Amazon Expansion Accelerator: Scaling Seller Business Across the EU

With more than one hundred million monthly visitors on European marketplaces, Amazon operates in the largest e-commerce countries in Europe. For sellers with high ambitions, it is inevitable to offer products on all European markets to maximize reach and win new customers.

However, expanding the business to international markets poses a challenge for many sellers. This is partly because registering and setting up accounts on different Amazon stores in Europe can take a lot of time and resources. As a solution for this, Amazon has now introduced a new free feature: The European Expansion Accelerator (EEA)

What is the European Expansion Accelerator?

With the "European Expansion Accelerator" program, Amazon promises sellers to be able to easily expand their business internationally and offer products with just a few clicks in all nine Amazon stores within the EU (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Poland and Belgium) as well as the United Kingdom. The EEA tool takes over the following tasks automatically:

• Registration and setup of seller accounts in the chosen target marketplaces
• Creation of country-specific product listings and translations based on reference listings in the source store
• Setup of the international shipping method "pan-European shipping through Amazon" as well as Merchant Fulfilled (FBM)
• Checking the suitability of products for international markets and adjusting the product catalog if necessary

Technically, the European Expansion Accelerator links previously independent Amazon tools. This makes internationalization easier and more time-saving according to Amazon. The system gives sellers country-specific recommendations for expansion. The decision whether sellers want to sell products on only one marketplace or in all nine EU stores and in the UK can still be made individually.

Sales partners also continue to have access to tools and benefits when using EEA, such as the VAT calculation service, which automatically creates an invoice for every transaction on the Amazon Business marketplace within the EU and calculates the applicable VAT for B2B customers, payment processing through Amazon, protection against credit card fraud, Amazon Advertising as well as marketplace reports and analytics.

How the European Expansion Accelerator Works

Using the accelerator is simple: On the "European Expansion Program" landing page in Seller Central, sellers are shown the marketplaces where they are not active.

Here, sellers can choose which stores they want to expand into. The source store is automatically determined (Amazon considers the store with the most active offers as the source store). This is used as the basis for shipping and offer settings as well as price templates in the new stores that sellers want to expand into.

Once sellers have selected the desired target stores to start the expansion, a click on the "Start Expansion" button is sufficient. Subsequently, all necessary expansion steps are automatically executed to ensure a fast and smooth process. The following steps are executed:

1. Shipping Settings: Source offers with "Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)" are registered as offers with pan-European shipping through Amazon in the target stores. If sellers use the "Merchant Fulfilled" sales program, the European Expansion Accelerator automatically copies the shipping settings from the source store. However, it should be noted that international shipping to one or multiple target stores must be activated in the shipping template of the source store.
2. Catalog Preparation: Next, the European Expansion Accelerator checks the source catalog to determine if there are products that may need to be unlocked in one or more target stores. If this is the case, these products are excluded from the expansion. However, sellers have the option to request the unlock(s) in a target store after the expansion is complete.
3. Product Offer: The European Expansion Accelerator translates the product detail pages into the languages of the selected target stores. However, sellers also have the option here to adjust the translation after the expansion is complete.
4. Product Prices: The prices for offers and sales are automatically synchronized between the source store and target stores. The standard pricing rules for each offer type are taken into account: Offers with Fulfillment by Amazon: Here, Amazon chooses the same price as on the source marketplace page. Taxes, fees and possibly the exchange rate are adjusted marketplace-specifically. Offers with Merchant Fulfilled: Here, the prices correspond to those of the source store, adjusted for taxes and possibly the exchange rate. VAT differences between the source and target store are therefore taken into account.
5. Offer Adjustment: Here, the European Expansion Accelerator excludes products that pose a potential risk to the target marketplace. Risk products would be e.g. heavy and bulky products.
6. Offer Activation: In this step, Amazon asks sellers to review the expanded offers. Offers with Fulfillment by Amazon and pan-European shipping are automatically activated and can now be purchased in the target store. Offers with Merchant Fulfilled cannot yet be purchased in the target store because the seller account in the target stores is automatically put into vacation mode. This must be deactivated in the account settings of the target store. (Account Settings -> Offers and Prices -> Activate Merchant Fulfilled Offers)

The expansion is then complete.

Conclusion

Amazon has introduced a promising solution with the European Expansion Accelerator to give sellers the opportunity to expand their business to international markets in a simple way. Amazon's automated expansion can help sellers implement the process faster and more seamlessly than before.

The European Expansion Accelerator could become an attractive option for all sellers who have not yet expanded their business to all European marketplaces and want to start now. EEA offers these sellers the opportunity to maximize the company's reach in a time and resource-saving manner. So far, internationalization was associated with a lot of manual effort. Sellers had to create individual seller accounts for each marketplace, create product offers in the respective national language and make shipping settings manually. EEA now takes care of all of this free of charge. Compared to the previously offered tool "international offer creation", listings for ASINs that do not yet exist on the target markets that buyers want to expand into are also taken over.