How to Sell on Amazon Australia
If you’ve ever considered selling across the pond, Amazon Australia might be a good place to start. The two-year-old marketplace gets nearly 14 million visitors a month and as of April, now boasts the full array of Amazon Advertising products — putting even more potential customers and sales within reach.
Amazon.au also offers the much-coveted Prime membership, giving 90 percent of Australians free two-day shipping — even on U.S.-sold items.
Are you considering an expansion into Amazon Australia? Want to learn more about this international marketplace first? This guide can help.
What is Amazon.com.AU?
Amazon.com.AU is the marketplace for consumers in Australia. It was launched in December of 2017 and now boasts 100 million products and 29 separate categories.
Current categories include:
- Baby products
- Beauty
- Books
- Camera & photo
- Cell phones
- Clothing & accessories
- Electronics
- Health & personal care
- Home
- Music
- Office products
- Outdoors
- Personal computers
- Shoes, handbags & sunglasses
- Software & computer games
- Sports
- Tools & home improvement
- Toys & games
- Video, DVD & Blu-Ray (requires approval)
- Video games & video game consoles
- Watches
Over time, Amazon has rolled out its Fulfillment by Amazon, Advertising and Prime products on the marketplace. At just $6.99 per month, the site’s Prime program offers free two-day delivery, access to Prime Video and free deliveries on international purchases (as long as they’re $49 or higher).
Selling on Amazon Australia
To begin selling on Amazon Australia, you’ll first need to register your seller account with Amazon Services Australia. In order to register, you’ll need to provide your business details, your tax ID or Social Security Number, an email address (different from the one you use on your other seller accounts), an internationally-chargeable credit card and a phone number.
Once you’ve submitted your details, an Amazon Australia rep will get in touch to approve your account. After that, you’re free to start listing your products in one of the 29 categories currently available.
Costs to Sell on Amazon Australia
Selling on Amazon Australia comes with a number of fees — both monthly and for each individual item you sell on the site.
Costs for selling on Amazon.com.AU look like this:
- Monthly: You’ll pay a $49.95 subscription fee per month.
- Per sale: You’ll pay a referral fee, which is based on the type of item you sold.
- Per media sale: If you sell a book, DVD, video game, computer game, musical release or software, you’ll pay a $1 closing fee.
There are also fees for any refunds you process. Dubbed a “Refund Administration fee,” you’ll owe either 20 percent of the item’s referral fee or $5 (whichever is less).
What To Consider Before Your Sell on Amazon Australia
Before opting to sell on Amazon.com.AU, you’ll want to consider the market size in relation to the extra work the endeavor will require.
Amazon Australia is still pretty new, and though it brings in around 14 million users a month, that number pales in comparison to other Amazon marketplaces. (The U.S. Amazon marketplace gets more than 2 billion visits per month.) Make sure the potential sales are there for your products — and that it’s worth the extra effort you’ll have to put in to get them.
You’ll also want to consider things like:
- Shipping: Unless you’re using FBA, you’ll need to sort out logistics and shipping to your Australian customers. You want to make sure these added costs won’t eat into your margins too much.
- Taxes: Australia charges Goods & Services taxes on product sales. Be sure to factor these in when pricing your products.
- Consumer preferences: Don’t assume products will sell the same as they do in the U.S. Take time to learn about Australian culture and use analytics to inform what products you’ll sell and how to market them.
If you do expand into Amazon Australia, make sure to take it slow. Launch one or two products, nail down your logistics, and watch your metrics to ensure your pricing and marketing approaches are working. Once you’ve honed your strategy, you can add more products to the mix and start handling bigger sales volumes.
The story is just beginning for Amazon Australia. And as soon as the kinks are worked out, its list of sellers expands and its pricing become a little more competitive, it could leave the Australia retail market stronger and more lucrative than ever before.
“While Amazon’s arrival in Australia has been received with something short of excitement, it’s not uncommon for them to go to market with a minimum viable product and rapidly expand from there,” Pat Petriello, Head of Marketplace Strategy at CPC Strategy said.
“We’ve seen a similar approach in other markets, such as www.amazon.com.mx, as well as with product functionality going back to the early days of FBA and Sponsored Products. Amazon has to start somewhere, and it will be interesting to see how quickly they are able to gain traction in Australia.”
Want to learn more about selling on Amazon.com.AU or other Amazon marketplaces? Email [email protected].
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