How to sell on Amazon in 2026 – a beginner’s guide

Registration itself only takes a few days. The real work starts afterwards. You need to create listings that persuade customers to try a brand they don’t know, choose the right logistics and get your VAT in order. That last point deserves particular attention, because Amazon is stricter about paperwork than most platforms.

In this guide, we take you through every step of getting started. Along the way, we work out the profit on a specific product and show you the pitfalls that most often catch out manufacturers starting on Amazon.

How to sell on Amazon: 7 rules for getting started

This list brings together the key decisions you will face in your first few months. We cover each of them in more detail later in the article.

1. Open your account via sell.amazon.pl, even if you mainly want to sell in Germany. It is the only way to qualify for the new seller incentives, including six months without a subscription fee.
2. Calculate your margin on the net price. Amazon charges its referral fee on the VAT-inclusive price, but what you keep is the amount excluding tax. On a product priced at 29.99 EUR with 19% VAT, that is a difference of almost 5 EUR per unit.
3. Prepare your listings before you register. Once your account is set up, you have 60 days to list your first product, and verification and paperwork can take up a good part of that time.
4. Start where the demand is. You open your account via Amazon.pl, but you can list your products in several of Amazon’s European stores, so demand for your product should decide which market you start in.
5. Only send proven products to Amazon’s warehouses. Stock that sits in FBA for months costs more than it earns.
6. Get your listing right before you pay for advertising. A click on a detail page without variations, good images or keywords costs just as much, but rarely ends in a purchase.
7. Sort out the paperwork before your first shipment. Without a VAT number in the country where your stock is stored, the information required under the GPSR and a packaging registration (such as LUCID in Germany), Amazon will block your listings.

How does selling on Amazon work?

Amazon sellers set their own prices and manage their listings in Seller Central, while Amazon charges a referral fee on every sale.

The biggest difference compared with eBay or your own online shop is the way product pages work. Each product has just one detail page in Amazon’s catalogue, identified by its ASIN, so everyone who sells it attaches their offer, with their own price and delivery terms, to that same page.

When several sellers offer the same product, they compete for the Buy Box, the spot next to the ‘Add to Basket’ button. It usually goes to the seller with a good price, fast delivery and a healthy account. Manufacturers with their own brand have an advantage here: once their brand is enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, they control the content of their detail pages and can use enhanced A+ Content and a Brand Store.

A single account is enough to sell in all of Amazon’s European stores, including Amazon.pl, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, Amazon.es and Amazon.nl. Your business is verified once, and you add listings for further marketplaces from the same dashboard.

There is also a second way of working with Amazon: Vendor Central. Here, Amazon buys your goods wholesale and sets the retail price itself. This guide covers the Seller model, in which you decide on prices, listings and advertising.

Can you sell on Amazon without a registered business?

Technically, yes: Amazon allows private individuals to register. However, regular selling with a view to making a profit usually counts as a business activity, which has to be registered under the law of the country where you live. Before you start selling without a business, check whether the rules in your country provide for a threshold or simplified arrangements for small-scale, occasional sales.

These thresholds are usually reached sooner than you might think, because they are based on your total revenue, not your profit. You also need to bear in mind the DAC7 directive. Under it, Amazon passes seller details on to the tax authorities once a seller has at least 30 transactions or more than 2,000 EUR in sales in a year.

Without a business, you can test a few products at most. What you cannot do this way is build sales from Amazon warehouses in other countries. The reason is simple: as soon as your stock arrives at a warehouse in another country, you need a local VAT number there. The rest of this guide therefore assumes that you are selling as a business.

How do you set up an Amazon seller account?

You open a seller account at sell.amazon.pl. The form has six steps, from your business details to identity verification. If you have your documents to hand, you can complete it in an afternoon. Then comes verification, which according to Amazon usually takes up to three working days, unless additional documents are required.

Verification is most often delayed by discrepancies, such as a business name that does not match the register or an address on your bank statement that differs from the one in the form.

Verification is most often held up by small details. Above all, your business name must appear exactly as it does in the register. The address on your bank statement should also match the one in the form. The person opening the account must be listed in the business register or hold a power of attorney. We walk through the whole process step by step, with screenshots, in our guide to setting up an Amazon seller account.

How much does it cost to sell on Amazon?

The cost of selling on Amazon is made up of a subscription fee and a referral fee on each sale. If you use Amazon’s warehouses, you also pay fulfilment and storage fees. Advertising is not compulsory, but it is hard to do without on a new account.

What you pay depends on your selling plan. On the Individual plan, Amazon charges 0.99 EUR net for every unit sold (4 PLN if you register via Amazon.pl), and on the Professional plan, 39 EUR net a month (165.91 PLN if you register via Amazon.pl). The Individual plan only works out cheaper if you sell up to 41 units a month. What’s more, it does not let you run Sponsored Products ads, coupons or promotions. For a manufacturer that wants to grow its sales, the choice is obvious.

The referral fee is calculated on the full amount the customer pays, i.e. the VAT-inclusive price plus delivery. On Amazon.pl, it is 8–15% in most categories, with a minimum fee of 1 PLN. In 2026, Amazon cut its rates for several product groups. For home products priced up to 85 PLN, the fee is now 8% instead of 15%. Pet food and pet clothing, groceries and supplements priced up to 40 PLN attract a 5% fee.

The FBA fulfilment fee depends on the dimensions and weight of the parcel. On top of that comes a monthly fee for the space your stock takes up in the warehouse. Costs rise towards the end of the year. Storage rates go up in Q4, and an additional peak-season fee applies from 15 October 2026 to 14 January 2027. Since 17 April 2026, Amazon has also been adding a 1.5% fuel and logistics surcharge to every fulfilment fee. We list the rates for every category in our article on Amazon referral fees and other selling costs in 2026.

Are the rates the same in all Amazon stores?

No, each store has its own referral fee schedule. For kitchen products, you pay 10% on Amazon.pl and 15% on Amazon.de. In consumer electronics, it is 5% versus 7%. The two stores only charge the same rate, 15%, in categories that have no separate rate of their own.

A lower referral fee does not automatically mean a higher margin, though. VAT is 23% in Poland and 19% in Germany, so at the same gross price, the higher tax eats up a large part of the advantage. In any case, your choice of market will mainly come down to demand for your product in each country.

What do new sellers get on Amazon.pl?

New accounts in the Polish store are eligible for a package of incentives which, with a well-planned launch, brings fixed fees in the first six months down to almost zero. There is one condition, and it is easy to miss: you have to start your registration at sell.amazon.pl, on the Professional plan, even if your business is not based in Poland.

Amazon grants the advertising credit as a refund. You get back what you spend on your first Sponsored Products campaign within 30 days, in tiers of 188, 750 or 3,750 PLN. The detailed conditions of each incentive are set out in the promotion terms in Seller Central. Amazon may change them, so check them on the day you register.

Sample calculation: a 29.99 EUR kitchen product on Amazon.de

To see how much you actually keep from a sale, we ran the numbers for a hypothetical kitchen product. It weighs 600 g, fits into a small parcel and is shipped to customers from Amazon’s warehouses under the Central Europe Programme, or CEP. The example uses Amazon.de, as it is Amazon’s largest European store, but the approach is the same in every marketplace. Only the VAT rate, the referral fee and the fulfilment fees change.

* Estimates. The FBA fee is based on the Amazon.de rate card for a small parcel up to 900 g. You can check the fee for your own dimensions and weight in the Revenue Calculator in Seller Central. Plug in your own figures for product cost, shipping, how long stock sits in the warehouse, ad spend as a share of sales and sales volume.

Of the 29.99 EUR paid by the customer, 17.37 EUR is left after deducting VAT and Amazon’s fees. That still has to cover the cost of the goods, shipping and advertising. The referral fee, fulfilment and storage together take 26.1% of the price, and as much as 42.1% once VAT is included. This means the product stops making money once advertising takes up 32.5% of revenue. It is therefore worth deciding on your target ad spend before your first campaign.

In Q4, the same unit earns less. The peak-season fee and higher storage rates cut the profit to 6.39 EUR, which is 0.35 EUR less on every sale. With low-margin products, you need to factor this in before sending a large batch of stock to the warehouse for Christmas.

Doubling the advertising budget from 10% to 20% of sales cuts the profit per unit by 44.5%, from 6.74 EUR to 3.74 EUR.

Is selling on Amazon worth it?

It pays off most for manufacturers with their own brand whose products fit into a small parcel and are in demand in several European countries. In our calculation, the 29.99 EUR product makes money as long as its purchase cost does not exceed 13.74 EUR, with advertising at 10% of sales. Without advertising, the threshold rises to 16.74 EUR. If the goods cost more than that, not even an excellent listing will save them.

Resellers of other companies’ brands, on the other hand, have a much harder time. On a shared product detail page, orders are won mainly on price and delivery, so competition quickly turns into a price war. The same goes for cheap, heavy products, where the fulfilment fee eats up a large part of the price.

Poland, where we are based, is a good illustration of how big this channel is. According to Amazon’s figures, Polish small and medium-sized businesses sold more than 40 million products worth 5.2 billion PLN through the platform in 2025, most of them abroad. Amazon.pl is a convenient starting point, but profitability needs to be calculated separately for each marketplace, as VAT rates, referral fees and logistics costs all differ.

In our experience, the product itself is rarely the biggest obstacle. The companies that come to us often sell well on other marketplaces or in their own online shop. What they lack is knowledge of Amazon: how to build a product detail page, how to structure campaigns and what to watch out for when it comes to compliance. One example is our client Najder, a manufacturer of DIY products, which started out managing its own account. Unfortunately, this ended with the account being suspended. It was only after we stepped in – reinstating the account, sorting out its settings and rebuilding its listings – that sales grew by around 480%. You can read the details in our case study on how Najder grew its sales on Amazon.de by around 480%.

Which Amazon marketplace in Europe should you start with?

You register your account via Amazon.pl, but your launch market is best chosen based on demand for your product. For some, that will be Poland; for others, France or Italy. In practice, though, most businesses want to get into Germany. Before you invest in listings and advertising, check how often customers search for products in your category in each store.

It makes sense to include Amazon.pl from the outset, if only for the six months without referral fees. But you don’t have to stop there. Once your listings start selling, you can add further stores from the same account.

It is best to expand into further marketplaces, such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain or the Netherlands, only once your listings are selling well in the first one. At that point, all you need to do is translate your refined titles, variations and descriptions. That way, you don’t have to fix the same mistakes in five countries at once. Don’t cut corners on translation, though. Machine translation can change the meaning of a technical parameter, and a mistake in the specifications leads to returns.

How do you prepare a listing for Amazon?

An Amazon listing has to win over two audiences. The first is the search engine, which decides who gets to see your product. The second is the customer, who decides within a few seconds whether they want to buy it. They cannot ask you anything, as they would in a shop, so they look for everything in the title, the images, the bullet points and the description.

First, check whether your product is already in the catalogue. If it is, you simply attach your offer to the existing detail page. If not, you need to create a new one based on an EAN code. Manufacturers buy their codes from the GS1 organisation in their own country, while distributors use the manufacturer’s codes. This is not the place to save money, as codes from unofficial sources sooner or later lead to your listings being rejected.

When building your product detail page, pay attention to the following:

• Title – start with the brand and the type of product, then add the most important features, such as material, size or capacity. On a phone, only the beginning of the title is visible, so that is where the key information has to go.
• Key product features – these bullet points should answer the questions customers actually ask. What is the product compatible with? What is it made of? What is in the box?
• Images – the main image must show the product on its own against a white background. Use the others to show it in use, close up and with its dimensions.
• Keywords – use phrases in the language of the marketplace you are selling in. Any that don’t fit into the title can go into the hidden Search Terms field. We explain how to choose them in our article on Amazon keywords.
• Variations – group colours and sizes into a single variation family. Customers can then choose a variation on one detail page, and reviews are collected in one place.

If you have a registered trade mark, enrol your brand in Amazon Brand Registry as early as possible. You gain control over the content of your detail pages and access to A+ Content with graphics, a Brand Store and Sponsored Brands ads. On Amazon.pl, enrolling your brand within six months of listing your first product also makes you eligible for a bonus of up to 200,000 PLN.

FBA or FBM – how should you fulfil Amazon orders?

With FBA, or Fulfillment by Amazon, your stock goes to Amazon’s warehouses. Amazon stores it, packs it, delivers it to customers and handles returns. With FBM, or Fulfillment by Merchant, you fulfil orders yourself from your own warehouse or through a third-party logistics provider. When you are starting out, FBA makes sense if the fulfilment fee is lower than what it costs you to ship to a customer abroad, including the cost of handling returns. Your stock also needs to sell quickly enough not to sit idle in the warehouse.

FBA offers several advantages that are hard to match on your own. Your offers automatically get the Prime badge. Amazon handles customer service in the language of the country of sale. Your account’s shipping metrics no longer depend on your courier. The price you pay for all this is a fee on every unit plus storage fees, which rise the longer your stock sits in the warehouse.

FBM, on the other hand, gives you more control and works better for large, heavy products, for a wide range of products with uncertain demand and at the testing stage. You are then responsible for on-time dispatch, tracking numbers and returns yourself, and Amazon holds you strictly accountable for all of it. With FBM, the Prime badge is only available through the Seller Fulfilled Prime programme, which has demanding requirements.

Low-priced products can benefit from the Low-Price FBA programme. In most categories, it covers products up to 85 PLN on Amazon.pl and up to 20 EUR on Amazon.de, and gives them a lower fulfilment fee. You don’t need to sign up, as products that meet the price and size criteria are included automatically.

You can read more about the model itself in our guide to what Amazon FBA is and how it works.

How does Amazon logistics work in Europe?

Sellers based in the European Union can choose from several FBA options. They differ in cost and in tax obligations.

With the European Fulfilment Network, or EFN, your stock is stored in a warehouse in one country. From there, Amazon ships it to customers in other EU countries. It is a simple way to test new marketplaces, although cross-border fulfilment fees are higher.

With Pan-European FBA, Amazon distributes your inventory across warehouses in several countries, closer to customers. Delivery is faster and the fees are lower. However, you need a VAT number in every country where your stock is stored.

The Central Europe Programme, or CEP, allows Amazon to store inventory intended for the German market in Poland and the Czech Republic as well. Sellers outside the programme pay a surcharge on units shipped from Germany, so taking part reduces your costs. But there is a catch that is easy to forget. Stock held in Polish and Czech warehouses means you must register for VAT in Poland and in the Czech Republic. Before you join the programme, weigh the savings on fees against the cost of VAT compliance in additional countries.

What legal requirements do you need to meet before selling on Amazon?

Before you send your first parcel, you need to have your VAT sorted in the right countries, your product safety information ready and your packaging registrations in place. It pays to be thorough here, because mistakes in this area cost the most and lead to blocked listings or tax arrears in several countries at once.

VAT on stock in Amazon warehouses – if your goods are stored in an FBA warehouse in a given country, you need a VAT number there from the very first unit, regardless of turnover. This also applies to the warehouses in Poland and the Czech Republic from which Amazon fulfils orders under CEP. Moving goods from the country where your business is based to a warehouse in another EU country has to be reported as an intra-Community transfer of own goods, even if Amazon transports them.

VAT when shipping from your own warehouse – if you sell via FBM from your own warehouse, sales to consumers in other EU countries are taxed at the VAT rate of the country where your business is based, up to a threshold of 10,000 EUR a year. Above that amount, the VAT of the customer’s country applies. You can account for it through the OSS scheme or by registering locally. However, OSS does not replace VAT registration in the country where you store your goods.

GPSR – since 13 December 2024, every listing in the EU has to include the manufacturer’s details as well as product safety warnings and information. If the manufacturer is based outside the EU, the details of a responsible person in the EU are also required. Amazon blocks listings without this information. With a large catalogue, this is a major undertaking. Our article on getting ready for the GPSR shows you how to prepare your listings.

Packaging obligations – selling packaged goods in Germany requires registration in the LUCID register under the German Packaging Act (VerpackG). Amazon blocks listings from sellers without a LUCID number. In Poland, the equivalent is BDO, the national register for products, packaging and waste management. Other countries have their own packaging registers, and electronics and batteries come with separate obligations that you need to check for each country you sell in.

The information in this section is general in nature and is no substitute for advice from a tax adviser. Regulations differ from country to country, so it is worth discussing your sales model with an accountant before your first shipment.

How do you get your first orders on Amazon?

A new product has no sales history or reviews, so it appears a long way down the organic search results. That is why Sponsored Products ads are the fastest way to get your first orders. You pay per click on your offer, which is shown in search results and on other products’ detail pages. Every sale from an ad builds a sales history that later helps your organic ranking.

To begin with, an automatic campaign works best, as Amazon chooses the keywords itself based on your listing. After two or three weeks, the Search Term report will show you which search terms lead customers to click and buy. Move the best ones into manual campaigns with your own bids, and add the ones that only cost money as negative keywords. If you opened your account via Amazon.pl, launch your first campaign within 90 days of your first product going live. Only then will Amazon refund your spend as advertising credit.

Advertising performance is measured by ACoS, the ratio of ad spend to the sales generated by ads. Your target level depends on your margin. In our calculation, the product stops making money when ad spend reaches 32.5% of revenue, so your target needs to be well below that. We cover the next steps in our article on proven strategies for making money on Amazon.

Your plan for the first 90 days of selling on Amazon

The plan below fits within the Amazon.pl incentive deadlines:

1. Before registering – choose your products and calculate the margin on each of them in the Revenue Calculator. Prepare images, descriptions and EAN codes.
2. Week 1 – open your account at sell.amazon.pl and complete identity verification.
3. Weeks 2–4 – sort out VAT in the country where your stock will be stored, add the information required under the GPSR and complete your packaging registrations, for example LUCID for Germany. Publish your first listings no later than 60 days after registering.
4. Month 2 – send your first small shipment to FBA or start shipping via FBM. Launch an automatic Sponsored Products campaign.
5. Month 3 – move the best keywords into manual campaigns and add the unprofitable ones as negative keywords. Enrol your brand in Brand Registry. Check the profit on each product before your next shipment.

The most common mistakes when starting out on Amazon

1. Registering via Amazon.de instead of Amazon.pl – an account opened through another store won’t qualify for six months without subscription or referral fees in Poland. The subscription alone comes to around 995 PLN net.
2. Calculating your margin on the gross price – on a product priced at 29.99 EUR with 19% VAT, the tax takes 4.79 EUR from every unit. A calculation based on the VAT-inclusive price overstates your margin by a dozen or so percentage points.
3. Sending your entire range to FBA – stock that doesn’t sell racks up storage fees, and rates go up in Q4. To begin with, send smaller batches of products with proven demand.
4. Advertising before your listings are in shape – the campaign then sends traffic to detail pages without variations, images or keywords. You pay for clicks that don’t end in a purchase.
5. Missing GPSR information and packaging registrations – Amazon blocks such listings before they have had a chance to sell anything. To get them unblocked, you have to fix each one individually.
6. Joining CEP without working out the VAT costs in Poland and the Czech Republic – the savings on fulfilment fees may turn out to be smaller than the cost of VAT compliance in an additional country.

How to sell on Amazon – frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Can I change my selling plan after registering?

Yes, you can change or cancel your selling plan at any time. The Individual plan is enough for initial testing, but it doesn’t let you run Sponsored Products ads. If you intend to advertise your products or want to take advantage of six months without a subscription fee, choose the Professional plan straight away.

How does Amazon charge fees and pay me for my sales?

Amazon charges its fees to the credit card you provide when registering and pays your sales proceeds into your bank account. Check the exact payout dates in Seller Central before you start selling.

Do I need a business in the country where I want to sell on Amazon?

No. You sell in Amazon’s European stores from a single account for your business. You only need a VAT number in a given country once your stock is held in an Amazon warehouse there.

Do I need my own brand to sell on Amazon?

No, but your own brand gives you the most options. Without one, you can attach your offer to an existing product detail page, where you compete with other sellers mainly on price and delivery. A brand enrolled in Brand Registry gives you control over your detail page, A+ Content, a Brand Store and access to the bonus of up to 200,000 PLN on Amazon.pl. To enrol, you need a registered trade mark – we explain how to obtain one in our article on registering an EU trade mark with the EUIPO.

Can I sell on Amazon and on eBay or in my own online shop at the same time?

Yes, because these channels complement each other rather than ruling each other out. A product that sells well on eBay or in your own shop has already proven there is demand for it, and existing images and technical data speed up creating your listing. You only need to adapt the descriptions to Amazon’s format. If you sell across several channels, it is worth connecting an integration tool such as Baselinker, which synchronises stock levels and orders. That way, you never sell the same unit twice.

Want to launch on Amazon with an account that is set up properly from day one, or get stalled sales moving again? As an Amazon SPN, Amazon Ads Partner and Amazon EU Agency Platinum Partner, we manage manufacturers’ accounts across Amazon’s European marketplaces. We help at every stage, from profitability calculations and registration, through listings and logistics, to advertising campaigns and expansion into further countries. See what Amazon account management with Raise Your Sales involves and book a free consultation.