If you sell on Amazon, you may have heard of the Pan European FBA inventory program. If you are not aware of this, don’t miss this article. We will break down the pros and cons of this program.
What is Pan-European FBA?
Amazon’s Pan-European Fulfillment program allows sellers to expand their business across Europe without charging extra FBA fees. With this program, sellers can easily sell their products in multiple European countries, and Amazon takes care of storage and shipping, all without additional FBA and transportation costs, making cross-border selling a breeze. Amazon shows a list of eligible products and ASINS, and you can sell them in any EU country.
How does Pan-European FBA works?
You have to choose at least two EU stores to send your inventory. Then, list all your FBA inventory under the same SKU. Enable the countries, you want to sell and Amazon will send and store your products in other Amazon ships and stores without any additional cost. Be compliant with Amazon and your respective country, and your business will be on fire.
Eligibility Criteria
Pan-European seems a good opportunity to expand business on Amazon but first, you should be eligible for this program. Here are the eligibility criteria to sell your products in this program;
❖ Food, beverages, and hazardous materials are not allowed.
❖ Active listings of ASINS
❖ Products should comply with every marketplace’s legal, operational, and regulatory requirements.
❖ Product selling condition should be new.
❖ Same labels for all the marketplaces or stickerless.
❖ Once you have enrolled for Pan-European, you can’t sell under FBA offers but you can sell fulfilled and Pan-European FBA offers at the same time.
❖ ASINs will not be mixed across fulfillment centers in various countries
Getting Started with Pan-European FBA: A Beginner’s Guide
Offering a value pack increased traffic to the listing, as customers perceived a higher value for the same price. This strategic move allowed the seller, with under 1000 reviews, to outperform competitors with tens of thousands of reviews.
2. Boosting Ranking with SEO and Relevant Keywords
Step 1: Set Up Your Account
Create an Amazon Selling Partner account and enroll your products in FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon).
Step 2: List Your Products
Use the Build International Listings tool to list your FBA products on Amazon in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. This tool helps you:
● List products with the same ID number (SKU)
● Keep prices the same across all stores
● Translate your product listings into different languages
Step 3: Enable Pan-European Storage
Choose at least two countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, or Poland) for Amazon to store your products. Keep in mind that storing products in countries outside of your home country may require extra tax reporting (VAT). Don’t worry, Amazon offers help and tools to make VAT compliance easy.
Step 4: Send Inventory to Amazon
Send your products to an Amazon warehouse in the EU (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, or Poland). Amazon will then store and deliver your products to customers in the enabled countries, without any extra fees.
Why you should use the Pan European FBA program?
Amazon is offering the best opportunity to expand your business in all European marketplaces that cover 27 countries. That gives you a huge number of shoppers, you might have been missing. Now is the chance to make this shot. Suppose, you are selling currently in Germany and your product has good reviews, good average monthly sales, and you are making a good profit. What if you can sell in France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, and other European countries with no additional FBA fees? Why would you miss this opportunity? You should never miss this!
It is very much easier than you can think. As we have broken down steps in the previous section, now I will explain concisely. Here it is
● Check your Product/ASIN eligibility
● Enroll in the marketplace in you want to expand
● Use the Amazon Build International Listing tool to import your product listing to the desired marketplace, it will auto-translate into country language.
● Optimize your listings according to specific regions (as people of the region will have cultural differences)
● Amazon will store your inventory nearest to customers and will fulfill it.
Now you will be able to generate more income with less expenses and effort. You will be able to save up to 53% in FBA fees and your business will grow by a minimum 24%.
Pros
Customer delivery times are shorter: Amazon optimizes product distribution between warehouses under the Pan-European FBA model so that delivery times to customers are as short as possible. When making purchasing decisions, the projected delivery time is critical.
Customers of the Prime service are being contacted: Amazon has more than 60 million Prime members, who are shopping more frequently as a result of the program. When you use the FBA model, you can identify your products as Prime, which enhances the likelihood that a buyer will choose your products.
Cons
VAT registration obligation in Pan-European marketplaces: In the countries from which Amazon ships your goods, VAT registration, regular returns, and payment are all required. Because Amazon can easily transfer items between its warehouses throughout the European Union under this arrangement, registration is required in all Pan-European marketplaces.
Strict Management: The seller must track and manage the volume of sales and the costs incurred due to reporting obligations in several countries.
Conclusion:
In the end, we can conclude this topic, is a golden opportunity for those sellers who want more market share. It has only a few cons (registering for VAT in each country in which you want to sell and better management).