The Importance of Managing Multiple Amazon Seller Accounts

How much ease comes with managing online storefronts? Commerce has never been more convenient. Globalization and technological innovations have jointly brought an end to most of the limitations of traditional trading.

Into this new niche, e-commerce stepped innovative giants like eBay and Amazon. These platforms have bridged the gap between seller and buyer, eliminating the need for physical marketplaces by providing all the tools and services required for a trade.

Businesses use these platforms as both storefronts and payment channels, providing them with seller accounts to market and distribute their goods and services to a wide range of consumers.

Amazon, in particular, has grown from strength to strength, becoming a global leader in e-commerce today. The platform typically allows users to create a seller account to manage a single storefront for their products.

However, what happens when you have different categories of products or services and require multiple storefronts and seller accounts? That’s where Multiple Amazon Seller accounts come in.

This article seeks to answer the following questions, and more — in detail:

• Why do you need Multiple seller accounts?
• What are the benefits of owning them?
• Does Amazon allow users to create multiple Seller accounts?
• How do you create them?
• How do you manage them?
• What challenges do you face with them, and how do you solve those challenges?

And as you will see, despite its popularity and utility, Amazon has certain limitations pertaining to multiple seller accounts.

Read on.

What are Amazon seller accounts?

An Amazon seller account enables users to market and sell their products in Amazon’s e-store. You’ll have to register and choose one of the multiple selling plans to get an Amazon seller account. As part of your business account, you’ll gain access to a feature called Seller Central.

Accessing Seller Central

Seller Central is the access point for your Amazon seller account and a means to manage sales and access Amazon’s e-store resources effectively.

With Amazon Seller Central, you can easily navigate your seller account and step up your business operations with helpful content and tools from a single dashboard.

Benefits of Amazon Seller Central

Here are some of the benefits of the tools and resources provided by the Amazon Seller Central portal:

• Efficient tracking of updated listings and inventory
• Tracking and management of payments, refunds, and returns
• Access to custom business reports
• Access to customer metrics for store performance monitoring
• Access to growth tools to boost sales
• Customer review and feedback monitoring
• Ad campaign monitoring

 

Multiple Seller accounts

Online merchants usually have several accounts on each e-store. The reasons are quite obvious. They might be delving into a completely new niche or aiming to target new audiences in a completely different region. Either way, launching a new storefront or seller account for this purpose makes sense.

Market expansion, after all, is a brilliant strategy for growing your business.

 

Owning multiple Amazon seller accounts

To understand why online merchants often need multiple seller accounts, we’ll cite a hypothetical instance of a business owner who sells footballing gear such as boots, shin guards, and goalie gloves.

The said merchant built his business and customer base by focusing on the African market. However, since the merchant is looking to expand into the UK market, given the high demand and profitability involved, it is ideal to open a new Amazon seller account on the e-store UK domain, Amazon.co.uk.

 

What are the benefits of owning multiple Amazon seller accounts?

Amazon’s third-party sellers are crucial to the platform’s growth, as evidenced by the fact that they account for 58% of Amazon sales.

This also shows that these sellers greatly benefit from the market exposure and trading tools on offer on the Amazon marketplace.

If you’re an Amazon seller looking to expand your storefront and online business by creating multiple seller accounts, here’s what you have to gain:

 

1. Cross-regional sales from one platform

In traditional business, if you want to make sales across different regions or continents, you’ll have to set up a new physical presence there.

As a small business owner, the procedure isn’t often worth the hassle. You’ll have to spend more on acquiring a physical store or warehouse for your products, not to talk of the lengthy process of business incorporation in a new country.

Even if you don’t want to run a physical store, the next option is to create another seller account on a different online store, which fragments your business operations in ways that may not necessarily be favorable.

With multiple seller accounts on Amazon, there’s no need to try out new platforms. For each target region, you can have a different seller account. Provided that you already have an established customer base in that region, your business will grow.

 

2. Be an established, well-known, versatile seller

If you’re a versatile seller, that is, you sell different categories of products, multiple Amazon seller accounts are a great way to take your business to the next level.

It’s one thing to sell different product categories. It’s quite another thing to be well-known for such versatility.

Combining multiple product categories on one seller account can confuse your customers. However, you can optimize your business efforts with a different seller account for each category.

 

3. Boost revenue and earnings

Owning multiple seller accounts means your business re-investments will be thinly spread out. Rather than reinvesting your profits into products in a single storefront, you’ll have to do the same for your multiple storefronts and seller accounts.

However, this is also a way to boost monthly earnings and revenue, as it’s akin to putting your eggs in different baskets.

Note that the returns might come as trickles initially. However, they will surely become a torrent in the long term.

 

4. Reduced business risk

Owning a single Amazon seller account is actually a big risk, even if you don’t see it that way.

Unfortunate occurrences are never planned for, but they definitely occur, often at the worst possible times.

Your sole seller account could be suspended for various reasons, such as consumer complaints, product privacy violations, etc.

What will you do when this happens?

The suspension would have severely damaged your business operations even if you eventually get reinstated. You will have lost sales and valuable clients. Worse, you might have lost credibility.

What happens if your Amazon seller account is permanently banned? This is the worst-case scenario, as it means losing your entire business. Terrible to imagine, don’t you think?

With multiple Amazon seller accounts, you have a failsafe in case things go awry.

 

5. Run different business models

Multiple Amazon seller accounts can help you to shift focus from one business model to another.

Suppose your initial business model was B2C (business to customer), and you plan to run a different business model aimed at other businesses, such as a B2B (business to business) model. In that case, opening another seller account is the only way to do so without having it clash with your original business model.

6. To make the best of the market expansion

Multiple Amazon seller accounts enable you to expand your merchant store to take advantage of multiple customers across different regions.

If done correctly, it can mean better profits for you. For instance, you can maximize profits by setting a higher price for a product if the demand is higher for one region than for another.

An example is a product that you sell for $50. If, after your market research, you learn that your market competitors in a different region are selling the same product at a much higher price, you can open a new seller account for the new region and up the product’s price for profit-maximizing.

Additionally, this practice will aid you in boosting sales by identifying and satisfying your clients’ wants across various regions.

 

Challenges of owning multiple Amazon seller accounts

Despite its several benefits, owning multiple Amazon seller accounts does have its own downsides.

Here are some of the disadvantages of having multiple Amazon seller accounts

 

1. Time-consuming

Owning multiple Amazon seller accounts is beneficial in many regards.

However, multiple accounts require more time to manage and streamline, which can be a hassle if you have time constraints.

Managing a single account takes time, and adding one or two more accounts to the mix is sure to strain you to your limits, even if the result is more sales and profits.

 

2. Multiple accounts do not automatically equate to increased profits

If owning multiple Amazon storefronts is not required or does not complement your business operations, it will be a liability for you and not necessarily translate to profits.

There’s always the chance you’ll accrue losses from lack of sufficient time monitoring one storefront or bad decisions.

Aside from that, splitting your time between multiple seller accounts may adversely affect one or some of the accounts. The affected account may suffer from neglect, and you may end up having to cut your losses by closing the account altogether.

 

3. The risk of account suspension

If you don’t apply for a second account legally, you run the risk of having your account suspended.

Many sellers tend to go the illegal route because of Amazon’s overly strict policies regarding creating multiple accounts.

Even after applying for a second seller account, it often takes several weeks or months.

If you create multiple seller accounts illegally, all it takes is the wrong set of scenarios for Amazon to detect and block the account, which is a massive setback for your business.

 

4. Human errors

As an Amazon seller, owning multiple accounts means that you’ll have to split your time managing each account.

This, quite naturally, leaves room for error. You could forget to update your online catalog and inadvertently receive orders for items that are out of stock. You could also forget to list new items. The margin for error is great. After all, you’re only human. If you run a dropshipping business, an automated dropshipping solution can be of help.

In any case, if you opt to use multiple seller accounts – given the benefits, you’ll need to learn how to handle them in a way that minimizes your risk while maximizing your return.

 

How to efficiently manage multiple Amazon seller accounts

To begin with, it’s important to note that Amazon does allow users to create multiple seller accounts.

Although the platform’s inherent policies prohibit users from maintaining or operating multiple accounts, Amazon recognizes that special circumstances may require sellers to own multiple accounts.

When applying for a second seller account, Amazon asks user-specific questions regarding the new account’s ownership.

This is because Amazon wants to maintain as much control as possible over who is allowed to open a second account.

As such, they’re actively seeking unapproved accounts that could give sellers an unfair competitive advantage.

 

1. Get approval first

There’s a process to pass through before setting up your new Amazon seller account. If not, you run the risk of having your account blocked. Ensure to get the necessary approval, as it is key to managing your accounts efficiently.

 

2. Operate your new accounts carefully after approval

Once you get permission from Amazon Seller Performance, you must be careful with managing the accounts.

Ensure that you don’t switch IP addresses while operating the seller accounts, as this might cause Amazon to think you’re running multiple storefronts illegally.

The same applies to bank accounts and other financial IDs. Ensure that the operating bank accounts for each seller account are kept separate.

 

How to get approval for multiple Amazon seller accounts

First, you have to ask yourself a couple of questions.

• Do you really need multiple Amazon seller accounts?
• Do you have multiple business fronts that require separate accounts, or do you want to separate catalogs and inventory?

If you only want to create another account to separate your catalog or have another as a contingency plan, then your application will certainly be denied.

There are no fixed criteria that guarantee your application’s approval. Rather, Amazon makes the decisions on a case-by-case basis. However, a huge determining factor is your business situation and account history.

Here are some factors that determine the success of your application for another seller account.

 

1. Legitimate business reasons

When emailing Seller Performance and requesting approval for another seller account, you must specify legitimate business reasons.

That is, you have to demonstrate a crucial need for separate accounts and show that both storefronts won’t share mutual accounting or taxing information.

 

2. Do’s and don’ts

Suppose you have multiple policy violations or metric misses. In that case, your application won’t be granted, as Seller Performance will think you want to make up for causing trouble on one account by creating another.

Additionally, once your application has been successfully approved, ensure to get it in writing from the Seller Performance department. If not, a future investigator can decide that the permission is invalid and block the new account or accounts. As such, you much have the confirmation mail saved to avoid future hassles.

 

How to create a second Amazon seller account

Provided that you have a legitimate business reason for creating a new seller account, here are the steps to initiate your application:

• Have a separate bank account for the new Seller Central account
• Have a separate email address for the new Seller Central account
• Ensure that the products in each account are not similar
• Ensure that your account’s business financial health and performance metrics are performing well

You should note that sellers do not explicitly require Amazon’s approval to create a second seller account. Rather, the approval you get protects your account from being banned once it is detected that you indeed have multiple accounts.

 

How many Amazon seller accounts can I have?

Amazon maintains that users can only have one seller account for each region their business operates in. However, special considerations can be made if there are legitimate business reasons.

In other words, you can have as many Amazon seller accounts as you want as long as you can get permission from Seller Performance for each account. Otherwise, if you go on to set up the accounts without approval, they may end up blocking the account, and then you lose that storefront and all its business implications.

 

How does Amazon detect multiple accounts?

Amazon detects multiple seller accounts via any of the following means:

• IP address
• Bank accounts
• Device ID
• Credit card details
• Shipping or billing address
• Phone number

 

Conclusion

Opening multiple seller accounts on Amazon is a great option if you’re looking for how to increase e-commerce sales. The platform is rich with tools and resources to help you grow your business and has vast market potential for you to tap into.

However, you have to be certain that this option is right for your business model before delving in; else, you may struggle to juggle the duties that come with running multiple storefronts.

In addition, you must ensure that you request permission from Amazon before creating an account, or else, you’ll lose all the business in the new accounts.

Once you have launched multiple Amazon seller accounts, remember that the work is only just beginning. But with sufficient effort and dedication from your end, the potential is limitless.