Ecommerce
What new Amazon sellers wish they knew before their first sale
Chris Turton explains why Amazon rewards patience, accurate costs and a calm approach to strict rules, and why sellers who expect quick profit tend to get burned.
Top 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Selling On Amazon
Video from Ecommerce Intelligence.
Generated from the canonical interview transcript and validated against source data by Guests on Air.
What should new sellers know before they start selling on Amazon?
New Amazon sellers should know that every seller of a product shares one listing and competes for the buy box, that seller support is slow and the rules are strict, that referral fees usually run near 15 percent, and that a product typically needs three to six months and well built advertising before it moves.
Plenty of businesses arrive on Amazon after success on their own website or on eBay, and they assume the same habits will carry over. Chris Turton, who runs an Amazon agency that works with large brands, says the marketplace behaves very differently, and that the gap catches out new sellers more often than any single tactic does.
In the opening video of an Amazon training programme, Chris Turton sets out the things that would have helped most before starting to sell and work with clients on the platform. The list is practical rather than theoretical, drawn from the questions sellers bring to the agency every day and from the problems that keep repeating across accounts.
The common thread is expectation. Sellers who understand how listings, support, rules and costs actually work can plan for them. Sellers who expect fast profit tend to underprice, overspend on advertising and give up early. The lessons below are about building a business that can survive the first few months on Amazon.
Key takeaways
- Amazon shows one listing per barcode, so every seller of a product competes on the same page for the buy box.
- Seller support is slow and inconsistent, so experienced sellers prepare templates and evidence before they ever open a ticket.
- Referral fees usually sit near 15 percent, and sellers who skip a full cost model often cannot match competitors on price.
- Most products need three to six months and well structured advertising before they start to move on Amazon.
1. One listing, one buy box
The first difference Chris Turton points to is how products are listed. On eBay, every seller can create a separate listing for the same item, so a single pack of playing cards might appear hundreds of times. Amazon shows one product per barcode, and every business selling that product sits inside the same listing page.
That structure turns the listing into a contest for the buy box, the panel with the add to cart and buy now buttons. Whichever seller holds it receives the order when a shopper clicks. Other offers sit further down the page, sometimes at a lower price, which shows that winning the box is not decided by price alone.
Amazon weighs several factors when it decides who gets the buy box, including the size of the business, its sales volume on Amazon and its price. Prime eligibility matters too. Turton notes that a large share of Amazon shoppers are Prime members who expect fast delivery, so getting products onto Prime is one of the most important early steps.
2. Slow support and strict rules
The second lesson concerns support. Turton says the seller support system is under heavy pressure, and answers depend on who picks up the case. Sellers can wait a long time and still be asked for details they have already supplied. Even a large agency with major clients has to work through the same channels as a first time seller.
The workaround is preparation. Turton's team anticipates what support will ask for, such as proof from the manufacturer before a product title can change, and keeps templates ready so each request goes in complete. It takes experience, but it shortens the back and forth and gives a better chance of a useful answer the first time.
Amazon's rules are also stricter than many sellers expect. Accounts can be suspended, and some never come back. Turton recalls a very large seller losing thousands of euros a day while a suspension dragged on for over a week. Customer claims usually go the buyer's way too, so sellers should accept some losses and build a returns rate into their model.
3. The real costs and the time it takes
Many sellers never set up their fees correctly, and Turton hears the same complaint again and again: a competitor sells far cheaper, yet the seller believes it already has the best supplier prices. Once the costs are traced back properly, the missing items usually appear. That is why Turton prefers to track margin rather than a loose idea of profit.
Amazon typically takes a referral fee of 10 to 15 percent in each category, and in practice most categories sit at the higher end. Amazon also holds back some funds as a buffer against returns, and fulfilment costs differ depending on whether products ship from the seller's own warehouse, a third party logistics provider or Fulfilled by Amazon.
Advertising adds another layer. Turton says a good return from day one is very unlikely, because campaigns take time to refine and need to be structured and built correctly. Depending on the product, it can take three to six months to get it moving. Sellers who expect quick profit tend to give up just as the account starts to learn.
