Your Complete Guide to Amazon Seller Central

 

When you first get accepted to Amazon Handmade, create your account and log into Seller Central, your first reaction is likely, “What the heck!?” Amazon Seller Central can be overwhelming, especially since there are always multiple ways to get to the same spot. I thought it might help new sellers have a complete guide to Amazon Seller Central to help you navigate around and find what you need.

Both handmade and marketplace sellers have the same Seller Central, so certain areas and sections don't apply if you are only selling within the Handmade category.

Don’t get overwhelmed, I’m here to help!

If you want to set up a walkthrough coaching or mentoring call for even more guidance, reach out to check my current availability!

 

Your Seller Central Dashboard

When you first sign in, it’s important to make sure you see the handmade widget on your dashboard. There is an error where sometimes it doesn’t correctly connect your account to handmade. If you don’t see this banner, open a case with Amazon Support so that you can list items in the handmade category and won’t be charged the $39.99 monthly selling fee (which is currently waived for handmade sellers).

Other Dashboard Widgets

The widgets on the Seller Central dashboard are easily accessible areas with some of the most critical information you need to know about your account.

 

Your Orders

This widget will quickly show you if you have pending orders, unshipped orders, or return requests to action.

 

Seller Forums

Handmade has it's own private forum section on the seller forum, which is great and be helpful if you need any help or have questions. It isn't always the friendliest of places, though. If you want somewhere a little kinder to help you grow your business, I can't recommend Flourish at Artisan Indie enough!

 

News Widget

Any relevant information or news releases from Amazon should be sent to you via email. Still, they are also shown here for your convenience. Or, in case you didn't receive a particular email!

 

Payments Summary Widget

Shows your current payment account balance, plus the amount for your last deposit. You can click on these numbers to go to your Payment Reports page, too.

 

Manage Your Case Log Widget

If you have any open cases with Amazon Seller Support, they should be accessible from this widget on the dashboard.

 

Sales Summary Widget

A sales support widget showing your sales for today, the last 7 days, the last 15 days, and the last 30 days.

 

Inventory Planning Widget

If you choose to do FBA, this widget shows you a summary of your current inventory at the warehouses and your inventory performance.

 

List Globally Widget

Not applicable to the handmade category, as that category isn’t eligible for Global Exports via FBA.

 

Catalog Menu

The catalog menu has three options - Add Products, Complete Your Drafts and View Selling Applications. You can add products from this menu or the Inventory menu. The selling applications page is if you’ve applied to a category on the marketplace side that requires approval, this page isn’t going to be useful for most handmade sellers.

 

Inventory Menu

• Manage Inventory - a look at all of your listings currently on Amazon. From here, you can edit listings, change the quantity, pricing, and more.
• Manage FBA Inventory - an overview of all of your inventory in the Amazon warehouses, if you are doing FBA (fulfillment by Amazon).
• Inventory Planning - Applies to those doing FBA. If you want to see how your FBA inventory is performing and what you need to send more of, this page is helpful.
• Add a Product - add a new listing
• Add Products via Upload - an option to upload products via spreadsheet. Still, everyone I've spoken with has found this method to be actually more time consuming than duplicating listings and creating new ones from the duplicate.
• Inventory Reports - download a report of your current listings
• Sell Globally - not applicable for handmade
• Manage FBA Shipments - on this screen you can manage or review any FBA shipments you have sent into the warehouse or are preparing to send
• Upload & Manage Videos - not applicable for most handmade sellers, the option is only available if you are brand registered on Amazon

 

Pricing Menu

We are the owners of our handmade listings, so this entire menu can pretty much be ignored by handmade sellers.

 

Orders Menu

• Manage Orders - see all of your pending, shipping or ready to ship orders that have been placed
• Order Reports - download a report of your list of orders
• Upload Order Related Files - not applicable for handmade
• Manage Returns - approve, deny or review any return requests for orders that you fulfilled yourself
• Manage SAFE-T Claims - isn’t likely to apply to handmade sellers

 

Advertising Menu

The most important links under the advertising menu are:

• Campaign Manager - this is where you create, monitor and tweak your Amazon Sponsored Ad advertising campaigns
• Deals - if any of your items are eligible for a deal, you can set it up here at a fee
• Coupons - if you want to run and activate a coupon that customers can clip for your items
• Promotions - for other types of sales events you might want to run

 

Stores Menu

Not applicable to handmade, will only be visible if you have brand registry on Amazon.

 

Reports Menu

The reports menu is a treasure trove full of useful and helpful information!

The most important ones are:

• Payments - this takes you to your payment account information
• Business Reports - check your views, sales overview numbers, etc.
• Fulfillment - There are dozens of fulfillment by Amazon reports if you are doing FBA
• Tax Document Library - your sales tax information is all in here

 

Performance Menu

Amazon takes seller performance VERY seriously, as should you!

• Account Health - this menu option has tons of other options inside to review all your seller performance metrics and make sure you aren’t running any risk of losing your account. As a new seller, you definitely want to familiarize yourself with all the metrics Amazon looks at.
• Feedback - this is where you can review any seller feedback that a customer has left for their order

 

Apps & Services Menu

Not currently applicable to Handmade.

 

B2B Menu

Not currently applicable to Handmade and will only show up if you register as a B2B seller (business to business).

 

The Top Navigation Bar

On the top navigation bar, we have multiple dropdown menu categories and options. Over to the right-hand side is a dropdown to switch between Amazon.com (US), Amazon.ca (Canada), and Amazon.mx (Mexico). You don't need to sell on the other marketplaces (and if you do, there are specific additional requirements for each country you would need to know). Still, those 3 countries are connected in the same dashboard, which is why the option is shown to switch between them easily.

 

To the far right is the Settings menu, this is especially important for setting up certain areas:

 

• Account Info
• Notification Preferences
• Login Settings
• Return Settings
• Gift Options
• Shipping Settings
• Tax Settings
• User Permissions
• Your Info & Policies
• Fulfillment by Amazon
• Artisan Profile

 

I know, it’s still overwhelming, but hopefully, this overview has made it seem a little less scary! My best advice: get inside Seller Central and spend several hours or days clicking around and reviewing the wealth of information in there to make sure you understand where things are.

Then:

1. Set up your Account Info, Shipping Settings, Tax Settings
2. Set up your Artisan Profile
3. Start Listing Items from your Manage Inventory Page

 

You got this!