THE HIDDEN INSTANT REVENUE
BOOST FOR AMAZON SELLERS
Why you should be riding the dark horse that
is the Amazon EU marketplace before the
rest of the world catches on
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
Table of Content
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
02
You don’t need to learn anything new
02
There is drastically less competition in Amazon’s foreign marketplaces
03
Sellers use less sophisticated launch strategies
03
How
04
Amazon Europe Account Creation
04
Compliance
05
Foreign Languages
06
Launching
09
Just the beginning
11
01
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
The Hidden Instant
Revenue Boost for
Amazon Sellers:
Why you should be riding the dark horse that is the Amazon
EU marketplace before the rest of the world catches on
As the US Amazon market becomes more and
more crowded, Amazon sellers are forced to look
to other markets to expand their businesses.
You, as an Amazon.com merchant, have a huge
amount of knowledge and experience launching
products in the US Amazon market, but you have
noticed that it has been getting harder to compete
as competitors get more numerous, more
aggressive with pricing, and more aggressive
with their launches. There are a couple of ways to
cope with this:
1
2
3
Here’s why:
New product niches/categories
(niching down)
You don’t need to learn anything new.
Moving to new domestic
e-commerce channels
If you are already up and running in the US, you
have already done 98% of the work required to
launch those very same products in the other
Amazon markets.
Foreign Amazon Markets
Every day that goes by without you live in these
markets carries an opportunity cost on the
order of 30% - 60% of your current revenue
numbers in the Amazon US market
While each of these options are great
opportunities to explore, by far the easiest,
quickest and most effective way to leverage your
existing business model to get more revenue is to
open your existing product line in new Amazon
Markets.
02
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
There is drastically less
competition in Amazon’s
foreign marketplaces.
Sellers use less
sophisticated
launch strategies.
Although the customer base of Amazon EU’s
combined marketplaces is rapidly approaching the
same size as the US Amazon’s customer base,
there are not nearly as many sellers, making for a
much less competitive marketplace where it is
much easier to dominate a given niche.
On the Amazon.com marketplace, aggressive,
sophisticated launch techniques have become
the norm. We all know the formula: product goes
live, blast a few hundred units to get reviews and
spike BSR (Best Seller Rank), start an automatic
targeting campaign to get keyword data, and use
that data to steer manual Amazon PPC ads and
do front and back end keyword optimization.
You’re doing it, I’m doing it, your competitors are
doing it.
THE NUMBERS
Germany, in addition to being the second largest
Amazon marketplace, is of particular interest as
it has much lower competition.
As a result, the cost of staying in the game in the
Amazon.com market has risen dramatically over
the past year. ACOS (Average Cost of Sale) on
Amazon PPC ads is getting higher and higher,
hitting 50%, 60% up to 120% for more competitive
niches. Although they are losing money,
merchants are willing to continue upping their
price-per-click on these money-hole ads just to
keep sales rolling so they can rank for their
keywords and stay in the game. By contract,
Amazon PPC ads in foreign markets are actually
profitable.
Amazon’s Top 1000 Sellers
US
UK
Germany
All Other
Marketplaces
Of Amazon’s top 1000 sellers, 553 are in the US
marketplace, 233 are in UK, and only 77 are in
Germany.
High Perceived
Barrier to Entry
• For most Amazon sellers, porting their business to
the EU just seems like too much of a bother. This is a
symptom of the simple fact that 99% of sellers just
don’t realize the huge potential of these markets and
the tools and resources available to handle and
automate every step of the process.
Approximately 85MM unique monthly visitors
reach the 5 EU marketplaces vs. 100MM unique
visitors to Amazon.com
Despite the fact that Amazon Germany is a
$12B/year market, only a small fraction of
Amazon sellers are focusing on this market,
creating a huge opportunity for already
successful Amazon sellers from other markets
looking to port their businesses to Amazon.de
• This perceived barrier allows you, the lucky reader
of this whitepaper, to easily dominate these new
markets by going where your competitors won’t go.
03
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
How
Although the customer base of Amazon EU’s
combined marketplaces is rapidly approaching the
same size as the Amazon US customer base, there
are not nearly as many sellers, making for a much
less competitive marketplace where it is much
easier to dominate a given niche.
Amazon Europe
Account Creation:
The process is exactly the same as registering in the
states. You do not need to have an entity in the EU or
a bank account in the EU to register. You can register
the same company you are using for your US
account, and link the same bank account. Amazon
will automatically do the conversion and transfer
the Euros and Great British Pounds you receive from
these markets into your US account in USD.
Let's start with the basics. Amazon makes it easy as
you just need to register for one Amazon Europe
account to gain access to all of the EU member
country markets.
To register, go to
https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com
and click "register now"
RESOURCE
Amazon Dedicated Global
Account Management
Amazon offers free hand-holding support to
sellers who have not yet sold in foreign
marketplaces.
Email
Eric
at
[email protected]
to
begin
your
relationship with their specialized support
staff. They will port your listings for you
(including translation), create your account
with you, train you and your staff, and
basically walk you through every step of the
process of opening up business in EU
Amazon marketplaces.
WARNING: This special team will work ONLY
with Amazon US sellers who are not yet live in
the UK and are selling at least $500k/year or
more in the US market. If you do not meet
both of these criteria you will be completely
ignored by this team.
Remember that you will need to use a different
email address to register your Seller Central
Europe account. I like to use a dedicated email
address such as [email protected]
04
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
VAT can be a little confusing, as each country's VAT
compliance rules are different. For instance, in
Germany, you need to submit VAT filings each
month, but in the UK, you only need to submit
filings each quarter.
Compliance
VAT (Value Added Tax)
VAT is the EU’s version of sales tax, but there are a
couple of key differences:
Luckily, you don't need to deal with any of this
yourself. There are multiple organizations that will
handle your VAT compliance for you so you can stay
completely hands-off.
VAT is charged upon importation of goods in the EU and
on every subsequent sale in the supply chain, including
the final sale to the retail customer.
However, once you are VAT registered you can recover
the VAT you pay upon import when you do your tax
filings. On the customer facing side, you are obliged to
incorporate VAT into the retail price of your goods.
RESOURCE:
VAT Compliance Organizations
VAT Compliance companies will help you in
varying degrees- from just doing your filings, to
full on taking care of every aspect of compliance
- from registering you for a VAT number to doing
your filings, to reclaiming your import VAT. Here
are a few to check out:
The VAT rates differ across the EU countries - it is 19%
in Germany and 20% in the UK for example. The VAT
you pay on import depends upon the country - there are
various methods used by customs officials in the EU to
value your imported goods – the most common being
the selling price or the full production cost. Regard
less, the import VAT which you pay will be recovered in
full when you file.
On the sales side, you will charge the relevant VAT rate
as a percentage of the retail price and this tax is paid
over to the tax office.
These VAT registration/(s) which your company will
obtain will be non-resident VAT registrations allowing
you to operate in compliance with European VAT
legislation without the need for any business presence
in the EU (premises, legal entities, bank accounts etc.).
VCE is the company I use, as they are a
completely hands-off set and forget service. I
sent them the information they needed to
register me, and from then on they handled all
of my filings in the UK and Germany, as well as
getting my import VAT reclaimed. They are also
very generous with their time in helping educate
you on everything you need to know about
importing into the EU and compliance in the EU.
Email Vic at [email protected]
she will take care of you.
As an overseas entity, there is no VAT registration
sales threshold. This is different for locally
established EU companies who are given the option
to wait to register until a certain sales threshold is
reached. Technically, in order to be fully compliant
as a foreign business, you need to have a VAT
registration from the time of your first sale.
05
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
HMRC (Her Majesty's
Revenue and Customs)
and EORI Numbers
Foreign Languages
HMRC is the tax collection department of the UK.
This is where you go to get the unique identifier
you need to import into the EU called your EORI
(Economic
Operator
Registration
and
Identification) number.
The perceived language barrier is part of what
In order to get through customs in any EU
member state, you need an EORI number.
such as ASM) have yet to reach the German
makes Germany such an awesome opportunity.
All
of
the
aggressive
marketing
tactics
championed by the Amazon seller community
in the US (as well as seller education courses
market. Again, although Amazon.de is the
second largest Amazon market behind the US,
You can apply for your own EORI number, or have
your VAT Compliance Organization do it for you. It
is really easy to do yourself. Just fill out this form
online.
it has only a small fraction of the top sellers in
the space. This makes it much easier to rank in
the DE market and dominate your niche. Lucky
for you and I, this barrier is an illusion as there
are resources to make this transition very easy.
You can use the EORI number you receive to
import into any EU member country.
ASIDE: Foreign Entities
Do I need to set up a company in the EU?"
The short answer is no. You don't need a UK
entity to do business in the UK, and you don't
need a German entity to do business in
Germany. Unless you plan to use it for
another purpose beyond opening up in those
Amazon markets, another entity or foreign
account will not help you avoid taxes, get you
a better currency conversion rate, or make
registering your Amazon EU account any
easier. Avoid it all together and keep it
simple. What you do need (at least eventually)
is to have your business VAT registered in the
countries you are really selling heavily in.
06
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
Seller Central
Once you have your Amazon Seller Central Europe account active, you can switch between the
different EU marketplaces using the account switcher at the top of the screen:
When you switch to Germany, uh-oh- everything is suddenly in German :/
Luckily, there is a simple fix that solves this and all of your foreign language browsing issues. Google Chrome
Browser. If you are not already using Google Chrome to browse, it only takes seconds to install. This will help
not only with seller central but with reading reviews on amazon.de, doing competitive research, etc. Once you
have google chrome installed, it will actually auto-translate any page that is not in your native language:
For Seller Central specifically though, you don't even need to use Chrome Translate, as there is a language
submenu built into the page. Scroll all the way to the bottom and you will see a small drop down language
menu, allowing you to switch the native language of the page itself to English:
07
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
ASIDE:
The little things
Customer Service
Porting to a foreign market can sometimes be
frustrating when little things you took for
granted become seemingly big hurtles. When
you run into these types of issues, take a deep
breath and reassess- there is most likely a very
simple solution.
While it is possible to do customer service
yourself in a foreign market like Amazon.de
using just google translate, I strongly
recommend against this. Customer service is
one of the cheapest and most abundant services
available on Upwork.com. To find a German
customer service representative for your German
account, just post a German translation gig in
Upwork, and talk to the applicants to find one
that is willing to work with you on a long term
continual basis. You can give them a separate
login with restricted access so essentially all they
will be able to see is the messages section.
Take this issue I ran into when creating
promotions in the .de market. I could not
figure out why I kept getting this error:
RESOURCE:
Hand Holding German
Account Management
That is, until after pages and pages of frustrated
google searching I realized the issue.
If you want to go bare-bones, you can find a
customer support agent on your own using
the method described above. However, if you
would like to go the automated, hands-off
approach, you can go with complete
dedicated account management from
JudoLaunch. (judolaunch.com)
In the US and UK, the decimal mark is a period
"."
In Germany, the decimal mark is a comma ","
Because I was using a period as a decimal
mark, Amazon was not recognizing the promo
amount as a valid number. I replaced the period
with a comma and boom:
JudoLaunch has a service called JudoOps
that assigns you a dedicated account
manager for the German market who
already knows the ropes, needs no training,
and will handle all day to day responsibilities
within your DE account including responding
to messages, sending refund notification
responses, and sending replacement units
out to customers. They will even monitor the
reviews you are getting, responding to very
positive reviews and attempting to reverse
negative reviews.
When you get stuck in a frustrating little issue
like this, just think of it as the cost of
venturing bravely into the hidden forest
where your competitors are afraid to go. You
will slay the dragon and you will win the
beautiful princess/prince if you stay calm and
keep your wits about you.
Disclaimer: I own
awesome service.
08
and
operate
this
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
RESOURCE:
Packaging/Listing
Translation
Listing/Packaging
Translation
This is the one point that seems to be the most
intimidating aspect of opening up business in
Germany for most successful sellers. Ironically, it
is one of the easiest and cheapest to deal with.
Translation is an abundantly available service
online. However, it is important to remember that
it does take a solid understanding of not only the
language, but the culture to make a great
translation. It also takes a good understanding of
basic
marketing
to
really
effectively
communicate not only the words, but the
meaning behind the words to your new audience.
After working with a few different contractors
to do German marketing translation, I found
one that I have stuck to ever since. Her name
is Daniella and you can hire her for $25/hr.
Send her your packaging content and listing,
and she will send you back translated content
that really communicates the meaning
behind your content in a way that is natural to
your new customers. Here is her Upwork
profile: https://www.upwork.com/fl/danielak
I highly recommend working with Daniella if
you need a quality translation for your listings
and packaging.
Again, Upwork is filled with translators who will
translate your packaging and your listing. If you
are translating to German, you will want
someone who was born in or grew up in Germany.
You will also want to use someone who has
translated marketing content before.
Launching
Here is the only real tricky part. Because there
has been such little education in terms of
complex strategies for launching new products,
getting reviews, ranking for keywords, and
following up with customers in the EU market,
there are not as many tools out there to assist
with these tasks. However, if you dig hard
enough, all the same tools exist in some form or
another to get your product launched, get
reviews, get sales velocity, and rank for your
keywords in the EU mar ket.
If you have packaging and your customer's
experience is greatly impacted by your packaging
(it is), you should create a separate packaging
design (therefore separate ASIN) for the DE
market or any other market in a foreign
language. Think about the customers'
experience. How would you feel if you ordered a
product and when it arrived everything was in
Russian? You would feel like this product was not
made for you.
RESOURCE:
Product Launching/
Review Generation
I know plenty of US-based sellers who shipped all
their inventory to the UK fulfillment center,
turned on international shipping, and expected
the orders to fly in from all corners of the globe.
Unless your product comes in nothing but a
polybag with no collateral whatsoever, I highly
recommend separately investing in each market
with a dedicated package design and dedicated
ASIN just for that market. Trust me it is worth it.
Although not nearly as abundant as in the
states, there are services to help you get sales
and reviews rolling in so you can rank for your
main keywords, and dominate the little
competition there is on these marketplaces.
09
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
Judolaunch
Feedback Genius
www.judolaunch.com
www.feedbackgenius.com
JudoLaunch is by far the most effective launch
service out for the DE and UK marketplaces.
This is how I went from selling 1 unit per day
to selling 28 units per day on average for the
first product I ever launched in the German
marketplace.
You are most likely already using feedback
genius for your email followup sequence in
the US. If so, you will be happy to know that it
is easy to integrate other Amazon
Marketplaces with the click of a button. Just
click on your profile name in the upper right,
then click "Marketplaces". You can add any of
your other active marketplaces with the click
of a button. The cost is $10/marketplace.
Am I biased? Well, yes. I started JudoLaunch
after my products went live in the DE
marketplace and I realized that there was no
good option out there for launching on the
Amazon.de marketplace. And I crafted it
specifically to take a brand new product with
no sales and no reviews and bring it to one of
the best-selling products in its space. I have
used JudoLaunch to take my own products
from page 20 of Amazon to having the
best-seller badge within 3 weeks.
MerchBee
www.merchbee.com
Newer to the Amazon follow-up sequence
service market than Feedback Genius,
Merchbee comes with the ability to port to
other marketplaces, and allows for more
specific filtering when it comes to targeting
specific demographics of customers
RESOURCE: Follow
Up Email Sequences
Your launch strategy in the EU marketplaces
is going to be custom to your product. In my
own somewhat aggressive view, I'd generally
recommend starting out with 500 - 1000 units
for the DE market, and 400 - 800 in the UK
market with the intention of giving away half
of that initial batch of inventory.
In the US, you probably have about a 50%
chance of getting an email from a "family run
company" about the freakin spatula you just
bought on Amazon 2 days ago. Although still
massively effective, US customers are
becoming numb to the heartfelt pleas for
feedback programmatically sent out after
every little dohicky they buy on Amazon. In the
Amazon EU marketplace, they are much less
jaded, and follow-up sequences are much
more effective. Luckily, you can use some of
the same tools you are used to dealing with
here in the US for the EU market as well.
10
The Hidden Instant Revenue Boost for Amazon Sellers
Just the beginning
Amazon Europe is only in its infancy. In terms of the level of competition, the level
of sophistication in launch strategy, and the ease of ranking; Amazon EU is
where Amazon US was 2 years ago before shit got crazy. It has a massive amount
of growth to do, and it will be the players first in the door that will be dominating
the market 6 months, a year, 3 years down the line. There is a huge amount of
money to be made in the market and no one seems to know it yet. Every seller
group I have been in has been down on opening in the EU, claiming it is a waste
of time. Some of the most sophisticated sellers already know this is BS. I
personally know the owners of one 8 figure brand who just told me that their EU
sales just surpassed their US sales.
I can already tell that in 2 years all of those same business gurus will be directing
everyone over to the less-saturated, rapidly growing Amazon EU marketplace
opportunity. But, by the time my competitors realize the opportunity, I for one will
already have been there- sitting on my empire with my position firmly cemented
from my entrance way back in the golden age BEFORE the rush.
~Chris
PS. I could dive into this rabbit hole to no end! If you want to dig deeper or still
have questions I am happy to answer them just shoot me a message [email protected]
11