Pros and Cons of Selling in the US Vs UK

If you're just starting out on your Amazon journey. There are a lot of things to consider before you enter into the 'Product Research' stage of things. One of which is where to sell. 

It's important to make a decision regarding the country in which you plan to sell before you embark on product research. If you research a product in one marketplace, this doesn't necessarily mean it is a viable option if you decided to sell on a different Amazon marketplace. Take the example of a baseball mitt. There might be space in the market and good opportunity for this in the US. But if you decided for whatever reason to then sell these in the UK, you could find it a very costly mistake as some products don't translate well across the pond.

One of the most common questions I get asked by people just starting out in their new venture is 'which marketplace is best to sell in?'.

The answer, as always, is: it depends.

A recent conversation with one of our students inspired me to write this blog post with my personal opinions on the two main marketplaces. Obviously there are more marketplaces than just the US and the UK, however, if you're English-speaking, they are an obvious place to begin. So, here are my thoughts...

US: Amazon is better established and is the ‘go to’ place for online shopping.

UK: Amazon less well established and often people will check out Ebay too.

US: Has a population of 326M so a lot more potential customers.

UK: Has a population of around 65M, fewer potential customers.

US: Not sure where else Amazon can go to try to expand its US empire.

UK: Amazon definitely has the UK in its focus to grow and scale and increase Prime membership. It's definitely on the rise and as they say... the early bird catches the worm.

US: Generally lower duty & taxes importing into the US.

UK: Duty is relatively higher than into the US in my experience but is dependent on the item.

US: Although the US is geographically closer to China (which is mostly where goods are sourced), the shipping tends to be higher than if the same quantities were shipped into the UK.

UK: Shipping is relatively lower if coming from China. So although duty tends to be a little higher, it could end up balancing out.

US: Once your product is physically in the US, you have the option to sell on different platforms such as Ebay, Walmart and Jet.

UK: Restricted to either Amazon or Ebay as the main online selling platforms.

US: Lots of the online tools are geared up to work in conjunction with the Seller Central US so product research is an easy feat.

UK: limited tool availability as they haven't all been rolled out to Seller Central UK which means you don't get as full a picture when conducting research into a proven profitable product.

US: High competition on Amazon.com, although I wouldn’t say it’s saturated, there’s still lots of scope so long as you find the right product.

UK: Low competition in most categories, Amazon is still in its relative infancy in the UK, so you could possibly find it much easier to rank on page 1 and gain a large market share compared to launching in the US.

The best thing to do would be to find a product that ticks all the boxes in both marketplaces. Simply by having some shipped to another country and listing there, is an easy step to make to expand your business. The hard work is mostly already done for you, so for most, selling on another marketplace is the obvious next step.

Hope you found this article useful. These are of course just my own humble opinions. Feel free to comment below if you’ve had different experiences or if you have any further differences to add.

If you're interested in starting your own Amazon business, we've created step-by-step guides outlining the entire process. You can find out more information about it HERE.

Kay Herdsman.