How To Get Approval For Grocery and Gourmet Food Category on Amazon
Update: The Grocery category has been ungated by Amazon. Sellers must adhere to specific rules, but for CPG food brands it has never been easier to join the marketplace.
Getting Approval for the Grocery and Gourmet Food Category
We know how overwhelming it can be to work through all of Amazon’s Seller information to get approved in the Grocery and Gourmet Food category. So we've distilled down the basic requirements for you to get approved to sell your food product on the world’s largest marketplace.
“Even if you have everything right on the first try, it can take up to 2 weeks and maybe even longer to gain approval.”
Remember that even if you have everything right on the first try it can take up to 2 weeks and maybe even longer to gain approval. This represents the first big step in getting your product listed on Amazon, it's the launchpad that precedes the momentum of Amazon sales.
If you are a new business, we suggest establishing a presence while you wait for your approval. Build a Shopify store, create and grow social media accounts, and spread your product to local friends and family. Build your audience. Gain feedback. Sell in other areas and establish more than one sales channel to keep your business flowing forward.
It’s About The Customer
Amazon's focus is always on the customer. Keep that one basic principle in mind for this and every subsequent stage in the selling process. Consider how Amazon would want you to display and advertise your product so that the customer can feel confident in what they buy. If your goal is to find loyal customers, so is Amazon’s. If you want consumers to come back to your product, Amazon wants them to come back on Amazon. Filter every decision through the lens of what makes buying your product easy and enjoyable, an experience that Amazon shoppers will want to return to.
Buying food can be tricky. Buying food online is even more so. The industry is beginning to feel more normalized, but shoppers might still wonder if the food is safe? Will there be unknown ingredients? Is it manufactured somewhere with allergic ingredients like Peanuts? Is what I see what I am going to get? This is a world where shoppers cannot pick up and feel products in their hands.
Always remember these three core factors:
Product Quality
Product Branding
Food Safety
Amazon Seller Account Requirements
In order to sell on Amazon in the Grocery and Gourmet Food category you must have:
Professional selling plan
Valid invoices and other information about your products
If you are already a seller on Amazon you must have:
An order defect rate of less than 1%
Pre-fulfillment cancel rate less than 2.5%
Late shipment rate of less than 4%
Another really helpful element in the Amazon review process is having a company website. We recommend using Shopify so that you have other sales channels to support your revenue goals.
Product Packaging
Make sure your product is properly prepared, sealed, packed, and labeled. Product packaging must be:
Listed with the manufacturer's UPC
Written in English and compliant with applicable laws
Protect the quality and safety of the food
Designed to include specific information including expiration dates, net weight, and dietary claims
It's important to note that you must have actual product packaging. Amazon has gotten far more strict on the labeling requirements when it comes to Grocery and Gourmet Food.
Don’t
Try to tape a printed label onto a box, especially if that box is not what your product comes in
Do a digital mockup of the product packaging
Use stickers or anything easily removable for important information such as dietary claims, nutrition facts, business addresses, and so on
Over the years Amazon has gotten stricter about who they let sell not their platform. It's important to show Amazon as well as Amazon’s shoppers you are a legitimate and quality seller at every step of the process.
Shelf Life
We're in the food business. That means expiration dates and limited shelf life. Grocery and Gourmet Food is a wide net and a seller of spices will have a very different experience than a beverage company.
Make sure your product has a shelf life greater than 90 days. You can still sell products with expiration dates through Amazon’s FBA program (Fulfilled By Amazon) but keep in mind that they will remove all units within 50 days of expiring with no refund or return of the product.
Be sure your product can withstand temperature ranges from 50 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the shelf life without affecting quality.
Meltable products are only allowed between October 1st and April 30th.
"Papers, Please"
Documentation Requirements
Along with your product and packaging information, Amazon also requires business documentation. These can be sales invoices, purchase orders, commercial invoices, etc.
Invoices must have at least a quality of 30 units
Dated within the past 90 days
Document issuer's name, address, phone number, email, or website
Seller name or business name
Contact information
Amazon asks for three of these invoices, but alternatively, you can have two invoices and one additional piece of information, such as:
Business Website URL
Storefront/office business address
Manufacturing plant business address
Business certification
Home occupation permit
No Invoices? No Problem
If you don’t have any invoices you can also provide Amazon with:
FDA certification registration document
Or
New Dietary Ingredient notification document
Along with one piece of additional information as listed above.
Amazon will not accept
Retail receipts
Packing slips
Sales orders
Online retailer invoices
Pro-forma invoices
Overwhelmed?
We get it, it's a lot of information. Not everything is always clear with Amazon, and there can be a lot of second-guessing and repeating steps. You might do everything right and Amazon will still give you a hard time.
If you're new to Amazon and feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or exhausted, that's ok too. We're happy to help. We've been there for many of our clients as they jumped through Amazon’s hurdles. We work exclusively with Grocery and Gourmet Food brands on Amazon, so we've been through it, we’ve gone back and forth with Amazon and encountered the bottlenecks, solved their riddles, and gotten brands to the point where they got to grow on the world’s largest e-commerce marketplace.
As fellow entrepreneurs, we know the thrill of that first sale. Seeing your product show up on the search results. Seeing someone out there in the world interested in what you're offering. We want to get you to that feeling as soon as possible.
We would love to help get you to the adrenaline rush of that first sale.