Ask Me Anything Series 1:
[For Singapore Sellers]

Our advice is to start local then go global. This is because for Amazon.sg the monthly subscription fee of $29.95 is being waived until the end of the year. You can sign up for the professional plan and it's a great opportunity to familiarize yourself with the interface, learn how to get your products listed and utilise the Amazon tools available. Once you are ready, then expand beyond Singapore to reach out to the 200 million Prime members worldwide.

Amazon has 18 global marketplaces in 200+ countries and territories. To expand to other international stores, you have to open a country specific individual marketplace account. The reason being each country has their own regulations. For example, for food products in the US there you need to comply with FDA regulations in order to sell, whereas in Singapore you just need to make sure that it does not contain any prohibited ingredient by the Health Sciences Authority.

Unfortunately we can't manage all this under one particular account, however, you are able to migrate your entire inventory listing over to the new Amazon marketplace. For all the product listings that you have created or are already on the Amazon database, you just need to provide the ASIN and use the Expand Offers Internationally (EOI) tool. All the product information such as description and pictures can be brought over to the new marketplace.

For Amazon.sg, we only take orders and deliver to Singapore consumers with a registered Singapore address. If you are planning to sell to the US on Amazon.com, you need to open an amazon.com account.

There are two options, the first one to register directly with GS1 and they will provide you with a barcode. This is great if you are planning to sell long term or in many different marketplaces. The second option if you don't want to register with GS1 due to cost issues, you can apply for a GTIN barcode exemption from Amazon seller central.

The commission or referral fee ranges from 6%-15% depending on the different categories you choose to sell in. For a full breakdown you can visit this page.

At the moment, shoes and handbags are under apparel which is not a category that has been launched on Amazon.sg yet, hence why you will face listing issues. But if you have products other than apparels you can feel free to list it on amazon Singapore we have over 20 product categories that are open to sellers.

No, Amazon does not have a service of picking up from your warehouse or place. There are two ways of delivering, the first is Fulfillment By Merchant whereby you arrange with a third-party service provider to come and collect from your warehouse or shop to deliver to the end customer. For example, if someone places an order today, you'll receive a notification in seller central saying that order has been placed. You will have to contact your third party logistics service provider to tell them to deliver to the customer.

The other delivery method is Fulfillment by Amazon where you store your products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we pick, pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Right now we have the FBA New Selection Program. When it comes to FBA fees, we usually charge two different kinds of fees. The first is the storage cost and the other is the fulfillment fee. However, with this program, you get to enjoy free storage for the first three months if your listed items are new to FBA. So if you are selling an item that is not available for sale on Amazon Singapore yet and have not previously been fulfilled by Amazon you can qualify for the fee waivers.

When a customer orders a product the payment will be transferred to your Amazon seller central account and every two weeks the money in your Amazon seller central will then be transferred over to your bank account. It will be paid out to you at the start of the month and the second week of the month.