Sell Dietary Supplements on Amazon: Tips to Get Approved

Over the last decade, Amazon has transformed how consumers around the globe shop for products. From home décor and clothing to personal grooming and nutritional supplements, Amazon has become the one-stop-shop for almost anything under the sun.

According to recent statistics, Amazon generates up to $283,000 worth of sales every minute, which averages out to over $17 million per hour! What’s more? Similar statistics show that 89% of buyers are more likely to buy products from Amazon than any other online shopping website. In particular, sales of dietary supplements experienced a 54% year-over-year growth on Amazon, with probiotics being the most popular dietary supplement sold.[i]

Just imagine what a marketplace like Amazon can do for your dietary supplement brand and its products. Given this platform’s prolific growth and global presence, it would be unwise for dietary supplement brand owners to ignore the immense potential it possesses from a sales and marketing perspective.

Selling supplements on Amazon is a no-brainer for supplement brands owners who want to:

Create awareness about their offerings
Reach out to a broader audience base
Leverage Amazon’s virtual footfall
Develop a loyal customer base

Therefore, we have put together a few tips that you should keep in mind before you start selling your dietary supplements on Amazon. You can also refer to our in-depth guide to help you understand how to sell supplements on Amazon. This comprehensive guide covers:

How to become an approved supplement seller on Amazon
The basics of Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
Amazon policies, prerequisites, and agreements for listing supplement products
Product promotion, advertising, and marketing strategies
How to help your product become a bestseller
How to build a captivating product page that results in conversions

Apart from discussing how to maximize the platform’s potential, the guide also looks at the future of Amazon and the latest changes that supplement brand owners must be aware of.

How to sell supplements on Amazon? What is the step by step process? Are there any legal hassles? Download our definitive guide “Selling Dietary Supplements on Amazon” to get all your questions answered today!

How to Get Approved to Sell Supplements on Amazon

Before you enter the Amazon landscape and start selling your products, there are certain things you should know. Every seller on Amazon must get prior approval before selling products under the Health and Personal Care category. To feature your dietary supplements, you must provide the Brand Authority Letter for each brand you plan to list on Amazon and the license application acknowledgment.[ii]

1. Important Information to Know Before Becoming a Seller on Amazon

There are few things that need to be followed through to better your chances for approval as an Amazon seller:

Tips to Get Approved by Amazon to Sell Dietary Supplements

Evaluate your current business strategy and understand how adding Amazon as a new sales channel will affect the rest of your operations.

Ensure that your products are backed by scalable and quality manufacturing, customer support, marketing, and sales. It is best to work with an experienced supplement manufacturer that offers end-to-end services and follows cGMPs.

Get your brand up and running as Amazon also requires you to submit three paid invoices.

Conduct a comprehensive research on market leaders and direct competitors in the dietary supplements space. Studying the brands already selling on Amazon will give you a decent understanding of what seems to make them tick (and what doesn’t). You can look at aspects like:

- The branding and packaging of competitors’ products – Understanding the way competing brands project themselves in terms of tone, personality, colors, images, etc. can help you assess customer preferences, guiding you to position yourself strongly in the marketplace.
- Competitors’ product listings – Check their titles, descriptions, tone, image or video placement, and usage and compare yours to see what can be improved.
- Estimated sales volumes – Using available tools like Sellics’ Seller Edition or Jungle Scout’s Amazon Sales Estimator, calculate and analyze competitors’ sales and inventory movement to help work out potential sales, marketing, and advertising strategies for your brand or products.
- Competitors’ brand or product reviews – Gain insights about quality and service benchmarks and expectations (for customers and Amazon). This is a crucial part of completing a competition SWOT analysis.
- Competitors’ keyword targeting – There are free tools available that help you unearth and assess keyword strategies used by other players in the same product space. You can use these to work out the most optimal keyword usage for your brand.

Taking the time to examine the marketplace can help you get a good idea of what you need to focus on when you start selling your products.

Work with a third-party agency (e.g., Pattern, etail Partners, Netrush, etc.) that has a proven track record instead of trying to figure out the Amazon maze yourself. This will help you save money, time, and resources.

Ensure that your product is of the highest quality and meets all regulatory standards. Amazon might reject or suspend product listings if they attract too many complaints or don’t comply with the marketplace’s regulations.

This blog discusses some of the most important factors to look at before you start selling on Amazon.

2. How to List Products in the Gated Vs. Ungated Categories

If a product is in the gated category, it simply means that it falls under the list of restricted categories in the marketplace. On the other hand, ungated means they are approved to be sold freely. When it comes to selling nutritional supplements on Amazon, the platform gates new sellers, mainly because this is a restricted product. If you belong to the gated category, here’s what you will need to request approval:[iii]

An Amazon professional seller account for a monthly fee (set by Amazon, varies for different account types, and can be changed later)
A good track record based on your eCommerce performance metrics. Amazon has strong benchmarks in place such as low defect rate (less than 1%), pre-fulfillment cancel rate (less than 2.5%), late shipment rate (less than 4%), etc.

Fortunately, it is relatively straightforward for new sellers to access the approval process for Amazon’s gated categories.

Log into your account
Click on the “Inventory” tab
Select the “Add a Product” option from the dropdown menu

Once you find the item in the list,

Click on the “Show Limitations” option next to the product information.
Then click on the “Request Approval” button, and you will be on your way!

Here’s your quick checklist for approval:[iv] [v]

Submit a qualified invoice to Amazon from a manufacturer or distributor (dated within 180 days of your application submission).
Submit actual photos of the product and packaging you need approval for (all sides)
Additional documents (either a Certificate of Analysis (CoA), cGMP certificate, 510(K) premarket notification, or FDA registration screenshot)

The document verification process could take about 3 to 4 weeks.

Amazon has a stringent list of supplement compliance requirements that every seller must adhere to. Post-approval, you will need to ensure that:

Your supplements are sealed and with the correct identification codes (serial numbers or codes) on the original manufacturer packaging.
The packaging features the name of the supplement, quantity or net weight, list of ingredients, manufacturer’s information, and a “Supplement Facts” panel.
Your product doesn’t contain prohibited ingredients and isn’t misbranded, unsafe, adulterated, or named in an FDA recall or safety alert.

How to Safeguard Your Supplements When Selling on Amazon

The rampant counterfeit products in the market and easy availability of counterfeiting technologies have challenged supplement brands and packaging design companies to resort to anti-counterfeiting packaging and labeling solutions. With a variety of flexographic printing and digital printing techniques, brands can now ensure that their genuine products are safeguarded when they sell them on online platforms like Amazon.

How Can NutraScience Labs Help?

Whether you are a new entrant in the industry or an existing player who wants to tap into the potential of Amazon as a new sales avenue, an experienced supplement manufacturer can play a massive role in getting you there. While getting up and running on Amazon as an approved seller is a journey you would need to complete on your own, we at NutraScience Labs have the knowledge and experience required to give you a strong start by manufacturing high-quality, customized, and FDA-compliant dietary supplements for your brand. We have a proven track record for providing these services for a variety of supplement brands in the United States.

NutraScience Labs helped a new dietary supplement company to become an Amazon best-seller. Learn how we helped a new dietary supplement company become a best-selling amazon brand.

Explore our supplement manufacturing capabilities now! For more information on how to get started, call us at 855-492-7388.

References:

[i] https://www.nutritionaloutlook.com/view/supplement-sales-see-54-year-over-year-growth-on-amazon-says-clearcut-analysis

[ii] https://sellercentral.amazon.in/forums/t/health-category-approval/46179/2

[iii] https://www.junglescout.com/blog/amazon-restricted-categories/

[iv] https://www.marketplacevelocity.com/selling-supplements-on-amazon-how-to-get-approved-what-do-you-need-to-know

[v] https://thesellingfamily.com/sell-dietary-supplements-on-amazon/