Amazon store management: Seller Central operations and Amazon Ads together
Amazon rewards sellers who keep listings accurate, stock available and advertising tied to profit. We run
Seller Central and Amazon Ads as one job, because no campaign can rescue a suppressed listing, and a perfect
listing still needs traffic.
Selling on Amazon costs $39.99 a month on the Professional plan or $0.99 per item sold on Individual, plus a
category referral fee on every sale.
Sponsored Products is open to professional sellers; Sponsored Brands, Brand Stores and A+ Content require
Amazon Brand Registry. Sponsored Display has been folded into Amazon's display ads offering.
We manage listings, catalog health and inventory alongside Amazon Ads, with bids set from each product's
margin rather than one account-wide ACOS.
Amazon orders and stock can sync to your ERP — Odoo has a native Amazon connector — so channels don't drift
apart.
Honest scope: our deepest paid-media bench is Google and Microsoft. If your account needs a specialist we
don't have, we'll say so.
Who this is for
Brands already selling on Amazon whose sales have flattened while ad spend keeps rising.
Shopify brands launching on Amazon who want one catalog, not two drifting copies.
Brands with Brand Registry that aren't using Sponsored Brands, Brand Stores or A+ Content.
Sellers who can't say which products make money after fees and advertising.
It's a weaker fit for resellers of other brands' products competing mainly on price for the Featured Offer.
That's a repricing and sourcing business, and most of the brand tools on this page won't apply.
What's included
Seller Central operations
Listings and catalog. Titles, bullets, images, variation families and categorization, checked
for suppressions and inconsistencies with your own site.
Brand Registry and A+ Content. Enrollment if you hold an eligible trademark, then Basic or
Premium A+ modules, a Brand Story, and a Brand Store built around how shoppers browse your range.
Account health. Policy notifications, stranded and suppressed listings, and performance
metrics reviewed weekly so problems are handled before they become restrictions.
Inventory. FBA and FBM planning, replenishment signals and stock-outs — ads stop serving when
you're out of stock, and recovering rank afterwards costs more than staying in stock.
Pricing. Competitive position monitored, and Amazon's automated pricing tools configured with
floors that protect margin.
Sponsored Products
Cost-per-click ads for individual listings, now served on Amazon and on select Amazon-owned and third-party
sites and apps.
Amazon's documentation
sets the rules that shape our setup: no monthly or upfront fees, products must be eligible for the Featured
Offer, ads only appear when the item is in stock, and the daily budget is an average over the calendar month
that isn't paced through the day, so a small budget can be gone within minutes when demand spikes. We use
automatic campaigns for discovery, move converting search terms into exact-match manual campaigns, and add them
as negatives in the automatic campaign so the two don't compete.
Sponsored Brands
Video, image and collection ads in prominent placements such as top of search, driving to your Brand Store or
product pages.
Sponsored Brands
requires Brand Registry. We judge it partly on new-to-brand metrics, because first purchases cost more than
repeats and ACOS alone undervalues them.
Display ads (formerly Sponsored Display)
Amazon has
moved Sponsored Display into its wider display ads offering, managed alongside Amazon DSP in one workspace. Existing Sponsored Display campaigns keep running; new ones
are created as display campaigns. We use display for retargeting and product-page placements selectively, once
Sponsored Products is profitable, and measure it against a holdout where possible.
Structure
Brand defense, category and competitor terms run as separate campaigns with separate budgets, so you can see
what each costs. Bids follow the margin tiers from the fee math below.
How we take over an account
Audit
Account health, catalog and suppressions, search term reports, campaign structure and business reports.
Margin model
Landed cost, referral and fulfillment fees per product, producing a break-even and target ACOS for each.
Fix the catalog
Suppressed listings, variation problems and content gaps first, so ad spend lands on pages that can convert.
Restructure ads
Discovery, harvest and defense campaigns with negatives managed between them.
Run the cadence
Weekly bid and search-term work, inventory checks, and a monthly review tied to contribution margin.
Mistakes we see on most Amazon accounts
One ACOS target for every product regardless of margin.
Automatic campaigns running for years without anyone harvesting their search terms.
Negatives added after two days of data. Amazon's own guidance is to let negative keywords run about two weeks
before judging them, and to prefer negative phrase or negative exact.
Branded searches left undefended, or overpaid because brand and non-brand share one campaign.
Daily budgets that run out before lunch.
Advertising products that keep losing the Featured Offer or going out of stock.
Fee models still using last year's FBA rates.
Amazon listing copy and specs that contradict your own website.
What Amazon charges, and why it sets your ad budget
Per Amazon's seller pricing page in
October 2026: the Individual plan costs $0.99 per item sold; the Professional plan costs $39.99 a month and adds
bulk listing tools, Amazon Ads, Automate Pricing, and brand-building features (the brand features also require
Brand Registry). On top of that, every sale pays a referral fee that varies by category — a percentage of the
total price or a per-item minimum, whichever is greater. "Total price" includes shipping and gift-wrap charges.
Many categories sit at 15% with a $0.30 minimum; others are tiered by price, and clothing, for example, runs
from 5% to 17% depending on the item price.
FBA adds fulfillment and storage costs that depend on size, weight and season. Amazon's
2026 fee update
raised FBA fees by an average of $0.08 per unit from January 15, 2026, with no new FBA fee types. Averages hide
a lot, so we rebuild the margin model from the Fee Preview report rather than assuming.
Break-even ACOS, worked through
Here's an illustrative example, not a client result: a $30 product pays a $4.50 referral fee at 15%. If product
cost, fulfillment and other fees come to $13.50, there's $12 left before advertising — so the break-even
advertising cost of sale for that product is 40%. A product with half the margin breaks even at 20%.
Margin before ads
Break-even ACOS
How we usually run it
40% or more
40%+
Room for category and competitor terms; scale while profit per order holds
20–40%
20–40%
Exact-match harvest and brand defense; category terms only where conversion rate is proven
Under 20%
Under 20%
Brand terms and top converters only; fix price, cost or pack size before buying more traffic
Targets sit below break-even when the goal is profit, and deliberately above it for a launch you've budgeted
for. Either way the number is written down per product, so a rising ACOS is a decision rather than a surprise.
The reports we read first
Report
What it tells us
Search term report
Which shopper searches spend money without converting, and which converting terms aren't targeted yet
Placement report
Whether top-of-search, rest-of-search or product-page placements earn their cost
Advertised product report
Which products carry the ad budget, and whether that matches their margin
Business reports
Sessions and conversion rate by product, separating listing problems from traffic problems
Fee Preview
Estimated referral and FBA fees per product, the input to every break-even calculation
Account Health
Policy issues and performance metrics that could restrict selling
Inventory and stranded listings
Stock that can't sell, and products about to run out
Rules that keep an account selling
Most suspensions we hear about trace back to shortcuts that were never worth it. Three sets of rules matter
beyond Amazon's own policies:
Reviews. The FTC's
Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, in force since October 21, 2024, bans buying fake reviews and offering incentives conditioned on positive
sentiment. Insert cards that offer gifts for five-star reviews are exactly what it targets.
Seller information. The
INFORM Consumers Act
requires marketplaces to collect and verify bank, tax and contact details from high-volume third-party
sellers. Keep those details current or expect listings to be paused.
Product identifiers. Use GTINs licensed to your company through
GS1 US, not barcodes bought from resellers. The same codes then match on Google, Faire and retail.
Connecting Amazon to the rest of the business
Most margin leaks on Amazon are data problems: stock counts that disagree with your warehouse, prices that
differ from your site, orders re-keyed by hand. Odoo's
Amazon Connector
syncs confirmed FBA and FBM orders into Odoo, pushes available FBM quantities back to Amazon, and supports
multiple seller accounts and marketplaces; fee reports, disputes and refunds stay in Seller Central. Shopify
brands can also list through Shopify's Marketplace Connect app, which syncs 50 marketplace orders a month free
and then charges 1% up to $99 a month. We design those flows on our
ERP implementation page.
Pricing and engagement
Amazon management is a flat monthly fee set after the audit, based on catalog size and the
number of marketplaces and ad types in play. Per our pricing page, there are no
percentage-of-spend fees anywhere and no long contracts. Your Amazon fees and ad spend are billed by Amazon
directly.
Platforms we work in
Amazon's own tools plus the systems we connect them to.
We haven't published an Amazon case study on this site, so we won't pretend otherwise. John Williams's 15+ years
span Google Ads, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon (see projects and
about), and the operating habits that run our Google accounts — margin-based targets,
disciplined search-term harvesting, structure you can audit — carry over directly. Here's the published work
closest to it:
If you own a brand, almost certainly. Amazon requires Brand Registry for Sponsored Brands and for
brand-building tools like A+ Content and a Brand Store, and it gives you more control over your listings.
Should I use the Individual or Professional selling plan?
Individual costs $0.99 per item sold, Professional is $39.99 a month. Beyond about 40 units a month
Professional is cheaper, and it's required for Amazon Ads, bulk tools and brand features, so most brands need
it.
What ACOS should I target on Amazon?
There isn't one number. Calculate the margin left after product cost, referral and fulfillment fees for each
product; that's its break-even ACOS. Targets sit below break-even for profit, or deliberately above it for
launches you've budgeted for.
What happened to Sponsored Display?
Amazon folded it into its display ads offering, managed alongside Amazon DSP. Existing Sponsored Display
campaigns keep running and are found under Display, Video and Audio campaigns; new campaigns are created as
display ads.
Should I use FBA or FBM?
It depends on product size, velocity and your own fulfillment costs. Many brands run both: FBA for fast
movers, FBM for bulky or slow items. Odoo's connector handles both order types, but only pushes stock levels
for FBM.
Do you charge a percentage of Amazon sales or ad spend?
No. Our pricing page is explicit that there are no percentage-of-spend fees anywhere; Amazon management is
quoted as a flat monthly fee. Percentage pricing rewards an agency for spending more of your money.
Can you connect Amazon to my inventory or accounting system?
Yes. Odoo has a native Amazon connector for orders and FBM stock; other systems use their own connectors or a
custom integration. We document what syncs, in which direction, and how often.
Get an Amazon account review
Tell us your brand, marketplaces, and whether you're enrolled in Brand Registry.
John, Kristy, or Sandeep will reply.One of the three of us will respond personally within 1 business day. No SDR queue.
Message received.
One of us will reply directly within one business day. While you wait, run a free
Buddy audit on your account.
Top 25 references
The primary sources, standards, research, and tools we rely on for this work. Every link was checked on
2026-10-11. We aren't affiliated with these publishers unless noted.
Official documentation
Standard selling fees— Sell on Amazon Individual ($0.99 per item) and Professional ($39.99 a month) plans, and the referral fee table by
category, including tiered categories.
Amazon Brand Registry— Sell on Amazon Eligibility, the trademark requirement, and the protection and brand-building tools enrollment gives
you.
A+ Content— Sell on Amazon Basic, Premium and Brand Story modules, who is eligible, and how content is submitted and approved per
ASIN.
Sponsored Products— Amazon Ads Featured Offer and in-stock requirements, and the note that daily budgets aren't paced through the
day.
Sponsored Brands— Amazon Ads Formats, placements, Brand Registry eligibility and the cost models available for brand ads.
Sponsored Display is now display ads— Amazon Ads Explains that Sponsored Display now sits inside Amazon's display ads offering, and that existing
campaigns keep running.
2026 updates to U.S. referral and FBA fees— Amazon Selling Partners FBA fees rose an average of $0.08 per unit from January 15, 2026, with no new FBA fee types; the input for
this year's margin models.
What is the Selling Partner API?— Amazon Developer Docs The API that inventory, order and listing integrations use, and the reason connector quality varies so
much.
Amazon Connector features— Odoo 19.0 documentation Which FBA and FBM data Odoo syncs, and that available stock is pushed back to Amazon only for FBM.
Amazon Connector configuration— Odoo 19.0 documentation Connecting seller accounts and marketplaces to Odoo, including the requirement for a paid seller
account.
15 U.S. Code § 45f (INFORM Consumers Act)— Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School The federal law requiring marketplaces to collect and verify information from high-volume third-party
sellers.
Global Trade Item Number (GTIN)— GS1 The barcode standard behind UPCs and EANs, and why product identifiers need to be licensed rather than
bought from resellers.
How to get UPC barcodes for products— GS1 US How U.S. brands license a company prefix and assign GTINs, which keeps Amazon, Google and retail catalogs
matched.
Research & studies
Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales report— U.S. Census Bureau Official U.S. e-commerce sales and its share of total retail, the macro context for marketplace
growth.
Marketplace Pulse research— Marketplace Pulse Independent analysis of Amazon seller counts, fees and advertising trends.
State of the Amazon Seller 2025— Jungle Scout An annual seller survey on margins, advertising spend and operating challenges, read as self-reported
data.
Leading tools
Shopify Marketplace Connect— Shopify App Store Shopify's own app for listing a Shopify catalog on Amazon and syncing orders back; 50 synced
marketplace orders a month are free, then 1% up to $99.
Keepa— Keepa Price, sales-rank and Buy Box history for any ASIN, which we use to read competitor pricing and stock-out
patterns.
Helium 10— Helium 10 Keyword research, listing analysis and ad management tools widely used by Amazon sellers.
Amazon Marketing Cloud— Amazon Ads Amazon's clean-room analytics for path-to-purchase and overlap questions that the standard ad reports
can't answer.
Expert guides
A guide to targeting with Sponsored Products— Amazon Ads Automatic and manual targeting, match types, and Amazon's advice to use negative phrase or negative
exact and let negatives run two weeks.
AI disclosure: This page was drafted with AI assistance and edited by a human. Third-party facts
link to the official source they came from (checked 2026-10-11); platform names and logos belong to their owners
and do not imply a partnership or endorsement.
