How to Navigate Amazon Seller Central
Learning how to use Amazon seller central as your “command center” for every sale is essential for success as a seller on Amazon. Right from the start, your Amazon seller dashboard plays the most crucial role in how you manage your Amazon store.
Setting Up Your Amazon Seller Dashboard
When you sign up for an Amazon seller account, your Amazon Seller Dashboard must be properly set up to avoid any future issues. First of all, how do you want to make money selling on Amazon? There are options here: some merchants sell products in bulk to Amazon to sell themselves, but this option is invitation-only. Most Amazon sellers are third party sellers, which means they sell products through Amazon.com. Unless you’re already a major retailer, selling through Amazon instead of directly to them is likely your best option.
Once you’re set up with Amazon seller central, you’ll see something like this:
It may seem confusing for Amazon beginners, but seller central is where you can track every aspect of your Amazon business. In fact, paying close attention to your Amazon seller dashboard is one of the key methods in avoiding Amazon seller suspensions.
Buyer Messages. Naturally, you won’t agree with (or even want to deal with) every customer who buys something from your Amazon store. But monitoring your messages through seller dashboard is essential – if you respond too late, your customer metrics will suffer. Amazon places the most value on customer satisfaction, so if you handle this aspect flawlessly, you will see far fewer issues with your account.
Reports. Use Amazon seller dashboard to download reports on your inventory, messages, complaints, return requests, violations and much more. Utilizing this data to your advantage is how the top sellers manage to stay at the top – Amazon seller central provides opportunities for you to find where you can improve and ultimately make more money.
Performance. This is where you’ll go to check on your metrics – basically, how successful your Amazon store is according to their policies. Beware of any metrics that do not meet the minimum standards set forth by Amazon. If you let these slide, a suspension is quite likely in the near future.