Make Money at Home While in Quarantine with Amazon

6 Ways to Bank While You Quarantine with Amazon

Money Making Mommy has brought you the ins and outs of Amazon’s work from home opportunities before. However, the 2020 shutdown has made this year unlike any other year in recent history. Markets have collapsed. Millions are left without jobs. The economy is in deep trouble.

In the midst of all the hardships, the world’s largest online retailer has managed to flourish like never before.

So, it’s what's changed with Amazon’s remote career opportunities? It probably won’t surprise you to hear the answer is plenty.

Requirements

Though the company has adapted to unique circumstances and changed with the times to stay relevant, they still list many of the same job requirements they have in the past.

Most of the virtual jobs at Amazon have traditionally been, and remain, customer care-based and they ask employees to commit to 20-30 hours per week on average. They still give veteran status and bilingual abilities hiring preference. But there are new opportunities for independent contractors and entrepreneurs as well.

Though they serve the entire world, Amazon has become notorious for only hiring within a few key regions or states. They have expanded this a bit and there are more options than ever before, but location restrictions still apply. For an up-to-date on virtual locations, click here.

Other than that, all you need to do your job for most positions is a fast and reliable internet connection, a trustworthy desktop or laptop, a basic headset, and a quiet space where you will be able to work uninterrupted.

Here are the best options for working from home with the Zon in 2020.

Amazon M Turk

If you’re reading this and thinking, “M-whhhhaaat?” You’re not alone. The newest branch of Amazon still has many people confused. This is the biggest sweeping change Amazon has made to their workforce in the last year.

Short for Amazon Mechanical Turk, M Turk is an innovative online marketplace for microtasking which caters to developers and companies.

Instead of paying a full or part-time employee to complete large projects, a microtasking platform allows them to break up larger projects into pieces and outsource small tasks to individuals.

Though this may be a loophole for large corporations to get by on the cheap and avoid paying a minimum hourly wage, it can be a good way for those of us with time on our hands to make some extra cash.

Typical M Turk tasks range from taking surveys, transcribing audio files, conducting product reviews, or writing articles, social media or blog posts, or editing business lis. Once you are hired, you may choose which tasks suit your mood and skillset from literally thousands of tasks available daily.

Compensation for a task varies by complexity, but the majority pay under $10. Though that doesn’t sound like a lot, most of the tasks are relatively quick and painless. It may be best to think of this as a downtime side-hustle.

General Customer Support

Customer Service is still what comes to mind for most people when they think of Amazon work-from-home jobs. This field remains Amazon’s main avenue for remote work. It is just what it sounds like and has changed very little. You can wear a headset and take live calls or opt for the silent method and answer emails or offer live text support.

As has been the case for some time, you can expect pay to be around $15 per hour for a 30 hour workweek. They typically hire additional staff to prep for the upcoming holidays, so now would be an ideal time to look into it.

The qualifications are minimal, requiring only that you have a high school diploma, 1 year of customer service or phone experience, a pleasant demeanor or phone voice, and can speak or write with professional-level grammar.

To learn more about Amazon Customer Support jobs, click here.

Selling through Amazon FBA

By now you are likely familiar with FBA or Fulfillment By Amazon. For those that aren’t, this is a logistics service Amazon offers to sellers which can handle all product storage, packing, and shipping processes. If you already sell items, this is worth checking out.

If you qualify as a “professional seller,” meaning you sell at least 40 items per month, you can pay a monthly subscription rate of $39.99 per month. As an individual seller, however, you will be charged a fee for storage, packing, and shipping based on weight. These fees run from 45 cents to $1.35 per item, and an additional flat 99 cent fee per item sold applies as well.

If you currently sell products, running a basic cost analysis should tell you whether it would be more lucrative to have Amazon handle these logistics for you so you can spend your valuable time making more money instead of fulfilling orders.

Retail Arbitrage

This term has gotten a lot of play in the last 5-10 years, having enjoyed its fame as a trending buzzword in the work-from home racket. It refers to the act of physically going to local area stores, purchasing heavily clearanced items in bulk, and then selling said items on Amazon for a profit.

This process, while it can be quite lucrative if you know when and where to hit the right sales, often requires a lot of time, travel, and, well…sleuthing. Retail arbitrage can go hand-and-hand with extreme couponing to help you lower your costs further. There are even top-secret “penny deals” at certain dollar store chains if you know how to find them.

Many location-based retail arbitrage social media groups and clubs are dedicated to these “penny deals” to help keep you in-the-know. Staying connected helps you find out which stores and companies are going out of business or having major clearance sales so you can stock up at the right time and the right price.

Amazon Handmade

For the company with a hand in everything, this is the Zon’s answer to Etsy and the companies are not mutually exclusive.

As a seller, you are free to set your own prices with no listing fees. In order to register your business, you will need a professional selling plan, but the monthly $39.99 selling plan fee is waived for handmade products. As such, Amazon requires all items be 100% handmade.

The only deduction Amazon makes to the sale price is a 15% referral fee per product sold. If you are a talented artist or just into handy-crafts, selling your wares here is definitely worth a shot. If nothing else, it gives you worldwide exposure so you can further your brand. They’ve managed to sell handmade products and crafts from over 80 countries to buyers all over the globe.

Sell Your Ebooks on Kindle

Are you a great writer? Whether you possess a creative spirit that loves spinning wild tales of the imagination, a knack for turning someone else’s rough ideas into attention-grabbing and engaging content, or an idea within your area of expertise worth exploring, you may want to consider writing an ebook.

The million dollar question here is: Will anyone read it? While the answer largely depends on your literary prowess and how well you manage to pull your book together, getting a giant like Amazon to sell it can make all the difference.

Kindle Direct Publishing allows you to publish your own ebooks or even paperbacks for free. After you publish your book, it goes up for sale worldwide in just 24-48 hours.

Kindle Publishers are allowed to set their own prices and earn up to 70% in royalties. Best of all, as an author, you get to keep the rights to the books you sell.
How much you earn directly relates to how many copies you sell. Top-tier writers have reported making make over $400,000 per year.

If you have a passion for writing, there seems to be no downside to publishing your work on Kindle. To find out more, click here.

Is A Remote Gig With the Zon Right for You?

In a world that seems to have been flipped on its head, the one thing you can say for Amazon is that it just keeps growing. Whether or not you believe in it this internet retail giant as an ethical company, we’ve all got to eat, right?

If you need a stable way to feed your family amid uncertain times, who is better equipped to provide that than Amazon? Currently boasting more than 750,000 employees worldwide, they are in the midst of hiring 100,000 more since the pandemic.