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~ Practicology ~

NAVIGATING

AMAZON

Text: Joanna Perry, Global Head of Marketing at Practicology – a Pattern company // Photos: Practicology

With its growing focus on cross-border sales, we highlight some of the differences on
Amazon around the world and how COVID-19 is pushing consumers to purchase more from
the marketplace.

mazon has grown its international footprint Amazon’s warehouses for the fulfilment of orders across all six
considerably in the last few years, launching markets.
Alocal sites in Brazil, Australia, Israel, the
United Arab Emirates, and most recently, the In the United Arab Emirates and the soon-to-launch Saudi
Netherlands. Arabian version of Amazon, Amazon displays products from
its Global Store as well as from local sellers. These products
It has also encouraged cross-border sales, making it easier for are shipped to customers directly from the USA, and the
sellers in one market to list their products on other versions longer delivery times are clearly shown to customers.
of the marketplace; to grow product selection, ensure price Finally, for North America, Amazon created the North
competitiveness and attract more consumers too. America Remote Fulfilment programme (NARF), which
allows US-based sellers to list products on the Canadian
In 2018, Amazon reported that more than a quarter of its and Mexican versions of Amazon without the need to store
sellers’ sales were from cross-border orders – up by 50% on products in, or ship products to, the countries themselves. If
the previous year – and it expected this trend to continue. Amazon already holds the sellers’ products in its warehouses,
Now with the COVID-19 pandemic having put significant it deals with getting them to Canadian and Mexican custom-
restrictions on store retailers in many countries, this trend is ers. Our US parent company, Pattern, uses this programme,
accelerating. although it has been on hold while cross-border shipments
have been delayed due to COVID-19.
Below, we highlight some of the benefits of selling cross-bor-
der on Amazon, as well as our own recent experience selling Amazon also allows customers to search for the best deals in
through the company’s six European sites. different countries. In Australia, many Amazon customers
still shop from the US site, though there is now a local Aus-
How Amazon has accelerated cross-border sales tralian version. Similarly, in the Netherlands, customers also
Within Europe, Amazon makes it simple to replicate product continue to buy from Amazon’s German version.
listings between one of its sites and the others, and also fulfil
product orders across the region through Fulfilment By Ama- This happens as there is often a wider selection of products
zon. Of course, if you follow best practice, you will still need available on the more established versions of the marketplace,
to translate and localise product content for each market, but and prices may be lower (even factoring in cross-border
this will still be much simpler than trying to launch fully lo- delivery charges).
calised versions of your own site for each of these six markets
– the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. Why use Amazon to internationalise?
Our analysis of Amazon’s proposition and customer usage data
We have two warehouses in Europe – one in the UK and one in 12 markets highlights why it can be a good platform to open
in the Netherlands - and from here, we can ship products into up a brand to international customers. We’ve highlighted some

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