Amazon Is at ‘War’ with Everyone: How to Make Money in this War?

Established in 1994, Amazon is now considered one of the Big Four tech companies alongside Apple, Facebook, and Google. Jeff Bezos, the man who is richer than the British monarchy, made $2,489 per second in 2019 —when he was worth over $100 billion. He is worth over $200 billion now, making $87 billion only in 2020 so far.

Although some billionaires lost their money in this pandemic, many American billionaires got richer — mostly the tech-focused companies’ owners.

As the first centibillionaire of the centibillionaire club that has five members, namely, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Elon Musk of Space X, and Bernard Arnault of LMVH, Jeff Bezos keeps doubling his wealth.

That he gets richer might have many reasons, but one of the reasons I am going to discuss in this article is this: because his company is at war and competition with everyone and everything. I suppose that he is the Commander-in-chief. Do you want to serve as a foot soldier in this war?

The Commander-in-chief of ‘A to Z’

Jeff Bezos is the Commander-in-chief, not only for being the top centibillionaire but also for two other reasons: First, people buy the products of hundreds of other companies through Amazon — even those of Microsoft and LMVH. Second, Amazon is not only an e-commerce platform for selling products but for tens of services such as digital streaming, publishing, cloud computing, logistical services, artificial intelligence, and many others. It has recently introduced its own products too.

Amazon has over 40 subsidiaries and is in constant competition with other companies that offer identical services or produce similar products:

Products and Services of Amazon

Here is a list of products, services, and subsidiaries of Amazon:

Kindle: E-reader

AWS: Cloud computing

IMDb: Film review platform

Fire TV: Digital media player

Amazon Appstore: App store

Fire Tablets: Tablet computers

Amazon Echo: Smart Speakers

Kindle Store: Online e-book store

Amazon’s Alexa: Virtual assistant

Prime Video: Internet video service

Twitch: Video live streaming service

Goodreads: Social cataloging website

A9.com: Search advertising technology

Amazon Music: Music streaming service

Amazon Fresh: Grocery delivery service

Amazon Drive: Cloud Storage Application

Amazon Logistics Services: Logistical support

Audible: Online audio-book and podcast platform

Amazon Robotics: Mobile robotic fulfillment system

Amazon Studios: TV and film producer and distributor

Amazon Digital Game Store: Digital video game distribution platform

and many more.

Amazon is at ‘war’ with others through each of these products, services, and subsidiaries. For instance, in terms of video and movie streaming services, it’s not only at ‘war’ with Netflix, but Hulu, HBO, YouTube, Warner Media, and many others in a variety of ways. How many times have you switched between Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Spotify? Even if you didn’t, you might do it soon.

Now that you have understood a few more things about Amazon’s war, I don’t want to focus on ‘the war’ anymore. I write this article to help you win in this winning war.

This might be the only just war that doesn’t have any casualties. The only loss might be this: YOU, NOT MAKING A FEW DOLLARS, A MONTH AFTER READING THIS ARTICLE. It’s like seeing a few bucks on the roadside, but ignoring it because you think walking and grabbing the bill from the road is a tedious task.

Before we move on, let me tell you an interesting fact about Amazon’s logo. There is an arrow in yellow color — starting from ‘a’ and ending with ‘z’. This has a hidden meaning, i.e., providing services from A to Z. Just as its logo portrays, Amazon not only offers crosscutting services, but is also expanding faster than ever before. If you are part of this expansion, you might benefit proportionally.

Making Money via Amazon: Working for, with, and through Amazon

Having a tiny slice of Jeff Bezos’ whopping $200 billion and contributing to the increase in your wealth (duly adding into his wealth) can be made in several ways. Nonetheless, I divide it into three different categories of working for, with, and through Amazon. I am not interested in writing a listicle. Still, I want to discuss the various ways you can make money via Amazon.

I provide an overview of working for, with, through, and even without Amazon in the following paragraphs. A thorough discussion might be required in the form of an e-book or a book. Nonetheless, this article might introduce you to a new world.

I. Working for Amazon

Before giving you any information, may I ask you to kindly open (https://www.mturk.com) and click on the “sign in as a worker,” link at the right corner. If you have an account with Amazon, that’s great. If not, click on the “Create an Amazon account” button and sign up for the MTurk.

Create the account, wait for 24–48 hours, and sign in as a worker once they approve your account in MTurk. (If you get rejected, make sure to re-apply using a different email address.)

Now, let’s jot down some information about MTurk.

MTurk or Amazon Mechanical Turk is “a crowdsourcing marketplace that makes it easier for individuals and businesses to outsource their processes and jobs to a distributed workforce who can perform these tasks virtually.” It is a platform in which you’re “applying your skills to the thousands of available tasks,” and earn money instantly.

For instance, Tom has a business in Nigeria. He sells 50,000 pieces of art online. He is done with writing product-specific descriptions of each piece of art. He puts all those jobs in MTurk for review and accuracy checks. He gives 0.05 cents for review of each product description for consistency in spelling and grammar. Suppose you do a review of 8000 tasks, you will be making (8000*0.05) = $400 after you’re done with the review. Each of the reviews might take a few seconds.

Another example: Someone else pays $5 for filling out a survey within five minutes. Another person has 200,000 receipts and wants the MTurk workers to type the name and prices of the products they see in the receipts. There are thousands of micro-tasks in hundreds of areas loaded every single day. Some tasks require sophisticated qualifications, while for others, a certain quota has to be achieved before it is made available to you. For instance, a client will only allow you to do the tasks when you’ve completed at least 4000 tasks with more than 80% accuracy.

You’ll receive the money either through Amazon gift cards or through your bank account.

You’re somewhat a data entry clerk who receives payment per click or, more specifically, based on the number of submissions you make.

I don’t want to give more information as this is an article, not a book. Navigate Google, YouTube, Amazon, and other platforms and search for more tips in this regard. Write this: “How to make money via MTurk.”

You can also use this service to sign up as a Requester. If you have something that you want to get done through MTurk, you’ve to sign up as a Requester, not as a Worker, and fix the payment rate. Crowd workers who sign in as workers will do that job for you before the deadline you set.

What’s Amazon Vine?

Amazon Vine “invites the most trusted reviewers on Amazon to post opinions about new and pre-release items to help their fellow customers make informed purchase decisions.” There is no payment, but the reviewers receive “free products that have been submitted to the program by participating vendors.” It’s an invitation-based program. Make sure to read more info regarding eligibility for this program via the above link.

II. Working with Amazon

Amazon has over 650,000 employees, which is more than the population of this European country: Luxembourg. They are either full-time or part-time.

If you’re looking for full-time or part-time jobs with Amazon, visit their job portal here: Amazon job portal.

If you want to work on an hourly basis in one of the fulfillment/distributions areas — visit Amazon Fulfillment jobs.

Recently, they developed Amazon’s Flex program. Its goal is to hire drivers for the delivery of goods. If you’ve had some experience with Uber and Lyft, or you were a delivery driver in the past, make sure to sign up for this program.

Apart from that, there are remote career opportunities available. If you’re interested and qualified for work-from-home and remote jobs, visit Amazon Remote jobs.

If you’re a student, there are several internships, and even full-time opportunities available: visit Student jobs.

You can also sell your professional services online via Amazon. Visit Amazon Services for more information. These services are mostly for “products purchased in the Amazon store. Examples include Assembly service, Home Theater services, and Appliance Installation services.”

If you have good communication and interpersonal skills and want to become a customer representative with Amazon, use the Amazon job portal, Google, and other job portals to search for these jobs.

You can also find out other ways of working with Amazon by navigating the web. We don’t know what we don’t know — simply googling might uncover new opportunities.

III. Working through Amazon

Although the first and second categories enable you to make money, this section is the only section in which the money might multiply. This is the section I want to focus more as there might be multiple opportunities for you to grow and make money.

Because there are many topics, I divide them into sub-sections. Each sub-section might lead you to an extra stream of income.

1. Selling your products through Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)

You’ve got 250 digital cameras at home. How do you sell them through Amazon? You set up an FBA account, create product listings, ship your products to Amazon, and then the products are there for customers to buy — as simple as that. Everything else is taken care of by Amazon.

If you have a business in which you sell products, selling your products via FBA is one of the great ways. If you want to know how to sell via FBA, click here: Becoming an Amazon Seller.

This is how a $1 million business looks like (Calculated via Microsoft Excel by the Author)

In the above table, suppose you bought cameras for $50 each. If you want to make $1 million, you have to sell them to 20,000 people for $100, which will be $2 million minus $1 million (the initial cost) = $1 million (profit). This is a calculation for dummies. All I want to say is that look at this table, get up and, do something via Amazon FBA.

You can sell via Amazon without even having to establish a business. Suppose you have a business and want to sell over Amazon. In that case, it is a plus point as you can even trade Federally Regulated Goods that require government approval — especially in the US. It’s totally up to you to establish an LLC in the US, a Pvt. Ltd. in the UK or India, a UG in Germany, or a small business anywhere in the world. You can also establish the simplest business form: sole proprietorship, which is not a legal entity and can be done under your name — but make sure Amazon has services in your country.

2. Selling your products through Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM)

Unlike FBA, in which Amazon makes the shipment, sellers via FBM are responsible for the shipment of the products to their customers on their own. Plus, if your items are large and heavy, it is better to opt-in for this option. What comes next is the workforce and also the storage space. In FBA, Amazon stores your items in their own warehouses until they are sold to the customers. In FBM, you’ve to have the workforce and storage area for the items you want to sell over Amazon.

You can read more about the difference between the two from Brian Gibbs on his blog. His summary of the comparison is:

“FBA means Fulfilled by Amazon, you sell it and Amazon ships it. The seller sends bulk products in Amazon’s fulfillment centers for Amazon to pick, pack, and ship products once sold. FBM means Fulfilled by Merchant[,] and the seller lists the products on Amazon while handling storage and all aspects of order fulfillment.”

3. Selling your e-books and paperbacks through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

You can self-publish e-books and paperbacks in less than five minutes. It will take 24–48 hours to appear on Kindle stores worldwide. You will earn up to 70% royalty on sales of your books if your customers are located “in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, India, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Australia and more,” based on the information provided by Amazon.

The good news is that you can publish e-books and paperbacks for free on KDP. All printing, binding and distribution costs are covered by Amazon in case of paperbacks. Your job is to write and publish.

If you’re a newbie, a good or even a well-known author, and you don’t want to find a publisher, but self-publish your works, welcome to KDP. If you’re going to publish an e-book via Amazon and sell it to people worldwide, click on this link: Amazon KDP.

Suppose you sell your e-book at the rate of $11 or $12; you will roughly get $7.99 for each book (after charges by Amazon). If you sell it to 130,000 people, you will be a millionaire.

I am working on a few books and e-books on topics and themes of my interest — because I discuss concepts and ideas that I know about and haven’t been discussed by anyone so far. My goal, however, is not to make money. Henry Ford once said: “A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.” If you only write an e-book or a book for the sake of money, please don’t do it. Do it only when it can make an impact. The money factor is always there, but you don’t have to make it a priority.

If you know someone else that has written books, there is some good news too. Let’s give an example. You know a poet who has written extensively in your native language. Go and meet him or her. Tell them that you want to make their voices heard in the world and also bring them some money. How? You’ve to translate their poems in the English language or any language you want to publish — in the form of a book or e-book via Amazon KDP. That’s how Rumi got a bestseller poet in the US when some authors and translators started selling his books over Amazon and other e-commerce platforms to reach people worldwide.

There is also the KDP Select, which “is a free Kindle book program that gives you the opportunity to reach more readers and earn more money at no additional cost. All authors and publishers, regardless of where they live, are eligible to enroll their Kindle books in KDP Select.”

If you can write on your own, that’s a plus point. Of course, you might need to hire an editor because even Stephen King, the King of fiction, has stressed the importance of an editor. To know more about this and other writing tips, you can read another article of mine titled “7 Essential Writing Lessons from Stephen King’s Million-copy Bestseller.”

After writing your book, make sure to read this free eBook on Amazon that gives you a blueprint for writing and publishing your book for Kindle.

Free Kindle edition of “Building Your Book for Kindle”

4. Amazon Associates Program — Affiliate Marketing & Influencer Program

If you are a content creator, blogger, or publisher, you can monetize your traffic via Amazon Associates Program. Through the millions of products available on Amazon, “associates use easy link-building tools to direct their audience to their recommendations and earn from qualifying purchases and programs,” via this program.

If you are a content creator or a blogger, sign up for this program, share Amazon products with your audience, and earn money via associate commissions determined by Amazon.

Why are you waiting? Sign up here and make money via Amazon’s affiliate marketing program from now on.

As an influencer, Cristiano Ronaldo makes more money than he makes from his soccer club: €47 million vs. €30 million.

If you are an influencer, the Amazon Influencer Program:

“is an extension to the existing online Associates program for social media influencers. With the Influencer Program, you get your own page on Amazon with a URL to showcase the products you recommend to your followers. This gives you an additional way to direct traffic to Amazon, which is especially useful where hyperlinking isn’t possible (e.g., Instagram captions or video content.)”

If you have “a qualifying YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook account,” join the Influencer Program.

5. Amazon Handmade

If you make handmade crafts and want to sell your products via Amazon, this is the right program for you. In this case, you’re an Artisan. Amazon Handmade program/store “is available for artisans to sell their handcrafted products to millions of Amazon customers all over the world.”

All you need to do is to a) sign up, b) create a Seller Central account, c) list your products, and d) grow your business and make money.

If you make handmade crafts and want to sell them over Amazon, Apply NOW!

6. Merch by Amazon

Although recently changed to an invitation-only program, Merch by Amazon provides an opportunity for you to sell your designs on T-shirts to millions of customers. This program enables you to “upload your artwork, choose a product type and color, and add a product description.” Amazon will create a product page and will also handle production and shipping. They will also handle customer service and other related services, “all with no upfront costs.”

Based on the program description:

“To be considered, [you need to] complete an application to tell [Amazon] more about your background and experience.”

If you are a designer and would like to request an invitation, please click here: Request invitation.

You can also hire freelancers via Fiverr, Upwork, and other freelance marketplaces to do the work for you.

7. Private Label brand vs. Whole Sale Trade

It is called a Private label brand because products “are generally manufactured or provided by one company, then labeled with another company’s brand.” It can be done through the FBA program.

Let’s give an example: Suppose a manufacturer imports bulks of honey from Latin America. Many retailers talk to this manufacturer to produce processed bottled honey by placing their labels on top. The retailers might sell it in-store, via their online shops, or through private labeling via Amazon. The act of labeling bottled honey is private label branding.

Greg Mercer provides some great tips for private-label sellers.

Whole Sale Trade:

In this form, you need to find wholesalers. Then, you can sell on their behalf. For instance, there is a wholesaler in Bangladesh that produces protection masks. You are based in Italy. You talk to them and agree to buy their products in wholesale form and sell it to various sellers in Italy through FBA.

You can also find out best-selling products from Amazon’s trusted businesses and start trading.

Sign up here if you are interested in creating an account for Whole Sale Trade via Amazon.

8. Amazon Trade-ins

Amazon Trade-ins program provides Amazon Gift Cards “in exchange for thousands of eligible items, including Amazon Devices, video games, and more.”

You can also trade-in and upgrade Kindle E-readers, tablets, streaming media players, echo, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, home security devices, wireless routers, cell phones, and gaming devices.

Even if your device does not meet the trade-in requirements, Amazon can recycle it for you free of cost. Click here if you have a bulky item that needs to be recycled. Based on this program: “Amazon covers all the costs associated with shipping and recycling your Amazon devices and accessories.”

Beyond Amazon:

Nowadays, ready-made-websites through Wix, Shopify, and a few other platforms make it possible for you to establish an online business and sell your products to millions of people worldwide.

You can also start doing business or sell your products via eBay, Alibaba or Aliexpress of China, Flipkart of India, Rakuten of Japan, and some other emerging e-commerce platforms worldwide.

If you are a merchant, a seller, or a physical shop owner, the internet is an efficient tool to use and make your products available to thousands of people in your area and worldwide. Now you might buy offline and sell offline, why not buy offline and sell online — or even buy online and sell online?

Apart from e-commerce, there are plenty of companies that provide home-based jobs in a variety of fields. First, equip yourself with the right tools, i.e., become digitally literate and second, navigate the web and search for home-based jobs. You won’t survive with an 8–5 job if you don’t have multiple income streams or at least a side income.

If you do not keep up with the technological developments, you will probably lose ‘the war’ in which you willy-nilly have to take part — or else you’re not living in this century. In today’s world, nobody asks if you are literate, but if you’re digitally literate.

A centibillionaire CEO has provided millions of job opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people, making it a trillion-dollar company. He established it as an online marketplace for books, but now it provides hundreds of services. Nearly 25 years ago, the world’s richest man was probably the poorest.

What do you want to be in 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years? A gamer or a game changer? You decide!

This article was originally published on Medium.