How to Sell More on Amazon and Expand Your Digital Footprint

By: Gary Basko, Senior Account Executive, Descartes Ecommerce 

Success on Amazon comes down to many factors. It can get really specific, depending on what your goals are, what you’re trying to sell, and what type of seller you are. For example, are you a reseller or a private-label seller? Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) or Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM)? Maybe you’re a dropshipper or third-party logistics provider (3PL) prepping shipments. 

Regardless, the main factor I see among the sellers who are most successful on Amazon (and this is across the board) is that they’re using a system to track, manage, and automate all the back-end work you’re required to do as an Amazon seller. 

Selling more is only half of the success. The other half is how you manage operations, control costs, and consistently hit those delivery deadlines. Here's how many of my clients succeed on Amazon. Hopefully, these tips will help you as well. 

Understanding the opportunities Amazon offers 

One of the biggest hurdles is simply understanding all of the different ways you can sell on Amazon and how to best leverage them based on the products you’re selling and the audience you’re trying to reach. Many of my clients mix and match these opportunities, depending on what they sell. 

You have FBA if you don’t have your own warehouses and want to leverage Amazon’s fulfillment network. It’s a great way to get started as an Amazon seller because Amazon makes sure the orders are delivered on time. Of course, they do take their fees for doing so. 

You can either manage FBA yourself or outsource this to a 3PL.  

Some of my clients were already using a 3PL and wanted to start selling on Amazon FBA. The 3PL began prepping FBA shipments for them and made it extremely easy. Some 3PLs will even advise you on how much inventory to send to FBA. 

And it gets even crazier. I’ve got a 3PL client who handles absolutely everything Amazon-related for his customers, from the listings, to inventory, to FBA, to even serving as a vendor to sell them the products in the first place. His customers do nothing but cash checks while he does all the work. It’s truly amazing. 

Amazon FBM 

FBM is where you sell on Amazon and fulfill orders from your own warehouse. Depending on what you sell, this might make more sense. FBA is not great for large, bulky items, food that requires temperature-controlled storage, hazmat, or anything that needs specialized packaging or handling. 

With the right tech stack in your warehouse, FBM may do more for your bottom line than paying for FBA. My clients with scalable, fast, tech-enabled fulfillment workflows have no problem keeping up with Amazon FBM orders and maintaining that Buy Box or Prime Seller status. 

Amazon MCF 

If you expand into other channels, Amazon also offers Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF). If you have inventory in an FBA warehouse and want to fulfill orders from Shopify, WooCommerce, or other integrated marketplaces using that inventory, Amazon makes that possible. 

Some clients like the simplicity of this rather than keeping some inventory in FBA and some in their own warehouse or another 3PL. But again, Amazon will take its cut, so you have to weigh out the operational costs and decide what makes sense. Do you want all your eggs in one basket to make it easier, or do you want to diversify for more control? 

Amazon Business is another fantastic opportunity that many sellers don’t realize exists. You can sell in bulk to stores, shops, and businesses that are buying through Amazon. Some are looking for bulk pricing, while others are placing larger wholesale orders. 

Think about it: if you’re already a wholesaler or distributor, how many more customers could you reach by using Amazon’s network? Sure, you’ll pay a fee, but it might be worth it to get in front of so many more buyers. 

Expanding beyond a single Amazon account 

Operating multiple Amazon seller accounts 

Many of my most successful clients aren’t just selling on one Amazon account. They’re selling on multiple Amazon accounts and cross-selling products across those accounts. It gets more complex on the operational side, but you can easily handle it with the right technology to keep everything under control. 

Why would anyone want 12 different Amazon stores? How is that even possible? The more listings you have on Amazon, the more opportunities for people to encounter your products. You can target different geographies, buyer personas, single-order versus bulk, use different pricing strategies, and the list goes on and on. 

One key to managing that level of complexity is Descartes Sellercloud, which is an ecommerce operations platform with special capabilities for Amazon sellers. You can’t have multiple Seller Central accounts on the same IP address but, with Sellercloud, you can manage as many Amazon accounts and listings as you want in one platform. 

Becoming a multichannel Amazon seller 

For many sellers, Amazon is a great starting point, but eventually they want to expand into other channels. 

You launch a Shopify store, and now you’re selling the same product in two places. You have to make sure inventory is synchronized and updated properly. If you’re selling heavily on Amazon, you don’t want to oversell on another channel. And if you’re selling on four or five channels, Amazon needs to be updated in real time as well.  

What is the easiest way to do this? Basically, you upgrade your operations to handle the increased complexity using technology. 

My clients usually tackle it one of three ways. They either use Amazon MCF, where Amazon basically works like a 3PL and handles everything. They might use a 3PL. Or they most often choose to improve their technology, getting an ecommerce inventory management system that handles Amazon FBA and FBM as well.  

The first step is understanding your products and how your customers buy from you. Do they prefer single units? Bulk? Use different words for the same products, depending on the geography? You can offer the same products for sale under different listings. 

If that sounds like an operational nightmare, keep reading. My clients are already doing it, and so can you. 

How to create multiple Amazon listings for the same SKU without messing up your inventory 

One way of expanding your digital footprint is what we call “shadow SKUs.” 

I have customers who sell in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. They want different pricing, bullet points, or descriptions tailored to each market. At the end of the day, though, the inventory is sitting in one warehouse. I need to make sure inventory tied to multiple ASINs is synchronized back to the same master SKU. 

It’s a unique approach that a lot of our customers use to expand their digital footprint. 

Having more product offerings available makes it easier for customers to find one of your listings and buy from you. 

Sell more units on Amazon with kits and bundles 

Another example is kits and bundles. I could talk about this all day because it’s such a powerful way to increase sales on Amazon. Here’s a more detailed explanation of how to do that:  

Offer multiple bulk quantities on Amazon with variation listings 

We also offer the ability to create and manage variation listings. I have customers who create variation listings where they sell one-packs, three-packs, five-packs, and ten-packs together on the same listing. 

When a customer lands on that page, maybe they have a larger family and want to buy in bulk. I can encourage them to purchase a larger quantity by offering a better price when they buy more. 

I can have a listing for the one-pack, another for the three-pack, another for the five-pack, and then a separate variation listing that includes all of those options together. 

The more listings you have, the more opportunities you have to appear when someone searches a keyword and starts scrolling through Amazon looking for the product that best fits their needs. 

Why an inventory management system becomes critical 

As you expand your digital footprint and complexity increases, your operations eventually outgrow Amazon Seller Central tools. That’s where an inventory management system (IMS) comes into play. 

The biggest challenge our clients face is melding sales and operations: how they want to sell products versus how they actually fulfill orders and what’s physically sitting in their warehouse. 

Risk of overselling and underselling 

When you’re dealing with kits and bundles, you have the SKU you’re selling, but that SKU may actually be made up of multiple products. As you can imagine, listing both the kits and the components for sale at the same time is incredibly risky. You need the flexibility to sell either the kits or the components, but not accidentally sell both and run out of stock. 

Sure, you could play it safe and only list the kits and bundles rather than the components. But then, you miss out on potential sales because your inventory is tied up. 

This is where a system like Descartes Sellercloud helps you de-risk your Amazon sales strategy. When an order comes through, the back-end system breaks that SKU into its bill of materials to understand what the order is actually composed of. 

This allows two important things to happen. Inventory is reserved properly, and inventory updates are pushed back to all of the related kits and bundles being sold. This allows you to list and sell both the kits and components, at the same time, with no risk of overselling. 

It’s the same thing for variation listings. If I sell a five-pack and need to pick five units, I also need to update the inventory available for the one-pack and three-pack so that I don’t oversell. Sellercloud handles this on the back end to prevent overselling. 

These are complex problems sellers deal with every day, especially when they don’t have an IMS and are trying to manage inventory manually through spreadsheets. 

Unfortunately, when you’re using spreadsheets to track inventory and update marketplaces, underselling and overselling become major issues. A lot of sellers look at their warehouse and think, “I have 100 units. Let me make those available everywhere.” 

The problem is that you can only manually track so much as orders start coming in. One channel isn’t too difficult. Two or three channels become much more complex. 

If I sell something on Amazon, it could also sell on Shopify, Walmart, and eBay at the same time. I might fulfill the Amazon order, but now I’ve created problems for my other channels. As a result, a lot of sellers end up focusing on one channel and missing what is often the biggest opportunity: becoming truly multichannel or omnichannel. 

What growth can look like as an Amazon seller 

3x-4x growth of daily Amazon sales 

I worked with a client who sells air filters. One of their biggest challenges was making sure inventory was properly shown as available on Amazon. They sold on multiple channels, in multiple countries, and across multiple Amazon accounts. 

Their biggest problem was simply knowing how much inventory they actually had. 

Because they couldn’t accurately track inventory, they didn’t know what they should be purchasing. They couldn’t maximize the inventory they had available, and they couldn’t fully capitalize on all of their sales channels. 

After putting the right technology in place, their sales absolutely skyrocketed. Once everything was organized and automated, they saw about a 100% increase in the first month. 

Today, they’ve seen a 300–400% increase in daily order volume simply by making inventory available across all of the channels they sell on. 

Wholesaler starts selling on Amazon and Walmart as well 

Another example is H Group. When they came to us, they were primarily focused on wholesale. They needed a system to track products, manage orders, and invoice customers. 

After implementing Descartes Sellercloud, they realized they could also sell on Amazon and Walmart while keeping wholesale, Amazon, Walmart, and their website synchronized. 

They were doing about 10,000 wholesale orders per month. Today, they’re doing roughly 40,000 additional orders through ecommerce channels. They had time to refocus, expand into new channels, and increase sales because they had a wider reach and a larger digital footprint. 

Final thoughts 

There are many different ways to succeed on Amazon. The key is having a system that can organize, manage, maintain, and automate your operations so you can focus on what you need to do instead of manually updating spreadsheets. 

Just imagine what’s possible if you can spend your time researching opportunities and focusing on growth instead of dealing with warehouse issues! 

And don’t wait until it becomes a crisis. I’ve had so many people come to me after they’ve built layers of complexity through disconnected software, manual processes, and workarounds that have been in place for years. 

At that point, it can feel like an insurmountable hill to climb. I get it, you’ve invested a lot of time and effort into getting this far. We’re here to help you strengthen and future-proof your operations to get where you want to go. 

Curious about what’s possible? 

It doesn’t cost anything to talk to a consultant and understand your options. As long as you have those cards in your hand, you can always play them later. 

But if you think multichannel growth is where you’re headed, it’s better to start preparing now. 

FAQs 

Is it better to use Amazon FBA or FBM? 

It depends on what you're selling and how your operations are set up. If you don't have your own warehouse, FBA can be a great way to get started because Amazon handles fulfillment for you. But if you're selling large, bulky, temperature-sensitive, or specialized products, FBM may make more sense. I have clients succeeding with both models. The key is understanding your costs and having the right operational processes in place. More thoughts on FBA versus FBM here. 

What is the easiest way to start selling on channels beyond Amazon? 

For most sellers, the easiest next step is launching a Shopify store or adding another marketplace like Walmart or eBay. The challenge isn't adding the channel. It's keeping inventory synchronized everywhere. That's why many sellers eventually invest in technology that can manage inventory, orders, and listings across multiple channels from one place. 

Can I sell the same inventory through multiple Amazon listings? 

Yes, and many successful sellers do exactly that. Some create multiple listings for different geographies, customer types, bulk quantities, or search terms while still selling from the same inventory pool. The important part is making sure all of those listings stay synchronized so you don't accidentally oversell. 

Why do kits, bundles, and variation listings help increase sales? 

Different customers want different buying options. Some only need one item, while others prefer multi-packs or bundled products. By creating more ways for customers to purchase, you increase the chances that someone finds a listing that fits their needs. More listings also create more opportunities to appear in Amazon search results. 

When is it time to move beyond spreadsheets? 

Usually when you're selling on multiple channels or managing more complex inventory. One channel is manageable. Two or three channels start getting difficult. Once you're dealing with multiple marketplaces, bundles, variations, warehouses, or fulfillment methods, spreadsheets become increasingly risky. That's typically when sellers start looking for a better way to automate inventory and order management.