Amazon are notifying some US brands that they will be auto-enrolled in Remote Fulfilment with FBA. Previously an optional programme, many brands will now automatically be included unless they manually opt out within 30 days of notification. This isn’t new, but a round of emails appear to be going out this month.
Remote Fulfillment with FBA lets US brands sell to customers in Canada, Mexico and Brazil without sending inventory to those countries. If you are automatically enrolled in the program, Amazon will create offers on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.mx and Amazon.com.br, Fulfillment by Amazon uses your inventory in US fulfillment centers to deliver customer orders across the border.
To simplify the selling process, Amazon will leverage their Build International Listings Tool to duplicate a brands eligible offers from the US site onto the eligible marketplaces. The tool will also synchronise the brands US FBA prices to eligible marketplaces, adjusting for fee and currency differences. You control the margins for your products through net proceeds rules based on your US prices.
When customers buy products through Remote Fulfillment with FBA, the buyer is the importer of record, and must pay any import duties, taxes, and fees. Amazon simplifies the import duties process by estimating the amount that will be due (the import fees deposit) and adding it to the amount the customer pays at checkout.
Amazon will ship your orders directly to customers abroad and Amazon will be responsible for providing support to customers for your orders.
You will want to keep an eye out for this email and check if you’ve already been auto-enrolled in Remote Fulfilment with FBA if you have products which aren’t certified for other countries, have import/export restrictions, or if you don’t have authorisation to supply to certain territories. Otherwise, in the main, it’s a good way of expanding sales with minimal (or no) effort on your part.
Finally, some sellers have decided to edge their prices slightly up, reporting that Amazon’s fee and conversion rates aren’t always exactly where they’d like them to be – but this does have the adverse impact of also increasing prices for your US customers.
For UK brands, there is a version of Remote Fulfilment with FBA between the UK and EU. It enables to you fulfil orders in both EU and UK without registering for VAT in each destination store as Amazon, or the customer, will be responsible for payment of any VAT.
