How Do I Set up an Amazon Business Account

Amazon is an eCommerce sales platform with millions of products that members can sell directly to consumers. Being a seller on Amazon puts you in front of millions of shoppers and gives your products a chance to compete on a national and even global scale. But what tools does Amazon offer to sellers, and how does one get started?

Should I Get an Amazon Business Account?

Amazon customers can access a wide variety of products with ease on their easy-to-use platform. Due to Amazon’s easily accessible web design, the company has been able to innovate the eCommerce industry, but Amazon’s innovation doesn’t stop where shopper interest begins. Amazon Business allows eCommerce sellers to tap into Amazon’s customer base to sell products of their own without selling on Amazon directly. 

Setting up your own eCommerce website can be time-consuming, and if you hire a website designer to set up your shopping options, it can start getting expensive, as well. Amazon Business takes the hassle out of setting up a digital space for eCommerce sellers to market directly to customers. Amazon offers many benefits to eCommerce sellers that make running an eCommerce business hassle-free. 

Benefits of Amazon Business

Amazon Corporate Credit

A corporate line of credit is available to Amazon Business users. To be approved, your business:

• Must have been established at least two years before applying
• Must have an established credit history or business credit rating

In addition: 

• The account administrator (or you) must be able to guarantee that you will be responsible for covering the line of credit’s cost
• You must agree that once approved, you will only use your Amazon Business account for business purposes and not personal purchases

Amazon Business offers two options for credit lines: the Pay-in-Full credit line and the Revolving Credit line. The Pay-in-Full credit line requires a company’s balance to be paid in full during each billing cycle. Revolving Credit lines require companies to make minimum payments towards a revolving line of credit, rather than paying off the total amount. However, the Revolving Credit lines do come with interest payments that you can avoid by paying in full each month. 

Manage Account Users

Amazon Business allows business owners to manage users, account access, and user capabilities while using the website. For example, administrators can invite users to make purchases on the business’s behalf. Amazon sends an invitation to new users to create a subordinate account on Amazon via an email link. This link will enable the new user to make purchases on your business’s behalf, such as for inventory. 

To ensure users follow appropriate spending guidelines, Amazon Business account administrators can set spending limits for each individual. If an individual reaches their spending limit, their purchases will automatically be submitted for administrative approval. 

Save Preferred Suppliers

Amazon Business customers can manage supplier lists to ensure that you always have easy access to your preferred suppliers. eCommerce sellers can manage saved supplier lists, access supplier profiles and storefronts, and contact suppliers directly through Amazon Business. You can access these functions via the Manage Suppliers page. 

Integrate Systems

Amazon can help you integrate your existing systems into one platform with Amazon Business Punchout if you have other software systems in place. This will be especially helpful in simplifying your customers’ checkout process and offering shoppers access to a personalized shopping experience. With Amazon Punchout, you can ensure that your employees follow your business’s buying policies. You can also manage end-to-end reconciliation electronically via eInvoice. 

Tax-Exempt Purchases

Amazon offers an Amazon Tax Exemption Program. Individual sellers and businesses may qualify for tax-exempt purchases. This program supports tax-exempt purchases made by companies from Amazon, its affiliates, and some independent third-party sellers. 

Amazon Business users can complete enrollment for Amazon’s Tax Exemption Program through the Tax Exemption Wizard. To complete your enrollment process, make sure you have the following information at hand:

• The state or territory that you want to enroll in 
• Entity type of your organization
• Your organization’s address
• Exemption numbers or exemption form if applicable

How to Set Up Your Amazon Business Account

Setting up your Amazon Business account is a simple process. Here is a brief walk-through to get you started setting up your account.

Getting Started

Log onto the Amazon main page and click “create free account.” Next, you will need to enter your email address. This email address will serve as the email connected to your Amazon Business account, where you will receive notifications related to your account management.

After you enter your email, the software will ask you to create a username and password. Make sure you use secure options to reduce the risk of someone breaking into or hijacking your account. 

Business Information

Next, the site will ask you to verify your business information. Ensure that the information you enter online matches the information on your official business documents. Your business name, LLC information (if applicable), and tax ID are all critical information to get correct during the signup process. 

Tax Information

Along with your business information, you will need to enter your tax information. This process will guide you with prompts and form fields to ensure that your tax information is accurate. If you wish to complete this information later, you can choose to skip this step and complete it later in your account settings.

Administrator

Whoever completes the setup process will be classified as the administrator. The admin will need to provide the personal details necessary to verify the Amazon Business account. The official verification of an account can take up to 24 hours.  

Pricing

It’s free to create an Amazon Business account. However, Amazon does offer Amazon Business Prime for a cost. The account levels you can choose from are:

• Amazon Business Prime’s Duo plan — $69 per year for one user
• The Essential plan — $179 for up to three users
• Small plan — $499 a year for up to ten users
• Medium plan — $1,299 a year for up to a hundred users 
• The Enterprise plan — $10,099 a year for over a hundred users. 

Benefits of Amazon Business Prime

Amazon Business Prime offers different features for each plan. Here are a few of the features they offer that can help you manage and grow your eCommerce business. 

Spend Visibility

One of Amazon Business’s features is called Spend Visibility. Spend Visibility is a cloud-based system that allows you to access spending data, manage key performance indicators (KPIs), and includes helpful data filters. Spend Visibility turns spending data into visuals that are easy to read and give you a complete picture of how your business is spending money. 

Spend Visibility makes it easy to monitor key performance indicators so you can see your business’s spending and savings progress in real-time. In addition, the data filters available on Spend Visibility make it quick and easy to access specific pieces of information.

For example, the data filters can sort spending information based on P.O. number, invoice, or supplier. And eCommerce sellers can control who has access to their spending data by assigning team members author or reader roles. 

Guided Buying

Guided Buying streamlines sellers’ purchasing process. Without Amazon Business, it can be challenging to track which suppliers you should be ordering your inventory from. With Guided Buying, eCommerce sellers can hand over buying responsibilities to employees without worrying if they will purchase merchandise from the correct supplier.

Guided Buying allows eCommerce sellers to:

• Set preferences to show employees which products and sellers you want them to use when purchasing inventory
• Restrict product categories for which employees should not be making purchases 
• Block employees from purchasing products from sellers you don’t want them to access. (Please note: the blocking feature is only available with the Amazon Business Prime Enterprise plan.) 

Amazon Business Prime American Express Card

Amazon Business Prime offers members an American Express card. 

• The card offers 5% cashback on the first $120,000 in U.S. purchases on:
• Amazon Business
• AWS
• Amazon.com
• Whole Foods (with an eligible Amazon Prime membership).

Members can also earn 2% cashback at:

• U.S. restaurants
• U.S. gas stations
• And 2% cashback on wireless telephone services directly purchased from U.S. service providers

The card also offers 1% cashback on other purchases, has no annual fee, and has no foreign transaction fees. 

The Amazon Business Prime American Express card also offers exclusive prices and quantity discounts to members on more than 5 million products. Members are also able to track their businesses purchases, since Amazon lists and records every transaction. Members can also set up multi-user accounts, shared payment methods, approval workflows, and spending limits so that you can allocate spending responsibilities to other team members and employees.  

Payability: Serving the eCommerce Industry’s Cash Flow Needs

While the internet is booming with eCommerce platforms, Amazon has mastered many of the seemingly tiny details that are so critical to setting up and running a successful eCommerce business. Just as it is important to ensure that you choose the right platform for your company, you also want to select a financing option that fits your eCommerce market. 

Traditional bank loans take a long time to get approval, and banks don’t look at assets in a way favorable to eCommerce sellers. It may be hard to build enough credit that a traditional bank will consider a business loan worth the risk. Unless you have a lot of inventory sitting in a warehouse somewhere, a standard bank is unlikely to consider you worth the risk.

Just because big banks want eCommerce to fail from lack of capital doesn’t mean you don’t have options. Payability offers financial solutions that meet the needs of Amazon sellers and requires no credit check for approval. 

With Instant Advance, you can get working capital based on your predicted future sales. You must have an established account history and have a certain volume of monthly sales, but you can get approved in as little as 24 hours if you meet the criteria. 

Payability also offers eCommerce sellers accelerated payouts with Instant Access. Instant Access gives eCommerce sellers the ability to access their profits before Amazon’s 2-week payout cycle resolves. So don’t leave your money locked up in Amazon’s system — get the vital funds you need for inventory, advertising, expansion, and other ways to grow your online business. 

With Instant Access, you and other eCommerce sellers can obtain your payouts every day of the week, including weekends and holidays. For a great business credit card option, you can also earn up to 2% cashback on every purchase made with the Payability Seller Card. Visit Payability’s website today to find out more about how Payability can help you access your eCommerce business funds quickly and easily.