Amazon Seller Newsletter

Dear Amazon Seller,

This newsletter will cover the following topics

2) Expanding internationally throughout the EU with the Europe Marketplaces account.

3) NEW- Export for Multi-Channel Fulfilment now available in the EU

4) Run Your Own eCommerce Website with Amazon Webstore

1) St. Valentine's Day

Romance is in the air for many shoppers on Amazon this month as they search for the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for that special someone. Bestow your customers with inspiring gift ideas and give them the best possible buying experience.

Selection, pricing and availability:

Have a good look through your selection to identify suitable products to offer your customers as gift ideas. Obvious examples are DVDs, CDs, jewellery*, watches*, candles, plush toys, lingerie*, chocolates*, perfume* and pampering products* but perhaps there are other less obvious products in your range which may attract Valentine’s Day shoppers. The next step is to ensure that you have great product information and keen pricing to maximise conversion, and good availability to accommodate the uplift in demand without putting your customer experience at risk.

*The following stores require prior approval to start selling in: Clothing, Grocery, Health & Beauty, Health & Personal Care, Jewellery and Watches. If you are currently not eligible to sell in these stores, please contact seller support who will be able to provide a full list of requirements to gain eligibility.

Discoverability

Many Valentine’s Day shoppers will be visiting Amazon without a specific gift in mind but looking for inspiration and ideas. Why don’t you give your offers a better chance of reaching these customers by optimising the keyword search terms for your relevant products? Generic keywords such as “Valentine’s”, “romantic”, “gift”, “girlfriend” and “boyfriend” could help but we strongly recommend using the attributes of the product itself e.g. heart, red, casserole etc.. For more information on maximising the exposure of your range in the Search index, click here. Ensure that your products reach customers who are browsing the site too; we recommend that each of your products are assigned to a browse node. You can find further information concerning browse nodes here.

Promotions

Promotions are an especially important sales and marketing tool during key gifting seasons as they help give valuable distinction to your offers in an increasingly competitive environment. Make your promotions relevant, unique and easy to understand for your customers, to help them chose your offer over that of a competing merchant. To learn more about promotions and how to apply them to your product, click here. The webinar recordings for promotions can be found here.

Please note: Software and Video Games products orders are excluded from free-shipping promotions. BMVD Products are excluded from all promotions.

Gift Wrapping option

Many customers may want to have the convenience of having their Valentine’s Day presents pre-wrapped for them. Offering a gift wrapping or a personalised messaging option could mean incremental sales for you. You can find more information about how you can offer a gift wrapping service here. If you are planning to enable the gift-wrapping option in your seller account, you might want to upload sample images of the kind of gift wrap that you are offering; it is an important part of the Valentine’s Day gift itself, so your customers may prefer to see it before deciding to purchase this add-on service. Your gift wrap images must be a minimum of 71x71 pixels in size, and can be uploaded as either a .gif or a .jpg file.

Please note: gift services are not available for Books, Music, Video and DVD products.

2) Expanding internationally throughout the EU with the Europe Marketplaces account.

The Europe Marketplaces Account allows Amazon Sellers to list their offers on multiple Amazon Europe Marketplaces from a single Seller Central Account.

Main advantages

You can offer your products on all EU marketplaces without having to open new accounts locally.

You only pay one pro seller monthly subscription from your home marketplace.

With our European Fulfilment Network (‘EFN’), you can use FBA to export your products from your home marketplace to EU shoppers in other countries.

You have a single inventory pool and a single interface to manage your orders across all marketplaces.

You can modify your account’s details from a single user interface.

You can view your Seller Central.de, Seller Central.fr and Seller Central.it pages in English.

Need to know

Your home account information will be valid for the other marketplaces except for bank account details:

You need to enter your bank account detail for each marketplace if you want to be paid! Amazon Italy requires an Italian bank account.

You will still need to prepare and upload inventory for each country and pricing in the local currency.

You need to acknowledge tax and compliance regulations in each marketplace in which you wish to sell.

If you already have accounts in multiple marketplaces, you cannot consolidate them into the European account. Sellers using SOAP will have to switch to MWS to make use of multi-marketplace feeds.

Marketplace Switcher

You can offer your products on all EU marketplaces without having to open new accounts locally. You can navigate from one marketplace to another using this drop-down menu. Check the little country flag to remind you in which marketplace you are currently working in your account.

Language switcher

The language switcher is at the bottom left of Seller Central and will allow you to display pages from other marketplaces in English.

EFN

The European Fulfilment Network allows FBA sellers to store their inventory in their home marketplace’s fulfilment centres, to fulfil orders coming from all Amazon EU marketplaces. How does EFN work?

Useful links and FAQs

European Account Information Homepage

European Account FAQ

Settings Tutorial

Manage your Inventory Tutorial

Manage Orders Tutorial

EFN Help Page

FBA and EFN pricing Information

MWS Website

Learn more about FBA and EFN

Attend the webinar

The webinar "Selling on Amazon: Going Global with the Europe Marketplaces Account" will take place on 14th Feb 10am UK time. If you are interested, please register here.

3) NEW- Export for Multi-Channel Fulfilment now available in the EU.

Amazon is constantly looking for new ways to help sellers grow and reach new customers. As we embark on another year, we are pleased to be able to announce the extension of our international fulfilment service to delivery of off-Amazon orders to sellers’ customers in all 26 EU member states.

When you sign up to use Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) Amazon takes care of picking, packing and delivering your products sold on Amazon’s European sites to customers throughout the EU from just one seller account. With FBA, your inventory and orders are processed leveraging one of the most advanced fulfilment networks in the world, allowing you to focus on selling, not shipping.

With Multi-Channel fulfilment, FBA sellers can choose to use their inventory in Amazon’s fulfilment centres to fulfil part or all of their orders originating from their own website, other third party platforms, catalogue or even in-store sales. With FBA Export for Multi-channel, you can now offer your customers ordering from outside the UK a smooth and reliable delivery almost anywhere in Europe using Amazon’s efficient and extensive supply network. Once you submit a multi-channel shipment request, you will see the estimated delivery date which can then be shared with the customer.

There has never been a better time to let Amazon help you expand internationally and grow further in 2012. Join the many FBA merchants already benefitting from increased sales, lower costs, and time savings. Learn more about FBA

4) Run Your Own eCommerce Website with Amazon Webstore

Amazon Webstore is Amazon Services Europe’s hosted transactional ecommerce platform, designed to help your business sell your products directly to your customers online. Featuring a powerful back office integrated with Selling On Amazon and Fulfilment By Amazon and a high-performance transactional storefront website, Amazon Webstore is the ideal platform for you to grow your direct-to-market sales online.

Benefits of Amazon Webstore

Partner with an ecommerce leader

Amazon has grown from humble beginnings as an online bookstore running from Jeff Bezos’ garage in 1995 to one of the most successful, most trusted ecommerce companies in the world. Amazon Webstore is built on the same technology as Amazon.co.uk, so you benefit from all the technical characteristics and eCommerce features we’ve learned are important for our own webstores around the world.

Trust and Security

Running a business online today can be very risky. To succeed, you need to prove to your customers that they are safe when they shop with you. Partnering with a trusted ecommerce provider is the easiest way to prove to your customers that your online business is secure and trustworthy. At Amazon, we use the very latest technology to protect you and your customers from malevolent attacks and other fraudulent activities. We never stop improving that protection, and we make sure that your Webstore is always at the cutting edge of secure technology.

Flexibility and Scalability

eCommerce is fast-paced and constantly evolving. The online retail industry is changing daily, and competition is getting fiercer by the minute. Having a technological advantage allows you to serve your customers better than your competitors, and to adapt your business to your customers’ needs and your supply constraints quickly. Webstore lets you adapt your storefront to your customers’ changing needs and your business constraints within minutes. It is intuitive and easy to use, its rich tool set allowing you to change, in minutes, anything on your storefront. To help ensure that you profit from the peaks in market demand, Webstore technology scales up and down to match your needs exactly.

Selling On Amazon and Fulfilment By Amazon

Amazon Webstore integrates seamlessly with Selling On Amazon and Fulfilment By Amazon, allowing you to keep your inventory in one pool and make it available for sale and fulfilment on Amazon.co.uk. From the Seller Central back office, you can choose what products you want to sell on which channel, and you can manage your logistics and fulfilment at the same time.

Support

To help keep your virtual doors open, Amazon Webstore offers 24/7 technical support. They will be able to help you solve any issues you might experience running your store and enjoying online commercial success. On top of technical support, our Seller Success team also provides you with commercial support, sharing Amazon’s best practice knowledge with you to ensure you get the best out of your Amazon Webstore.

To learn more about Amazon Webstore and how we can help your business sell more online, please Contact Us or visit our own Amazon Webstore.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact our Technical Support Team. Our colleagues will be very pleased to help in any way they can.

With kind regards,

Amazon Services Team
5, Rue Plaetis
2338 Luxembourg



Amazon Seller Newsletter - February 2012
Dear Amazon Seller, This newsletter will cover the following topics 1) St. Valentine's Day 2) Expanding internationally throughout the EU with the Europe Marketplaces account. 3) NEW- Export for Multi-Channel Fulfilment now available in the EU 4) Run Your Own eCommerce Website with Amazon Webstore 1) St. Valentine's Day Romance is in the air for many shoppers on Amazon this month as they search for the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for that special someone. Bestow your customers with inspiring gift ideas and give them the best possible buying experience. Selection, pricing and availability: Have a good look through your selection to identify suitable products to offer your customers as gift ideas. Obvious examples are DVDs, CDs, jewellery, watches, candles, plush toys, lingerie, chocolates, perfume* and pampering products* but perhaps there are other less obvious products in your range which may attract Valentine’s Day shoppers. The next step is to ensure that you have great product information and keen pricing to maximise conversion, and good availability to accommodate the uplift in demand without putting your customer experience at risk. The following stores require prior approval to start selling in: Clothing, Grocery, Health & Beauty, Health & Personal Care, Jewellery and Watches. If you are currently not eligible to sell in these stores, please contact seller support who will be able to provide a full list of requirements to gain eligibility. Discoverability* Many Valentine’s Day shoppers will be visiting Amazon without a specific gift in mind but looking for inspiration and ideas. Why don’t you give your offers a better chance of reaching these customers by optimising the keyword search terms for your relevant products? Generic keywords such as “Valentine’s”, “romantic”, “gift”, “girlfriend” and “boyfriend” could help but we strongly recommend using the attributes of the product itself e.g. heart, red, casserole etc.. For more information on maximising the exposure of your range in the Search index, click here. Ensure that your products reach customers who are browsing the site too; we recommend that each of your products are assigned to a browse node. You can find further information concerning browse nodes here. Promotions Promotions are an especially important sales and marketing tool during key gifting seasons as they help give valuable distinction to your offers in an increasingly competitive environment. Make your promotions relevant, unique and easy to understand for your customers, to help them chose your offer over that of a competing merchant. To learn more about promotions and how to apply them to your product, click here. The webinar recordings for promotions can be found here. Please note: Software and Video Games products orders are excluded from free-shipping promotions. BMVD Products are excluded from all promotions. Gift Wrapping option Many customers may want to have the convenience of having their Valentine’s Day presents pre-wrapped for them. Offering a gift wrapping or a personalised messaging option could mean incremental sales for you. You can find more information about how you can offer a gift wrapping service here. If you are planning to enable the gift-wrapping option in your seller account, you might want to upload sample images of the kind of gift wrap that you are offering; it is an important part of the Valentine’s Day gift itself, so your customers may prefer to see it before deciding to purchase this add-on service. Your gift wrap images must be a minimum of 71x71 pixels in size, and can be uploaded as either a .gif or a .jpg file. Please note: gift services are not available for Books, Music, Video and DVD products. 2) Expanding internationally throughout the EU with the Europe Marketplaces account. The Europe Marketplaces Account allows Amazon Sellers to list their offers on multiple Amazon Europe Marketplaces from a single Seller Central Account. Main advantages You can offer your products on all EU marketplaces without having to open new accounts locally. You only pay one pro seller monthly subscription from your home marketplace. With our European Fulfilment Network (‘EFN’), you can use FBA to export your products from your home marketplace to EU shoppers in other countries. You have a single inventory pool and a single interface to manage your orders across all marketplaces. You can modify your account’s details from a single user interface. You can view your Seller Central.de, Seller Central.fr and Seller Central.it pages in English. Need to know Your home account information will be valid for the other marketplaces except for bank account details: You need to enter your bank account detail for each marketplace if you want to be paid! Amazon Italy requires an Italian bank account. You will still need to prepare and upload inventory for each country and pricing in the local currency. You need to acknowledge tax and compliance regulations in each marketplace in which you wish to sell. If you already have accounts in multiple marketplaces, you cannot consolidate them into the European account. Sellers using SOAP will have to switch to MWS to make use of multi-marketplace feeds. Marketplace Switcher You can offer your products on all EU marketplaces without having to open new accounts locally. You can navigate from one marketplace to another using this drop-down menu. Check the little country flag to remind you in which marketplace you are currently working in your account. Language switcher The language switcher is at the bottom left of Seller Central and will allow you to display pages from other marketplaces in English. EFN The European Fulfilment Network allows FBA sellers to store their inventory in their home marketplace’s fulfilment centres, to fulfil orders coming from all Amazon EU marketplaces. How does EFN work? Useful links and FAQs European Account Information Homepage European Account FAQ Settings Tutorial Manage your Inventory Tutorial Manage Orders Tutorial EFN Help Page FBA and EFN pricing Information MWS Website Learn more about FBA and EFN Attend the webinar The webinar "Selling on Amazon: Going Global with the Europe Marketplaces Account" will take place on 14th Feb 10am UK time. If you are interested, please register here. 3) NEW- Export for Multi-Channel Fulfilment now available in the EU. Amazon is constantly looking for new ways to help sellers grow and reach new customers. As we embark on another year, we are pleased to be able to announce the extension of our international fulfilment service to delivery of off-Amazon orders to sellers’ customers in all 26 EU member states. When you sign up to use Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) Amazon takes care of picking, packing and delivering your products sold on Amazon’s European sites to customers throughout the EU from just one seller account. With FBA, your inventory and orders are processed leveraging one of the most advanced fulfilment networks in the world, allowing you to focus on selling, not shipping. With Multi-Channel fulfilment, FBA sellers can choose to use their inventory in Amazon’s fulfilment centres to fulfil part or all of their orders originating from their own website, other third party platforms, catalogue or even in-store sales. With FBA Export for Multi-channel, you can now offer your customers ordering from outside the UK a smooth and reliable delivery almost anywhere in Europe using Amazon’s efficient and extensive supply network. Once you submit a multi-channel shipment request, you will see the estimated delivery date which can then be shared with the customer. There has never been a better time to let Amazon help you expand internationally and grow further in 2012. Join the many FBA merchants already benefitting from increased sales, lower costs, and time savings. Learn more about FBA 4) Run Your Own eCommerce Website with Amazon Webstore Amazon Webstore is Amazon Services Europe’s hosted transactional ecommerce platform, designed to help your business sell your products directly to your customers online. Featuring a powerful back office integrated with Selling On Amazon and Fulfilment By Amazon and a high-performance transactional storefront website, Amazon Webstore is the ideal platform for you to grow your direct-to-market sales online. Benefits of Amazon Webstore Partner with an ecommerce leader Amazon has grown from humble beginnings as an online bookstore running from Jeff Bezos’ garage in 1995 to one of the most successful, most trusted ecommerce companies in the world. Amazon Webstore is built on the same technology as Amazon.co.uk, so you benefit from all the technical characteristics and eCommerce features we’ve learned are important for our own webstores around the world. Trust and Security Running a business online today can be very risky. To succeed, you need to prove to your customers that they are safe when they shop with you. Partnering with a trusted ecommerce provider is the easiest way to prove to your customers that your online business is secure and trustworthy. At Amazon, we use the very latest technology to protect you and your customers from malevolent attacks and other fraudulent activities. We never stop improving that protection, and we make sure that your Webstore is always at the cutting edge of secure technology. Flexibility and Scalability eCommerce is fast-paced and constantly evolving. The online retail industry is changing daily, and competition is getting fiercer by the minute. Having a technological advantage allows you to serve your customers better than your competitors, and to adapt your business to your customers’ needs and your supply constraints quickly. Webstore lets you adapt your storefront to your customers’ changing needs and your business constraints within minutes. It is intuitive and easy to use, its rich tool set allowing you to change, in minutes, anything on your storefront. To help ensure that you profit from the peaks in market demand, Webstore technology scales up and down to match your needs exactly. Selling On Amazon and Fulfilment By Amazon Amazon Webstore integrates seamlessly with Selling On Amazon and Fulfilment By Amazon, allowing you to keep your inventory in one pool and make it available for sale and fulfilment on Amazon.co.uk. From the Seller Central back office, you can choose what products you want to sell on which channel, and you can manage your logistics and fulfilment at the same time. Support To help keep your virtual doors open, Amazon Webstore offers 24/7 technical support. They will be able to help you solve any issues you might experience running your store and enjoying online commercial success. On top of technical support, our Seller Success team also provides you with commercial support, sharing Amazon’s best practice knowledge with you to ensure you get the best out of your Amazon Webstore. To learn more about Amazon Webstore and how we can help your business sell more online, please Contact Us or visit our own Amazon Webstore. If you have any questions, feel free to contact our Technical Support Team. Our colleagues will be very pleased to help in any way they can. With kind regards, Amazon Services Team 5, Rue Plaetis 2338 Luxembourg Is the provided information in this newsletter useful for you? Yes. No. If you no longer wish to receive these e-mails, go to Unsubscribe to remove your e-mail from our distribution list.

Amazon Seller Newsletter - February 2012