Business Services You Find on Amazon

Amazon has been providing a lot of services we love and learned to love. They don’t just care for consumers and typical online buyers, but also for business owners and service providers who want growth.

Amazon Business

Amazon has lots of perks and benefits that your business can take advantage of. Amazon Business is its latest venture into the world of business-to-business commerce. Registered businesses and their buyers or designated associates can shop for business supplies on Amazon for lower prices and other amazing Amazon perks. No matter how big or small your business is, Amazon has solutions and benefits for you.

By signing up for an Amazon Business account, you can purchase in Amazon on behalf of your employer or company. The account administrator can add or manage business account users and features such as payment methods, shipping addresses, reporting options or approval workflows, depending on your business needs.

Here are the perks of getting an Amazon Business account:

1. Pricing discounts and benefits

Amazon Business offers business-only pricing where users receive exclusive price and quantity discounts on millions of products across Amazon. This also provides price breaks on multi-unit purchases and allows the users to compare multiple offers from different sellers on just a single page.

You can save more when you buy more with quantity discounts where you can avail tiered-pricing discounts for high volume purchases on a selected set of items. To check if an item is for sale at a discounted price from participating sellers, you can click on “Request a quantity discount.”

2. Fast shipping with more benefits

Amazon is our go-to online shop because of its speedy shipping. Of course, Amazon Business users will not miss this. Eligible orders worth $49 or more qualify for free shipping and some orders are eligible for free two-day shipping if they are sent to a street address.

If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can link it to your business account to get Prime shipping benefits with no extra charges. Prime membership makes you eligible for exclusive Prime Day deals. And if you ordered through Amazon’s Alexa using any Amazon technology such as Echo, Echo Dot, Fire tablets, etc., you will be eligible for more deals.

3. Account management

Amazon Business allows you to add a team to a single account and create purchasing groups to match your organization structure. You can also customize order approvals and set spending limits for your account. You can also monitor and track how much you spend with the help of its dynamic reporting and analytics tools.

4. Payment benefits

Using the “Manage Your Business” link, you can add a company-wide purchasing account to your business account to allow multiple-user access. You can also open a corporate credit line for you to be able to authorize multiple buyers on a single account, to download order history reports and pay by purchase order.

Through Amazon business, you can also choose the payment method that works best for your business, such as your company’s existing purchasing card or Amazon’s Corporate Credit Line.

5. Tax-exempt purchasing

A small business that is eligible for tax-exempt purchasing can enroll into Amazon’s Tax Exemption Program. This allows Amazon Business users to apply their status to qualified purchases from Amazon. Once you review your order, you can modify which items should bear the tax-exemption certificate. In addition, the Tax Exemption Tool would guide you through the enrollment process, as well as to upload and edit certificates and update status.

Now you’re acquainted with the benefits, here are the program options for Amazon Business:

1. Business Seller program

The Amazon Business Seller Program is a platform that provides sellers with features to help grow their sales. It allows third-party sellers not only to list their products on Amazon but also to cater to the requirements of business customers by providing features essential for business-to-business transactions such as quantity pricing and business pricing.

Users who would join this program are enabled to:

Create a seller profile page, which non-users of this program would have
Provide quantity pricing and business-only price discounts
Add enhanced product information and content such as user or installation manuals, CAD drawings, specs information and more.
Display quality credentials to increase purchases from procurement specialists who need to meet quality sourcing objectives
Get lower referral fees that can be as low as 6% on orders to a business customer, as compared to the common 15% re-sellers.
Set the price for your products.

You might confuse the Amazon Business Seller program to Selling on Amazon. The Business Seller program is held to increased performance requirements such as:

Low later shipping rate (less than 2%)
Low order defect rate (less than 0.5%)
Low pre-shipment cancellation rate (less than 1%)
Purchase order number with every business order package (when provided by the customer)
Packing slip with every business order package
Tracking number on every business order package

2. Vendor program

Amazon’s Vendor program is invitation-based with attractive perks. It’s simply like having Amazon marketplace as your re-seller. In this program, your brand has a wholesale relationship with Amazon wherein Amazon would be responsible for making purchase orders (PO) based on market demand, you would fulfill the PO, and then Amazon would handle the rest of the job from customer service to freight and shipping. Amazon would even build your product detail pages. However, Amazon would be entitled at a wholesale rate, usually a 50% discount on the selling price. Amazon would also set the price for your products. These downsides make it difficult for brand owners to pick this one as the right choice for their business.

But these are the benefits of the Vendor program that make it worthy to consider:

The ordering process is simple – you would negotiate broad terms upfront then your Amazon Vendor Manager would place the purchase orders that you fill.
It would be difficult for other sellers to compete with you since Amazon’s algorithm favors their own Vendor offers. The product listings would prioritize your products.
You would have access to Amazon Marketing Services, an advanced advertising platform.
You would be entitled to the Vine reviews program wherein you would get a lot of free stuff.

Selling Services on Amazon

Amazon also helps professionals who offer services – including handymen, house cleaners, plumbers, electricians, and assemblers – to sell their services on Amazon. With the Selling Services on Amazon, you can reach Amazon customers in your area and choose the job that would fit your schedule.

How does it work?

The first thing you have to do is to set your price estimates. For standard services, you need to set specific prices so that Amazon customers can purchase them any time. For custom services, you may receive requests from Amazon customers and there you can estimate their cost for your service.

Then, you will get discovered by Amazon customers as your services could show up while they are shopping on Amazon, especially when checking out products related to the service you provide. Customers can also submit a custom request for your services on the Amazon website.

Once you have secured a job, you need to simply show up, finish the job requested from you and then get paid by Amazon.

This program is an invite-only program, wherein Amazon chooses only those top-rated professionals (because they want the best for their customers). That means you only compete with the best professionals in your area. Amazon would help your potential customer to feel more secure about hiring you. For that to happen, they would run a business background check on you and all service providers. If you offer home services (plumbers, electricians, etc.), they will run background checks on all your technicians. You will be charged $50 per business background check.

Here are the other benefits of selling services on Amazon:

Because Amazon is a trusted site, it will be easier for you to reach their customers within your area, and you’ll get requests directly from their customers.
You will receive actual jobs when customers order your pre-packaged services.
You don’t need to pay any startup fees, subscription fees or advertisement fees.
No upfront fees or any charges will be asked to have your services listed.

If you don’t want to handle payment and customer relations, Selling Services on Amazon would certainly help make a big difference in your business. Plus, you will reach a wider audience for less, compared to advertising your service on your own.