Selling Globally
During this seemingly never-ending Covid19 pandemic people around the world are turning to online shopping. If you are focused purely on Amazon.com and the American market you are missing out on the huge opportunity of selling globally, the likes of which we have not seen in eCommerce since the early days of online shopping.
How big?
Europe is the second largest economy (based on GDP) in the world, and with just a few clicks Amazon lets you access that marketplace. In this article we are going to cover some of the reasons why you should be selling globally and some top tips on how to go about doing it.
First: Why?
Profits
eCommerce reports predict non-US shopping trends to have a 5x increase in the next 5 years. With the right budget, product, and optimization, you can successfully launch a product and get your slice of the pie.
Ease of Selling
Amazon provides FBA in all of the world’s major marketplaces. Selling in Germany (or Japan or Australia) is no more difficult than selling in the US – ship your products to an FBA warehouse and let Amazon do the rest.
Build International Listing (BIL) Tool
As if FBA didn’t make it easy enough, Amazon also offers the BIL tool. BIL allows you to manage offers for multiple marketplaces all from one main marketplace. Once you make changes to your offers, BIL automatically scans for qualifying listings in other markets and updates them for you. It is designed to save you time and money, as you don’t need to update each individual market separately.
The Tips
If you are now motivated to give international selling a try, let’s look at some top tips for a successful launch.
1. Find The Right Product
Not every product translates well to a new marketplace. Investigate marketplaces just like you did when you chose your first Amazon.com products. Look at what sells, what reviews say and what fits your budget.
Don’t forget to do keyword research in the marketplace as well!
2. Find The Right Supplier
Every market has its own special needs when it comes to product manufacturing. On top of that, different suppliers have different understandings of local packing/product requirements. That means you need to find a reliable product supplier capable of manufacturing to your specific requirements.
3. Hire A Local
Perhaps it goes without saying, but, if you are putting a listing on Amazon Japan you need to have your listing in Japanese. Or German for Germany, Italian for Italy, etc etc.
Despite advances in machine translation, do not be tempted to simply translate your English listing using Google Translate and post it. First of all, the translation will be horrible (sorry Google!). Second, it is not just the words, it is the meaning. Different cultures will want to focus on different aspects and the best way to bridge this gap is to hire a native speaker of the your target language and someone who lives in the target country. A freelancer can even help you identify unique cultural pain points you didn’t think of.
4. Use Single Sign On (SSO)
It’s easy to get tangled up with numerous seller accounts spread over different regions. SSO eliminates that problem by providing you with one spot to sign-on, using only one username/password. From there, you can choose which marketplace you want to look at.
SSO currently supports the following markets: North America, Europe, Japan and India. In order to do this, you must:
- Sign into your Seller Central account.
- Link your seller accounts by going to the Inventory tab, and clicking on “Sell Globally.”
- If you have an eligible seller account, it will appear here along with a “Link Accounts” button. Select which account you want to connect, and click it.
- If you do not have any eligible seller accounts, Amazon will give you the option of creating one and then linking it.
5. Use The BIL Tool For One-Stop Listings Management
As mentioned previously, Amazon’s BIL lets you manage multiple listings from one marketplace. You simply link the parent from your existing marketplace to the listing in your target marketplace. BIL will then go and automatically edit the child listings for you, as long as they actually exist.
For access to BIL you need the following:
- Have a Professional Seller account in good standing.
- Operate linked accounts between regions.
- Run a North American and/or European Unified account if you intend on selling in either places.
You should be aware that even using BIL you need to:
- Manage inventory levels for marketplaces
- Ensure your product meets local regulations for packaging.
- You must manually remove listings in the individual marketplaces if you wish to suspend them.
6. Choose Your Fulfillment Type
For selling Amazon products from the USA to the UK, you have to take a deep look at your business’ needs. There are multiple ways to sell within the EU market. Here are the options:
- European Fulfillment Network (EFN) is tailored towards less experienced sellers. In this type, Amazon covers all of your logistical needs. You ship all your items to one warehouse, and Amazon takes care of shipping them across borders in exchange for a fee.
- Pan-European Fulfillment (PEF) is for sellers who deal with large volumes of products. You ship everything to Amazon and they store it in a warehouse closest to where they predict the most customers will buy it. You do not pay any fees for shipping across borders.
- Multi Country Inventory (MCI) lets sellers choose which country they want to ship their product to. They can divide things up as they see fit, with a maximum of 5 countries allowed.
7. Look Into FBA Export
FBA Export is slightly different – it lets you ship internationally from a single location. Under this option, Amazon stores everything in one US warehouse and ships products to international buyers for you.
The benefit of FBA Export is that anyone, anywhere who has access to Amazon can buy from you. With over 60 countries all purchasing from your market, there’s a lot of growth potential.
8. Use Zonmaster
Of course, Zonmaster lets you manage all your customer contacts and review management (and more!) regardless of what or how many marketplaces you sell in around the world. Zonmaster supports ALL Amazon marketplaces, from Europe to North America to Australia to Asia. All in a single Zonmaster account – yes, even the ones starting at $6.99 a month!
Start your free trial today! We have some exciting new features coming soon that will change the way you work!
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