Sell on Amazon.fr & Amazon.de

[Racing Driver]

Just looking for some information regarding selling on Amazon.fr & Amazon.de.

We currently sell very succesfully on Amazon UK but are now wanting to move into the european markets of Amazon.

Just wondering if anyone has any good advice for making this work succesfully, and any things that should be avoided when dealing with Amazon.fr & de.

Thanks in advance.

 

[paretowasright]

The only things to avoid are the Germans and the French and it will be OK

 

[Lumax Lighting]

The only things to avoid are the Germans and the French and it will be OK

What the means?

 

[Topacom]

The UK Amazon Marketplace seller we are working with at the moment has started selling on .de and .fr about a year ago. Here are some things you should know:

1. Distance selling regulations are very complicated in Germany and they are updated like every 2 months. Before you start make sure your terms and conditions comply with the law, check every word. Please please please do that otherwise someone may sue you. By "someone" I mean companies that deliberately look for eBay and Amazon sellers that have non-complying T&C's. They contact you saying that they are taking you to court because your terms are wrong unless you pay them about 1000 euro for their work (which basically means listing your mistakes ONLY). The company we are providing service for has already gone to court 2 or 3 times even thought the T&Cs have been compiled by lawyers, and even if you win you are still required to pay half the court fees.

3. In Germany if a customer cancels the order just because they don't need it you are required to pay the shipping fee for sending the part back if the value of the part exceeds 40 euro.

4. The warranty for electrical goods must be at least 2 years in Germany.

5. The Germans are obsessed with fax, make sure you have one.

6. Most Germans are in the habit of writing rather sharp emails accusing you of all sins possible. I mean if compared to emails we get in the UK, most emails sent by UK customers are rather nice even if there is a problem but the Germans do not tolerate mistakes. So to please a German you'll have to work really hard.

7. If you start adding comments to negative feedback left by customers on your amazon.fr page, you get more negative feedback. I'm not sure how it works but when we don't post comments nothing happens, but if we start adding them we get an avalanche of new negatives. Also, the French are usually very reluctant to remove feedback left even if the problem has been resolved.

8. Chronopost, a French analog of Royal Mail, is just terrible. Delivery takes ages and packages are often badly damaged.

I'll see if I can add more.

P.S. If you ever need someone to reply to your .de and .fr emails and/or calls and don't mind outsourcing - let us know

 

[MatthewOgborne]

Howdy,

You need to be ultra careful with these sites, remember that its their[Amazon's] site and the same rules apply as the UK site, especially the one around pissing THEIR customers off.

If you are serious, then use FBA no-ifs-no-buts:
http://services.amazon.co.uk/services/fulfilment-by-amazon/features-benefits/

Matt

 

[SellerExpress Ltd]

Amazon Germany and France offer great sales potential for anyone keen to grow their business. The Euro exchange rate also often means that UK sellers are more competitive in France and Germany than they are in UK.

There's quite a bit to take into consideration when expanding into these new marketplaces. For example:

- Exchange rates- you will need to convert your listings to Euro and keep these up to date.
- Inventory levels- if you list the same stock on multiple marketplaces you increase your sales potential but you also increase the risk of overselling and refunds.
- Customer Service- you need to provide customer service in the same language as the marketplace. Most of our customers who sell on overseas marketplaces use Google translate for this.

My advice would be to start with Amazon Germany and move onto Amazon France when you have Germany running smooth (most of our customers report that they find German customers easier to deal with than French).

That's all that comes to mind for now. Hope this helps.

Best regards
Brendan

SellerExpress
Manage your inventory, pricing and orders on Amazon UK, FR, DE, US, CA, JP and PlayTrade

 

[Racing Driver]

Thanks for the reply.

By coincidence we got a phone call today from Amazon Germany inviting us to sell on there platform and they even emailed a PDF in English to setup an account.

One of my main questions is, do sellers usualy dispatch from the UK to Germany or do they use FBA in Germany? & is there any advice on German VAT as i understand if shipping from the UK, once you hit 100k euro you have to become VAT registared in Germany, also i understand if you use FBA you have to be VAT registared in Germany right away before any sales can be made. Can anybody shead any light on this, and advise on how much of a hassle the German VAT is.

Cheers.

 

[SellerExpress Ltd]

Most of our customers sell direct on Amazon France & Germany marketplaces and ship from the UK. Some sell via FBA France & Germany. And a smaller number use a combination of both.

I would suggest trialling both to see what works best for you.

As far as I am aware you can sell to Amazon Germany and France marketplaces without being registered for VAT in those countries (as the goods are being sent from the UK). In this instance you would charge VAT at the UK rate.

Amazon say that you do not need to be VAT registered in Germany to sell on Amazon Germany FBA. I'm not sure about FBA France. In theory, the goods are still being sent from the UK (albiet with a temporary stay in France/ Germany), so the same rules should apply. I'll check this out and get back to you if I find out anything else.

 

[Racing Driver]

Thanks for the info. I have had a quick look into the VAT and it does seem if you hold stock in a warehouse in the EU other than the UK and dispatch to a customer from there you must be VAT registared in that country, again if you dispatch direct to the customer from the UK and your sales are under 100k euro per year you just charge UK VAT, however it seems if you go over this threshold you must registar for VAT in that country.

Seems very complex to me!

Cheers.

 

[MatthewOgborne]

Seems very complex to me!

Cheers.

Howdy,

This is exactly why you should be considering this, if the barrier to entry is high, few will jump to it. If you know the product sells and fir a decent price, jump for it.

Although I am pretty sure Brendan is right regarding the VAT.

Matt

 

[Racing Driver]

Good Morning,

Just took this info off the HMRC Website.
Do you need to register for VAT in other EU countries?

For distance sales, you must charge VAT at UK rates in the normal way. However, each country has a 'distance selling threshold'. If the value of your sales to that country exceeds this threshold, you must register for VAT in that country, and charge their rate of VAT on sales to that country. Germany is currently 100K Euro.

Bit of a pain when you hit 100K but will give HMRC a call today to see how much hassle this will be to do.

Cheers.

 

[AbsolutNut]

I am interested in this discussion. We have just recently (November) started selling on .fr & .de. We ship from the UK but have been offered FBA. We have declined FBA so far as the costs are higher than in the UK and we ship small items (<100g) at present.

Yes, we use Google Translate which gets us by. We are looking for some translation services however to migrate listings of our own branded products from UK over to the other channels.

I am interested in the question re: FBA and the situation with VAT. We have just reg. for VAT in the UK.

Please add to this thread any relevant information.

Best Regards,
Steve

 

[Racing Driver]

Well i have just phoned HMRC who to be honest havn't got a clue. The guy i spoke to said as your sales are from the UK you charge UK VAT - So i mentioned to threshold question, he said again, as your customers are not VAT registared in Germany you still charge UK VAT. Thought i would give it one more go and ask again and double check the threshold question, he then said and changed his mind a little, that's nothing to do with us you will need to contact the German VAT office. Very helpful!

I know the UK apparently have the same distance selling rules from other EU members, as if you are a distance seller say in Germany shipping to the UK you must registar for UK VAT if you hit the 70k Threshold.

Next step i suppose is contacting the Germany office, and they probably won't be able to speak any english and won't have a clue what i'm going on about.

I will post an update once iv'e took my head of of this bucket of sand

 

[Racing Driver]

Sorry forgot to ask - Not on the topic of VAT, however what postage services are you guy's using to dispatch to Germany & France.

 

[SellerExpress Ltd]

There is a link on Amazon's Seller Strategy UK Blog which says you do not have to be VAT registered in Germany to sell on Amazon.de (I can't post links yet).

It is interesting that Steve is already selling on France and Germany but has declined FBA due to costs. If your postage costs from the UK are low, then this outweighs one of the FBA benefits.

A lot of our customers use eParcels for international post and find their rates and service very competitive.

My general advice to anyone looking to sell on Amazon.de or fr is to jump in and test the water (maybe with a small number of skus at first). If the sales and margin are there, the rest can be fine tuned after launch- then scale up the number of skus and sales. We have customers selling from the UK to all Amazon marketplaces (inlcuding Amazon Japan). The sales results for different product categories in different countries can be quite interesting.

Best regards

Brendan

 

[AbsolutNut]

Sorry forgot to ask - Not on the topic of VAT, however what postage services are you guy's using to dispatch to Germany & France.

We are using Royal Mail International Contract via PPI. The services are International Signed For (ISF), International Packets & International Flats. We only use ISF for more valuable items.

For packets & flats, delivery times are about 2 weeks to most EU destinations. We have noticed however, that our German customers are particularly impatient - more so than UK and possibly France. We get a lot of emails only a week after the order was placed "where is my order?". Most customers do not realise we are based in the UK which is a problem. Our feedback has also been suffering as a result.

I realist that using FBA would negate this problem but we have to weigh up the costs. We will certainly look at FBA in the future for certain product lines under our own in-house brand where the margins are far higher which could make it worthwhile.

So in our brief experience, expect a lot of enquiries from impatient customers. We even had one that has just given us a neutral feedback even though they received their item 1 week after dispatch (dispatched next day) which is quicker than most EU customers tend to receive.

TIP: I would advise using scripted emails that have already been translated to German/French as this will save you a lot of time on customer service.

Incidentally, we already got quite a lot of custom from EU as we made our Amazon UK inventory available internationally. As the customers however were purchasing from Amazon UK, their expectations around delivery times are adjusted accordingly so it isn't a problem. Completely different story as already discussed when they are purchasing from their local Amazon site.

Steve

 

[Racing Driver]

Thanks.

We currently use PPI in the UK, however this service is not the best in the UK "so to speak", therefore not to sure if it would be any good for european customers as most are impatient as you have mentioned. We were looking at using a faster service around 48-72 hours to try and keep european customers much happier.

I have heard HDN are now doing a european service so we may look into this.

Cheers.

 

[Skateboard Express UK]

if you're already selling on Amazon UK and you want to start selling on Amazon.de or .fr, do you have to start a new Amazon seller account or do you use the same account that you use for the UK (and therefore your feedback and selling record applies on Amazon.de and .fr) ?

what about product listings - if you use your own legitimate EANs, do you just use them for your listings on .de or .fr and will product reviews from the UK show up on the listings ? thanks.

 

[SellerExpress Ltd]

You need to set up seperate accounts on each marketplace that you would like to sell on.

If your products already exist on .de or .fr then you need to manage your inventory levels, prices on those marketplaces. If the products do not exist on those marketplaces you need to create the product again on each marketplace.

Same product reviews do not show up across different marketplaces i.e. each seperate marketplace has own reviews.

Hope this helps!

 

[Jayser100]

I've been selling on Amazon Germany for a while now. Setting up the account was smooth enough, and I had great help from a guy working there.

Here are my tips:

1). Don't put dodgy 'Google translate' descriptions up. All listings MUST be in German, otherwise you'll soon lose your account. Good professional translators don't come cheap, but they will be worth the expense over time.
2). Following on from the above, if your listings are in internet translated German, they will read very poorly and, even if Germans are able to get the gist of your listing, you will make far less sales because they won't take you seriously.
3). Ship using an expensive signed-for service - don't get tempted to scrimp.
4). As others have said, be prepared to deal with disappointing returns in a courteous and 'no quibble' manner. It is a fact of life that people send stuff back for no good reason, or packages return because they couldn't be delivered, and when it's Germany (or France) you will take a nasty hit on costs. There is nothing you can do about it, and if you sell enough product you'll still make some profits. Be nice, refund and move on.

That's my tuppence worth, anyway.

 

[TheGeekestLink]

How do you guys make any money selling on Amazon?

I have a business acquaintance who says he sent 75,000 packages in his first year, but when you factor in postage, and shipping and the 20% Amazon cut, he made next to nothing.

So, how do you make money on Amazon with a 20% cut? That's worse than Ebay!

 

[Jayser100]

To make money on Amazon you have to buy direct from a factory, or at a very good wholesale price, to ensure the margins are there to make it worthwhile because their commission rates are very high.

Maybe your friend should have looked at his cost of sales before he spent all that time and effort making no money - that's the basics of any business venture, not just selling on Amazon.

 

[TheGeekestLink]

But, when your margins are only 30% to 40% from the wholesaler (if you're lucky on some items), you're still losing a massive amount of your profit to Amazon.

Is it really worth doing for peanuts?

 

[Jayser100]

I think you'll find that most successful sellers on Amazon are, like myself, manufacturers who buy straight out of the factory. If I had to buy at a standard wholesale price, admittedly I probably wouldn't bother.

 

[Jayser100]

Just an extra word of advice regarding Germany. we have had several customers submitting 'packstation' addresses. be warned - these are PO boxes, and if you send packages by Royal Mail 'International Signed For' or 'Airsure', they won't be delivered. Don't find this out the hard way, like me - if a customer submits such an address, politely explain it's no good and ask them for an alternative.

 

[smellyskelly]

Jayser -

Some interesting advice, thank you.

Have you gone to any lengths to have your T&Cs scripted by the legal profession?

Have you encountered any threats of legal action as described earlier in the thread?

THanks

 

[garyscottadamson]

Parlez vous francais... Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

If you're serious about selling to foriegn markets you will need to be able to speak the language (or have someone who does)

We specialise in multilingual web development and have made a few multilingual ecommerce sites so I have experience with foriegn regulations ect.

PM me and we'll have a chat.

Why not branch off into Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Austria too?

 

[Jayser100]

You can't branch out into most of those countries because only Italy on your list has its own Amazon. And personally, if I was going to tout for business on here related to languages, I would make sure my posting wasn't full of typos LOL. Doesn't instil a lot of confidence.

On a serious note, go for translators who are native to the language's country. even graduates who are not native will make mistakes, trust me. A native who can read and understand your English version will make the best job BUT - one potential pitfall - make sure they understand the importance of translating vital keyword phrases correctly. Getting the right keywords and phrases in your Amazon listings is absolutely crucial.

 

[AbsolutNut]

Just an extra word of advice regarding Germany. we have had several customers submitting 'packstation' addresses. be warned - these are PO boxes, and if you send packages by Royal Mail 'International Signed For' or 'Airsure', they won't be delivered. Don't find this out the hard way, like me - if a customer submits such an address, politely explain it's no good and ask them for an alternative.

Thanks for that! You are right and we didn't make the connection with returned Deutsche Post items and Packstation addresses until you mentioned it. I guess it s just something else we have to check for when using ISF. We have mentioned before that there are many pitfalls with trading in the euro zone and this is yet another one.

Steve

 

[Dan Healthcare4all]

We had the same problem with Packstation addresses and Royal Mail could not offer any advice at all on our dozens of returned parcels. They advised us to contact DHL who didn't reply to my emails (even in amateur translated form).

Some customers offer an alternative address but some don't reply for days as they don't check emails often which can cause problems with failed delivery date promises on Amazon.

We therefore decided to send more via standard airmail as we trusted the German postal service and we have so far not had any go missing.
I would therefore use Airmail where possible for Packstation addresses.

p.s. the normal UK couriers won't deliver to them either.

 

[AbsolutNut]

Hi Dan,

Yes it is a right royal pain. We have had to resort to sending some of our more expensive items via normal Airmail now so fingers crossed we don't get too many losses.

Steve