Creating an Amazon Seller’s Account – details count
I hope these tips help you with you Amazon Seller Account.
We finally got full approval for our Amazon seller’s account. We learned several things along the way that weren’t clear to us when we started and would have saved us time. I hope this post saves you some headaches if and when you might want to open an Amazon Seller’s Account. We opened our account in Amazon US. I assume other Amazon locations would have similar requirements but I’m personally not aware of any differences if they would exist (or if ‘seller central’ is the only place that you actually create an account – we’re still learning by doing’).
Your identity (whether personal or a company) must use a physical address. PO boxes are not allowed.
You should prepare a series of documents:
- Proof of name and location – have scans of both sides of your drivers license or passport identity page ready.
- If a company, the company incorporation or other official certificate showing it’s legal status.
- Proof of address.
- This will require a utility bill (gas, electricity, water or Internet service (only those bills will be allowed)
- They must show the individual (or company) name and the physical address you will be using.
- A US bank account for funds. There are services available that can provide you one if you are not in the US. We used a service called OFX.
Sign up with Amazon. You will be taken to a series of questions and places where you can upload the scans of the documents I mentioned above. The fields were clear to me on the surface but pay attention to the details – much of this data is computer scanned so everything must match exactly or it may generate a red flag. Make sure every document detail is exactly the same. Such as:
- Name. As an example. Robert Smith is not the same as Rob Smith and Sam R. Jones is not the same as Sam Robert Jones or Sam R (no period after the initial) Jones. They must be precise.
- Watch the addresses just as closely. Don’t use ‘court’ in one place and ‘ct.’ in another. If you use an extended zip code (12345-1234) make sure to do that in every place.
If anything fails your Amazon seller account will either immediately or at some later date be suspended. You will be informed by email if you don’t notice it yourself. Read the email carefully. They will tell you what they don’t like and what additional information may be required but they are being literal and precise. We were told we needed a utility bill with the company name and physical address. They said Gas, Power, Water, Internet. I thought those were examples. I sent several bills, all rejected. It was not until later I noticed a slight wording shift that told me that only those bills would be allowed. It wasn’t examples of bills, it was a list of exclusive requirements.
The email will contain a link to upload corrected/additional documents and a text box for explanation. Attach the required documents and do enter text that shows that you read the email they sent and you are specifically replying to what they flagged as invalid and what you have done to fix the situation. Continuing to say the same thing over and over and send the same documents repeatedly is also another red flag. They might suspect a computerized attempt to open an account.
I hope all that helps and you get yourself going a little faster with your Amazon seller account than we did while travelling on the learning curve.
Good Luck and Best Wishes
