How Many Seller Accounts Can I Have—A Handy Amazon Selling Guide

Some Amazon sellers truly believe in “the more, the merrier” approach when it comes to seller accounts.

They think they can do better if they have more than one seller account to sell on Amazon. 

However, Amazon doesn’t allow you to operate in any one of its regions (out of 27) through multiple accounts unless you have a legitimate business need.

By adding this stipulation (i.e. a legitimate business need), Amazon has somewhat paved the way for sellers to have multiple accounts.

But how many accounts? 

In this post, we will answer this question and walk you through how to open the second Amazon seller account. 

Also, if you’re not sure whether opening a second Amazon seller account is a good idea?

You’ll find the answer to this question too, as you finish reading this post.

Without any further delay, let’s start our discussion.

How Many Amazon Seller Accounts Can You Open?

Amazon’ seller code of conduct says:

You may only maintain one Seller Central account for each region you sell in unless you have a legitimate business need to open a second account and all of your accounts are in good standing. If any of your accounts are not in good standing, we may deactivate all of your selling accounts until all accounts are in good standing.

This states that Amazon has not put a cap on the number of accounts that a seller can have. You can open as many accounts as you want, providing that you fulfill the relevant prerequisites. Similarly, people who don’t have any legitimate business need and use black-hat tactics for opening seller accounts are not bound to any limit either. Some of them even go on to open seller accounts in double digits.

However, we strongly disapprove of those practices. They’re not just unethical but can also land your business and brand in big trouble. Amazon suspends sellers’ multiple accounts if they’ve been operating without adhering to Amazon’s directives.

So, what are those legitimate grounds and requirements that you need to fulfill for opening multiple seller accounts on Amazon? The following section will answer this.

Requirements for Opening Multiple Seller Accounts

You can open a second seller account in the same region once you meet these requirements:

• You have more than one brand to sell, and you maintain their operations separately.
• You make products for two entirely different companies listed as separate business entities.
• You have signed up for an Amazon seller program that needs separate accounts.

If you make another seller account due to any of these reasons, you need to use a separate bank account for each of them. However, this clause doesn’t apply to those selling in multiple regions through Amazon Global Selling.

Amazon also wants sellers to maintain performance metrics to have a “good standing” of their account. Therefore, Amazon may not approve your second account if your first one doesn’t put you in a good standing.

What Is Considered ‘Good Standing’ for an Amazon Seller Account?

To find out whether your seller account has a “good standing”,as per Amazon’s standard, you can check out your Account Health under the Performance tab on the homepage of your Seller Central account.

There, you will see how your selling account complies with the set policies and performance targets needed to sell on Amazon. On the Account Health page, you will see a section of Account Health Rating. 

The red, yellow, and green bars indicate “Critical”, At Risk", and "Good," respectively. So, if your Account Health Rating is on the green bar, your selling account maintains good standing. 

To maintain good account health and subsequently good standing, you need to ensure your account meets these targets.

• Registers 100% policy compliance with zero issues
• Maintains order defect rate under 1%
• Keeps late shipment rate under 4%
• Upholds valid tracking rate over 95%
• Keeps pre-fulfillment cancel rate under 2.5%

It is important to remember that if a seller’s account doesn’t have good health, they won’t be able to open a second account no matter if they fulfill all the other requirements mentioned above.

How to Open a Second Amazon Seller Account

As of April 2020, Amazon does not require sellers to submit a prior application for approval to open a second account. Sellers can now open a second account if they fulfill the requirements mentioned above and maintain good standing for the first account without notifying Amazon.

However, the good practice is to inform Amazon before opening the second account to cover all the bases. Also, letting Amazon know in advance shows that you want to open the account without resorting to black hat techniques.

You can inform Amazon and get informal permission to open the second account by opening a case through your first Seller Central account. The steps to open the case are as follows:

• Open Help on the upper right corner of the homepage of your Seller Central profile.

• Click on Get Support

• Proceed with clicking on Selling on Amazon

• Write down the announcement/permission note in the Describe Your Issue box. State that you are going to open a second account, why you need it, and how it will be different from the first one. In the end, ask if you need to be aware of any clause before opening the account. By asking this, you can ensure that you don’t inadvertently breach any fine print condition that may land all your seller accounts in trouble.

You will hear from Amazon Seller Support within the same or a couple of days. If your message doesn’t point to any problem, the Seller Support representative will advise you to go ahead while following the requirements mentioned in the earlier section. 

It is important to mention that you're not “obliged” to move your case for the second account. However, doing so will cover all the bases, give you peace of mind, and make the suspension of any of your multiple accounts almost impossible.

Your email to Amazon can go like this:

Dear Amazon, 

I’m considering opening a new seller account to launch products in a different category under another business entity. The new business will have separate customer service contact points and sales tax requirements. 

I understand that I will require separate bank and credit card information and separate contact details to open the second account.  

Would you please confirm if I’m eligible to open a second seller account with the details and circumstances mentioned above?

Thanks

A Checklist for Opening the Second Amazon Seller Account

You need to take care of this set of best practices while opening the second seller account. 

• Register a separate business entity
• List a different line of products
• Use a separate credit card and other bank details
• Provide separate contact details (email addresses, street address, phone numbers, etc)
• Use separate website and domain
• Use separate warehouses 

By checking off this list, you will get your seller account opened without hitting any snag.

Opening Multiple Seller Accounts Using Black Hat Techniques: Consequences and Ethics

As mentioned earlier, people use black hat techniques to open multiple seller accounts when they don’t have a legitimate reason. They usually use separate pieces of information (contact, bank, billing, shipping, company details) for the second account. However, they continue to sell the same categories, brands, and products they do through their first account. 

Amazon can find out about sellers operating multiple accounts for no legitimate reason by checking device IDs, IP addresses, and billing/shipping addresses. If Amazon catches that a seller uses multiple accounts without a justifiable reason, it can suspend or permanently ban those accounts. 

Regarding the ethics of operating multiple seller accounts, the jury is still out. Some people think as long as you’re not evading taxes, conning customers, or selling counterfeits, there’s no harm in operating more than one seller account even if you don’t sell different brands and products (as required by Amazon)

On the other hand, some believe that if you are going against Amazon’s directives and then hiding it too from the platform, you’re certainly doing something wrong. 

We gravitate more towards the reasoning of the latter group. However, you can pick either side based on how your moral compass responds to arguments from both sides.

Benefits of Having Multiple Seller Accounts on Amazon

Having multiple seller accounts on Amazon can be beneficial for your business in multiple ways, including increased revenue, a diversified business journey, and the option to sell one as an independent entity.

Let’s take a closer look below. 

More Revenue

Most sellers are incentivized to open multiple seller accounts for widening their income stream and increasing their profits. It is a simple equation: you will eventually earn more than before when you have more avenues to sell more things. Think of an Amazon seller with multiple accounts as a conglomerate with many subsidiaries. On top of better revenues, you can also streamline your bookkeeping and tax filing when you operate with more than one account.

Flipping Becomes Easy

When you operate multiple seller accounts separately, you always have the option to sell any of them as an independent entity. It makes for a great long-term business prospect where you can grow a seller account alongside a brand, profit from it for a particular duration, and then make big bucks by selling it for its present-day value.

Diversification of the Business

By opening multiple accounts, a seller can diversify its business journey on Amazon. For instance, after succeeding with a clothing private label, a seller might want to venture into other niches. From the business’s perspective, having the experience of selling in multiple niches and categories on Amazon goes a long way in how you sell on any other e-commerce or even brick-and-mortar platform. 

Also, running a diversified business model on Amazon through multiple accounts can eventually translate into an all-around enterprise serving different niches and sectors. 

Hedging the Bet

By opening multiple seller accounts, a seller can minimize the risk of the suspension and banning of the seller account. If your account gets suspended or banned for any reason, you will always have a second account to fall back on. This way, you can continue selling and sustaining your income on Amazon, which is impossible if your only account gets barred from selling.

Also, you can always switch between accounts, depending on which one is doing better. For instance, if you sell two different products from two different accounts, you can focus more on the account in a particular season when the corresponding products are sold more than the other category you deal in. Thus, it is an effective way to maintain a steady income stream throughout 12 months of the year. 

Problems with Having Multiple Seller Accounts on Amazon

While having multiple Amazon seller accounts has its benefits, you also need to be mindful of the potential downsides. 

Need More Time

Sometimes even handling a single seller account gets overwhelming and exhaustive, let alone a set of accounts. Especially if a seller is on their own and operates without a team and assistants, it can get quite troublesome to manage the finances, inventory, listing, and other similar issues of multiple accounts simultaneously. 

Performance Anxiety

It is not always possible to have your multiple seller accounts perform in the same manner. For example, it is very common for a seller to have one account doing good and the other registering subpar performance. This performance differentiation can make you restless and put you through a vicious cycle of anxiety where you will always worry about an account not doing as good as another account(s).

An Impending Risk of Suspension

If someone has opened multiple seller accounts against the rules mentioned in Amazon’s seller code of conduct, then the risk of suspension and ban will always loom on those accounts. Amazon has all the discretion to ban illegitimate multiple accounts linked to the same seller permanently. 

Such an outcome can virtually wipe out your existence as a seller from Amazon’s map. This is the main reason why we never condone using black hat techniques to open multiple Amazon seller accounts.

Mike Begg, the founder, CMO, and CFO of AMZ Advisers sums up the positive and negative implications of having multiple seller accounts when he said,

"There aren't that many pros to having multiple Seller Central accounts. If you have multiple businesses, then having separate accounts will help to keep the bookkeeping and sales tax filings more simple than selling through a single account. The cons are that there are only specific instances in which you can actually have 2 accounts.

First, you need to advise Amazon before you open a second account - but you are only allowed to have a second account if the products you are selling in this other account are completely different from the products in your current account.

Having any overlap runs the risk of having both accounts suspended. You're better off having a general seller name that owns more than 1 brand (if you have them) in the same account than trying to separate things out just to minimize your risk."

Final Words

Opening multiple Amazon seller accounts can be difficult, but as long as you have legitimate grounds to do so, it is possible.

 In short, if you sell different products under different business names, you can have multiple seller accounts. Amazon won’t have any issue with that. 

However, successfully managing multiple Amazon seller accounts is no mean feat. When you’re juggling more than one account as an Amazon seller, a robust seller toolkit can come in handy. ZonGuru offers one of those toolkits that can make it relatively easy for you to tread between more than one seller accounts. Our seller suite has all the features that can help you streamline the activity of multiple Amazon seller accounts. 

Want to master the art of selling through multiple accounts and optimize the use of Amazon seller tools? 

Whether you’re just starting your Amazon journey or been in the game for a while, ZonGuru has just what you need to improve your business. Sign up for a FREE trial today, cancel any time.

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