How to list a product on Amazon India

For sellers adding their first listings to Seller Central · Updated 15 July 2026

Listing a product on Amazon India is not hard. Listing it well — so that it actually appears in search, does not get suppressed, and does not quietly lose you money on every order — takes about twenty extra minutes per product. This guide covers both.

We assume you already have an active Seller Central account with your GST and bank details verified. If you do not, do that first: you cannot list until the account is live.

First decision: does the product already exist on Amazon?

This is the fork in the road, and most new sellers get it wrong.

Amazon organises its catalogue by ASIN — a unique code for each distinct product. If someone has already listed the exact same product, you do not create a new page. You add your offer to the existing ASIN and compete for the Buy Box on price, delivery speed and seller rating.

If your product is genuinely new to Amazon — your own brand, your own design — you create a new ASIN, which means you write the title, bullets, description and upload the images. You own that page.

Why this matters: creating a duplicate ASIN for a product that already exists is a policy violation. Amazon merges or suppresses duplicates, and repeated offences hurt your account health. Search the catalogue properly before you create anything.

Adding your offer to an existing ASIN

In Seller Central, go to Catalog → Add Products and search by product name, brand, or the barcode (EAN/UPC). If you find a match, click Sell this product.

You now only fill in the offer-level fields, because the product page itself already exists:

Seller SKU. Your internal code. Amazon does not care what it is; you should. See the SKU section below.
Condition. New, unless you are genuinely selling used or refurbished.
Your price. The price the customer pays.
Quantity. How many you have.
Fulfilment channel. Easy Ship, Self Ship, or FBA.

That is it. The listing goes live within minutes, and you are now competing for the Buy Box on that page.

Creating a new ASIN for your own product

This is the longer path. Catalog → Add Products → I'm adding a product not sold on Amazon. Pick the most specific category you can — category drives which attributes you are asked for, and those attributes drive which filters your product shows up in.

The fields that decide whether the listing succeeds:

Product title. The single biggest ranking factor you control. Follow the pattern: Brand + Product type + Key attribute + Size/Colour/Quantity. Keep it under about 200 characters, use numerals (2 not two), and do not stuff keywords or write in ALL CAPS. Bullet points. Five of them. Lead each with the benefit, then the specification. "Fits in the boot of a hatchback — folds to 60 x 40 cm" beats "Dimensions: 60 x 40 cm". Search terms (backend keywords). Under Keywords in the listing form. This is where synonyms, misspellings and Hinglish variants go — the words customers actually type but that would look silly in the title. Do not repeat words already in your title; Amazon indexes both. Images. Main image on a pure white background, product filling most of the frame. Covered in detail in our image requirements guide. Brand. If you type a brand name here that is registered to someone else, the listing will be blocked. If it is your brand, look at Amazon Brand Registry — it unlocks A+ content and gives you control over your own pages.

Setting up SKUs you will not regret

Your SKU is invisible to customers and enormously important to you. Amazon will accept anything, so most sellers type something random and regret it a year later when they have 400 products.

A SKU that works has structure — something like BRAND-PRODUCT-VARIANT-SIZE. When you are staring at a pile of eighty labels on the packing table, a SKU like YAP-GALAXYA73-MATTE-BLK tells you exactly what to pick. A SKU like 1042 means opening the invoice for every parcel.

This pays off directly at packing time. Our Amazon label cropper prints the SKU straight onto each shipping label and sorts the batch by SKU, so you pick one product at a time instead of walking the shelf for every order. That only works if your SKU is readable.

Before you set the price: know what you actually keep

This is where new sellers lose money. The price the customer pays is not the money you receive. Amazon deducts:

Referral fee — a percentage of the selling price, varying by category. As of the March 2026 update, Amazon India applies zero referral fees to a large range of products priced under ₹1,000; above that, rates vary widely by category.
Closing fee — a flat amount per order, tied to the price slab.
Weight handling / shipping fee — based on weight (actual or volumetric, whichever is greater) and distance (local, regional, national).
GST at 18% on all of the above. Not on your product — on Amazon's fees.

Run your numbers through Amazon's own fee calculator before you list, not after. Our seller calculators also give you a break-even selling price in a few seconds. Fees change — check the official page linked below for the current rates rather than trusting any blog, including this one.

The mistakes that get listings suppressed

Wrong or missing required attributes. Amazon suppresses listings missing mandatory fields for their category. Check Fix Your Products in Seller Central weekly. Main image with text, logos, watermarks or props. The main image must be the product on white, nothing else. This is enforced automatically. Claiming a brand you do not own. Instant block, and potentially an account health hit. Category mismatch. Listing a phone case under Electronics Accessories when it belongs in Mobile Accessories buries you in filters nobody uses. Copy-pasting a competitor's bullets. Beyond being lazy, it is a copyright issue and it means your page has no reason to outrank theirs.

A sensible order of operations

Search the catalogue. Existing ASIN? Add your offer and stop here.
Shoot or prepare images first, before you touch the listing form. Waiting on photos is what leaves listings half-finished for weeks.
Write the title, bullets and backend keywords in a text file. Getting them right matters more than getting them live today.
Run the fee calculator. Decide your price with the real numbers.
Create the listing, save as inactive, review it, then activate.
Check it in search 24 hours later. If you cannot find it by typing your own title, something is wrong.

Frequently asked questions

How long does an Amazon listing take to go live?

Adding an offer to an existing ASIN is usually live within minutes. A brand new ASIN typically appears within a few hours, though images and category approvals can take longer. If it has not appeared in 24 hours, check Fix Your Products for errors.

Do I need GST registration to sell on Amazon India?

For most taxable goods, yes. A small number of GST-exempt categories can be sold without it. Rules around threshold exemptions for e-commerce sellers have changed over time, so confirm your specific situation with a chartered accountant rather than a blog.

What is the difference between an ASIN and a SKU?

An ASIN is Amazon's identifier for the product itself, shared by every seller offering it. A SKU is your own private code for your stock. Many sellers can offer the same ASIN, each with their own SKU.

Should I create a new ASIN if my product is slightly different?

Only if it is genuinely a different product. A different colour or size belongs as a variation on the existing ASIN, not a new page. Creating near-duplicate ASINs to avoid competition is a policy violation.

Can I change my SKU later?

Not directly — the SKU is fixed once created. You would have to create a new listing with the new SKU and close the old one, which loses that listing's history. This is exactly why it is worth setting up a sensible SKU format before you have hundreds of products.

Sources and further reading

Marketplace fees and policies change. These are the official pages to check for the current numbers before you make a pricing decision:

Amazon.in — fees and pricing · Amazon Seller Central India — Help Hub