You've got a product. Maybe it's already selling on your own site, maybe it isn't live yet. Now you're staring at Amazon, the place where crores of Indians go to search when they want to buy something, and you're wondering how to get on it without setting fire to your margins.
Here's the honest version. Getting a seller account live on Amazon India takes an afternoon once your paperwork is ready. The real decision is which fulfilment model you pick, what the fees actually eat, and whether you treat Amazon as your whole business or as one channel that harvests search demand while you build a brand you actually own. This guide walks you through all of it with real 2026 numbers.
To sell on Amazon India you need a PAN, a bank account, and in almost every case a GST number (Amazon requires it for taxable goods regardless of turnover). Account setup is free and takes under an hour. Then you pick a fulfilment model: FBA (Amazon stores and ships, gets you Prime, costs the most per unit), Easy Ship (you pack, Amazon's courier picks up, national shipping from about ₹65 for sub-500g), or Self Ship (you use your own courier, no Prime badge). Amazon takes a referral fee of roughly 2 to 15 percent by category, plus a closing fee and shipping or fulfilment charges. Optimise your listing, chase the Buy Box, then use Sponsored Products at ₹7 to ₹30 per click. Treat Amazon as a demand harvester, not your only home, because you never own the customer data there.
What you need to register as a seller
Amazon India onboarding is genuinely quick once your documents are in order. You cannot start without a valid PAN (for a company or LLP, the PAN issued in the entity's name). You need an active bank account in the same name as your PAN and GST, because Amazon runs a small verification deposit. And you need a GST number.
On GST, don't guess. Amazon is an e-commerce operator, so for taxable goods it needs your GSTIN regardless of your turnover, even if you're below the ₹40 lakh threshold that applies to offline sellers. The only common exception is GST-exempt goods like books, where PAN alone can work. Getting a GST number is free on gst.gov.in and usually takes about a week. Source: Tax2win.
So the full checklist is five things: GSTIN, PAN, an active bank account in the business name, a mobile number and email, and a pickup address. Have those ready and account creation on sellercentral.amazon.in takes most people under an hour. If GST and its knock-on filing feels heavy, read GST for ecommerce sellers in India before you register, because once you're a registered seller you're filing returns every month whether you sold anything or not.
The fulfilment decision: FBA vs Easy Ship vs Self Ship
This is the choice that decides your daily workload and a big chunk of your cost per order. Three main options, plus one invite-only program.
FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon): you send inventory to Amazon's warehouse. They store it, pick, pack, ship, and handle returns and customer service. Your listings get the Prime badge, which lifts conversion. You pay a per-unit fulfilment fee plus monthly storage, currently ₹50 per cubic foot after a November 2025 increase, and long-term storage fees kick in on stock sitting unsold past 180 days. Source: Forest Shipping.
Easy Ship: you store and pack the order yourself, Amazon's courier partner picks it up from your door and delivers it. No storage fees, but you carry your own warehousing. National shipping starts at about ₹65 for items under 500g as of 2025, scaling by weight slab and zone. It's the sweet spot for most small sellers: you keep control of stock, Amazon handles the last mile. Source: iCarry.
Self Ship (FBM): you handle the whole delivery through your own courier partner. Amazon charges no shipping fee here, you just pay your courier directly. No Prime badge, which usually means lower visibility, but full control and often the cheapest route for heavy items (2kg+) where you can negotiate better rates than Amazon's slabs.
Seller Flex: invite-only. Amazon plugs its logistics into your warehouse, so you get the Prime badge without shipping stock to Amazon. Eligibility is stiff, typically 500 to 1,000+ orders a month, strong account health, and a dedicated warehouse of 2,000 to 5,000 sq ft meeting Amazon's standards. Ignore this until you're doing real volume. Source: KwickMetrics.
| Model | Who stores | Prime badge | You pay | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FBA | Amazon | Yes | Fulfilment fee + storage (₹50/cu ft) | Small, fast-moving, high-volume SKUs |
| Easy Ship | You | Some cases | Per-order shipping (from ~₹65 sub-500g) | Most new and mid-size sellers |
| Self Ship | You | No | Your own courier bill | Heavy items, control over shipping |
| Seller Flex | You | Yes | Per-shipment delivery, no storage fee | High-volume sellers, invite only |
If your product is small, light, and sells daily → FBA, because the Prime badge and speed pay for the higher per-unit cost. If you're new, want to control stock, and don't have predictable daily volume → Easy Ship, the safe default. If your product is heavy (2kg+) or you already have a cheap courier deal → Self Ship. If you're past 500 to 1,000 orders a month with your own warehouse → apply for Seller Flex to get Prime without handing over inventory.
What Amazon actually charges you
Amazon's cut comes in layers. Understand all of them before you set a price, because founders routinely set a price against the referral fee alone and get surprised by the rest.
Referral fee (commission): a percentage of the selling price, set by category. It ranges from roughly 2 percent on some electronics accessories to about 15 percent on beauty and personal care, with most categories sitting between 6 and 12 percent. Big news for small-ticket sellers: after the March 2026 update, Amazon charges 0 percent referral fee on many products priced under ₹1,000 across categories like apparel, footwear, home and kitchen, beauty, toys, pet and automotive. Source: About Amazon India.
Closing fee: a flat fee per item that varies by price band and fulfilment model. Small, but real on low-price orders.
Shipping / weight-handling fee: on Easy Ship and FBA, based on weight slab and delivery zone (local, regional, national). On self-ship you skip this and pay your own courier.
FBA storage and pick-pack: only on FBA. Monthly storage at ₹50 per cubic foot, plus a per-unit fulfilment fee (items under 500g run roughly ₹37 regional to ₹63 national), plus long-term storage penalties past 180 days. Source: Rekonsile.
Always confirm your exact numbers on the official Amazon fees and pricing page for your category before you price. Category fees change a few times a year.
That ₹279 is before a single rupee of advertising. Now switch on Sponsored Products at, say, ₹90 acquisition cost per sale, and you're at ₹189. That's the honest picture, and it's why pricing has to be built backwards from these fees. The full method is in how to price a product in India, and the same margin discipline sits inside the D2C unit economics guide.
Margin Waterfall™ on a marketplace has extra steps: selling price minus referral fee, closing fee, shipping or FBA fee, COGS, packaging, GST, then ad cost. If the number at the bottom is thin, a marketplace price war will erase it. Model it before you list, not after the ads have spent it.
Listings, A+ content and the Buy Box
Your listing is your salesperson. Amazon ranks and shows products largely on how well they convert, so a weak listing costs you twice: lower organic rank and wasted ad clicks.
The basics that move the needle: a clean white-background hero image, five benefit-led bullet points, a title with the terms people actually search, and backend search keywords filled in. A+ content (the rich image-and-text modules on the product page, available to brand-registered sellers) lets you show comparison charts, usage shots and brand story. It lifts conversion, which is the whole game. As one way to think about it: Amazon Ads get you the click, your listing and A+ content decide whether you paid for a sale or just a visit.
The Buy Box (now called the Featured Offer) is the "Add to Cart" button that most buyers click without comparing sellers. If several sellers offer the same product, only one wins it at a time, based on price, fulfilment method, delivery speed and account health. FBA and fast delivery help you win it. Note one trap: running Sponsored Products does not automatically give you the Buy Box, they're separate systems, and your ads only show when you're the Featured Offer. Source: Amazon Seller Forums.
Reviews compound everything. Ship well, follow up politely through Amazon's own request-a-review flow, and never buy fake reviews (Amazon suspends accounts for it). Early reviews are the hardest ₹0 you'll ever earn, and they decide whether your ad spend converts.
Dumping stock into FBA for a product with no reviews and no proven demand. You pay to ship inventory in, then ₹50 per cubic foot every month while it sits, then long-term storage penalties after 180 days, then removal fees to get it back. I've watched founders lose ₹40,000 to ₹80,000 in fees on a SKU that never sold, all because FBA felt like "real" selling. Prove demand on Easy Ship first. Send stock to FBA only for SKUs that already move.
Amazon Ads: Sponsored Products
Organic rank alone rarely launches a new product on Amazon. Sponsored Products are the pay-per-click ads that put your listing at the top of search results and on competitor pages. In India, CPC (cost per click) typically runs ₹7 to ₹30 for most D2C categories, with top-of-search placements costing 20 to 40 percent more. Source: upGrowth.
Keep it simple to start. Run a small daily budget (₹500 a day is a workable floor; below ₹300 you rarely gather enough data to optimise), target keywords tightly, and watch your ACoS (advertising cost of sales, ad spend divided by ad revenue). If your ACoS is higher than your margin, you're paying to lose money, same trap as any other channel. The discipline is identical to running Meta ads for D2C: the platform will happily spend faster than you make.
- Register GST on gst.gov.in and keep GSTIN, PAN and a business bank account ready.
- Create the seller account on sellercentral.amazon.in and add your pickup address.
- Start on Easy Ship, not FBA, until a SKU proves it sells.
- Build the full fee waterfall for each SKU before you set the price.
- Write a clean listing: white hero image, five benefit bullets, searched keywords in the title.
- Apply for Brand Registry and add A+ content once eligible.
- Follow up for reviews through Amazon's official request flow only.
- Launch Sponsored Products at ₹500/day, watch ACoS against your margin.
- Track which SKUs earn their FBA fees before sending stock in.
Amazon is a channel, not your business
Here's the part most "how to sell on Amazon" pages skip. On Amazon, the customer is Amazon's, not yours. You don't get their email or phone number, you can't retarget them off-platform, and you can't build a relationship you own. You're renting reach.
That's not a reason to avoid it. Amazon is the best search-demand harvester in India: people arrive already wanting to buy your category. Use it for that. But run it alongside your own Shopify store, where you own the customer, the data and the margin. The full trade-off, fees, ownership, control, is laid out in Amazon vs Shopify for India. The founders who win use both: Amazon captures the searcher, the brand store keeps the customer.
I've seen founders treat their Amazon dashboard as the whole company, then panic when a fee revision or a ranking change halves their sales overnight. You hold no power on a platform you don't control. Amazon should feed your business, not be it. Capture the demand there, move the loyal customer to a channel you own.
If you want the founder's-eye view behind these calls, that operator lens runs through everything Ravikant Tyagi writes here, and it's the same logic in the how to start a D2C brand in India guide.
Your next action today
If you don't have GST yet, start that application on gst.gov.in today, because the week it takes is your real bottleneck. If you already have GST, PAN and a business bank account, create the seller account, list one proven SKU on Easy Ship, and build its full fee waterfall before you set the price. Don't touch FBA or ads until that one product sells on its own.
If you'd like the complete execution system, calculators, SOPs, templates and operating frameworks behind this process, continue inside D2C Acquisition.Lab.
