Amazon

Amazon.com began in the USA but quickly expanded it's offering around the world.

You can now use Amazon to sell in the following countries/regions:

Americas: USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil (by invitation only)

Europe: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, Poland, Turkey

Asia: Japan, India, Singapore - Middle East: United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia

Oceania: Australia

Amazon also offers logistics and other services outside of the above countries which can often lead to other benefits, but also other risks. For example, Amazon has a fulfilment centre in Czechia but no locally available store there. This means that a seller using Amazon's EU FBA service still has VAT obligations in Czechia, even though there are no sales from this country.

If you'd like to find out more about VAT obligations when using FBA, contact our partner SimplyVAT.

In general, Amazon allows you to sell in all major product categories. However, some of them require pre-approval in some locales or are restricted entirely due to local legislative restrictions.

You can find more information about what you're allowed to sell and where, as well as category-specific requirements using the link below.

To find out about a specific country, you can change the bold part of the URL to the relevant country code (e.g. Germany = de, United Kingdom = .co.uk).

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/G200332540

Amazon offers both B2B (1P) and B2C (3P) sales models. Unless your brand is considered a household name, it's unlikely that Amazon will directly contact you to offer your products directly via the 1P model until you have shown success via the 3P model. As such, many brands opt to start with this or allow third-party retail/distribution partners to generate sales on Amazon in order to attract the attention of Amazon buyers.

Of course, by this point, many brands find that their margins are good enough and their sales strong enough via 3P that the 1P option is no longer appealing. There is of course no reason you can't do both, though there are many best practices to consider here, which we can help you navigate.

If you need support with or want to find out more about selling on Amazon via either of these models, eCommeleon has a variety of options to help you make the most of either or both options.

Amazon's customer-first approach has attracted sellers from around the world for over 20 years and has evolved to the point where it is now claimed that more than 50% of online product searches start there. As such, most major retailers and brands around the world offer their products for sale on Amazon. Some do it better than others but suffice to say that if you're just now beginning your Amazon journey, you'll be in familiar company.

One thing to be aware of with Amazon, unlike many marketplaces, is that you'll be competing against Amazon themselves, who also acts as a retailer on their own marketplace. This is a contentious point and one which is at the centre of much political controversy.

Fortunately, the Amazon search algorithm is designed to reward sellers who provide a good service to their buyers so whether you're a brand new seller or simply looking to improve your numbers there, Amazon offers many options to help you succeed and eCommeleon can help you take advantage of these.

Depending on which of the Amazon selling models you use (1P vs 3P), and whether or not you take their optional extra services such as FBA, the amount of your sale price that will go to Amazon can vary considerably.

However, like most marketplaces, Amazon offers simple per-category fees (usually a percentage of the gross sale value, with a minimum fee) which you can find listed on their website.

EU: https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/external/help-page.html?itemID=200336920

Non-EU: (change .com to local country code for local information): https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/help-page.html?itemID=200336920

In addition to the selling & shipping fees, a successful Amazon business also needs to invest in advertising. Amazon has many options for this, but the most common is pay-per-click (PPC).

Amazon generally pays out the proceeds from your sales every 2 weeks, but the exact date depends on when you first opened your account or started selling with them. As with any agreement though, there are many factors here and it's not uncommon for Amazon to offer special conditions to certain sellers (e.g. consistently above a threshold of sales) or to withhold payments until issues have been resolved.

As a word of warning, you need only look through the Amazon seller forums to hear horror stories about Amazon withholding payments from sellers for a variety of reasons. When selling on Amazon, you need to be sure you can handle variations in cash flow in case Amazon decides to withhold your funds for any reason.

Amazon is one of the easiest marketplaces to begin selling on, but that doesn't mean everyone can do it. To start with, you will need to provide Amazon with some basic information about your business. Additionally, though, you need to meet the selling requirements which are determined not just by the country of the Amazon locale you'd like to sell on, but also where your business is located and which category you'd like to sell in. You can find a full list of Amazon's requirements for selling here, but some of the key points are:

•  You must be located in one of the Amazon accepted countries
• You must ensure that you are compliant with relevant tax/legal obligations in the country or countries you wish to sell in

Additionally, if you are going to fulfil orders yourself (rather than using FBA), you should:

• Always provide a tracking number
• Ensure items are dispatched (and marked so) on time
• Provide quality customer service in your buyers' language