Selling on Amazon with fulfillment

[matt90bc]

Does anyone know the in's and out's of sending products to the states to be sold on amazon using the fulfillment option? Being based in the UK. I've tried to email amazon a few time's now and they wont reply ( giving me high hopes of what it'll be like to work with them!) I kniw the states offer a much bigger potential market than the UK so thought it'd be good to try

 

[RSR Fulfillment (FR & DE)]

Intrigued to hear if anyone does this form UK.....sounds tough....what would you do with returns? It's a long way to have the sent back and loads of potential grief at customs too perhaps?

 

[Mr D]

You send it to the fulfilment centres amazon decides the products should go in. Your tax liability technically includes every state that has an amazon fulfilment centre, 19 nexuses last I looked.
And if you have to recall any stock from a fulfilment centre (long term storage fee avoidance, damaged stock etc) then its recalled to a US address. A freight forwarding company can be used.

Getting it to amazon is the tricky part, with import duties over a certain limit and the fact the stock may need to be delivered to a few different places.

We looked into it a couple of years back and decided to instead fulfil ourselves from stock held at an American fulfilment centre as that suited our future plans better. One nexus not nineteen.

Amazon are really not the best people to advise you how to import goods into the US, they are pretty good about what happens once its in the US.

 

[Page]

And are all nexus's - nexi (?) lol - the same

Or are their some states that are better than others

I sort of feel that because of the size of the states that you need one east coast and one west coast - rather than one central

But maybe delivery in the USA does not work that way

PS I know delivery from local store is bigger in the states due to the delivery distances for a single warehouse - so very different from the UK

 

[Mr D]

Good question.
One I think I'll have to look into before going ahead with plans. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Pish_Pash]

I looked into this ...I came away from it thinking that if I were to be 100% legal, then it would be easier to design the Hubble space telescope successor. It's all those FCs .....all spread around the place, all with different tax rates (oh & the getting the goods in to the States & then onwards to the FC, oh & the returns).

Imagine you ship to NYC or Miami via boat - but Amazon want you to get it to an FC in California - the cost getting it from east coast to west coast will be significant - I asked an Amazon associate about this (she'd been tasked with trying to drum up new USA FBA sellers amongst UK FBA sellers) ...her answer was bizarre - "just create a shipment then cancel if the FC is not the one you want" - ....is she serious? That's no way to run an operation!

Or you could just do what the Chinese do - sales tax doesn't exist in their world (or rather paying the authorities it doesn't)

IMHO Runaway, runaway....

 

[Alexander Sadlier]

We've thought about a similar thing but had the same issues as @Pish_Pash

 

[Mr D]

Strangely cancelling the shipment if not got the centre you want is a valid method in the UK.

No, its not the ideal situation as to where stock is sent. And amazon can always shift stock to another centre once arrived, making it unavailable to sell in the meantime.

By what I've read and what I've heard the US is a good market to sell in. Just the process of getting stock to an overseas destination has issues then there are issues with amazon itself.
Brand ungating, knock off fakes, annoying customers (my worst ebay customer was an American buyer) and tax issues.
Overcome them and ....

 

[Page]

ecommerce used to be like the wild west - ebay being the big boy days

I now feel we are in the "mafia" days and us legit ones have a problem

Maybe in time the law will become good but I aint holding my breath

 

[Jayser100]

The US has a complicated system of state tax. The amount of US tax you have to collect depends on where the item is shipped from. That wouldn't be so bad if Amazon put all your ASIN's in one warehouse, but they don't - you'll end up with some in Alabama, some in California etc. it is, as Pish Pash said, an absolute nightmare because all US States set their own rate of tax, and they're all different. US sales tax is technically payable by the buyer, but as you would expect from such a crazy system, most people don't bother (would you?). Customers aren't going to bother declaring tax on items they buy from the internet - it is a system of madness. The US is currently changing its laws to make it compulsory for the seller to gather the tax and pay it on the buyer's behalf, which is more sensible, but can you imagine having to do that as an Amazon seller?!

Amazon completed the roll-out of automated collection of sales taxes for products they sell themselves, last year, but there is still no system in place for collecting tax for third-party sellers. If that were to change then FBA would become a serious option for UK sellers, as we would simply leave it up to Amazon to collect and pay it. If Congress passes a bill to force sellers to gather state sales tax, which I think will happen in the near future, Surely Amazon will be forced to extend their automated sales tax collection to include any third-party sellers who fulfil orders from within the US. That would definitely open things up.

 

[Page]

I read recently that in NY amazon is now forced to collect the sales tax

I think it will all come very rapidly

The current system is no longer fit for purpose - that state line means diddly squat in the modern day and age of internet sales

 

[Mr D]

I read recently that in NY amazon is now forced to collect the sales tax

I think it will all come very rapidly

The current system is no longer fit for purpose - that state line means diddly squat in the modern day and age of internet sales

Means a considerable amount of money to the state, hence that government has reason to want it collected.

If not gaining money one way they would have to gain it in other ways. It's the locals paying anyway.