Amazon International Expansion - Which Marketplace to Launch Next

Amazon runs 21 seller-facing marketplaces. Most sellers pick their next one on gut feel: the country their friend just launched in, the market with the biggest headline TAM, or the one with the fewest compliance forms. Three months later the P&L tells the truth. This guide is the framework we use with Nova sellers to rank candidate marketplaces, read the first 90 days of profit data, and pull the plug fast when a market is not working.

The 21 marketplaces, grouped by expansion difficulty

Not every marketplace costs the same to launch into. The compliance and operational lift ranges from "a weekend of admin" (EU-to-EU inside the customs union) to "a six-month project" (Japan, India, Brazil). A useful first pass is to bucket the 21 marketplaces by expansion friction, then rank inside each bucket on demand and fees. The Amazon Global Selling directory is the current source of truth for which marketplaces are open and which require additional approvals.

Demand signals worth checking before you commit

Before running the fee model, confirm the market wants your product. Three signals do most of the work:

• Comparable ASINs and their BSR range. Pull the top 30-50 ASINs in your exact subcategory in the target marketplace. If the median BSR is above 100,000, category velocity is thin and Amazon PPC will burn cash keeping you visible.
• Review counts on the top 10 competitors. A category where the leader has 500 reviews is enterable in 6 months. A category where the leader has 25,000 reviews is a multi-year commitment or a niche play.
• Local search demand. Native-language search volume for your top 5 keywords. Google Trends is the free proxy; a keyword tool with the target country database is the paid one.

A market that fails any two of these signals rarely rescues itself with more launch budget. Move it down the list and come back when the category matures or a competitor exits.

Fee deltas: where the P&L actually breaks

Same product, same price, same weight, wildly different unit economics. FBA fulfillment, monthly storage, referral percentages, and the newer aged-inventory and low-inventory-level fees are all set per marketplace. Two numbers to watch:

• Storage per cubic foot equivalent in Q4. This is where German and Japanese storage bills quietly wreck margin on bulky-but-slow SKUs. Model 6 months of storage before you ship the first unit.
• Referral percentage in your category. Most categories are 8-15% and consistent across marketplaces, but a few (jewelry, Amazon Devices accessories, some grocery subcategories) differ enough to matter.

Compliance, tax, and product safety

VAT and product-safety compliance are the two costs sellers underestimate most. On tax, the UK and each EU country require their own VAT registration if you hold inventory there, and IOSS covers cross-border consignments up to 150 EUR into the EU. HMRC's guidance for overseas sellers is the working reference for UK obligations.

On product safety, the EU General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) came into force in December 2024 and requires a named EU-based Responsible Person, manufacturer contact details on every listing, and clear traceability information. The European Commission's GPSR page lays out the obligations. Amazon suspends listings that fail GPSR compliance, so this is a launch blocker, not a nice-to-have.

Fulfillment: FBA, FBM, and the EU-specific fork

In North America and Asia Pacific, the choice is FBA versus FBM per SKU (see the FBA vs FBM guide for the framework). In Europe, there is a third dimension: which countries hold your FBA inventory.

• EFN (European Fulfillment Network): inventory in one country, cross-border shipping fees on orders from other EU marketplaces. Slowest delivery, thinnest VAT footprint (one country). Best for testing.
• MCI (Multi-Country Inventory): you pick 2-5 countries to hold stock in. Faster delivery, VAT in each. Best for the 60-90 day expansion phase.
• Pan-EU: Amazon distributes inventory across up to 7 EU countries automatically. Lowest fulfillment fees, fastest delivery, Prime everywhere, but VAT registration and filings in every storage country. Best for mature multi-market sellers.

Reading the first 90 days in profit data

A launched marketplace tells you whether it is going to work inside 90 days. The signal is in three windows:

Days 1-30: cold-start

Near-zero organic sessions. PPC is 60-90% of sales. ACoS looks terrifying. Unit contribution margin is often negative because you are funding launch promotions and coupons. This window is not diagnostic on its own; it is expected. What matters is that PPC is delivering unit velocity so the Amazon algorithm sees the ASIN as active.

Days 31-60: diagnostic

Is organic session share growing week-over-week without more ad spend. Is unit session percentage within 10-20 points of your home-market benchmark. Is contribution margin per unit trending toward the model (still often negative after PPC but closing the gap). If any of those three lines is flat, the fix is usually not more ad spend; it is a listing, price, or pack-size problem.

Days 61-90: commit or cut

By day 90, contribution margin after Amazon fees (before COGS) should be positive on more than half your active ASINs and organic share of sales should be above 20%. If both are true, invest: broaden the ASIN set, deepen inventory, expand PPC. If either is missing, cut spend, drain inventory, and either delist or move to FBM to test at a lower cost base.

Currency exposure

Every disbursement Amazon converts from local currency to your home currency at a rate typically 1-2% worse than mid-market. On 100,000 EUR of annual EU revenue that is 1,000-2,000 EUR of quiet margin bleed. Opening a local-currency business account (Wise, Airwallex, Payoneer, or a local bank) and telling Amazon to settle in native currency cuts most of it. Track realized FX as its own line in the P&L; it moves quietly and it compounds.

How Nova reports on all 21 marketplaces

Nova pulls the settlement report on every cycle for every connected marketplace and normalizes fees, promos, refunds, and reserves into one per-SKU P&L. You can slice by marketplace, tag ASINs into brand or portfolio segments via Custom Breakdowns, and reconcile country-level performance in the same view (see the multi-marketplace analytics guide for the operating flow, and the cross-marketplace reporting guide for the reporting patterns Nova sellers use most).

For the pre-launch unit-economics model, the unit economics guide is the starting point. For the monthly view once a marketplace is live, the monthly P&L template is the format most finance teams standardize on.