If you’re selling on Amazon as a ecommerce business, you may want to switch to an individual account. This blog post will show you how to change your Amazon seller account to an individual one. Fortunately, it’s easy to downgrade your Amazon account. You will experience an easy alternative if you’re going to downgrade your Amazon fba business from your Professional to Individual plan.
If you want to start a separate business with an amazon store but don’t want to get bogged down by management and account management, you may benefit from individual accounts. It will save you money on fees, but you won’t have access to some of the features that come with a amazon business account. If you’re a seller who aspires to downgrading your Amazon Seller Central account, there are a few things for you to remember.
Amazon Professional Seller Plan vs Individual Seller Account
There are two Amazon Seller account types to select from – Professional Seller Account and Individual Seller Account (also known as the pay-as-you-go plan).
These two differ in several additional features. Some of these include:
Monthly subscription fee
A Professional Selling Plan would require you a monthly fee of $39.99 per month.
While Individual Seller Accounts, also known as the Pay-as-you-go plan. This is the free account type in which you don’t have any monthly subscription charges. But you will have to pay $0.99 per item sold. This can be a bit costly if your sales volume is high.
Number of product listings
A Professional Selling Plan will enable you advertise an infinite number of different products free of charge.
On the other hand, subscribing to an Individual Selling Plan will allow you to list products up to 40 products.
Access to restricted categories
Selling items from the restricted categories won’t be permitted if you’re just utilizing an Amazon individual subscription plan. If you sell on Amazon with a Professional plan, you can apply to sell products belonging to restricted categories.
Advanced features: tools and reports
For Professional accounts, you will access a more extensive report as well as access to advanced inventory management tools which can help manage and streamline processes.
However, note that in order to give yourself a leg up against your competitors, you can always subscribe to external Amazon tools that can help you get ahead in selling on Amazon.
Promotions and gift services
If you are a Professional Seller, you will be permitted to join Amazon’s promotions and gifts services. This means that when a buyer selects your product and is able to check the Gifting option. This program is not offered to the Individual Plan.
Shipping charges
For those who have the Individual Plan, Amazon determines the shipping rates for all eligible sales and may determine which shipping service is provided at their discretion. You won’t be able to control the fees – this differs from a Professional account where sellers can set their shipping rates.
User permissions
If you have a Professional Seller Account, you may set up a number of user access. And, in particular, this feature may help you if you’re using several individuals to manage your account. This is especially useful when you’re growing your team, and your virtual assistants can have access to operate your business while you’re on vacation!
Why should you cancel your Professional Amazon Seller Account and switch to the Individual Plan?
There are positive aspects to having a Professional Selling account, but there are a few reasons why Amazon Sellers sometimes would like to downgrade it.
The most common reasons include:
- New sellers find that the monthly Professional service fee is a huge barrier to entry into selling goods online.
- Sellers might not be confident to sell more than 40 units per month, especially when you’re starting out small.
- Some sellers also downgrade their Amazon Professional account if they’re taking a break from selling.
- Some sellers hope to save money on expenses.
- Others might be unsure how many items you will list when you first set up your account
- The photos for your product isn’t ready yet, so there’s no need to have a professional account yet until much later.
- Others might not be ready to commit to being a full-time seller yet.
- Different people might have specific needs
Whatever your reason for wanting to downgrade, the steps to do so is simple to complete the task. The next common question will be how to do so.
Steps on how to downgrade an Amazon Seller Account
If you’re looking to change your Amazon seller account from business to individual, there are a few steps you need to follow.
Here’s a quick summary guide to help you navigate through the Seller Central dashboard settings and be able to downgrade your professional account to an Individual plan:
Step 1: First step is to Log into your Amazon Seller Central account.
Step 2: Click on the “Settings” tab.
Select “User Permissions” sub-tab. Scroll down to the “Account Info” section and click on the “Change Account Type” button to be directed to the Account Info Page.
Step 3: Manage Your Services.
On the Account Information page, find the Your Services section and click the Manage link.
Step 4: Downgrade account.
From the Seller Account Information page, you’ll be directed to My Services page. Find Sell on Amazon row and click the Downgrade link. You will then be taken to the Change Selling Plan page.
Step 5: Confirm account downgrade.
On the next page, you’ll need to tap the Proceed button to verify your downgrade.
That’s it! You successfully downgraded your Amazon seller account from a Professional account to an Individual account. Now, it is also necessary for you to be aware of the effects that it will have on your selling on Amazon so you can manage these effects and transition to your new Amazon Seller Central account plan.
Individual sellers have limited access to Amazon’s platform. If you choose to downgrade your Amazon selling plan, you will lose access to a number of the resources that come with the Professional account. You’ll see that the key differences are you will not be able to:
- Get in-depth inventory reports
- Apply to sell products in restricted categories
- Use Amazon’s advertising services (for example, participate in Ad campaigns, or the Vine program)
- Run promotions (or create coupons)
- Change listings in bulk (including updating the product images)
- Add multiple users to manage your account
- Create new product detail pages or change existing ones
- Set shipping rates
- Register under the Brand Registry process
- Use third party services
- Become eligible for the Buy Box where the majority of the sales happen.
Individual sellers will not have access to more features on Amazon, including bulk listing, multi-channel fulfilment and other advanced tools.
How to Upgrade Amazon Seller Account
Conversely, if you choose to upgrade it back to a Professional account, it’s also possible to do so whenever you want to at anytime.
Rather than feel pressured to change your account to professional, focus on your goal of growing your Amazon business so that it becomes a sustainable and profitable venture.
If you want to upgrade your Amazon account, you’ll find it at the same settings location as the previous step to downgrade your account. The main difference is to click upgrade instead.
Follow these easy steps to upgrade your Amazon Seller Account:
- Log in to your Amazon Seller Central account.
- Scroll through the bottom of the page, and you will find Settings. Then, click the Account Info.
- Click ‘Manage’ in the Your Services section.
- Click Upgrade just next to the type of account.
Once you’ve made this change, you’ll be able to take advantage of all the features that come with a professional seller account, including access to more listing tools and lower fees.
To conclude
Downgrading your Amazon Seller account from a Professional account to an individual account is a relatively straightforward procedure that can be accomplished in just a few steps.
However, you’ll need to take note of the features you’ll stand to lose once you make the decision to downgrade. Consider wisely – this can be especially difficult for new sellers! Feel free to leave a comment below if you want to share your questions regarding which account is more suitable for you!
You can follow this blog post on how to set up an Amazon seller account.
If you’re selling on Amazon as a individual, Amazon sellers who start selling on the site should do some preparatory tasks. First, you’ll need to create a new account. You can do this by going to Amazon’s website and clicking on the “Sell on Amazon” button. Once you’ve created your account, you’ll need to set up your credit card or payment information. This can be done by going to the “Settings” tab and clicking on the “Payment” sub-tab. Once you’ve completed those steps, you’ll need to update your account information by going to the “Manage Account” tab and then clicking on the “Credentials” sub-tab. From there, you’ll need to key in your phone number, email address. Next, click on the “Enter Payment Information” button and enter your bank account information. This last step will allow Amazon to deposit your sales proceeds directly into your bank account.