So, hands up if you do almost all your shopping on Amazon?
Amazon is one of the most profitable companies in the world and its founder, Jeff Bezos, is currently the richest man in the world.
Love it or hate it, Amazon is here to stay – and it’s going to become more and more powerful as the years go on.
Luckily, Amazon provides LOADS of ways for you to share in its wealth!
Yes, that’s right, Amazon offers plenty of different opportunities to make money online, and here are 7 of the best ways to make money on Amazon.
Don’t get left behind as Amazon continues its path towards world domination. If you want to get involved and you’re wondering how to make money on Amazon, just pick one of these ideas and start making Amazon pay YOU today!
7 awesome ways to earn money with Amazon
By the way, this post contains affiliate links. That means if you buy something after clicking one of my links I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my site!
1. Sell products on Amazon
Selling physical products on Amazon is probably the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to making money on Amazon.
The good news is, this side hustle is very easy to get into and has almost limitless possibilities!
Start small by selling second hand books or other small items. You’ll have to handle the packaging and shipping yourself, so take those costs into account when you’re pricing up.
A good trick is to look for popular items on sale in local shops, and resell on Amazon at full price. (This is called retail arbitrage.)
At some point, your house will start to resemble an Amazon warehouse. At this point, you’ll probably want to branch out into Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA).
Fulfilled By Amazon
FBA is an incredible service by Amazon that makes it possible to build a large and profitable business by piggybacking on Amazon’s success. You can send products in bulk to the Amazon warehouse and have their teams deal with packing, shipping and returns. All you have to do is source the products and send them in.
Many FBAers have success ordering cheap products from China via Alibaba or Aliexpress. You can even get in touch with a factory in China on Alibaba and get them to make a product to your specifications. Or, you can choose a pre-made product and add your own branding to it.
Selling physical products on Amazon requires a bit of start-up cash to invest, and a lot of research to find best-selling products.
But if you’re serious about building a profitable business and you’re interested in product sourcing, this could be a great option for you.
Learn more: How To Make Money With Amazon FBA
Recommended resource
Jessica from The Selling Family makes a full time income thanks to FBA. She has a free 7 day email course which will teach you:
- Why leveraging FBA is essential for Amazon sellers
- Which niche you should sell in
- Picking items to buy
- How to price your items
- How many items should you buy
- And more!
I highly recommend it as an easy intro to this profitable business model.
2. Merch By Amazon
This is one of my current side hustles! Merch is Amazon’s own platform for designing and selling T-shirts and other goods.
Unlike FBA, there are no physical products involved and this side hustle can be done completely online, from anywhere in the world.
All you have to do is create a graphic design to Amazon’s size and quality specifications. Then you upload to Merch, choose your T-shirt colours, write a description, and you’re away!
Your T-shirt will be available for anyone to buy on Amazon a few hours later. Amazon handles the printing, packing, shipping and customer service. Completely hands free!
This is seriously a ridiculously easy and fun side hustle, with a very low barrier to entry. Anybody can join Merch By Amazon, from any country in the world. At the moment the T-shirts are only sold in the US, UK and German marketplaces, but you can list your product on any of these three sites regardless of where you’re based.
Over the last few months, Merch have been expanding their offerings. You can now sell your designs on sweatshirts, hoodies and PopSockets in addition to T-shirts (although you might only have access to T-shirts as a new seller).
And by the way, you don’t have to be a Photoshop whizz to create sellable designs. My best-seller is text only (no images!), and I made it in the free software Gimp.
I started MBA in October last year, so I’ve been a member just over a year. However, I have shamefully neglected my account and I only have about 40 shirts live, most of which I uploaded in my first few weeks.
Here are my stats from the last year. I haven’t actively worked on Merch in several months but it is still making me a steady income of just over $100 each month on average, completely passively!
If you uploading designs more consistently than I do, there is the potential to make hundreds or thousands on Merch.
I’ve heard that PopSockets are selling well right now, so I’m working on some new designs and hope to make some extra money this holiday season 🙂
You can apply to join Merch here. However, there is a waiting list and it can sometimes take a while.
If you’re itching to get started with Merch By Amazon but haven’t got your invite yet, you can try this clever workaround using Shopify.
3. Amazon affiliate program
If you have a blog, website or large social media following, you have an easy way to make money from Amazon.
How? Join the Amazon Associates program.
This is Amazon’s affiliate program. Add links to Amazon products on your site, and you will get paid a commission for any purchases your reader makes after clicking on your link. The commission rates vary by product category, but they go up to 10%.
And yes, you get paid for any purchases your reader makes on Amazon in the next 24 hours – even if they buy something that wasn’t featured on your blog.
For example, I had a reader click on a link for a textbook on one of my sites, and went on to buy loads of expensive coffee making equipment – which I got a commission for 🙂
This is one of the best things about the program, in my opinion. Amazon is such a huge site and so many people spend hundreds on it each month. Why not tap into that?
Amazon has so many different products that you are bound to find something you can promote naturally on your site.
For example, if you have a lifestyle or parenting blog, you can tell your readers about your favourite household products you use every day.
You could also set up a niche site to help your readers with a particular topic.
Related post: How to Actually Make Money With Your Blog
4. Kindle publishing
Are you a budding writer? You don’t have to wait for a publisher to give you a book deal any more – simply publish your own book on Kindle.
It could be a source of passive income for years to come!
Amazon makes self-publishing extremely easy with their Kindle Direct Publishing platform. You can earn royalties of up to 70%.
You don’t even need to be particularly creative to write a book.
Short, helpful how-to guides sell very well as ebooks on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be the next Lord of the Rings. If you have knowledge about a topic, and you can help someone with a problem they have, you can write a book.
This business idea also has very low start-up costs, assuming you will be doing the writing yourself.
You may want to outsource proofreading and cover design. There are people offering these services very cheaply on Fiverr. You can even make your own book covers using the free templates on Canva.
Related post: How to get Free Amazon Gift Cards
5. Mechanical Turk
Mechanical Turk (also called MTurk) is a way to make extra money online by performing small micro-tasks.
The tasks are similar to Spare5 – you could be asked to name all the objects in a photo or transcribe a short audio recording. These are usually to help developers or programmers with routine tasks that computers can’t handle as well as humans yet.
Each task typically only takes a few minutes, and pays a few cents. The main advantage of MTurk is its flexibility. You can log on at any time of day or night and work on tasks in your own time. This is an easy way to make money through Amazon for beginners.
If you’re in the US, Amazon will pay you direct to your bank account. In most other countries, you can only receive payments as Amazon gift cards.
Unlike the other items on this list, Mechanical Turk is not a business opportunity and it’s not going to make you a lot of money. But if you’re just after a low-commitment way to earn a few extra dollars for pocket money each month, why not give it a go?
Related Post: The Ultimate List of Paid Survey Sites in the UK
6. Amazon Handmade
Amazon Handmade is Amazon’s answer to Etsy. If you are an artisan making handmade products such as jewellery, clothing or homeware, you can list your products on Amazon and market to their huge audience.
Amazon Handmade is quite a new branch of Amazon but I can see this platform taking off in the near future, if the success of Etsy is anything to go by.
This could be a great chance to get in early so your products rank well as the platform expands!
Amazon is happy for you to list your products on other platforms too. You can choose to dispatch the products yourself, or you can send them in to Fulfillment by Amazon – with the added advantage that your products will be eligable for Prime.
There is a strict approval process and you will have to be a genuine artisan. You can’t re-sell other people’s products on this platform.
If you think you meet the criteria, you can apply here.
7. Work from home for Amazon
Maybe you’re not interested in a side hustle – you need a full time job.
No problem! Amazon’s got you covered.
There are lots of work from home positions at Amazon.
They always seem to be recruiting customer services representatives, especially if you speak a foreign language. Other popular positions include account management, operations supervisors and technical/development roles.
Some of these positions require you to be based in a certain country, but let you work at home over the internet. There are opportunities in several different countries worldwide. Browse the current list of job openings here.
Pin this for later
