Amazon quietly launched a new mobile application designed for Amazon Sellers, the individuals and businesses who leverage Amazon’s scale to reach the company’s millions of shoppers by listing their products on Amazon’s site. Amazon Seller, as the app is simply called, offers a suite of mobile tools that allow sellers to search and scan barcodes of items, check prices, sales ranking and reviews, list items, as well as communicate with customers.
An app designed for sellers has often been called a missing piece in the Amazon Seller ecosystem. The hole, to date, has been largely filled by third-party application developers, like SellerMobile. But some merchants were frustrated that they would have to pay a subscription to a third-party (at $5/month, in SellerMobile’s case) just to make using Amazon’s selling platform easier.
SellerMobile still has a more advanced feature set, it appears – Amazon’s version doesn’t seem to offer the same level of inventory management features, for example. Of course, that could change in time now that Amazon has its own app on the market.
In addition to product search and customer communications, Amazon Seller lets merchants create listings and estimate the profitability of their items before they sell. To do so, merchants enter in the cost of the items, then the app will show the potential profit, less Amazon’s selling and fulfillment fees.
In the App Store description, Amazon also points out that using its Seller app means all activity is routed through Amazon’s severs. That may seem like an obvious point to make, but the line is in there to address sellers’ often vocal concerns about using non-Amazon applications to manage something as crucial as their businesses and livelihoods.
Seller Mobile is an initial release and currently requires a U.S. Amazon Sellers account. An Android version was not found at this time. The mobile application is available for free download, here on iTunes.
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