When it comes to selling on Amazon, there are two main platforms – Vendor Central and Seller Central – and each serves a very different type of seller.
Vendor Central is an exclusive, invitation-only platform designed for manufacturers and distributors. Vendors sell their products directly to Amazon at wholesale prices, and Amazon then resells those products to customers. While this arrangement gives vendors the advantage of Amazon’s powerful marketing and advertising support, it also means they have limited control over product listings, pricing, and inventory management.
Seller Central, on the other hand, is open to all third-party sellers who want to sell on Amazon’s marketplace. These sellers – often called marketplace or third-party sellers – list products themselves, manage pricing, control inventory, and run their own promotions through the Seller Central dashboard. Like vendors, they also have access to Amazon’s advertising tools, but with far greater flexibility in how their products are presented and sold.
In short, the key difference lies in control and sales structure. Vendors sell in bulk to Amazon and rely on the platform to handle retail sales, while third-party sellers sell directly to customers through the marketplace with more control over pricing and listings.