Ready to take your business to the next level? Want to reach the full European marketplace? Want some help from a mega corporation to get there? Fulfillment by Amazon, or Amazon FBA lets you sell your products on their massive European marketplace. When it’s time to ship the item, Amazon does all the work for […]
Ready to take your business to the next level?
Want to reach the full European marketplace?
Want some help from a mega corporation to get there?
Fulfillment by Amazon, or Amazon FBA lets you sell your products on their massive European marketplace.
When it’s time to ship the item, Amazon does all the work for you.
You just set up with Amazon FBA, list your products on the Amazon website, and take advantage of the Amazon infrastructure.
Setting up a system using Amazon FBA is simpler than you might think.
In fact, you can get started more quickly than you might imagine.
Choose an Amazon Selling Plan
Your first step in selling for Amazon FBA is deciding how you want to do that. There are two plans offered through Amazon. The first is a basic or individual plan. With this option you can sell and ship up to 35 items per month. Each of those sold items requires a completion and referral fee as well. That is £0.75 plus additional Amazon fees.
The second option is for larger companies. In a professional plan, you have unlimited selling and shipping for a single monthly payment. The downside is that you pay the same amount – £25 – every month even if you sell and ship nothing at all.
Arrange for International Payments
One of the biggest perks of signing up with Amazon UK is the international network the website has in place across Europe. All the European marketplaces have been centralized and when you sign up with Amazon UK, you are able to sell across all of the networks.
This means, of course, that you will need to ensure that you are able to handle some form of international payment. If you are using a domestic account, you will wind up paying a currency conversion fee when you withdraw money from your Amazon account. Borderless accounts negate these fees and allow you to take funds in many different forms.
Set Up Amazon FBA Account
If you have decided to let Amazon handle the delivery of your orders, Fulfilment by Amazon, or FBA, allows you to sell the items in your online shop but have Amazon handle the distribution and shipment. Your products are stored in Amazon’s fulfilment centers, and when an order is placed, the Amazon team simply collects your item from the warehouse, packages and sends it on its way.
The shipment fee will vary, of course, by the size and weight of the item as well as how the item is shipped. Additionally, you will be responsible for an inventory storage fee. For most of the year, the storage fee is £0.30 per cubic foot. As the holiday seasons approach, the price goes up to£0.40 per foot from October through December.
There are several options and fees to consider as you set up your account with Amazon FBA. Are you a small seller or is it worth it to sign up for the professional plan? How much will you need to pay in storage fees? All of this will need to be considered as you set up your account.
Decide on Shipping Options
Signing up for FBA includes basic shipping within the UK. Additionally, you will have options within the program such as the PAN-EU Program. With PAN-EU, you can ship to a different European marketplace without paying more than a local fulfilment cost.
The European Fulfilment Network, or EFN, allows you the option of storing your items in a single, centralized fulfilment center and selling in all the Amazon European markets. In this option, you will need to localize your listings for different countries.
Of course, storing a large inventory of goods with Amazon using FBA can be expensive. You re paying for storage with the company in its warehouse, and the more you keep in storage the more you pay. You can help to reduce this storage payment, however, but keeping your goods stored with MyUKMailbox.
To use FBA with Amazon, you will certainly need to keep some supplies and materials in the Amazon fulfillment center. But you don’t need to keep your entire stockpile of goods in the warehouse, paying premium prices for that storage. Instead, you can keep the bulk of your inventory stored with MyUKMailbox at a far lower price and just a bare minimum of goods stored with FBA.
When customers order goods and they are shipped by Amazon, you can simply replenish your Amazon FBA inventory quickly using the items you have close at hand in your MyUKMailbox storage. Since your goods are still stored locally, there is little delay in keeping your inventory at Amazon carefully stocked, but not so overstocked that you’re paying way more than you need for storage.
Determine Pricing
With your shipping options essentially provided by Amazon, you will need to consider how to price your products on the various marketplaces. Pricing products requires benchmarking against other items in the field as well as your actual cost of doing business.
Factor in your costs and the demand of your product as well as the quality and perceived value. Inflated prices or pricing below what is comfortable sustainable can kill your business before you even start.
Optimize Your Listing
You want customers to find your products. This includes using the relevant keywords and product tags. Include descriptions and adequate instructions with your items. Use images and clear language and diagrams to help customers understand what you are selling or they are seeing, especially if you are selling across multiple languages in multiple countries. Providing descriptive content with clear images will help any shopper make informed choices.
Consider Languages
While diagrams and images can help with language barriers, it might be wise to include some description and product information in other languages when possible. Be sure to have a native speaker create the marketing materials for your products so that you are using the right terminology and verbiage for your items. Customers native to the country will be more confident buying items that have the “right”names when they are shopping. After all, one man’s jumper is another man’s sweater.
Double-Check on Legal
The legal requirements of working through Amazon in the UK and other European countries may be more complex than the country you are currently working in. This is definitely true if you are from the United States. There are more laws and regulations to consider, and you will need different levels of insurance.
Rather than hoping you got everything right, spend a bit more and prepare correctly by having a qualified legal team or representative review your plans and documents before you commit. You don’t want to get caught up in a warranty issue or fail to meet a compliance or tax guideline.
Amazon FBA offers tremendous opportunity for smaller sellers alongside larger corporations. The infrastructure is tremendous and with Amazon FBA, fulfillment and shipping are simplified as well. If you have a product and you’re ready to bring it to the marketplace, Amazon FBA might be one of the easiest ways to get it there.
