Amazon Seller Central vs Amazon Vendor Central – Basics
While studying Amazon seller central vs Amazon vendor central analytics, you’ll realize that the basic difference between the two is that on seller central you will be selling your products directly to Amazon’s customers. But on vendor central you sell your products directly to Amazon and then they sell the products to their customers for you. As a seller central owner you price, market and sell your products directly to Amazon’s customers. Nowadays many Amazon sellers start their journey from seller central to list their products quickly and start selling immediately. But before boarding onto vendor central make sure your products are well established. You can always go with both options because both seller central and vendor central have their unique benefits which will be discussed in detail –
Amazon Seller Central vs Amazon Vendor Central
With Amazon Seller Central, sellers or brands use a web interface or panel to market and sell their products directly to Amazon’s customers. Those who have a seller account are also known as third party sellers or marketplace sellers on Amazon. The major role of a marketplace seller is to handle orders they get from Amazon’s customers making it a more direct approach. There are two options you get as a market seller to fulfill the orders of the customers. Either you can handle the shipping, customer service, and returns for each individual order yourself or Amazon gives you another option for fulfilling orders that is “Fulfilled by Amazon” or “FBA” program. By enrolling your products into the FBA program, you allow Amazon to handle the orders on behalf of you. If you’re still unclear about FBA program, here’s a blog that cites how you can prepare your products for FBA shipments:
What is Amazon Vendor Central?
The web interface used by manufacturers and distributors is Amazon Vendor Central. The term used for the sellers selling via vendor central is first-party seller. As a first-party seller you sell products in bulk to Amazon. You are a supplier here and Amazon will sell your products to their customers. What’s the key element to running a successful vendor central supply chain? You never let the supplier, or Amazon, come in direct contact with each other and for a task like this, many vendors on Amazon choose to hire virtual assistance.
Pros of Amazon Seller Central
Pricing Decision
As a seller, you can decide at which you want to sell your products and also you can change them anytime as you have full control over pricing. You also get the advantage of staying in the competitive market by automatically matching your competitors pricing.
Activity Analytics
With Seller Central you get access to a large number of consumer data without any cost. If you have a seller account you can access the customers data and use it for other purposes. But make sure that you won’t use that data to outreach Amazon’s customers. You can of course use the analytics to understand the consumer behavior, basically who is buying your products more and from where.
Private Label Branding
This is one of the big advantages of seller central that is taken by many manufacturers. As a retail partner or an unknown third-party seller of a manufacturer you can’t list or sell bundle of older versions of any product. Another parameter of this type of listing is less content and images. So, with Amazon’s brand registry program this type unauthorized listings can be controlled.
Cons of Amazon Seller Central
Higher Costs
If you are a seller and you are selling low-priced items then shipping or fulfillment costs is a barrier in your Amazon selling business. If you have a professional seller account then you have to pay $39.99 per month as Amazon FBA fees and for individual sellers it range from 45 cents to $1.35 per unit.
Lower Conversion
As a third-party seller the most crucial part of your Amazon selling business is to compete with “Ship from and Sold by Amazon.com” products. As a 3P seller you have to offer your products via FBA or “Ship from and Sold by 3P sellers” and with this you can’t outsell the products sold by Amazon. One more disadvantage is that if you are attempting to use Amazon’s Sponsored Products Ad Tool. Your ads won’t appear because this is only for the seller in the buy box.
Pros of Amazon Vendor Central
Ease of Doing Business
Through Vendor Central you can focus more on your Amazon selling business. If you see the business model from the Vendor Central prospective then the process much easier than seller central. The role of a vendor is to fill purchase orders, billing those orders and making sure that there is no penalty charge. But as a seller, you have to take care of the full process from sales to lost inventory and also taxation liabilities.
Marketing Tools
There are many tools that Amazon offers to its vendors like creating enhanced brand content via Amazon A+ Detail Pages. There is another program that you can take part in – Subscribe & Save (Amazon’s subscription service), this is a promotional program offered by Amazon and to boost your sales further you can also opt for Amazon Vine, that invites some of its most trusted reviewers on Amazon to post reviews about new and prior products to help their customers purchase products. If you want more information on how A+ content or EBC works, here’s a detailed analysis on the process:
High Authority
As a first person seller, you sell your products through Vendor Central and that means it will be on shoppers concerned and the label you will get while selling through Vendors Central is tagged as “Sold by Amazon” and it will generate more sales. It is important to understand retail analytics while handling a vendor based account, so read our blog if you want to improve your product listing:
Cons of Amazon Vendor Central
Difficult to Launch New Products
There are so many guidelines you have to follow to complete your purchase orders through Vendor Central. You may get penalties if you break the rigid guidelines given by Amazon for vendor central. There are many penalties vendors are charged with while selling products through vendor central. If you are a vendor and selling through vendor central it will be difficult for you to launch new products. As Amazon don’t prefer products with no sales history. Amazon don’t get any commission when they buy products from you so it is hard to sell or launch new products through Vendor Central. This is because Amazon is unsure about the sales performance of the product and if the product is right for the target market or not.
What If I Want My Vendor Central Account Managed Efficiently?
Are you new to Amazon and confused about becoming either a seller or a vendor? Or are you a well-established Amazon seller and want to expand your business further into vendor central? If you’re unsure about joining the Vendor Central bandwagon because you’re clueless about maintaining the account then you’re not alone! Vendor Central is a goldmine, but to establish your e-commerce business you can hire efficient VA services to help you manage your brand and enhance your Amazon store by providing various services – right from product research to PPC analytical reports. Read more if you want to understand the efficiency of amazon human resources for managing your vendor account on Amazon –
Outsource Your Amazon Vendor Central Account – Manage It Effectively
Fab On Go’s amazon human resources for your Amazon marketplace have been structured to provide instant business value, on a single platform just so that you can enhance your brand’s digital footprint worldwide. Being a multi-skilled resource, our Amazon Human resources can efficiently handle different aspects of your store, provide current analytical feedback for your product listings and correspond in a smart way to boost positive feedback from your customers.
Want to know more about our services? Request a free consult this instant to avail our consultation or subscribe to our mailing list to get instant updates for Amazon seller/vendor central based tasks.
If you need any professional help for your Amazon store management, get in touch with us at amz@fabongo.com.
Fabongo is a Vancouver, British Columbia based agency providing human resources to manage all things Amazon marketplace.