Global eCommerce has broadened the borders for small businesses. Even for the smallest operations working with a barebones team and micro-budget, the internet has opened the doors to reaching customers in far-flung locales around the world. And Amazon has just made doing business with consumers abroad even easier with the introduction of the European Expansion Accelerator.
What is the European Expansion Accelerator (EEA)?
European Expansion Accelerator is a new offering from Amazon that lets sellers easily expand their reach on the platform to nine European countries. With a couple of clicks, you can start listing your products on Amazon Europe stores in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Poland, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Who Qualifies for EEA?
EEA is available to any sellers that are registered as a professional Selling Partner on Amazon with at least one active Amazon Europe account. If that last part gives you pause, don’t worry, it’s pretty easy to set up:
- Log into your account
- Navigate to the Sell Globally page from the Inventory tab on the left
- Follow the steps provided to create a European selling account
4 Benefits of Participating in the European Expansion Accelerator
Starting to sell in multiple European countries comes with some challenges (as we’ll address in a bit), but the benefits can make the choice well worth it:
1. Reach hundreds of millions of new potential customers.
Adding your products to Amazon stores in nine new countries can potentially get your products in front of hundreds of millions of new consumers. You still have to build strong enough product listings to persuade them to buy, but growing your audience to that degree immediately increases your chances of winning more sales.
2. Diversify your revenue stream.
Having a presence in a variety of countries can strengthen your business position. If one country experiences a temporary economic slump or has seasonal trends that impact when your products are popular, winning business from the other countries can help you weather each local slowdown. And countries celebrate different holidays, so you may gain an all-new busy season for some products.
3. It’s easy to start.
EEA uses automation to make the process of adding multiple new stores at once extremely easy. You don’t have to go through the manual process of joining each country’s marketplace. With a few clicks, you can expand to all nine of them at once and start selling within three days.
4. It’s free to join.
Using EEA doesn’t cost you anything. You’ll still be responsible for the Amazon fees on orders that you’re used to for sales in the United States, but taking advantage of the EEA program itself doesn’t cost anything.
5 Things to Be Aware Of When Expanding to Europe
While EEA makes the process of adding your listings to the various European stores extremely convenient, it doesn’t entirely remove some of the challenges associated with selling in a new country.
1. Adding nine countries at once is a lot.
EEA makes adding all nine of the included countries at once easy if that’s the route you want to take. But navigating the expansion to that many new places—all with different cultures, laws, and regulations—may be difficult. You can choose to select just a few of them or even one to start.
2. EEA includes automated translation.
Chances are, you don’t speak the language of every one of the nine countries EEA includes. The good news is that EEA creates automated translations of your product pages for you. However, automated translation has its shortcomings. You may want to hire someone with knowledge of the language and country’s culture to review the translations, correct anything wrong (or just not quite right), and help with localization.
3. Be aware of taxes and local regulations.
EEA can automate some aspects of starting to sell in new countries, but it’s still the seller’s responsibility to make sure you’re complying with all local laws and regulations. You’ll have to follow all customs laws and ensure you pay the required VAT (value added taxes). And you can’t assume the processes and regulations are the same across all nine countries. It’s up to you to learn the particulars of each and follow them.
4. You’ll have to figure out fulfillment.
You have the option to use Amazon FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) for orders in European countries, which is likely the easiest option. If you decide to go with another fulfillment option, you may want to partner with a third-party fulfillment company with a presence in the countries you expand into to keep storage and shipping costs reasonable.
5. You may need to run ads in each country to compete.
Having a presence in each new country doesn’t automatically mean you’ll start winning business there. You might need to invest in advertising in each new European location to earn customers there, which means adding new costs to your budget.
How to Get Started with EEA
If the challenges sound worth the benefits to you, getting started is easy. Simply:
- Log into your Seller Central account
- Navigate to the Inventory tab and find the Sell Globally section
- Select the countries you want to expand into
- Accept the terms of international selling agreements
- Click “Start Expansion”
And you’re off!
EEA may be just the incentive you need to bring your business to all new audiences and officially become a player in the global eCommerce space.
