How Does Amazon Seller Work? What brands Need to Know Before Entering the U.S. Market

Amazon accounts for 37.6% of all e-commerce sales in the United States, according to Forbes Advisor. That is the largest share held by any single platform, and it is not close.

For brands planning to enter the U.S. market, that number reframes the strategic conversation. It means that for most consumer product categories, Amazon is where the largest pool of ready-to-buy customers already is. The question is not whether to be there. The question is how to approach it correctly from the start.

This article covers the fundamentals of how Amazon Seller works, what the setup requires, and what to understand before listing your first product in the U.S. market.

What Is Amazon Seller Central and How Does It Work?

Amazon Seller Central is the management platform for brands selling on Amazon. It is where product listings are created, inventory is tracked, prices are set, advertising campaigns are managed, and sales performance is monitored.

To sell on Amazon.com, a brand creates a Seller Central account, builds product listings, selects a fulfillment method, and goes live. Amazon connects those listings to its customer base and processes transactions. Amazon deposits proceeds on a regular payout cycle (typically every 14 days), with more frequent disbursements available for eligible sellers.

Amazon operates as a discovery engine for purchase intent. Research consistently shows that a large share of U.S. product searches begin on Amazon, before a consumer ever reaches a brand's own site or a search engine. Understanding that dynamic matters for how you think about your listing's role in the customer journey. For a deeper look at how discovery has shifted across platforms, From Search to Selection: Brand Discoverability in the Age of AI and Zero-Click Experiences covers the full picture.

What are the two types of Amazon seller accounts?

Amazon offers two account types for U.S. sellers:

• Individual account: no monthly fee, but charges $0.99 per item sold. Relevant only for sellers moving fewer than 40 units per month.

• Professional account: $39.99 per month, no per-item fee. This is the standard account for brands with growth intentions. It also unlocks advertising, A+ Content, Brand Registry, and analytics tools that are unavailable on Individual accounts.

For any brand entering the U.S. market with a serious product, a Professional account is the starting point.

The Questions Every Brand Asks Before Launching on Amazon

These are the most common questions from brands approaching Amazon for the first time.

Do I need a U.S. company to sell on Amazon in the U.S.?

No. Amazon allows international sellers to sell on Amazon.com without a U.S. entity through its Amazon Global Selling program. Requirements include a bank account that accepts international transfers, a valid government-issued ID, a credit card, and tax information. Amazon provides documentation on the specific requirements by country of origin.

What is Amazon FBA?

FBA stands for Fulfillment by Amazon. The seller ships inventory to Amazon warehouses in the U.S., and Amazon handles storage, picking, packing, shipping, and customer service for each order. Products fulfilled through FBA qualify for Amazon Prime, which has a measurable effect on conversion rates. For brands entering the U.S. from abroad, FBA removes the operational complexity of fulfilling individual U.S. orders.

What is Amazon FBM?

FBM stands for Fulfillment by Merchant. The seller manages storage and ships orders directly to customers. This requires either a U.S.-based fulfillment operation or a logistics partner that can ship domestically within Amazon's required delivery windows. Most brands new to the U.S. market start with FBA.

What fees does Amazon charge?

Two main fee types apply. Referral fees are a percentage of each sale, typically between 8% and 15% depending on product category. FBA fees cover fulfillment and storage, and vary by product size and weight. Both need to be factored into pricing before launch. Selling at a price that works on your own site does not automatically mean it works on Amazon once fees are applied.

Do products need to meet U.S. regulatory requirements?

Yes. Products must comply with U.S. regulations for their category before being listed. Food, cosmetics, supplements, and electronics each carry specific compliance requirements. English-language labeling is required and must meet U.S. standards. Auditing the product against these requirements before launch avoids delays at customs and potential listing suppression by Amazon.

How Amazon Decides Which Products Customers See

When a customer searches on Amazon, the platform's algorithm, often referred to as A9, determines which listings appear and in what order. The ranking logic is worth understanding before building a listing.

What factors does Amazon's A9 algorithm weigh?

• Relevance: how precisely the listing title, bullet points, and backend keywords match the search query

• Conversion rate: the percentage of customers who view the listing and complete a purchase

• Sales velocity: the recency and consistency of sales activity on the listing

• Reviews: total review count and average star rating

• Price: competitiveness within the category

• Inventory availability: whether the product is in stock

The relationship between these factors is cumulative. A listing that converts well earns higher placement. Higher placement drives more traffic. More traffic produces more sales data. That data improves ranking further. The brands that build listings correctly from the start enter that loop faster.

Conversion on Amazon depends on elements most brands underestimate: image quality, copy clarity, review volume, and the overall trust signals a listing sends before a customer clicks the buy button. Love Is in the Signals: What Ecommerce Growth Really Converts On covers those conversion mechanics in detail.

What to Have Ready Before You Launch

The first weeks of a listing's life carry disproportionate weight in how the algorithm reads the product. Going live without the right foundation in place costs time that is difficult to recover.

Amazon launch checklist:

• Professional seller account set up and verified

• Brand Registry enrolled (requires a registered or pending trademark in the U.S. or country of origin)

• Keyword-researched listing title, five bullet points, and a product description

• Main image on white background plus at least three additional product images

• A+ Content built and published (available after Brand Registry approval)

• Backend keywords filled in Seller Central

• FBA shipment created and inventory received at Amazon warehouses before going live

• Vine now supports up to 30 units per ASIN.

• Sponsored Products campaign live on launch day with a defined daily budget

The listing, images, and at least a basic advertising structure should be in place before the product goes live. Everything else can be refined based on data after launch.

Three Things That Catch New Amazon Sellers Off Guard

Reviews take longer to accumulate than expected

Amazon restricts how sellers can solicit reviews, and customers have no obligation to leave one. For most products, the first 90 days produce a small number of reviews regardless of sales volume. Amazon Vine, available through Brand Registry, is one of the few compliant mechanisms for generating early feedback. It is worth enrolling before launch rather than after. The review picture also changed in 2026 with Amazon's updated variation review sharing policy. Amazon Review Sharing in 2026: What's Actually Changing and What To Do About It covers what that means for catalog structure.

Advertising is part of the cost of entry at launch

Organic ranking on Amazon is earned through sales history. A new listing with no sales history has no ranking. Sponsored Products advertising is how most brands generate the initial visibility and purchase activity that starts building that history. Early advertising spend should be understood as an investment in ranking data, not a direct revenue driver. The first 60 to 90 days are for gathering conversion intelligence and earning organic placement over time.

Inventory planning has more downstream consequences than it appears

Stockouts reset sales momentum and can significantly drop organic ranking. Rebuilding that ranking after running out of inventory takes time. In the early months, a conservative inventory plan with a reliable reorder trigger outperforms an aggressive send that risks storage fee accumulation if sales are slower than projected. Forecasting accuracy improves once real sales data is available.

Is Amazon the Right First Channel for U.S. Market Entry?

For most brands selling physical consumer products, yes. Amazon provides access to a customer base that is already in buying mode, a fulfillment infrastructure that removes the logistics complexity of entering a new market, and a platform where purchase intent is higher than almost anywhere else online.

Amazon works best alongside a broader U.S. market entry strategy. DTC, retail partnerships, and marketplace presence each serve different roles in reaching U.S. customers at different stages of their decision. Amazon is typically where the fastest initial traction occurs, because the demand is already there.

For a broader view of what U.S. market entry requires beyond Amazon, including how retail buyers evaluate new brands and what compliance standards apply, see Meeting the US Retailer: Essential US Retail Market Entry Strategies for Latin American Manufacturers. And for the distinction between what works on Amazon versus what works on DTC, Your Amazon Strategy Can't Be a Copy-Paste of Your DTC covers the strategic difference in practice.

Amazon holding 37.6% of U.S. e-commerce is a statement about where American consumers have concentrated their buying behavior. For brands entering this market, that concentration is the starting point of the strategy, not a detail.

At HatchEcom, we work with brands at every stage of their Amazon entry, from account setup and listing architecture to advertising structure and growth. If you are mapping out your U.S. market entry and want to understand what a properly built Amazon presence looks like in your category, that is a conversation worth having before you launch.