and that isn’t already dominated by established sellers or Amazon itself. This product research phase is where most aspiring sellers either stall out or make expensive mistakes.
Some categories are “gated,” meaning Amazon requires approval before you can list products in them. To get ungated, you typically need to purchase inventory from an authorized wholesaler or directly from the brand and submit invoices proving the purchase. For well-known brands like Nike, you may need to buy at least 10 units from an authorized supplier and provide documentation. Other restricted brands may require written permission from the brand owner. You can check whether a brand is gated by using the “Add Product” option in Seller Central or the Amazon Seller App.
Even in open categories, competition is intense. Private label sellers (who create their own branded products, often manufactured overseas) face the challenge of differentiating a product that dozens of other sellers are already offering. Retail arbitrage sellers (who buy discounted products from stores and resell them on Amazon) face thin margins and difficulty scaling. Wholesale sellers need relationships with distributors and enough capital to buy in bulk.
Amazon’s Rules Are Strict and Enforcement Is Swift
Amazon can suspend your selling account for a long list of reasons, and reinstatement is never guaranteed. Common triggers include selling counterfeit or inauthentic products, failing to fulfill orders on time, providing invalid tracking numbers, and shipping late. Policy violations like compensating buyers for reviews, offering deep discounts to stimulate fake sales velocity, or trying to redirect customers to your own website will also get you suspended.
You’re only allowed one selling account. If your account gets suspended and you can’t get it reinstated, you’re permanently banned from selling on the platform. Opening a second account to get around a suspension is itself a violation.
Amazon monitors performance metrics closely. If your order defect rate, late shipment rate, or cancellation rate exceeds their thresholds, your account health score drops and suspension becomes a real risk. For new sellers who are still learning the ropes, a few mistakes early on can snowball into account-level problems that are difficult to reverse.
What “Easy” Actually Looks Like
If your definition of easy is “I can start selling products online this week,” then yes, Amazon makes that possible. The infrastructure is built for you: a massive customer base, a trusted checkout process, and (with FBA) a complete logistics network you can plug into.
If your definition of easy is “I can earn consistent profit without much effort or risk,” the answer is no. You’ll spend weeks or months researching products before you list anything. You’ll need capital upfront for inventory, and you may not see a return for several months. You’ll compete with sellers who have years of experience, established supplier relationships, and bigger advertising budgets. And you’ll operate on a platform where the rules can change, fees can increase, and your account can be suspended with little warning.
Plenty of people build real businesses on Amazon, but nearly all of them describe the early months as a steep learning curve. The sellers who succeed typically treat it as a real business from the start, with careful product research, realistic margin calculations that account for every fee, and enough working capital to weather slow months while they build momentum.