Hi I am also interested in selling on Amazon. Could you tell about your experience, please? Is it easy to sell in the US market?

Wondering why you think it is strange for a Swiss to be opening an account with a French bank?

hi Nadia,

hope you don't mind my asking. Did you start selling on Amazon? I would like to connect as am about to start this as a side business. Many thanks

Fiona

I would just like to point out that Nadia's post is from November 2013 and her last visit to Glocals was in 2015:

Hey thanks JR

Best

Fiona

Good luck on your new business venture. May I ask what you will be selling on Amazon?

I have only purchased items on Amazon but have sold via Anibis and did not need to open up a bank account in Euros. Karin

For selling single items on an occassional basis, Anibis.ch or Leboncoin.fr work well. But if what you want is an online outlet to market your line of products, they do not compare to Amazon. Amazon's reach is much wider, customers rely on Amazon standing by what they purchase and you use their shipping network. Your customers also get free shipping provided by Amazon if they have Amazon prime.

Anibis and Leboncoin, on the other hand, are only online outlets for ads placed by individuals. They will place your ads, for a fee, and of course you do not have to set up a bank account or provide them your bank account information. Amazon, on the other hand, will sell your products: they will list them in their website, sell them, ship them and receive payment for them. They then have to pay you for all the items they have sold for you. Hence, the need for you to provide them with a bank account to which they can transfer all payments received.

For information on how to become an Amazon retailer, go here:

https://www.amazon.fr/b?ie=UTF8&node=12302751031

or here, for information in english, regarding selling through Amazon UK:

https://services.amazon.co.uk/services/sell-online/how-it-works-pro.html?ld=AZUKSOAFooter

There are only 5 countries in Europe where Amazon operates, other than the UK and they are in the Eurozone (France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands). They do not operate in Switzerland. Hence, if you are based in Geneva or Lausanne, they will want you to have or set up an account in Euros in a French bank, though you probably can set it up in Germany, if you wish.

It is all a matter of where you will be shipping your items from and what particular Amazon country you want to be primarily associated with, though I think you can advertise you product on more than one European country: if you work with the French site, I think they can sell your products through the other European Amazon websites as well.

Thanks JR,

What I am really lookinf for information on is how to set up a company 8either in switzerland  or probably uk) to deal with VAT. Apparently if you sell on Amazon you have to deal with vAT so need a vehicle for this. Do you know anything about this legal aspect. Many thanks Fiona

Your question seems to have to do more with the process and requirements for setting a business for the purposes of handling VAT and I am at a loss there.

But this may provide a good start:

https://www.gov.uk/vat-businesses

I don't know if registering in Switzerland may be more advantageous.

There is a lot of information in the Amazon website under "Selling on Amazon," which I suppose you have seen:

https://services.amazon.co.uk/services/fulfilment-by-amazon/vat-resources.html/ref=UK_header_VAT

If you have PayPal, I believe they have options to have not only a business-side account, but also monetary conversion. Information should be on their site.

Hey thanks for the vAT info. Super helpful. Much appreciated

also I checked and Amazon don't do paypal. It belongs to their rival eBay apparently.

Cheers to everyone fo your input. Just need to get moving now!

If you look in the news it appears that Amazon may be about to officially make a move into CH in 2018 rather than just offloading us to their German website.  If that's the case you may find in the future it will be much easier to deal with their administration but for now honestly its going to be very difficult selling because of the import/export issue which is going to hit you every time someone buys from abroad.  And given the ratio of Swiss to European buyers on amazon that's going to be pretty much everyone I think.  I can just imagine someone buying something from you and then complaining in two weeks time becuase their customs officers slapped an unexpected duty and processing fee on it for passing the Swiss border, then expecting you to pay for the administrative error....

Hey thanks v much for this info. Yes I want to avoid as much complexity as possible.

Best

Fiona

Hi everybody,

I want to start selling on amazon and I was wondering if you opened an entity in france to have a VAT number/or in Germany?

I would definitely love to exchange with one of you.

Thanks,

Charlotte

Hey there,

You do not need to open entities abroad; you may (but do not have to in many cases, where it comes to Amazon) register yours (a CH one, I assume) for VAT in any EU country.

Best,

Pawel

Thanks for your answer. Does anyone know if a french entity must be opened in order to offer amazon FBA services? From what I understood, if you want to offer prime deilvery (less than 2-3days), first you need to do FBA and second, to have an legal entity in each country. Otherwise you need to be part of the European PAN program. If anyone of you has more information, thanks for sharing.

RG,

Charlotte