The five European countries of Britain, Germany, France, Spain and Italy have a population of more than 300 million, of which Britain has a population of more than 68 million and Germany has a population of more than 80 million. The sales of these two countries account for 60% of the total sales of Amazon Europe. France, Italy and Spain account for 40%. Although they are relatively small in scale, their e-commerce is developing rapidly and the competition is relatively low. There are more than 174 million potential customers, which is a high-profit market. Some sellers say that among the five European countries, only the UK and Germany are better, and the traffic in the other three countries is low. In fact, we have also encountered sellers who are doing very well on the French, Italian and Spanish sites.
According to the Digital Shopping Index released by EY-Parthenon, a leading global professional services organization, Amazon, eBay and eBay Classifieds account for 66% of the German e-commerce market. The study shows that Amazon and eBay are ahead of all other major e-commerce platforms in Germany, with the other top 50 online retailers unable to capture even 3% of the market share.
Amazon has 28.7% of the market share, while eBay has 22.9%, and eBay Community Classifieds ranks third with a market share of 14.8%. Together, these three e-commerce companies account for 66.4% of the German e-commerce market. Other platforms are excluded from the mainstream market. Wish, AliExpress and Otto have a market share of 2%-3%, while the market share of the remaining top ten platforms (Zalando, Lidl, H&M and Rossman) ranges from 1% to 2%.
Amazon's sales increased 3.9% from last year. Further consolidate its position as a giant. eBay lost 6.9% of its market share. If we look at various online channels (computer, mobile web, and APP), it is obvious that Amazon ranks first on the computer and mobile web, but the eBay community classified advertising platform APP is the most popular.
The study also found that mobile shopping ad placements have increased significantly, up 74% compared to last year. In addition, mobile browser usage also increased by 31%. The average homepage visit to the top 50 retailers’ websites lasts about 5.6 minutes, while mobile usage (including apps) lasts only one minute.
The study said the trend of using mobile devices to make purchases has greatly reduced consumers' attention span, and retailers must convince customers to buy within a short period of time, otherwise the possibility of sales will be greatly reduced.
To do it well, you must pay attention to product selection.
Product selection is very important. It is impossible for the same product to sell well in all five European countries. According to our experience, a single product will generally only sell well in one or two countries. Many sellers believe that the German site sells best. New sellers who have just entered the European site can first test the waters in Germany and the UK, two sites with relatively large traffic.
The product selection method introduced by training institutions in the circle now is to select products through Merchantwords and Google Trends data. This method is feasible. In addition, veteran Amazon sellers will have their own unique ideas for product selection.
1) If it is a factory enterprise transforming from B2B, it can decide based on the number of customer orders for its products in the target market in the past;
2) Monitor the sales of products in other sellers’ stores, conduct in-depth research on the listings with good sales and improve the pain points;
3) Mix in with the real high-end boutique seller circle. Some boutique designer sellers will share some potential products and find partners in the small circle to crowdfund and open molds;
4) Collect sufficient and detailed information about the target market before determining the category.
We will communicate with local Chinese and get a lot of information (these Chinese are housewives we met from previous evaluations). For example: The German station has received more than 3 million immigrants from the Middle East in recent years, so there is a huge market consumer base for household products and maternal and child products.
When choosing products, newbies should not use Asian thinking and Taobao thinking to avoid some pitfalls!
Blind product selection will only bring you a lot of inventory and losses. Avoid some pitfalls according to the situation in each country. Germans are very conservative and rigid and don’t like exaggerated electronic products. They don’t use Apple’s large-screen mobile phones, and many Germans use Huawei’s small-screen mobile phones.
As for the colors of household products and maternal and child products, their favorite colors are mainly black, gray, and dark blue. Asians like red and yellow, which they will not choose.
All product selection is based on the sales data of similar products and whether your supply chain can surpass your competitors' products. Don’t just rush into selecting products and putting them on the shelves. If you really want to give it a try, I suggest a small trial sale of 50-100 units. Rich people are welcome to order as you please.
In addition, sellers need to understand various EU certifications, such as: WEEE. There must be a trash can logo on the outer packaging.
If you want to start a pan-European remote sales plan, the VAT tax numbers of various European countries need to be complete to avoid being ordered to stop selling by Amazon.
On Amazon's road to growth, in addition to product development and selection, listing optimization is also one of the difficulties that must be overcome. What should sellers do specifically to create high-quality listings with high exposure and strong clicks?
After the product is put on the shelves, unless it is a fatal error, do not modify the title and main image of the listing. Every modification will affect the product ranking. High exposure and strong clicks are most closely related to the main image, title and five-point description of the listing.
1) The main picture should look attractive, and the display effect should be better than that of your competitors, or at least not worse than that of your competitors. A size of 1000*1000-1500*1500 square is enough. If the size is too large, it will be distorted on the mobile terminal, affecting the display effect and opening speed.
2) The first word in the title is the most important keyword for generating orders (the first word after applying for brand registration is the brand). Before the product is put on the shelf, you should use third-party software (such as Amazon Captain, which costs more than 80 yuan to query a listing) to select it instead of running an automatic advertisement to determine it. This is because Amazon’s new product promotion period is only 60 days, and the strong promotion period is only about the first 15 days. By the time the automatic advertisement runs and the main keywords for generating orders come out, the listing has already passed the best system recommendation period. Find the most important order-generating keywords by weight and embed them in the title and five-point description. Be careful not to repeat keyword stacking.
3) When introducing the product attributes in detail, be sure to clearly state the benefits of this attribute.
For example, the material of this kind of clothes is very special modal cotton, which is softer than ordinary cotton fabric, feels better on the skin, and is not only sweat-absorbent, wear-resistant and breathable, but also prevents mildew. Very suitable for buyers who do outdoor sports. Modal cotton is the material attribute of the product, and a bunch of benefits written at the end are all to illustrate that the product's attributes are suitable for consumers who engage in outdoor sports.
Although there are some common operating strategies when operating Amazon’s European site, the specific circumstances of each seller are different. How can sellers choose different operating routines based on their own conditions?
1) Many sellers decide not to continue trading on the European site after seeing that they have to pay taxes. This may be because the profit margins of their products are too low. If they don’t raise prices after paying taxes, they really can’t continue trading. Don’t sell low-priced, uncompetitive products anymore.
2) Many big sellers use a distribution model on the North American site. A batch upload form can upload thousands of products in a short period of time and then receive a large number of reviews. Every site in Europe needs a VAT number. If every European site needs to establish a complete tax system, it will be costly to hire someone to place fake orders. Moreover, a site account in Europe is associated with tax reporting and certification, which will cost a lot of sellers. Sellers dare not distribute goods indiscriminately like they do in North America. It is easy to infringe on rights or have the tax number and certification removed.
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This is the end of the knowledge about Amazon Europe in this issue. If you want to get more information about Amazon Europe, please pay attention and we will continue to answer your questions~
