Expanding to Amazon Mexico,
New Opportunities South of the Border
It’s the nature of any driven entrepreneur to consider every opportunity that may lead to growth and more profits. Amazon sellers are no different, and opportunities are plentiful. If you are selling on Amazon.com already, you’ve either considered expanding to a different market or you’re at least aware that it’s an eventuality if you wish to maximize the potential of your Amazon business. Amazon has become Mexico’s largest e-commerce retailer in 2018, taking 36,54% percent of market share.
North American Unified Account
The first and simplest step on your journey to becoming a seller in Mexico is to make sure you have a North American Unified Account (NAUA) activated. For some newer Amazon accounts, this is already enabled by default. Check and confirm by looking at the top right portion of your default Seller Central view and for this drop down.
If you can’t view the dropdown menu, simply contact support and ask for your NAUA status to be activated. Keep in mind that your account does need to be in good standing, which includes having a low return rate, having good customer feedback, and more.
NAUA is simply a feature that enables Global SKU (see below) and easy switching between your North American Amazon accounts. You also benefit from only paying for a single Professional seller subscription and you can still use the same bank account for Amazon payments. However, you still have to manage your Amazon.com.mx separate from your Amazon.com and Amazon.ca (if applicable) accounts. That includes optimizing your listings, setting up PPC campaigns, building customer rapport, and providing customer service. Once you have NAUA activated, you’re ready to take the plunge into Amazon.com.mx
Global SKU
Having a Global SKU is an option that becomes available once you have your NAUA activated. This option is only available to those who wish to fulfill their own orders through FBM. Global SKU is a single SKU that can be used for listings in the US, Mexico, and Canada. As such, the actions you take in one market (restocking that item or selling a unit) will affect the listing across all three markets.
For example, if you have 100 units of a certain product, it will be represented as 100 units in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Once you sell one unit in any of the three countries, the number of available units will be reduced to 99 for all three markets.
In order to fully activate this option, you will need to use a tool called Build international listing. The process is pretty straightforward and it includes a few steps:
You need to first set your source marketplace and your target marketplace(s). If you are currently selling in the US and will be shipping your items from the US, then the US will be your source marketplace, while Mexico or Canada (or both) will be your target.
You also need to input your shipping settings. It’s important to keep in mind that your shipping standards still need to satisfy Amazon’s requirements. You should not use the United States Postal Service (USPS).Opt for more reliable couriers such as FedEx, DHL, or UPS.
You’ll also have the opportunity to customize detail pages for your intended market. Even though listings under a single Global SKU share inventory records, the listings themselves are not identical.
The next step is pricing. You can choose to have Amazon automatically convert the original price into its foreign currency equivalent or you can set up your own prices.
The final step is managing your listings and accounts as you normally would, including taking care of returns and customer service, extracting reports, running your PPC campaigns, and any other business activities you’re used to.
Using a Global SKU and fulfilling your own orders may be a good way to test the waters and see if the products you’re selling are viable in the Mexican market without committing your inventory in a tangible way. However, if you are committed or confident in your product, you should opt to use Amazon FBA in Mexico since it has a lot of advantages.
Selling Using FBA
Using FBA in Mexico pretty much has all the advantages that likely drew you to the Amazon selling model in the first place. You simply ship your items to an FBA warehouse and Amazon takes care of the shipping, handling, and returns with little to no effort on your part. In a foreign market, this can be even more advantageous than you might think.
If you are using FBA to sell on Amazon.com.mx, your NAUA status doesn’t really come into play. This would be a new and completely independent setup. You will have new ASINs specifically for the inventory that you’re moving into Mexico—meaning you will have to make shipping plans with new FNSKUs and repeat everything you’d already done for Amazon.com.
While that sounds complex, consider the costs. Fulfilling your own orders by shipping it from the US directly to the customer in Mexico each time would cost more in shipping fees than shipping your products in bulk and letting Amazon handle the rest. Further, in case of a return, the item would need to be shipped back across the border to you and you may need to ship a replacement.
Also, you are not required to have a Mexican TAX ID, known as an RFC ID, since your shipping company can provide one for you. Regardless, it’s still advised that you consult with a customs broker or a tax specialist before shipping anything to ensure that you won’t face complications.
A common issue that arises is Amazon will not serve as the Importer Of Record, so you will have to list the end customer when possible, hire a third party, or actually create an entity in Mexico. This is why it’s important to consult with experts before making any concrete moves.
Needless to say, you won’t be able to use the Global SKU option if you are using FBA. You will have a market specific SKU that’s reserved for the Mexican market, and your inventory will depend on the number of items you ship into the FBA warehouse.
Doing Your Homework
Now that we have all the technical stuff out of the way, you should be asking yourself if it’s even worth selling in Mexico?
When it comes to selling a new market, do your best to see whether products that are similar to the ones you’re selling are performing well in Mexico and whether there’s demand for them. There are plenty of software products out there that can give you sales estimates for any product on Amazon. However, that may not be the best indicator! As everyone selling on Amazon knows, the number of items sold in any given period can fluctuate.If we do everything right and with a little bit of luck, those numbers will rise.
If possible, you should look at trends and keyword search volumes. Of course, when you are researching the Mexican market, you need to know your most relevant Spanish keywords to look for relevant data.
You can simply use Google Trends to see if there has been an increase in interest for your most relevant keywords. Alternatively, you can also use more professional tools to look into the search frequency of your most relevant keywords on Amazon.com.mx. This way, you’ll get more insight into the actual demand.
Using your Amazon.com sales volume or the combined sales on the first page of results for your niche , establish a ratio against the search volume for your keywords. Now, repeat the process for Amazon Mexico. If there’s a large gap between the two numbers, the odds are that demand is higher than it might seem and shoppers are not finding what they’re looking for.
You should also pay attention to reviews and ratings. Basically, imagine as if you are looking for a new product to source, but you have already made up your mind as to what it is. It’s the same data you would be looking at but from a different perspective. It’s not about finding a product that will fit the market it’s about finding the market that fits your product. Or rather, finding out if Amazon.com.mx is that market or not.
Optimizing for Mexico
Let’s address the elephant in the room. All of your customers will be speaking Spanish as their first language and of course you are expected to communicate as well as present everything to them in Spanish. You may feel a little more at ease knowing that your Seller Central panel on Amazon.com.mx won’t be in Spanish since you can choose to have the UI displayed in English.
However, it’s not as simple as just finding someone to translate your listing copy to Spanish or copying your PPC keywords into Google Translate and then pasting them back into a new campaign on Amazon.com.mx. You need to start everything from scratch by finding the most relevant keywords and adding them into your listing copy, backend, as well as your PPC structure. As you’re looking for those keywords, try to use software that allows you to get keywords that top sellers in your niche are indexed for, or the ones they are advertising for.
If you don’t speak Spanish fluently, it would be wise to hire a listing copywriter who is a native speaker or, even better, a copywriter who is Mexican. This would ensure that the listings are well optimized and written in a completely familiar vocabulary.
Also, your listings are not the only places where you’ll need a native Spanish speaker in order to fully run the Mexican branch of your Amazon business. Customer service is very important and you need to be able to respond to customer emails and reviews if necessary. This is why it’s wise to have a native speaker on call to handle such tasks.
Amazon Business
If you decide to sell a large portfolio of products and if you end up doing a lot of business in the Mexican market, you might want to consider hiring someone at least part-time to handle communication for you. They can help take with proactive email campaigns that are typical for fully fledged Amazon business. These emails include following up and requesting feedback to build brand loyalty.
Currency cone complicated if you are not from the US and you may need to make several conversions before having funds available in your local currency. Many sellers often disregard these conversions or consider them an unavoidable factor, but that’s not completely true.
With a service like PingPong, you can create a digital bank account that allows you to exchange your earnings from Amazon.com.mx directly to another currency under minimal conversion rates. This way, you convert your funds only once, and you get to keep more of your profits.
In conclusion, it isn’t that difficult to start selling on Amazon.mx. There are just a few little things to consider before taking that plunge south!
Psst…More Amazon Guides where that came from. Always be updated with the latest tips!
Expanding to Amazon Mexico,
New Opportunities South
of the Border
It’s the nature of any driven entrepreneur to consider every opportunity that may lead to growth and more profits. Amazon sellers are no different, and opportunities are plentiful. If you are selling on Amazon.com already, you’ve either considered expanding to a different market or you’re at least aware that it’s an eventuality if you wish to maximize the potential of your Amazon business. Amazon has become Mexico’s largest e-commerce retailer in 2018, taking 36,54% percent of market share.
North American Unified Account
The first and simplest step on your journey to becoming a seller in Mexico is to make sure you have a North American Unified Account (NAUA) activated. For some newer Amazon accounts, this is already enabled by default. Check and confirm by looking at the top right portion of your default Seller Central view and for this drop down.
If you can’t view the dropdown menu, simply contact support and ask for your NAUA status to be activated. Keep in mind that your account does need to be in good standing, which includes having a low return rate, having good customer feedback, and more.
NAUA is simply a feature that enables Global SKU (see below) and easy switching between your North American Amazon accounts. You also benefit from only paying for a single Professional seller subscription and you can still use the same bank account for Amazon payments. However, you still have to manage your Amazon.com.mx separate from your Amazon.com and Amazon.ca (if applicable) accounts. That includes optimizing your listings, setting up PPC campaigns, building customer rapport, and providing customer service. Once you have NAUA activated, you’re ready to take the plunge into Amazon.com.mx
Global SKU
Having a Global SKU is an option that becomes available once you have your NAUA activated. This option is only available to those who wish to fulfill their own orders through FBM. Global SKU is a single SKU that can be used for listings in the US, Mexico, and Canada. As such, the actions you take in one market (restocking that item or selling a unit) will affect the listing across all three markets.
For example, if you have 100 units of a certain product, it will be represented as 100 units in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Once you sell one unit in any of the three countries, the number of available units will be reduced to 99 for all three markets.
In order to fully activate this option, you will need to use a tool called Build international listing. The process is pretty straightforward and it includes a few steps:
You need to first set your source marketplace and your target marketplace(s). If you are currently selling in the US and will be shipping your items from the US, then the US will be your source marketplace, while Mexico or Canada (or both) will be your target.
You also need to input your shipping settings. It’s important to keep in mind that your shipping standards still need to satisfy Amazon’s requirements. You should not use the United States Postal Service (USPS).Opt for more reliable couriers such as FedEx, DHL, or UPS.
You’ll also have the opportunity to customize detail pages for your intended market. Even though listings under a single Global SKU share inventory records, the listings themselves are not identical.
The next step is pricing. You can choose to have Amazon automatically convert the original price into its foreign currency equivalent or you can set up your own prices.
The final step is managing your listings and accounts as you normally would, including taking care of returns and customer service, extracting reports, running your PPC campaigns, and any other business activities you’re used to.
Using a Global SKU and fulfilling your own orders may be a good way to test the waters and see if the products you’re selling are viable in the Mexican market without committing your inventory in a tangible way. However, if you are committed or confident in your product, you should opt to use Amazon FBA in Mexico since it has a lot of advantages.
Selling Using FBA
Using FBA in Mexico pretty much has all the advantages that likely drew you to the Amazon selling model in the first place. You simply ship your items to an FBA warehouse and Amazon takes care of the shipping, handling, and returns with little to no effort on your part. In a foreign market, this can be even more advantageous than you might think.
If you are using FBA to sell on Amazon.com.mx, your NAUA status doesn’t really come into play. This would be a new and completely independent setup. You will have new ASINs specifically for the inventory that you’re moving into Mexico—meaning you will have to make shipping plans with new FNSKUs and repeat everything you’d already done for Amazon.com.
While that sounds complex, consider the costs. Fulfilling your own orders by shipping it from the US directly to the customer in Mexico each time would cost more in shipping fees than shipping your products in bulk and letting Amazon handle the rest. Further, in case of a return, the item would need to be shipped back across the border to you and you may need to ship a replacement.
Also, you are not required to have a Mexican TAX ID, known as an RFC ID, since your shipping company can provide one for you. Regardless, it’s still advised that you consult with a customs broker or a tax specialist before shipping anything to ensure that you won’t face complications.
A common issue that arises is Amazon will not serve as the Importer Of Record, so you will have to list the end customer when possible, hire a third party, or actually create an entity in Mexico. This is why it’s important to consult with experts before making any concrete moves.
Needless to say, you won’t be able to use the Global SKU option if you are using FBA. You will have a market specific SKU that’s reserved for the Mexican market, and your inventory will depend on the number of items you ship into the FBA warehouse.
Doing Your Homework
Now that we have all the technical stuff out of the way, you should be asking yourself if it’s even worth selling in Mexico?
When it comes to selling a new market, do your best to see whether products that are similar to the ones you’re selling are performing well in Mexico and whether there’s demand for them. There are plenty of software products out there that can give you sales estimates for any product on Amazon. However, that may not be the best indicator! As everyone selling on Amazon knows, the number of items sold in any given period can fluctuate.If we do everything right and with a little bit of luck, those numbers will rise.
If possible, you should look at trends and keyword search volumes. Of course, when you are researching the Mexican market, you need to know your most relevant Spanish keywords to look for relevant data.
You can simply use Google Trends to see if there has been an increase in interest for your most relevant keywords. Alternatively, you can also use more professional tools to look into the search frequency of your most relevant keywords on Amazon.com.mx. This way, you’ll get more insight into the actual demand.
Using your Amazon.com sales volume or the combined sales on the first page of results for your niche , establish a ratio against the search volume for your keywords. Now, repeat the process for Amazon Mexico. If there’s a large gap between the two numbers, the odds are that demand is higher than it might seem and shoppers are not finding what they’re looking for.
You should also pay attention to reviews and ratings. Basically, imagine as if you are looking for a new product to source, but you have already made up your mind as to what it is. It’s the same data you would be looking at but from a different perspective. It’s not about finding a product that will fit the market it’s about finding the market that fits your product. Or rather, finding out if Amazon.com.mx is that market or not.
Optimizing for Mexico
Let’s address the elephant in the room. All of your customers will be speaking Spanish as their first language and of course you are expected to communicate as well as present everything to them in Spanish. You may feel a little more at ease knowing that your Seller Central panel on Amazon.com.mx won’t be in Spanish since you can choose to have the UI displayed in English.
However, it’s not as simple as just finding someone to translate your listing copy to Spanish or copying your PPC keywords into Google Translate and then pasting them back into a new campaign on Amazon.com.mx. You need to start everything from scratch by finding the most relevant keywords and adding them into your listing copy, backend, as well as your PPC structure. As you’re looking for those keywords, try to use software that allows you to get keywords that top sellers in your niche are indexed for, or the ones they are advertising for.
If you don’t speak Spanish fluently, it would be wise to hire a listing copywriter who is a native speaker or, even better, a copywriter who is Mexican. This would ensure that the listings are well optimized and written in a completely familiar vocabulary.
Also, your listings are not the only places where you’ll need a native Spanish speaker in order to fully run the Mexican branch of your Amazon business. Customer service is very important and you need to be able to respond to customer emails and reviews if necessary. This is why it’s wise to have a native speaker on call to handle such tasks.
Amazon Business
If you decide to sell a large portfolio of products and if you end up doing a lot of business in the Mexican market, you might want to consider hiring someone at least part-time to handle communication for you. They can help take with proactive email campaigns that are typical for fully fledged Amazon business. These emails include following up and requesting feedback to build brand loyalty.
Currency cone complicated if you are not from the US and you may need to make several conversions before having funds available in your local currency. Many sellers often disregard these conversions or consider them an unavoidable factor, but that’s not completely true.
With a service like PingPong, you can create a digital bank account that allows you to exchange your earnings from Amazon.com.mx directly to another currency under minimal conversion rates. This way, you convert your funds only once, and you get to keep more of your profits.
In conclusion, it isn’t that difficult to start selling on Amazon.mx. There are just a few little things to consider before taking that plunge south!
Psst…More Amazon Guides where that came from. Always be updated with the latest tips!
