5 Reasons to Sell Products on Amazon in 2020

Are you looking to make money online in 2020? Perhaps as a way to earn some side-income on top of your regular job, supplement the family income, or maybe even set up full-time earnings online to give yourself ultimate flexibility? In any of these situations, selling products on Amazon could be just what you’re looking for. There are many reasons why you should consider selling products on Amazon, and why 2020 is a great time to start. Let’s take a look at the top 5 reasons to sell on Amazon in 2020.  

1. Massive Potential Customer Base

One of the biggest advantages of Amazon is its size. It’s estimated that there are around 237 million customers that shop on Amazon, making this by far the biggest marketplace in the world. This represents a huge market of online customers that you will be able to access by selling on Amazon. Even better, this customer base is ready and waiting for you, with little effort required in order to reach them. If you set up your own online store you will need to invest heavily in marketing to reach customers and tell them about your business. Then you’ll need to build their trust and convince them it is safe to shop with you. With Amazon, those customers are there already, and they already have the confidence to shop on the site, with Amazon’s customer protection, return policies and so on.  

2. You Won’t Need to Build Your Own Website

If you decide to sell products through your own online store you’ll need to build a website to house that store, set up payment systems, use tools track orders and manage inventory, just for a start. However, with Amazon, all of this is taken care of through the Amazon site. You’ll also save on the costs associated with having your own website, such as domain registration, hosting, and web development. This means that you can start selling on Amazon with very little capital required to get started. As a seller on Amazon, all you need to do is create product listing through their site, and then optimize your product listings to make them the best they can be. This is critical for being successful on Amazon because there are many more sellers vying for your potential customers’ attention here. However, if you optimize your listings so that they will both rank highly in users’ searches, and convince users to buy your products, you’ll be well set up for success.  

3. Access to Amazon Programs

As a seller on Amazon, you’ll have the opportunity to join Amazon’s in-house programs which offer a range of benefits. For example, you can join the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program, which means that Amazon takes care of the packing, delivery, and returns of your items. This is a great option for small enterprises, as this means there is a whole section of infrastructure that you don’t need to worry about setting up for your business. Amazon Prime is another program you can participate in, which can be highly beneficial depending on your business. Amazon Prime members are incentivized to buy products with free 2-day shipping, and reassured by the program’s reputation for fast and reliable delivery timeframes. Amazon Prime members have already invested in a significant membership fee to join the program, so you know they’re committed to buying products. This is backed up by statistics: Prime members on average spend $1,400 a year on products on Amazon. If you join the program, it could be your products they buy!  

4. Customer Service Support

One of the biggest drains on time and resources of any business is customer support, and eCommerce businesses are no exception. It is also one of the most important areas for any business: happy clients mean repeat business, referrals, and therefore more profit and more sales. By selling on Amazon, you’ll be covered by their excellent customer service offering. Amazon is well known for its fast shipping, easy refunds and returns, as well as being responsive to customer queries. All of this means happy customers, which is great for your business. You’ll also get additional support from Amazon, such as access to third party professionals like photographers and account management specialists. After all, Amazon has a vested interest in helping its sellers succeed: the more you sell, the more fees they receive. Therefore they want you to do well, and they’ll help you to do that.  

5. You Can Leverage Amazon’s Reputation

One of the most important factors for online consumers is trust. How do they know that the product will be as advertised, or that they’ll even receive it at all? How do they know that their payment will be secure? A lack of trust is one of the biggest reasons that online shoppers abandon their cart, meaning no sale for you. The great thing about selling products on Amazon is that you will be attached to one of the biggest and most trusted brands in the world. Customers will trust the system and will trust your product because it is on Amazon. This means more sales for you, more profits, and the opportunity to grow your business.

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2026 Update: What Has Changed About Selling on Amazon Since We First Published This

I wrote this post back in 2020 and, honestly, a lot has shifted since then. Amazon is still a brilliant place to sell, but the landscape looks quite different now and I would be doing you a disservice if I just left the original advice sitting here without addressing what has changed. So before you read the five reasons below, read this first.

The biggest shift I have noticed working with sellers over the past couple of years is that Amazon's fee structure has become considerably more complex. Fulfilment fees, referral fees, storage fees, and the newer low-inventory-level fees have all crept upward. Margins that looked healthy in 2020 need to be recalculated completely before you commit to a product in 2026. I cannot stress this enough: run your numbers fresh, with current fee schedules, not figures you found in an old blog post (including this one).

Competition on the platform has also intensified sharply. Amazon's own private label presence has grown, and the influx of international sellers, particularly from manufacturers selling direct, means that standing out purely on price is a losing game for most small and medium sellers. What actually works now is brand differentiation. Amazon Brand Registry, A-plus Content, and a properly built storefront are no longer optional extras; they are the baseline expectation if you want to convert traffic into sales consistently.

Advertising costs on Amazon have risen considerably since 2020. Sponsored Products campaigns that used to convert profitably at low cost-per-click figures are far more competitive today. I now tell every seller I work with to treat Amazon PPC as a serious marketing discipline in its own right. Tools like Perpetua, Helium 10's advertising suite, and Scale Insights have matured and are genuinely worth using to manage campaigns at any meaningful scale, rather than relying on manual bidding alone.

None of this means the five reasons below are wrong. Amazon still offers extraordinary reach, built-in trust, and a fulfilment infrastructure most independent sellers simply cannot replicate. But 2026 Amazon requires a more strategic, eyes-open approach than 2020 Amazon did. Read the original reasons as the foundation they are, then layer on this updated thinking before you make any decisions. If you want personalised guidance on your specific situation, you can find out how I work with sellers over at lilachbullock.com.