How to Sell on Amazon UK

Selling on Amazon UK starts with three decisions: which selling plan you need, how orders will be fulfilled, and whether your products are allowed in their category at all. Registration itself takes days. The decisions made around it decide whether the account is profitable and stays healthy.

This guide covers how to sell on Amazon UK from scratch, with fees and rules as they stand at the time of writing (October 2026). Once you are live, the Amazon listing optimisation guide is the hub for everything about getting found. If you sell on eBay too, the eBay listing optimisation guide explains why the two marketplaces need different listing habits.

Individual or Professional: choosing an Amazon UK selling plan

Amazon UK has two plans. The pricing below is from Amazon's UK pricing page.

The arithmetic is simple: 34 items at £0.75 is £25.50, so Professional is cheaper from about 34 sales a month. In practice, almost every serious seller needs Professional anyway, because advertising, bulk uploads and the reports needed to manage stock are only available on it.

What does it cost to sell on Amazon UK?

Plan fees are the smallest part. At the time of writing, the main fee lines are:

The FBA overview has the current fulfilment details, and Amazon's own revenue calculator is the quickest way to model a specific product.

A worked example (hypothetical numbers). A kitchen gadget sells for £19.99 including VAT. Say the referral fee is 15%: £3.00. Fulfilled by Amazon, a small item might attract a fulfilment fee of a few pounds and some storage. If you are VAT registered, £3.33 of the sale price is VAT you owe HMRC. Add advertising at, say, £1.50 per unit sold and a landed product cost of £6. What is left — before returns — is often under £3 on a £20 product. Model it per product before you buy stock. eBay product research sets out a margin method that applies equally to Amazon.

Amazon also runs new seller incentives — at the time of writing, its pricing page advertises programmes such as Brand Registry rebates and FBA credits for eligible new sellers. They are worth claiming, but do not build a business case on them; they end.

What you need to register on Amazon Seller Central

Amazon asks for:

1. An email address or existing Amazon customer account
2. A chargeable credit or debit card
3. Government ID — passport or driving licence
4. Tax information
5. A phone number
6. A bank account to receive payouts

Identity verification may include document checks and sometimes a video call. The most common cause of delay is inconsistency: the name on your bank statement, ID and registration must match exactly, and so must the address. Use the same details throughout.

Can you sell your product on Amazon? Check restrictions first

Before buying stock:

• Gated categories and brands. Some categories and many well-known brands need approval. Approval can require invoices from authorised suppliers, and the final decision rests with Amazon.
• Restricted products. Some products cannot be sold at all, or only with documentation.
• Product safety and compliance. Electrical goods, toys, cosmetics and food carry their own UK rules, and Amazon can ask for evidence such as test reports or safety documentation.
• Intellectual property. Listing a brand you are not authorised to sell, or using a brand's images, can bring IP complaints against your account.

Search for the product in Seller Central's Add a Product tool. It will tell you whether you need approval before you can list.

Listing: existing ASIN or new product?

Amazon is product-centric. Every product has one page (an ASIN), and every seller of that product competes on it.

• If the product already exists, you add an offer to the existing ASIN. You compete for the Featured Offer (often called the Buy Box) on price, fulfilment method and account performance. You have little control over the listing content.
• If it does not exist, or you own the brand, you create a new ASIN. You control the content, and with Brand Registry you get protection and tools such as A+ Content, Sponsored Brands, Brand Stores and Brand Analytics.

Brand Registry is free, but it needs an active registered trademark, or a pending application, for your brand name or logo, issued by the trademark office of a country with an Amazon store — the UK Intellectual Property Office for most UK sellers. For a business planning to sell its own branded products, it is usually worth starting the trademark application early, because the tools it gives access to are where Amazon listings really differ from each other. Amazon A+ Content explains one of the main ones.

FBA or FBM?

Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) means Amazon stores, picks, packs, ships and handles returns. Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) means you do. FBA listings are Prime-eligible; FBM listings are not, unless you qualify for Seller Fulfilled Prime. The choice affects your fees, cash flow and account health metrics — Amazon FBA vs FBM covers it properly.

Tax: VAT and HMRC reporting for Amazon sellers

• VAT registration is required once taxable turnover passes £90,000 in a rolling 12 months (HMRC VAT thresholds). Turnover means sales, not profit.
• Overseas sellers are treated differently: under the online marketplace VAT rules, Amazon is generally responsible for VAT on their UK sales.
• Digital platform reporting. Amazon reports seller income to HMRC under the digital platform reporting rules. Trading income above the £1,000 trading allowance has to be declared regardless.

If you are using a supplier abroad or dropshipping, the rules get more involved; dropshipping VAT and legal rules covers that side. I am not an accountant, and a short conversation with one before your first stock order is money well spent.

Your first Amazon listings

1. Start with a small range. Three to ten products you have modelled properly.
2. Follow the category style guide for titles. Amazon suppresses listings that break it.
3. Write five bullet points that answer what buyers compare on — size, compatibility, materials, what is included.
4. Fill backend search terms with synonyms, not repeats of the title.
5. Main image on pure white, then images showing scale, use and detail.
6. Price against the Featured Offer, not against the highest-priced competitor.

The Amazon listing optimisation guide covers each of these in depth.

Reviews: what you can and cannot do

New listings with no reviews convert less well, and the temptation to fix that is where many new sellers get into trouble. Under Amazon's customer review policies:

• You can use Amazon's own Request a Review button in Seller Central, which sends a neutral, standard request.
• You can enrol eligible brand-registered products in Amazon Vine, Amazon's own programme for early reviews.
• You cannot offer anything in exchange for a review — refunds, discounts, free products or gift cards.
• You cannot ask only satisfied customers to review, or ask for a positive review.
• You cannot have friends, family or employees review your products.

Insert cards asking for five-star reviews, or offering a gift for a review, are among the quickest routes to listing removal and account action. Slow, legitimate review growth is the only kind worth having.

Protecting the account from day one

Amazon is less forgiving than eBay. A policy breach can mean deactivation rather than a ranking dip, and appeals are slow.

• Dispatch on time and upload valid tracking on FBM orders.
• Never cancel orders you cannot fulfil because stock ran out elsewhere — sync stock across channels. Automating eCommerce order processing covers how.
• Keep supplier invoices for everything you sell.
• Never manipulate reviews — no incentives, no review swaps, no asking only happy customers.
• Check Account Health weekly.

Amazon account health explains the metrics and thresholds in detail.

Advertising: when to start

Most new products need some advertising to be seen at all, because organic ranking leans heavily on sales history. Start small, on Sponsored Products, with a budget you would be comfortable losing while you learn, and measure cost per sale against margin. The Amazon PPC guide covers campaign structure.

Where to get help

Plenty of sellers set up Amazon themselves, and doing it once teaches you a lot. Help is worth paying for when you are moving into gated categories, launching a brand, losing money on advertising, or dealing with an account health warning. My Amazon seller support service covers setup, listings, PPC and FBA planning, working inside your own Seller Central account, and the Amazon seller support showcase shows how that work is structured.