Amazon Seller Central Review: The Basics of Managing Your Account

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We have written about Amazon Seller Central (ASC) on our blog many times, but we have never reviewed its functionality and capabilities. But this is the main tool for any seller on the platform. Through your personal account, you can:

manage inventory;
conduct marketing campaigns and set up advertising;
fulfill orders and serve customers;
process payments and receive business reports.
In addition, ASC offers users many options for automating processes and performing mass transactions.

Home page
On the first screen we immediately see cards with key indicators of our business: open orders, current sales, total balance. Each of them can be expanded and receive additional information.

Pay attention to the search bar, which is located in the header of the page. It is designed to quickly find answers to current questions. We recommend using keywords for searching. For example: “add a new product”, “create a discount”, “set up advertising”. Amazon has a huge knowledge base. You can also find information in the HELP menu (right corner) or on the sellers' forum.

In the Marketplaces section, you will see your active sales markets. By default, there are three: the US itself/the division for Canada and Mexico. You can also connect others, for example, the EU.  

The Open Orders card shows completed and pending orders. If you work with the FBA model, you only need to track the change in numbers, since the platform does everything for you. If you work with another model, you must send the product yourself, confirm the tracking number and transfer the order to the pending delivery status.

In the Today's sales section, you can view statistics for different time periods: current date, week, 15 and 30 days.

Buyer messages are a very important category in Amazon Seller Central. Try to respond to incoming requests as quickly as possible and do not let messages hang for more than 24 hours. The speed of interaction with buyers directly affects the store's reputation and the place the platform will give you in the overall rating.

IPI stands for “Inventory Performance Index” - a metric that evaluates on page seo service the efficiency of inventory management (the score varies from 0 to 1000). A low IPI can lead to restrictions or additional payments for storing goods in an Amazon warehouse.



Main menu
By clicking on the three stripes in the upper left corner of the screen, we get access to the main tools, programs and metrics of the seller.

The first 4 categories correspond to the sales life cycle:

Catalog - adding products for sale.
Inventory - inventory tracking and stock management.
Pricing — manual and automated pricing.
Orders - order fulfillment.
In the Inventory section, pay attention to the following indicators:

available — products that are already in stock. Processed and scanned;
inbound - products that are still in transit;
unfulfillable — defective goods, goods in improper condition/returns.
Products from the Unfulfillable category can be disposed of or sent to a prep center to be brought into a marketable condition.

Amazon Seller Central is also a marketing tool
In your account, you can not only set up advertising within the site, but also conduct other campaigns aimed at increasing sales. Available options will depend on the country and status (for example, whether you are registered in the Brands category, or whether you use the FBA or FBM model).

We recommend paying attention to:

Coupons. Coupons encourage the audience to make impulse purchases using them (visible on the product page).

Lightning Deals. Temporary promotions, limited offers - allow you to increase the number of sales at the moment and attract the attention of a new target audience.

Posts and LIVE. Additional opportunities for product presentation and promotion. Helps to share information through posts, articles and live online video broadcasts.

Brand Content : A tool that allows you to create more informative product pages with additional images, videos and text to attract attention and convince the customer to make a purchase.

Attribution . An analytics tool that lets you track how your ads are impacting sales outside of the platform, helping you understand the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Little-Known or Underrated Features of Amazon Seller Central
If you want to increase the number of reviews for your products, we recommend paying attention to the Amazon Vine program. The idea is this: you send a product to qualified participants for review (for free), and in return they create content: reviews and comments. You can also use the Request a Review option (ask the buyer to review the purchased product).

We recommend not to ignore the Inventory Age indicator — analyzing its dynamics will optimize inventory management and avoid long-term storage. Restock Inventory data is no less important . With its help, you will determine when it is necessary to replenish the warehouse to avoid shortages or surpluses.

And of course, be sure to check out the Marketplace Growth section of your Amazon Seller Center periodically for tools and resources to help you grow your business, training materials, and tips on optimizing your listings.