Amazon launched the Amazon Accelerator program to support local brands or manufacturers to grow their businesses under the umbrella of Amazon. Once registered for the program you can sell your product exclusively on Amazon with several benefits, obviously in exchange for a cost and certain conditions. In this documentation, we will discuss A to Z of Amazon Accelerator.
What is Amazon Accelerator
Amazon Accelerator program enables third-party sellers and manufacturers to partner with Amazon and become Amazon Private Brand suppliers. This means you have to give up some control over your business to Amazon. In exchange, you will get marketplace incentives like onboarding support and marketing tools, which will help you scale your business faster than ever.
Who Can Join?
You can join the Amazon Accelerator program only if you assure Amazon that you will:
- Generate $1M in your first month’s sales
- Commit yourself to spending 5% of your revenue on paid advertising on Amazon
- Maintain healthy inventory and
- Adopt FBA
Apart from that, only certain types of products are allowed in the Accelerator program. Amazon gives a list of specific product categories that are eligible for the program. These are the categories:
Also, there are some restricted categories that you can not sell under Amazon Accelerator. You will find those categories in the Amazon Accelerator Product Restrictions Policy.
How much?
Every Amazon program has its cost, nothing comes free from Amazon. If you qualify to enroll in the Amazon accelerator you have to pay an additional 7% premium to the referral fees mentioned on the Amazon Fee Schedule.
How to Enroll?
If you are eligible to apply for Amazon Accelerator, go to the Amazon accelerator landing page and click on Sign up. You will get a questionnaire like the one below.
Before paying anything, first, you have to answer the questionnaire providing details about you and your business. After that Amazon will get in touch with you about getting started as an Accelerator seller.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- When Amazon accelerator lets you in you will receive some extra benefits from this program. Being an accelerator seller your brand will show under the Amazon Brand name. Hence the visibility of your products will be prominent, and as a result, sales will be higher compared to the non-accelerator sellers.
- You will have the opportunity to experiment with new products on the Amazon accelerator with reduced risk. Because Amazon itself is backing you up.
- The accelerator will provide you with an exclusive marketing and support package. You get access to tools, analytics, and Amazon’s support team. You don’t have to worry about inventory management, shipment, and returns, Amazon will handle all that for you. So no logistical headaches for you. You can concentrate on your product quality more.
- When you enroll in the Amazon accelerator, you will get free access to Amazon Vine. Which will be a great help in terms of customer feedback. You can easily get reviews and ratings.
With all that, the Amazon accelerator program offers you free access to their office spaces in Seattle.
Cons
- As you will be selling under the Amazon brand name, you will lose control over some aspects of your brand. Especially marketing, shipment, packaging, and some other areas. If you want full control over your brand accelerator is not for you. Also, Amazon will not gate your brand under the accelerator. They will provide their own pricing for your items and will always try to win the buy box with low pricing.
- When you are an accelerator seller, you can only sell your items exclusively on Amazon. You can not sell your items elsewhere under the same brand name. Amazon restricts you to sell on other platforms like your website or other marketplaces like eBay or Walmart.
- Amazon accelerator lets you in with a purchase clause. That gives them the right to purchase your brand, interest, and goodwill with a meager amount. Usually, that is $10000.
- You won’t get any customer data to connect to your buyers. Amazon will handle everything about customers and customers’ data.
Overall, you will be at the mercy of Amazon while doing business within the Amazon accelerator program.
Should You Join?
If you do not have any long-term plan or do not want to establish your brand reputation elsewhere, then Amazon accelerator is the best choice for you.
You can earn a lot and grow much faster than other sellers. Competition is high on Amazon. It’s a great opportunity to get sales easily and quickly. You can avoid the research and development phase as Amazon will do all the boosting and marketing for your items.
But, if it’s bothering you that you can not sell outside amazon, then Amazon accelerator is not for you. If you want to establish your own brand and sell products on different channels then forget about it. For that, you need full control over your brand to build its reputation and loyal customer base. The accelerator will not allow you that. You should not take part in the accelerator program if you want to diversify your business.
Also, keep in mind that Amazon can own your business at any time with the purchase clause. You have to agree to that if you want to enroll in Accelerator.
Think about your business goals and what you want to achieve. These will tell you whether or not to join the Amazon Accelerator program.
That’s pretty much everything you need to know from this brief discussion. We hope this will help you. If you have any further queries about it, feel free to comment. We will get back to you soon. For eCommerce-related updates, tricks, and tips subscribe to our Ecomclips Newsletter.
