Many ecommerce sellers expand their operations by listing their products on Amazon, taking advantage of Amazon’s sponsored listings, and becoming an FBA seller.
But there’s one particular opportunity on Amazon many ecommerce sellers aren’t aware of, Amazon Renewed.
Below, we’ll cover what Amazon Renewed is, which products are eligible, and the steps you can take to become a successful Amazon Renewed seller.
Are you interested in growing your Amazon business? Then read on.
What is Amazon Renewed?
Amazon Renewed is Amazon’s program for selling “like new” products. To be eligible for Amazon Renewed, products must fall into one of three categories:
- Refurbished: These products have been used, but the customer returned it because it didn’t work properly or they decided they didn’t want it anymore.
- Pre-owned: Like refurbished products, these products have also been used, but they’re typically returned in better condition than refurbished products are.
- Open-box: These products have been opened and taken out of their packaging, but they were never used by the customer.
Regardless of their condition, all Amazon Renewed products have been inspected, tested, cleaned, and fixed (if needed) so that they are now in a condition to look and work like new.
Amazon Renewed products may have minor physical defects (like a small scratch or dent), and they typically do not come in their original packaging. Other than that, though, you can’t tell the difference between a Renewed product and a brand new one.
Third-party sellers who join the Amazon Renewed program are responsible for professionally inspecting, cleaning, fixing, and repackaging these products before listing them for sale. Amazon itself also sells products through the Renewed program.
Products are backed by an Amazon Renewed Guarantee, a limited warranty which guarantees to the customer that the product should work as expected up to 90 days after purchase; otherwise, the customer is entitled to a free refund or replacement.
What products can you sell on Amazon Renewed?
Amazon Renewed sellers can sell refurbished, pre-owned, and open-box products that look and work “like new” in any of the following categories:
- Automotive Parts
- Cameras
- Headphones & Audio
- Home Appliances
- Home & Industrial Tools
- Kitchen Appliances
- Laptops & Computers
- Musical Instruments
- Outdoors & Sports
- Office Equipment
- Smartphones
- Tablets
- Television Sets
- Video Game Consoles
- Watches
How to sell on Amazon Renewed
Follow these steps to get started selling on Amazon Renewed.
Step 1: Know the requirements
Amazon doesn’t let just anybody sell on Amazon Renewed. You have to apply and be accepted. In order to qualify, you must prove to Amazon that you’re capable of reliably selling refurbished products in “like new” condition. Every Amazon Renewed seller must do three things:
- Provide invoices that you’ve purchased a sufficient number of refurbished items. The invoices must have a total value of $50,000 minimum and be dated sometime within the last 180 days (for products in Home, Home Improvement, Tools, Lawn & Garden, Outdoors, Kitchen, Sports, Toys, or Automotive categories), or 90 days (for all other categories). For sellers who want to sell Apple products, invoices must total $2.5 million minimum. You can black out the unit purchase amount.
- Offer a warranty of 90 days minimum for all of your refurbished products.
- Maintain an order defect rate (ODR) of 0.8% or less in the trailing 90 days (if you’re an existing seller).
If you’d like to sell factory-refurbished items that don’t have a manufacturer warranty, you’ll also need to submit at least 8 images of a sample product for Amazon’s review. The images must show the box it will ship in, inside packaging, and the product from all four sides, top, and bottom.
Step 2: Decide what you’re going to sell
If you’re confident you can meet those requirements, your next step is to determine what you’re going to sell. As an Amazon Renewed seller, you can sell certified refurbished, pre-owned, and open-box products from any of the product categories outlined above.
To increase your profitability, we recommend the following:
- Choose products in high demand, but with low competition. High volume sales can boost your bottom line — especially if you’re not competing against other sellers.
- Avoid products sold by Amazon.
- Keep your pricing competitive. By default, Amazon Renewed products must be discounted at least 5% from the original price. For the best results, you want your pricing to stay within 2% of the current “used” Buy Box price, but at least 20% lower than the “new” price.
Pro Tip: Keep your prices competitive 24/7 with our sister company, Repricer.com by xSellco. It automatically updates your pricing anytime your competitor changes their price or goes out of stock. - Launch your Amazon Renewed account with at least 15 SKUs.
- Use Amazon’s promotion tools, like Sponsored Product ads.
Step 3: Source your products
Once you’ve decided what you’re going to sell, you need to source your products. Amazon Renewed sellers typically have success sourcing their products from liquidation companies, manufacturers, and even Alibaba.
Manufacturers often have excess merchandise they sell to liquidation companies, who then refurbish the products and resell them to other third-party sellers. Manufacturers may also sell their excess or refurbished products directly to resellers.
This is also a good time to develop your inspection process. If you’ll be working with a trusted manufacturer or reseller, you may be able to rely on them to take care of this for you. Otherwise, you’ll need to have a clear step-by-step process for diagnosing functional issues, finding defects and imperfections, and refurbishing as needed.
Step 4: Register as an Amazon seller
In order to sell on Amazon Renewed, you must have a registered seller account on Amazon. If you’re already selling on Amazon, congratulations. You can consider this step complete. Sign in to your Amazon account and proceed to Step 2.
If you’re not, no worries. You can sign up for your Amazon seller account at the same time you complete your Amazon Renewed Application. Amazon will respond to your request within 10 business days.
In the second step of the application, you’ll answer a few more questions, such as whether you’re a retailer or manufacturer. Confirm that you can meet the quality requirements, share your website URL, and describe the brands you’ll be reselling.
In the third step, you’ll upload your product images and invoices.
Finally, you’ll confirm the accuracy of your application and click “Submit application.”
Step 5: Start selling!
Once Amazon approves your application, you can start listing your certified refurbished products on Amazon!
Amazon Renewed offers ecommerce businesses a valuable opportunity to sell more on Amazon. Because they meet Amazon’s strict quality guidelines, customers trust that the products sold through Amazon Renewed are just as legitimate as traditional new products on Amazon. Not only do you get to enjoy the benefits of that strong customer trust, but you also get to use the same powerful selling technology available only on Amazon — including Fulfilment by Amazon.
Get more from your Amazon business with our guides to boosting your review count and increasing your seller rating.
Did you know that over 60% of US online retail purchases were made through Amazon last year? Amazon’s hold over eCommerce is well established, with 9.1 million active Amazon sellers worldwide and an average of 66 thousand orders per day. Newer sellers may be wondering how they can get more sales on Amazon in such a competitive environment.
The truth is, they absolutely can because with Amazon’s booming market share come many opportunities. We’ve assembled this digestible list of 14 quick wins and strategic moves, to help you up your game and sell more on Amazon.
1. Do keyword research
Having the right keywords can be one of the most important tactics in reaching your target audiences. Using the keywords that are common to searches for your products is the objective, but search engine optimisation (SEO) is a constantly evolving game. That means that keywords used successfully in the past may not be as effective with updated search engine algorithms today.
The terms used by customers to find products change daily and are affected by seasonal, cultural, and economic factors. Hence, it’s important to stay on top of the latest SEO trends and make sure you cast a wide net when implementing keywords for each product listing.
Each product should be optimized with as many relevant keywords as possible – into the hundreds! This gives you the best possible chance of getting your products found by customers, helping you sell more on Amazon.
Amazon keyword research tools like Helium 10, SellerApp, Jungle Scout, and AMZ One can help by generating a list of related keywords with search volume, competition level, and other useful metrics, making it easier for you to choose the best keywords for your product listing
2. Use a repricing tool to get more sales on Amazon
When it comes to sealing the deal and making a sale, price is a main deciding factor for many customers. As an Amazon seller, you always want to make sure you’re pricing your products competitively, but equally, you don’t want to lose your margin!
This is something that using repricing software can help with. Repricing software automates the pricing process in real-time, ensuring your prices stay in line with those of competitors, and with market fluctuations, while you get more sales on Amazon.
Repricing software also has many customisable features that allow you to set prices at optimal levels to help drive sales, without compromising profit. It’s worth taking a trial to see how it can help lift your sales.
3. Get more Amazon reviews
Online reviews are important to spread confidence through word of month and for building credibility for your brand. It’s also a fact that 72% of shoppers won’t buy until they’ve read reviews of a product from people like themselves – people they trust.
Even a strong product with great marketing behind it still has to overcome the fear of the unknown if there’s no social proof. Plus, positive reviews are a significant factor in deciding which products win the Amazon Buy Box.
Get more Amazon reviews by encouraging feedback from your customers. The best way to do this is by utilizing feedback software to automate the process.
4. Provide great customer service
Customer service is absolutely essential in eCommerce. Offering top-quality customer service not only adds value, but helps retain customers. A big part of making a sale is assuring the customer that they can trust you to deliver, and that trust is hard earned but easily lost. Providing good eCommerce customer service is critical, and committing to providing great customer service is all the more so!
As an Amazon seller, you need to be on top of your customer service. Responsiveness, a friendly manner and quick and easy resolution processes are all ingredients that make for a winning approach to great customer service.
But it can be confusing trying to streamline it all. Thankfully, there are all sorts of tools available to make this job easier, like helpdesk software to keep all your customer interactions in one place. This helps you to respond quickly and accurately to customer inquiries when they come in, so that your customers always know you’ve got their back.
5. Leverage Amazon seller tools
The best part about being an Amazon seller is that you don’t have to go it alone. There are numerous tools available to help you maximize your business and get the most out of selling on Amazon, whether third-party or FBA.
From repricing tools, to help desk software, to review software and even shipping assistance, many tools exist on the market today that specifically help Amazon sellers optimize their listings, prices, feedback, shipping, customer service and even their taxes.
There are many different seller tools available, so it’s worth reading about options and making an informed decision about the right ones to choose for your business. With the right tools, you can grow your business more than you ever thought possible.
6. Get more sales on Amazon with ads
Running ads is almost guaranteed to help you get more sales on Amazon, but it’s easy to just throw money at them and hope for the best. You can do better! Pay attention to your advertising cost of sales (ACOS) metric, the figure for how much ad spend you need in order to make a sale.
By advertising more efficiently, you lower your ACOS and ensure you get more bang for your buck. Over time, you’ll learn what works and you can employ a strategy with regards to how you run your ads. Taking an insight-driven approach to Amazon ads results in a more profitable Amazon business!
7. Optimise your product pages
The old saying goes that 80% of readers never make it past the headline of any piece of content. That means once you’ve written your product title, you’ve effectively spent 80 cents of your dollar.
When writing product titles, stick to the formula of:
- Brand name
- Product name
- Features (size, colour, gender etc).
This lets you include the right keywords in the right order to immediately tell shoppers that this is the product for them.
Moreover, making sure to visually design your product pages so that they’re clean, simple and easy to read will also help win over shoppers. No one wants to read through a cluttered page. The more straightforward (yet informative) and the cleaner you make your design, the more likely you’ll be to win over those elusive eyeballs!
8. Win the Amazon Buy Box
The quickest way to get more sales on Amazon is by ensuring that your products show up consistently in the Amazon Buy Box (the area in the top right of a product page, where shoppers can ‘Add to Cart’ or ‘Buy Now’). This is because over 82% of sales happen through this highly sought after space.
Although the exact formula to win the Buy Box is unknown, there are a few things that we know are essential. These are mainly metrics that prove the seller is providing a good customer experience. Customer reviews play a big role here. The more positive reviews a seller can amass, the likelihood of winning the Buy Box increases.
In addition to reviews, something else that’s obviously very important to Amazon shoppers is price! By using repricing software, you can automatically set your prices at the optimal level to win the Buy Box and maximize profit, even if you’ve got an enormous inventory.
9. Amazon account health rating
The Amazon account health rating (AHR) is a new feature that helps you monitor your account health based on its adherence to Amazon seller policies.
It considers both negative factors (such as the number of unresolved policy violations on your account) as well as positive factors (how your account positively impacts the customer experience through its selling activities).
Each account will be given a rating, which is regularly reviewed as Amazon monitors the performance of its sellers. If your account is off-target, you will be notified so that you can improve your performance. Conversely, a good AHR rating will work in your favor, helping assure customers that they’re doing business with a compliant seller.
10. Maintain your Amazon SLA
A big part of being a seller is cultivating trust with your customers. That means showing them that you operate in an above-board manner and that you’ll make good on your promise of fulfillment to them. One way of doing that is by making sure your Amazon store has a Service Level Agreement (SLA). This is a promise to your customers that they’ll receive their orders on time. When it comes to fulfillment, the SLA is based on the capacity to fulfill open orders and on-time shipping and delivery.
SLAs help manage customer expectations by defining standards and outlining circumstances under which you as the seller won’t be liable for unfulfilled promises (e.g., natural disasters preventing shipping, etc).
eDesk’s customer service solution is designed to alert you when your SLA is expiring, so your business is never caught without one. Having a current SLA helps you maintain transparency with customers, thereby building trust which helps ensure customer loyalty.
11. Focus on products that already sell
Most ambitious business owners want to try new streams of revenue, but it’s important not to lose sight of the things that are making you money now.
By doubling down on the products that already provide your Amazon store with a reliable revenue stream, you not only deliver to market demand but ensure that you have the financial runway required to take risks on innovative new products, if need be.
Review your financial statements every quarter and look at the items that are performing best in your store. Think about how you can continue to market these with ads, SEO keywords and upgraded images to maximize their selling potential in your online store.
12. Sync your inventory
Inventory can be a delicate balancing act. Hold too much inventory for too long and you need to pay over the odds to store it. But hold too little inventory and you lose out on vital sales, or even customers, due to an inability to fulfill. Amazon can also penalize you if your inventory performance isn’t up to standard.
Stock control is something every seller needs to understand and have the capability to manage for optimal results. Smart inventory management is an under-appreciated way to increase your Amazon sales and profit margin. Fortunately, there are tools that can help. Investing in the right tools and software can help sellers take the stress out of balancing supply and demand.
13. Expand into new Amazon marketplaces
Amazon currently has 20 marketplaces around the world, which include the US, Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, Australia and more.
You can scale your brand by moving into some of these marketplaces. This can involve doing market research to find out which products are popular in each market and then uplevelling your shipping operations in order to be able to ship globally.
But expanding into new markets also means you’ll need to take language into consideration and localize your listings so that they feature each marketplace’s local language and SEO keywords in the appropriate language. Multilingual customer service is also needed in order to be able to service customers across various marketplaces in their local language.
Sounds complicated? It doesn’t have to be. eDesk’s help desk solution is designed to support customer service and workflow in multiple languages, so you can expand your business without investing in the overhead of hiring a global team.
14. Spy on your competitors
Ok, maybe “spy” is a bit of an exaggeration, but profitable sellers are always on the lookout for what their competitors are doing. You want to make sure you’re offering the right inventory for your market at the right prices. Repricing software will monitor this for you, taking the guesswork out of pricing at the right levels.
Using data gleaned from helpdesk reporting can also help you gather valuable insights and feedback from your customers, which will help you to better understand what customers want and need. Acting on analytics-driven insights from easy-to-read reports means you’re always one step ahead of the competition.
Final thoughts
The quest to increase your store’s Amazon sales doesn’t need to be an uphill struggle. There are many resources available to Amazon sellers today to help them optimize their store and develop a healthy sales pipeline.
By staying in touch with how the Amazon platform grows and using the right tech tools to drive your business, you can continue to do what you do best: building a great brand, winning customers, retaining existing customers and improving your bottom line.
