Dear friends, when you registered an Amazon account, have you ever encountered some terms that seemed to make you dizzy?
For example:
1. Personal account and business account
2. Individual sellers and professional sellers
3. Personal self-registration account and global store account
4. Global store self-registration and global store agent registration
Are you familiar with the examples above? What is the difference between them? What type would you choose? What kind of trouble will it bring you if you choose the wrong one?
Today, I will help you to decipher these confusing concepts~ Let's go!
1. Personal account & corporate account
When you register and open a store on Amazon, depending on the information you fill in during registration, a simple personal account will be a personal account; if you fill in both the personal legal person information and the company information, it will become a corporate account.
The difference between a personal account and a business account is as follows:
1. Differences in operation interface
• Corporate account: The backend interface is the same as that of the global store account, which is more comprehensive
• Personal Account: The account functionality of the interface will be lost.
2. Qualifications for applying for global store opening
• Corporate account: You can directly apply to open a global store
• Personal account: cannot apply for global store opening and must be converted into a corporate account.
Question: If the seller has already registered a personal account and wants to change to a corporate account, what should he do?
Answer: Go to the backend, find Settings, click Account Info, and scroll down to the following:
Click Legal Entity and find Tax identity information after entering the page:
Then modify the taxpayer's information. After US person selects No, the following prompt will appear:
Just confirm it at the end.
2. Individual sellers & professional sellers
When registering an Amazon account, you will be asked if you are willing to Sell as a professional or Sell as an individual, and their charging standards are different. The different choices you make will determine whether you will be a professional seller or an individual seller in the future.
The difference between individual sellers and professional sellers is as follows:
1. Store Fees
• Professional Seller: $39.99 per month + Amazon commission for each product sold
• Individual sellers: $0.99 per product sold + Amazon’s commission for each product sold
2. Amazon Promotion Program
• Professional sellers: can increase sales and store traffic by creating promotional programs and gift services
• Individual sellers: cannot create promotional plans and gift services
3. Featured Seller Permissions
• Professional sellers: You can become an Amazon featured seller through good store performance, increasing store exposure and conversion rate
• Individual sellers: No rights to obtain Amazon featured seller status
4. Golden Shopping Cart
• Professional sellers: can grab the gold shopping cart with perfect customer indicators and competitive prices
• Individual sellers: do not have the function of grabbing shopping carts
5. Batch upload function and order data report
• Professional sellers: When there are many SKUs, you can upload product batch tables through the backend batch upload function, and you can view the order data report in the backend.
• Individual sellers: can only upload products through single addition, and there is no order data report.
3. Personal self-registration account & global store account
The global store account must be registered in the name of a company, which can be a mainland company or a Hong Kong company; if an individual registers an account, personal identity can be registered, or company qualifications can also be used.
In 2017, the success rate of self-registered accounts became lower and lower, and Amazon's review of accounts became stricter and stricter. Although the procedures for global store opening and investment manager accounts are complicated, the success rate is much higher.
The differences between a personal self-registered account and a global store account are as follows:
1. Audit Difficulty
• Self-registration by an individual: The registration procedure under an individual’s name is simple and has a higher approval rate. However, as Amazon's policies tighten, the approval rate of this method is getting lower and lower.
• Opening stores globally: The plan aims to screen high-quality sellers to join the Amazon platform. The qualification review of sellers is relatively strict, and not everyone can join the platform if they want to.
When a seller applies for global store opening, if the information submitted fails in the first application, the information cannot be used for the next application for global store opening.
2. Audit cycle
• Self-registration: The US and Japan are relatively fast, usually half an hour
• Global store registration: half a month to one month for the US site; one month to 2.5 months for the European site.
3. Account Security
• Self-registration: low account security; store closure rate >56% (official statistics), no account manager, and no official training to support ordinary seller accounts.
• Global store opening: high account security, store closure rate <9%, customer manager, official training support, and special seller accounts.
4. Regulatory intensity
To operate a global store account, you must abide by Amazon's platform rules. Product images, title formats, etc. must be implemented in accordance with the requirements, otherwise you will be warned.
5. Others
• Self-registration: no account manager, no official training, supports ordinary seller accounts
• Global store opening: with account managers, official training, and support for featured seller accounts.
In addition, the information submitted when applying for a personal self-registration account and a global store account is also different:
1. General information required for opening a global store:
• Dual currency credit card
• Scanned copy of the company's business license
• Seller Information Sheet
• Clean identity information and computer and network
• Receiving bank account (WorldFirst, payoneer, pingpong)
• KYC materials: company business license, passport or ID card and household register of the legal person and shareholders holding more than 25% of the shares, public bank account number, company water and electricity bill (required for Hong Kong companies) and personal water and electricity bill
• The UK site requires a company public account, UK VAT number, and EROI tax deduction account
2. General information required for self-registering an account:
• Computer (not registered or logged in with an Amazon account)
• Internet cable (not registered or logged in using an Amazon account)
• Office address (English & Pinyin)
• Telephone (landline or mobile phone is acceptable, mobile phone number is recommended)
• VISA or Mastercard credit card (activated)
3. Global store self-registration & global store investment manager registration
There are two registration channels for opening stores globally: one is the self-registration channel, and the other is the investment manager registration channel. The definitions of the two are roughly different:
Self-registration channel: New sellers prepare their own information and register through the Amazon Global Selling link: https://gs.amazon.cn
Merchant manager registration channel: first use the merchant manager's link to pre-register, and then the merchant manager will review it. If the review is passed, the merchant manager will send a registration link to the seller, and the seller can complete the registration on the link page within the specified time.
So what is the difference between the two?
Difference 1: Using the investment manager registration channel is more secure. Because the investment manager will review the company's information.
Difference 2: By using the investment manager registration channel, you can get registration help from the investment manager, and if any problems arise, they can be resolved in time. But there is no such special help for self-registration.
