Amazon,explained.

Amazon sells some products itself, but it says more than half of physical product sales in its UK store come from other businesses, known as third-party sellers. Amazon runs the shop and takes the payment, while each seller owns its stock and sets its own price. The seller's name next to the Add to Basket button tells you who you're buying from, and it can change as different sellers win that spot, known as the Buy Box.

They're two separate routes, and the difference is who owns the stock. Selling to Amazon means Vendor Central, or first party (1P), where Amazon buys your stock wholesale, sets the retail price and chooses which suppliers it buys from. Selling on Amazon means Seller Central, or third party (3P), where the seller owns the stock and sets the price. On a product page, Sold by Amazon means a first-party sale, but Dispatches from Amazon doesn't, because third-party sellers can pay Amazon to store and send their orders.

There are four main routes, and they differ in who owns the stock. You can sell yourself through Seller Central, sell wholesale to Amazon through Vendor Central if it wants to buy from you, pay an agency to run your account or sell to a retailer that buys and resells it. That retailer is the seller of record, so the VAT (value added tax) registrations for those sales and any stock left over are usually its own, but you're paid a wholesale price rather than the retail one.

Amazon's rule is one page per product, so everyone selling that exact item adds their price and delivery terms to the same page. Each page is tied to one ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number), Amazon's own product code, and its photos, title and reviews are shared by every seller. Creating a second page for a product already in Amazon's catalogue breaks the rules, so a fresh page won't get you away from resellers any more than it gets them away from you.

'Sold by' names the business the shopper is buying from, so it owns the stock and sets the price. 'Dispatches from' says who packs and posts it, and if that's Amazon while 'Sold by' names someone else, the seller keeps its stock in Amazon's warehouses through FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon). When one business does both, amazon.co.uk can show a single shipper and seller line. The name shown is a store name the seller picked, so click it and the seller profile gives the registered business name and address.

The Buy Box is the panel holding the Add to Basket button, and one seller's offer sits behind it at a time. Amazon calls it the Featured Offer and picks it on price, delivery speed and the seller's performance. Owning the brand doesn't earn it, so a cheaper or quicker reseller can take the sales on your own page. Since 20 July 2026 UK and EU sellers face no eligibility check before they're considered. EU stores apart from Italy also show a second offer when it's clearly cheaper or quicker.

Someone else listed it, often a reseller who bought your stock from a wholesaler, a distributor, a shop clearing lines or a retailer abroad. If a page already existed they added an offer to it, and if not they built one, so the photos, title and claims shoppers see may have been written by a stranger. The seller can be Amazon itself, supplied by one of your distributors, and Brand Registry, Amazon's free programme for brands with a registered or pending trademark, gives you more say over that page.

It can, through own-label ranges such as Amazon Basics and through its retail arm, which buys stock from brands and wholesalers and can sell your product on your own listing with Amazon as the seller. It then competes for the Buy Box like any other seller. But it can't use third-party sellers' non-public data to compete with them, because the EU's Digital Markets Act has banned that since March 2024 and Amazon made the same binding commitment to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority in 2023.

Prime is Amazon's paid membership, giving fast free delivery on anything with the Prime badge, and shoppers can filter search to Prime items. An offer earns the badge when Amazon trusts it to arrive on time, usually meaning stock held in its warehouses through FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon). In stores including amazon.co.uk and amazon.de, sellers who ship orders themselves can qualify through Seller Fulfilled Prime. The badge belongs to the offer, not the product, so if a seller without Prime wins the Buy Box, shoppers see your product without it.

Not in any form you can market to, because Amazon keeps the customer relationship. On FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) orders Amazon packs and delivers, so it handles the address, and what you see can only be used to complete the order. You can write to a buyer about the order but not send newsletters or offers, even by post. In Brand Registry, Brand Analytics shows trends in what shoppers search for and buy, and Brand Tailored Promotions lets you offer discounts to audiences such as repeat or lapsed customers.

You'll need your business details, your tax details, a bank statement or utility bill as proof of address and a passport or ID for the main contact and anyone owning over 25% of the business. Add a bank account, a chargeable credit or debit card and a phone number. Amazon checks identity from a photo of the face and ID or a video call, and most checks finish within a few business days. Names and addresses must match your documents exactly, and your business address is the one shoppers see.

Amazon Business is Amazon's shop for companies and public bodies, and in Europe it runs in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Business buyers shop the normal store, so your offers already reach them, and a Professional plan adds business-only prices and quantity discounts. Every business order needs a VAT (value added tax) invoice within one business day of dispatch, or a receipt if you're not VAT-registered, and Amazon's free VAT Calculation Service can issue them for you.

Every listing is built from a title with an optional Item Highlights line, a main image and more images, bullet points under 'About this item', a description or A+ content, a hidden box of search terms and product details like size, flavour and pack count. Then there's the offer, meaning your price and stock. In search results shoppers mainly see the main image, title, highlights, price, star rating, delivery date and badges like Prime, so those win the click and the rest gets read on the page.

The main image must show the real product, not a drawing, on a pure white background, filling at least 85% of the frame, with no added text, logos or watermarks and no props that aren't included. Print on the product itself is fine. Aim for 1,000 pixels or more on the longest side so shoppers can zoom. A background that only looks white can still fail Amazon's checks and get the listing hidden from search.

Amazon suggests at least six images and a video, and most shoppers browse on a phone, where the pictures do the bulk of the explaining. Unlike the main image, the others can usually carry text, show dimensions, put the product in use or show the back of the pack. Brands in Brand Registry can add their own videos, and Amazon can show video from influencers in its own programme too, so not every video a shopper sees is one you made.

Since 27 July 2026 a title on amazon.co.uk, amazon.de and amazon.fr can be 75 characters at most, spaces included, in every category except media such as books. Details like materials or uses go in a 125-character Item Highlights box, and older rules still apply, so no word except small ones like 'for' can appear more than twice and symbols like exclamation marks aren't allowed outside brand names. Amazon gradually rewrites any title that's still too long, and brand owners get 14 days to review or edit the rewrite first.

You need your brand in Brand Registry, and then A+ content is free to add through Seller Central, replacing the plain text description further down the page with bigger images, comparison charts and brand information. The comparison chart can send a shopper who isn't sure to another of your products instead of a competitor's. Amazon checks each submission before it goes live and turns down things like prices, discount wording, quotes from customer reviews or links to your own website.

Amazon groups them as variations under one parent page, so shoppers can switch size, colour or flavour without leaving it. The parent can't be bought, and each option has its own product ID, called an ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number), plus its own price and stock. Since changes rolled out by category between February and May 2026, reviews only pool between options whose differences don't change what the product does, such as sizes, colours or pack counts, so a different flavour may end up with its own star rating.

In most categories you do, but only to create a listing, not to add your offer to one that already exists. Amazon wants a barcode issued by GS1, the global barcode body, and in the UK and EU that's usually a 13-digit European Article Number, or EAN. It checks each number against GS1's records and your brand name, so cheap resold barcodes often get rejected. Stock sent to Amazon's warehouses needs a scannable label too, either that EAN or Amazon's own. Brand owners without one can apply for an exemption.

Amazon calls the crossed-out 'before' price a reference price, and amazon.co.uk usually labels it RRP (recommended retail price) or Was Price. The Was Price is the median price shoppers paid over the last 90 days, mostly leaving promotions out. Since 23 April 2026 Amazon UK only shows an RRP if another retailer has been charging that price or shoppers have bought the Featured Offer at it. EU law measures a price cut against your lowest price of the previous 30 days, but UK law sets no day count and bans misleading comparisons instead.

Yes. Shoppers can put a question to Amazon's shopping assistant on the page, and it answers from your listing, your reviews and shoppers' earlier questions. They can also message you privately, and those messages land in the same inbox as your other customer messages. A gap in your product details can turn into a vague or wrong answer from the assistant, and nobody tells you when it happens, so it's worth asking it about your own product from time to time.

They can, because Amazon builds each product page from what several contributors send in, including other sellers of the same product and Amazon's own catalogue systems. So a title, an image or another product detail can change without you touching anything. Brand Registry gives the brand owner the strongest say, but Amazon's systems can still overwrite details. It's worth downloading a copy of your listing details from Seller Central every so often, so you can spot changes and put them back.

If you haven't run out of stock, it's most likely been suppressed, meaning Amazon has hidden it for breaking a listing rule, such as a main image that isn't on white, a missing required detail or a claim it won't allow. A price Amazon flags as a possible mistake can switch the offer off too, and on the EU stores so can missing product safety or packaging compliance details. It normally comes back once the problem's fixed, but stock in Amazon's warehouses keeps paying monthly storage while it's hidden.

Usually the category, the brand or that particular product is gated, which means Amazon wants to approve you first, and Seller Central says so when you try to add it. It can also be a barcode that doesn't match the records of GS1, the body that issues them. Approval usually means sending documents such as supplier invoices, compliance paperwork or clear label images, and it doesn't carry across from amazon.co.uk to amazon.de, so you may need to apply again.

Amazon bans promotional wording such as 'best seller' or 'free delivery' from titles, bullet points, descriptions and images, and it's worth keeping it out of the hidden search terms too. Health claims are tighter still. A food or supplement can never claim to prevent, treat or cure a disease or medical condition, and any health claim it does make has to be one on the official register. Great Britain's register is separate from the one the EU and Northern Ireland use, so a claim allowed on amazon.de isn't automatically allowed on amazon.co.uk.

Amazon first picks out the products that match what the shopper typed, using your title, bullet points, product details and hidden search terms. It then ranks those matches on signals such as how often shoppers buy each one, its price, whether it's in stock and how fast it can arrive. That's why a live listing with no sales history can sit pages deep, and most products need ads and early reviews to climb. Results are personalised too, so searching for your own product won't show you what every shopper sees.

Every listing has a search terms box in Seller Central that shoppers never see, for synonyms and other ways people describe your product. Amazon caps it at under 250 bytes in the UK and EU stores, and the box counts bytes, not letters, so an accented character like ä, é or ß costs two and German and French terms fill it faster. Go over and Amazon ignores the whole box. Brand names are banned in it, yours as well as anyone else's, and breaking that rule can get your listing suppressed.

Search Amazon for your ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) plus the words, like B0XXXXXXXX vegan protein. If your product comes up, Amazon has picked it up for them. No result can mean the words aren't in your listing, your hidden search terms box is over its size limit, an edit has knocked them out or Amazon doesn't rate them relevant. Wait a day or two after any edit. The test shows you can appear, not where you rank, and it only covers the store you ran it in.

Start with the suggestions that drop down as you type in Amazon's search bar, which Amazon's own seller guide points you to for ideas. Brand Registry adds Brand Analytics, where the Amazon Search Terms report ranks each store's searches by how often they're typed and Search Query Performance shows how your brand does on the searches that find you. Your ads' search term report shows the exact words people typed before clicking, but only on searches your ads appeared for, so it can't reveal the ones you're missing.

Details such as size, flavour, material and pack count are what the filters in Amazon's search results run on, and its shopping assistant reads them when a shopper asks about your product. When someone ticks a filter like Vegan or Gluten Free, Amazon goes by the matching field rather than your title or bullet points. If that field's empty, your product can drop out of their results, however clearly the rest of the listing says it.

Yes, because the category decides which filters shoppers can find you through and which Best Sellers list you're ranked in. It also drives your referral fee, the percentage Amazon takes from each sale, but Amazon works that out from its own fee category, which isn't always the category shoppers see on the page. A product Amazon has put in the wrong fee category can pay a higher rate on every sale until someone spots it, which is why it's worth checking the referral fee on your first few orders.

They do, mostly through sales. Your star rating and review count show under your product in search, so they change how many shoppers click and buy, and sales are what move a product up. Amazon works the rating out with a model that weighs things like how recent a review is, not a plain average. Search shows the exact figure next to stars drawn in half steps, so a small slip can turn four and a half stars into four, and clicks and sales can fall with it.

Yes, price is one of the signals Amazon uses to order search results, alongside how well a product matches the search, whether it's in stock and how well it sells. Shoppers see prices side by side in the results, so a price that wins more clicks and orders on a search helps you climb for it. A price well above what the product sells for on other websites can cost you the Buy Box, and your Sponsored Products ads stop showing for as long as you're without it.

Best Sellers Rank (BSR) shows how a product's sales compare with everything else in its category, and number 1 is the top seller. You'll find it in the product details, and Amazon updates it hourly from recent and past sales, with recent ones counting more. A product gets a separate rank in each store and in each category it's listed in, though sizes or colours on one page can share one. It's worked out from sales alone, so a strong rank doesn't guarantee a high spot in search.

The Best Seller badge goes to the number 1 product on Best Sellers Rank in a category or sub-category, shown as "Best Seller in Vitamin D". A sub-category counts, as long as it holds at least 100 products and your sales clear Amazon's threshold. Amazon's Choice is tied to one search, as in Amazon's Choice for "vitamin d3", and Amazon says it weighs ratings, price, popularity, availability and fast delivery. It can appear on one search and not the next, and neither badge can be bought or applied for.

'Bought in past month' is the line Amazon shows under some products in search results, in steps like 50+, 100+ or 1K+, to show shoppers what's selling. The plus sign means at least that many rather than an exact count, and Amazon doesn't publish what it counts, so treat a competitor's figure as a rough floor rather than their real sales.

It helps when it turns into sales, because a sale from an Instagram or email link counts towards your sales history and Best Sellers Rank like any other. Amazon Attribution, a tool for Brand Registry brands, gives each link you share its own tracking tag and reports the clicks and sales it brings. Visitors who leave without buying still count as sessions in Seller Central's Business Reports, so badly targeted traffic drags down the conversion rate shown there.

Rufus is Amazon's shopping assistant, a chat window run by artificial intelligence where shoppers ask things like which moisturiser suits dry skin. It's been on amazon.co.uk since September 2024 and in Germany, France, Italy and Spain since October 2024. It draws on your listing details, customer reviews, shoppers' questions and information from across the web, so plain facts about who a product suits and how it's used help it recommend you. A complaint that keeps coming up in reviews can surface in its answers too, however good the listing is.

Most Amazon ads are pay-per-click (PPC), so you pay only when a shopper clicks. You set a bid and either pick the searches and product pages to appear on or let Amazon choose them. Each spot is auctioned, and you never pay more than your bid unless your campaign uses settings that let Amazon raise it. Ads sit among ordinary results marked Sponsored, and a sale from an ad still counts towards where you rank without ads, but no bid can save a listing people visit and don't buy from.

Sponsored Products, the simplest type, promote one product in search results and on product pages. Sponsored Brands put your logo with several products or a video above and within search results, but as a seller you need Brand Registry to run them. Display ads, once called Sponsored Display, can follow shoppers who viewed your products around Amazon and onto other sites. Sponsored Products only run while you hold the Buy Box, the spot behind the Add to Basket button, so if a reseller wins it, your ads stop showing.

In an automatic campaign Amazon picks the searches and product pages your ad shows on, and in a manual campaign you choose the keywords or products and set each bid. Amazon suggests running auto for about two weeks, then copying the searches that sell from the search term report into a separate manual campaign alongside it, since a live campaign can't switch type. Auto targeting works from your listing and from past shopper searches, so vague titles and bullet points send your ads to the wrong searches.

Broad, phrase and exact are the three ways a keyword you bid on can match a shopper's search. Bid on 'yoga mat' as exact match and your ad shows for that search and close variants like 'yoga mats'. Phrase match adds searches with extra words around it, like 'thick yoga mat', and broad adds related searches in any order, like 'mat for yoga'. Broad finds searches you'd never guess, but you also pay for clicks that never become a sale, and the search term report shows you which is which.

A negative keyword is a word or phrase you tell Amazon not to show your ad for, so you stop paying for clicks from shoppers who want something else. If you sell vitamin D capsules you might add 'gummies' as a negative phrase, blocking every search containing it, and 'vitamins' as a negative exact, blocking only that vague search and close variants like 'vitamin'. Negative phrase is the one that catches brands out, because adding 'free' to keep freebie hunters away also blocks every 'sugar free' and 'gluten free' search.

ACoS (advertising cost of sales) is your ad spend divided by the sales those ads brought in, so £30 spent for £100 of ad sales is 30%. TACoS (total advertising cost of sales) divides the same spend by all your sales, ad or no ad, which shows how much you lean on paid clicks. Your break-even ACoS is your margin before advertising, so if a £20 sale including value added tax (VAT) leaves £6 after VAT, fees and product costs, any ACoS under 30% still makes money.

Amazon lets any advertiser bid on your brand name or aim ads at your product page, so rivals can sit above you when people search for your brand and in the Sponsored rows on that page. Owning the brand doesn't stop this, which is why Amazon's own guidance suggests bidding on your brand name yourself. Sales from brand-name ads look cheap, but most of those shoppers were already looking for you, so they say little about whether your ads reach people who didn't know you.

Amazon's UK and main EU stores ran Spring Deal Days from 10 to 16 March 2026 and Prime Day from 23 to 26 June. Prime Big Deal Days follows on 6 and 7 October, then Black Friday Week around Friday 27 November. Products only appear among the event's deals if you submit one in Seller Central before Amazon's cut-off, and each carries a fee. Stock has to reach Amazon weeks early to keep its Prime badge: 28 October in the UK for Black Friday Week, 21 October elsewhere in Europe.

Subscribe & Save lets shoppers set up repeat deliveries of things they use up, like vitamins or pet food, often at a discount. Any base discount on your product comes out of your margin, and on amazon.co.uk shoppers can save up to 15% in total when 5 or more of their subscriptions arrive on the same day. Each delivery is charged at that day's price, so a price rise reaches every subscriber. If your product leaves the programme, Amazon can switch those subscriptions to a suitable replacement.

FBA stands for Fulfilment by Amazon, where you send your stock into Amazon's warehouses and, when an order comes in, Amazon picks it, packs it, delivers it and deals with any return. You pay a fee for every unit it ships plus monthly storage, and in return your offer normally qualifies for the Prime badge. The UK and EU have run as separate networks since 1 January 2021, so selling in both usually means holding stock on both sides of the Channel.

You can, and Amazon calls it FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant), where you or your own warehouse send each order and handle returns. You skip Amazon's fulfilment and storage fees but still pay its referral fee on each sale, and the Prime badge only shows if you qualify for Seller Fulfilled Prime. Amazon holds you to targets on dispatch, cancellations and tracking, so missing them hurts your account health. Plenty of brands mix the two, keeping bulky or slow sellers on FBM and fast sellers in FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon).

Every unit has to arrive ready to shelve and ship, which Amazon calls prep. Each one needs a single barcode that scans, either the one on the pack if you're the brand representative in Brand Registry or Amazon's FNSKU (fulfilment network stock keeping unit) label covering any other barcode. Loose or fragile items need protective prep such as a poly bag, bubble wrap or sealing, and the outer box has to stand up to transport and storage. Stock that arrives wrong can be rejected, reworked or charged extra.

Not in the UK for stock sent in since 31 March 2026, when Amazon ended commingling, which pooled identical units so a customer could get another seller's unit. Each of those units stays tied to the seller who sent it, so a reseller's stock on your page is kept apart from yours. Brand owners can use the barcode on the pack, but only with the brand representative role in Brand Registry, while everyone else has to stick Amazon's FNSKU (fulfilment network stock keeping unit) label on each unit.

A safety data sheet request means Amazon thinks your product might be a dangerous good, something flammable, pressurised, corrosive or otherwise harmful, like perfume, aerosols or lithium batteries. Until Amazon has reviewed it, the product can be blocked from FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon), so you send the manufacturer's safety data sheet or, if it isn't hazardous, Amazon's exemption sheet. Confirmed dangerous goods are stored separately at their own rates, count towards your capacity limits and pay an extra £0.10 fulfilment fee per unit on amazon.co.uk (€0.10 in the euro stores).

Amazon caps how much you can send in and store each month through capacity limits, set for each storage type, such as standard-size and oversize. They're measured by volume and based on your sales forecast, how much room Amazon has and your Inventory Performance Index, a score for how well you manage your stock. Capacity Manager in Seller Central lets you bid a reservation fee for extra space, and credits from selling that stock can cover the fee, so it mostly costs you when the stock sits.

Storage is billed monthly for the space your stock takes up, and in the UK, standard-size products outside clothing, eyewear, shoes and bags pay £0.76 per cubic foot, about a 30 cm cube, from January to September. That roughly doubles to £1.51 from October to December. Warehouses in Germany, France, Italy and Spain charge €27.54 per cubic metre, rising to €52.20 over those three months. In the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Ireland, most stock held 241 days or more also picks up an aged inventory surcharge.

Both can in the EU. The UK only charges for too much. In the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, more than 22 weeks of stock, judged against 13 weeks of sales, adds a storage utilisation surcharge, though not in your first 52 weeks of sending stock in or while you store under 25 cubic feet. Standard-size products in Pan-European Fulfilment by Amazon also pay a low-inventory fee in Germany, France, Italy and Spain once stock falls below 28 days of sales over both the last 30 and 90 days.

Your sales stop, and so do your Sponsored Products ads, Amazon's pay-per-click product ads, because they only show while the product is in stock and holding the Buy Box. Amazon's search ranking leans on sales and availability, so the longer you're out the further the listing can slip, and climbing back can take extra ad spend or a discount once stock lands. If a reseller still has stock on your page, they can win the Buy Box and the sales until yours is back.

Amazon's UK and EU warehouses take expiry-dated stock, but it has to arrive with plenty of shelf life left, and Amazon sets the minimum in its expiry-dated product rules in Seller Central. Units close to their date are treated as unsellable, and Amazon can remove them at shorter notice than other stock. Unless you've told it to send unsellable units back, or you ask for them in time, they're disposed of, so slow-selling stock can end up a straight loss.

Amazon pays you for units it loses or damages in its warehouses, and units missing from a shipment you sent in can be claimed too. Warehouse losses are paid automatically, and since 31 March 2025 the payment has been what the unit cost you to make or buy, not counting freight or duty, rather than its selling price. Amazon estimates that cost itself unless you enter yours in Seller Central, and if a warehouse payment doesn't arrive you have 60 days from the loss being reported to claim.

Yes, you place a removal order in Seller Central, your account's back office, and Amazon sends the stock to an address you choose or disposes of it. At July 2026 UK rates, sending back a standard-size item of 200g or less costs £0.49 but disposal costs £0.74, and UK stock can currently only go to UK addresses. Stock can take weeks, sometimes months, to leave the warehouse. If you haven't chosen what happens to unsellable stock, a customer return Amazon can't resell is disposed of straight away, with no warning.

Amazon will pack and post your website orders through Multi-Channel Fulfilment (MCF), using the stock you've sent in for Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). It runs in the UK and EU countries including Germany, France, Italy and Spain, though since Brexit it won't ship between the two. Eligible UK orders go out in unbranded boxes, but the per-unit fee is usually higher than FBA charges on an Amazon order. Your website and Amazon listing share the same stock, so a busy week online can leave the listing out of stock.

Well before October, because Prime Big Deal Days, Amazon's autumn sale for Prime members, runs on 6 and 7 October 2026 on amazon.co.uk and Black Friday follows on 27 November. Storage fees for most standard-size products roughly double from October to December, and from 15 October 2026 to 14 January 2027 the fee to pick, pack and send an amazon.co.uk or amazon.de order rises slightly for most parcel-sized products. For anything made overseas that usually means ordering Christmas stock in the summer.

Every sale pays a referral fee, a percentage of the sale price including value added tax (VAT). If Amazon ships your orders you also pay a Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) fee per unit plus monthly storage, with a 1.5% fuel and logistics surcharge on the per-unit fee in the UK and EU stores since 17 April 2026. The FBA fee goes mainly by size and weight, not price, so a cheap, bulky high-street best-seller can lose money per order before advertising or the digital services fee comes into it.

On the Professional plan you do, at £25 a month plus value added tax (VAT) if you sign up through amazon.co.uk or €39 plus VAT through an EU store. The Individual plan charges £0.75 or €0.99 per item sold instead, so it costs more once you pass 33 sales a month on amazon.co.uk, and it won't let you advertise, run promotions or sell in restricted categories. One Professional subscription covers Amazon's European stores, so adding a country doesn't add a second monthly fee.

A referral fee is Amazon's commission on every sale, a percentage of the full price the customer pays including value added tax (VAT). Rates are set by category and most sit between 8% and 15%, although some switch rate once the price passes a set point. There's usually a minimum of £0.25 an item on amazon.co.uk or €0.30 in Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Amazon picks the rate from the category it files your product under, so a product in the wrong category can pay more than it should.

The Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) fee goes by size band and weight, using Amazon's measurement of your packed product. Above Amazon's envelope sizes most products pay on whichever is higher of the real weight and the dimensional weight (length × width × height in cm ÷ 5,000), so a big, light box pays like a heavy one. Thickness matters too, and on amazon.co.uk a 200 g item priced over £20 pays a base fee of £2.10 at 2.5 cm but £2.72 at 3 cm outside the mid-October to mid-January peak.

Some Amazon fees step up at set prices, so a penny over the line can leave you with less per sale than a penny under it. On amazon.co.uk the cheaper Low-Price Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) rates only cover small, light items priced at £20 or less (£10 in categories such as beauty, health and grocery). Referral fees can do the same, and vitamins and supplements pay 5% up to £10 but 15% of the whole price above it, so a £10.00 bottle pays £0.50 and a £10.01 bottle about £1.50.

Amazon adds a digital services fee to cover the digital services taxes the UK, French, Italian and Spanish governments charge it, and it's a percentage of Amazon's own fees rather than your sale price. The rate depends on the store and on where your business is established, so a UK company pays 2% on its selling and Fulfilment by Amazon fees in the UK and in stores such as Germany. Since 20 March 2026 that same UK company has paid 3% on those fees in France, Italy and Spain.

A refund costs you 20% of the referral fee, up to £5 on amazon.co.uk, which Amazon keeps as an admin charge before handing back the rest. If Amazon shipped the order it also keeps the Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) fee. FBA products returned more often than their category's threshold pay a returns processing fee on each return above it, and clothing and shoes pay one whatever their return rate. Anything that can't be resold is your loss unless Amazon or its carrier damaged it, when Amazon should pay you back.

You do. Every coupon, Prime-only discount and deal comes out of your margin, and Amazon charges a fee on coupons and deals. Since November 2025 a voucher, Amazon UK's word for a coupon, has cost £2 plus 0.75% of voucher sales, with the 0.75% capped at £200, and Prime Day deals have their own rates. In the EU stores an advertised price cut must be measured against your lowest price of the last 30 days, so a deal price can become the benchmark for the next cut Amazon shows.

Expect a few weeks from sale to bank, because Amazon holds each order's money until 7 days after the delivery date, a rule it calls DD+7. That money is then paid out on a two-week cycle, although you can ask for your available balance sooner, and the bank transfer can take up to five working days. Amazon can also hold back an extra reserve, so stock and freight are paid for long before the sales money lands.

Amazon's own tools are Vine, which sends brand-registered products free to vetted reviewers, and the Request a Review button in your Seller Central account, which asks once per order, 5 to 30 days after delivery. Offering money, free product, refunds or gifts for reviews outside Vine breaks Amazon's rules and can cost you the account. The law bans fake reviews outright too, in the EU since May 2022 and in the UK since April 2025, when the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 also banned reviews hiding an incentive.

Vine, which gives your units to trusted reviewers for honest reviews, is free on amazon.co.uk for up to 2 units per product page, then £60 for up to 10 and £140 for up to 30. Germany, France and Spain charge €0, €70 and €170 for the same tiers, which Amazon set in October 2023. It's open to brand-registered products sold through Fulfilment by Amazon with fewer than 30 reviews, and you're only charged if you enrol 3 or more units and the first review arrives within 90 days.

Reviews only come down when they break Amazon's Community Guidelines, so being negative or unfair isn't enough. You can flag one with the Report link under it if it's abusive, written by a competitor or about delivery, damage or the seller rather than the product. Offering a refund or anything else to change or delete it breaks Amazon's rules. Seller feedback is the separate rating for your service, and on Fulfilment by Amazon orders, feedback that's only about delivery gets struck through, with a note that Amazon takes responsibility.

Yes, your Account Health Rating scores how well you follow Amazon's policies on a 1,000-point scale, and every account starts at 200, the lowest healthy score. Your order defect rate has to stay under 1%, counting orders with 1 or 2-star seller feedback, an A-to-z Guarantee claim or a card chargeback over a problem with the order. If you dispatch orders yourself, late dispatch must stay under 4%, cancellations under 2.5% and valid tracking above 95%. Slipping counts against you in the Buy Box and, over time, the account.

Aim to reply within 24 hours, because Seller Central, the back office where you run your Amazon account, flags any message left longer as late. Amazon tells shoppers to expect a reply within 48 hours, and on an order you dispatched yourself, a shopper with a problem who hasn't heard back by then can open an A-to-z Guarantee claim. Amazon keeps copies of the messages, which a shopper can use to back up a claim.

It's Amazon's promise that what you sell arrives on time and as described, or the shopper is refunded. They can claim when an order goes wrong and you don't answer within 48 hours or don't fix it, up to 90 days after the latest delivery date. Amazon's customer service handles Fulfilment by Amazon orders, so claims mostly come from orders you ship yourself. Claims granted against you are charged to your account and count towards your order defect rate, as do pending ones and any you refund after they're filed.

Amazon suspends accounts over fakes or stock you can't back up with supplier invoices, restricted products, trademark or copyright complaints, review manipulation, failed identity checks and poor performance. It can also deactivate accounts it treats as related to a suspended one, so a link can take yours down. Unlike a suppressed listing that hides one product, a suspension stops the whole account and Amazon can hold your money while it's deactivated. Getting reinstated usually takes a plan of action covering the cause, the fix and what stops it happening again.

You can sell on Amazon without a trademark, and you can still use Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) and Sponsored Products, the standard search ads. What you can't do is join Brand Registry, which means less say over your own product page and no A+ content, Brand Store, Sponsored Brands ads or Report a Violation, its tool for reporting fakes and copies. A UK trademark takes around 3 to 4 months to be granted if there are no problems, but a pending application is usually enough to join, so it's worth filing before you launch.

Brand Registry is Amazon's free programme for brands that own a trademark or have applied for one, and it gives you more control over what your product pages show. It also opens up the tools Amazon keeps for brand owners, like A+ content, a Brand Store, Sponsored Brands ads, Amazon Vine reviews and Brand Analytics search data. Its Report a Violation tool covers fakes and copies that infringe your trademark, copyright or patent, but genuine stock resold by someone else is generally still allowed on your page.

A pending application is usually enough if it's with an office Amazon accepts, like the UK or EU Intellectual Property Office, and your brand name is permanently on the product or pack. Some anti-fake tools, including Transparency and Project Zero, only open up once the mark is fully registered. Since 1 April 2026 a UK application filed online costs £205 for one class of goods, and an EU one starts at €850. An EU mark hasn't covered the UK since 1 January 2021, so each side needs its own mark.

Anyone selling your products on Amazon without your say-so is unauthorised. The stock often comes from wholesalers, overstocked distributors, retailers clearing lines or bulk buys during your promotions. Reselling genuine stock first sold in the UK or European Economic Area (EEA) with your consent generally isn't against Amazon's rules, so Amazon won't remove them on request. It can act when you show a real breach, like fake stock or goods that have been altered or damaged. The usual proof is a test buy, where you order from them and report what arrives through Brand Registry.

They can, because every seller of a product shares one page, so a fake sold by anyone with an offer on yours earns its bad reviews on your listing. Amazon needs evidence, usually a test buy, where you order from that seller, compare what arrives with your own stock and report it through Brand Registry with the order number. Brands with a registered trademark and a record of accurate reports can join Project Zero, which lets them remove counterfeit offers themselves.

Transparency codes are serial codes, one on every unit of an enrolled product, that Amazon checks before shipping, whoever's selling it. Units without a valid code can't be sold through Amazon, so fakes get stopped along with any genuine units that were never coded. The programme needs a registered trademark and a barcode and runs in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, with no sign-up fee but a charge per code. The catch is that codes go on every unit you make, including stock sold through shops.

You can if you own the copyright, which is automatic for photos you or your staff took, but a freelance photographer usually keeps it unless your contract hands it over. With Brand Registry you report copies through the Report a Violation tool, which can search the catalogue by image, and without it you use Amazon's Report Infringement form. Either route only covers copies on other products' pages, because anyone selling your product on its shared page may use the images there, and reporting them can cost you those tools.

If the stock's there and the listing's live, price is a common cause. Amazon can hide the Buy Box holding the button when your price looks well above what the product has been selling for or what other retailers charge, even if you're the only seller. A lower price at another retailer can be enough, and shoppers then have to click See All Buying Options. Germany's competition authority ordered Amazon in February 2026 to largely stop this on amazon.de, but Amazon has appealed.

Amazon counts ten European stores, amazon.co.uk plus nine EU stores in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Sweden and, since March 2025, Ireland. Germany's amazon.de is the biggest of the EU stores, but each one runs as its own shop with its own prices, search results and local language (French and Dutch in Belgium). The one that surprises UK brands is amazon.ie, because it's in English but sits inside the EU, so EU VAT (value added tax) and product safety rules apply there rather than UK ones.

They've run as two since 1 January 2021, when the UK dropped out of Amazon's EU-wide FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) programmes. So UK and EU stock sit in separate warehouses on either side of a customs border, with separate VAT (value added tax) registrations, product safety laws and packaging rules. One Seller Central account still runs both, and each country keeps its own listing, price and language. Amazon doesn't move stock between its UK and EU warehouses, so stocking both sides takes two separate shipments, one into each.

No, amazon.co.uk is a separate store with its own catalogue, prices and rules, run from a European seller account, not your North American one. You can link accounts and copy listings over with Amazon's Build International Listings tool, but Amazon won't fill UK orders from US warehouses through FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon), so FBA in the UK usually means sending stock to UK warehouses. Copying doesn't sort out UK VAT (value added tax) or labelling rules, and copied text needs checking for UK wording, like biscuits rather than cookies.

Your product page carries across more easily than your reviews. The same product normally keeps one ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) across the UK and EU stores, and Amazon's Build International Listings tool can copy it over and machine-translate the title and bullet points, so check what each country shows. Reviews from other countries can appear in their own section marked with the country, but you can't count on them to lift that store's star rating, so plan for each store to need reviews of its own.

A literal translation usually isn't enough, because it tends to miss the words people in that country type into the search bar, so the listing reads fine but doesn't show up for the searches that sell. Each store needs its own keyword research, and the hidden search terms need redoing in each language too. Text on your images doesn't get translated with the listing, so an infographic written in English needs its own version for each language.

Pan-European FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) moves your EU stock free of charge between the countries you allow, at least two of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland, so orders there pay local rather than cross-border fees. Each product must also be listed in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, plus the Netherlands since 3 September 2026 and Belgium from 26 February 2027. The UK isn't included, and you need a VAT (value added tax) number in every country holding your stock, with returns to file in each.

Yes, for items priced up to €135, through Amazon's Remote Fulfilment, which lets UK FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) stock fill orders in most EU stores, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Amazon collects the VAT (value added tax), so you don't need an EU VAT number, but most products still need an EU-based responsible person and packaging registrations. Since 1 July 2026 each product type in a parcel pays a temporary €3 customs duty, which Amazon adds to the shopper's price, so your offer can cost more than EU-stocked ones.

If your business is based in the UK, you have to register for value added tax (VAT) once your taxable turnover over the last 12 months passes £90,000, a level set in April 2024. There's no threshold at all if you're based abroad, and Amazon collects and pays the VAT on your sales to consumers from UK stock as the deemed supplier. You still pay import VAT when your stock comes into the country, and you can only claim it back once you're registered.

You need a value added tax (VAT) number in each EU country where your stock is imported or stored. If your business is based outside the EU, Amazon collects and pays the VAT on your sales to consumers from that stock as the deemed supplier, under rules that took effect on 1 July 2021. The registrations are still how you reclaim import VAT and report stock that Amazon moves between countries, but selling from UK stock through Remote Fulfilment needs none, because Amazon handles the VAT on those low-value parcels.

Yes, because Brexit made the UK and EU separate customs territories, so each side's stock clears customs on its own. A GB EORI (Economic Operators Registration and Identification) number, the ID customs uses for importers, doesn't work in the EU, so importing there in your own name needs an EU one, which covers every EU country. The UK-EU trade deal's zero tariff doesn't cover goods made elsewhere, so Chinese-made stock cleared into Britain first can pay duty twice, unless it stays under a customs procedure such as a customs warehouse or transit.

EPR, or Extended Producer Responsibility, makes the brand owner or importer who first sells packaged goods, electricals or batteries in a country pay towards recycling the waste. Each country runs its own register, and amazon.de has blocked listings without a LUCID packaging number since 2022. The UK packaging scheme starts at £1m turnover and 25 tonnes a year, but only those above £2m and 50 tonnes pay recycling fees. In France, Spain and, for overseas sellers, the UK, Amazon's Pay on Behalf can pay the fees on your Amazon sales and bill you plus a service fee. Germany has none.

GPSR, the EU's General Product Safety Regulation, has applied since 13 December 2024 to almost every consumer product you sell in the EU apart from food and supplements. Each product needs a responsible person based in the EU, the business regulators contact about it, whose name, postal address and an email or web contact go on the pack and listing with the manufacturer's details, a batch or model number and any warnings. Amazon can pull EU listings missing any of it. Great Britain still uses its 2005 rules instead, although Northern Ireland follows GPSR.

Only if your product type calls for one. CE and UKCA (UK Conformity Assessed) are marks showing a product meets the rules for things like electricals, toys and personal protective equipment, while food, supplements and cosmetics carry neither. Northern Ireland follows EU rules and needs CE, and a few sectors, such as medical devices, run to their own timetable. For most other products Great Britain has accepted CE with no end date since 1 October 2024, so you can use CE instead of UKCA, whatever older guides say.

Not always, because supplements are legally food, and EU law only fixes the basics, such as which vitamin and mineral forms are allowed and what the label must say. Maximum doses have never been agreed EU-wide, so countries such as France set their own limits, and several, including Germany and Italy, want to be notified when a product first goes on sale. The label changes too, because EU countries expect it in the local language, and Great Britain has required a UK business address on food labels since January 2024.

Consumer law in the UK and EU says shoppers must be able to see who they're buying from, so Amazon shows your business name and address on the seller profile linked from your listing. The EU's Digital Services Act also makes marketplaces check who each seller is and show shoppers the seller's phone number, email and any company registration number. It's the business address you give Amazon, so if that's your home, that's the address shoppers see.

The labelling on a test buy tells you whether you've got a trademark case or a distribution problem. A UK trademark stops applying to goods once they've been put on the market in the UK or the European Economic Area with your consent, and consent given anywhere else doesn't count. So genuine stock bought at US retail and resold on amazon.co.uk can still infringe, as long as you hold a mark registered in the UK. Proper UK labelling points to your own distribution instead.

If the unauthorised stock carries your own UK packaging and isn't a copy, it was sold in the UK with your consent at some point, which makes a trademark complaint against the seller unlikely to work. The leak sits in your distribution instead. Order a test buy, trace the batch or lot code back to the distributor or retailer that received it, then take it up with them under your supply agreement. That's a contract conversation rather than an Amazon one.

Only the rights owner, or an agent they've authorised, can report an infringement to Amazon, and a distribution agreement about buying and selling usually doesn't grant that authority on its own. Brand Registry runs its own user roles, separate from the permissions on a seller account, so an administrator can give a colleague the Rights Owner role or an outside partner the Registered Agent role, which exists for exactly this. Each person signs in with their own account, so nobody needs your Seller Central password.

Editing your pages comes from a role an administrator hands out in Brand Registry, so writing 'as brand representative' in a Seller Support case counts for nothing. Amazon means the Brand Representative role for someone employed by the brand and the Reseller role for an outside seller you've authorised, and both can edit A+ content. Two accounts on the same role have equal standing, and Seller Support won't choose between them. We've seen one holder's out-of-date pack shots stay live until the brand's administrator stepped in.

Price-history tools record which sellers have held the Buy Box on your products and at what price, though they show a seller name rather than who stands behind it. One seller holding it for months, or two swapping at an identical price, usually means somebody is running your brand deliberately. Constant rotation points to stock leaking from several places. A seller who spends nothing on ads can still win it on price, so the work and the sale don't always sit with the same party.

If Amazon turns down an infringement report, rewording it until one version gets through is the wrong move. Amazon scores how accurate your reports are and shows the score in Brand Registry, and a weak score keeps you out of its stronger tools, like Project Zero, which needs a 99% accuracy rate to keep. File one report per seller and per issue, with nothing in it you can't prove, and keep the word counterfeit for a product you've examined yourself after a test buy.

In-Stock Head Start lets shoppers buy an out-of-stock product while your shipment is on its way in, and if you use Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) you're enrolled automatically. Shoppers see a delivery estimate built on the predicted in-stock date, and we've seen a launch listing quote a date two weeks out, which gives early visitors a reason not to buy while your ads pay for the clicks. It's an account-level setting rather than a per-product one, and pausing it doesn't reach shipments you create in the next 72 hours.

Overlabelling imported stock for UK or EU rules often covers the barcode on the pack, and that barcode is what Amazon's warehouse scans on arrival. Amazon needs one scannable barcode per unit, so an overlabel sitting over the pack barcode has to carry the same number, or Amazon's FNSKU (fulfilment network stock keeping unit) label has to cover the other barcodes. On food and supplements the overlabel also can't cover anything Food Information Regulation 1169/2011 makes mandatory, like the ingredients, allergens and the best-before date.

With the brand representative role in Brand Registry you can send eligible Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) stock in on the barcode printed on the pack instead of Amazon's FNSKU (fulfilment network stock keeping unit) label. Going back means creating a new SKU (stock keeping unit) for each product, because the setting belongs to the SKU rather than the listing. Sponsored Products ads, deals, vouchers and Subscribe & Save subscriptions don't carry over to the new SKU, so reversing the switch costs more than making it.

Prices on amazon.co.uk include value added tax (VAT), 20% on most products, while US shelf prices have the tax added at the till. Match a US price in the UK and the VAT comes out of your margin before Amazon's fees do, and the referral fee is charged on the VAT-inclusive price too. At that rate, a £20 shelf price leaves £16.67 before a single Amazon fee comes off, so set UK prices from UK costs rather than copying amazon.com.

Customs charge duty on the goods plus the cost of getting them to the border, whatever your shipping terms. Buy ex works, where you collect from the supplier and pay the freight, and that freight still goes into the value duty is charged on. Import VAT (value added tax) works differently, because a business registered for VAT in the country it imports into can normally reclaim it on goods it owns, so it's cash flow rather than cost. Duty isn't recoverable that way, so it stays in the unit cost.

Open a case with a few sentences that state the problem and make one request, with only the identifiers that matter, such as the ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) or shipment number. Attach something the person reading it can check at a glance, like a photo with the problem circled. If the reply is a template, answer once more then ask for it to be escalated. Don't let a wrong statement stand to sound helpful, because your own words stay in the case log for the next reviewer.

When you edit listings in bulk through a spreadsheet in Seller Central, the Listing Action column decides what each row does. Leave it empty and Amazon treats the row as Create or Replace, so any cell you left blank can wipe the wording that was live. The Edit option, which Amazon also calls a partial update, changes only the fields you've filled in. Start from a download of your current listings, so one column can't strip bullet points or search terms across your whole catalogue.

Amazon builds a page's image set from everyone selling on it, so arguing that yours look better rarely gets anywhere. What sometimes works is showing the live images are wrong for that store, like a US pack with US measurements when UK shoppers receive a UK-labelled one. Show the live image beside the pack customers get and file it as inaccurate listing information through Report abuse under Account Health, not a Brand Registry intellectual property complaint. A listing that misdescribes what's in the box is Amazon's problem too.

A green tick in Seller Central and an upload marked complete only mean the file passed the first checks on format, permissions and offer status. A second content check runs afterwards and can stop an image appearing, with nothing on the upload screen to say so, though Submission status can flag it. We've seen a pack photo with an added badge go through and never appear, while the same photo without it went live. So open the product page in each store you uploaded to before counting the job done.

Cutting a title to Amazon's 75-character limit usually removes words the listing was being found for. Amazon matches products to searches largely on the words in the listing, so move what you cut into the bullet points, the hidden search terms box or the 125-character Item Highlights field. Once you've moved them, check the words still find your product. Trim without moving them and the damage shows up weeks later as a quiet drop with nothing obvious to blame it on.

Search volumes on amazon.co.uk read far lower than US ones for the same keyword, and the UK store is a fraction of the size of the US one. Read them against your US figures and it's easy to write off a normal market as weak demand. Compare UK keywords with each other and with the best sellers in your own UK category, and gather the terms in the UK store itself. A search that looks small next to amazon.com can still be the one your category is won on.

Launch below your long-term price and you'll have to put it up later, which shoppers and price-history tools read as a price rise. Set the list price at your target from day one and take the launch discount off with a voucher, the UK store's version of a coupon. A voucher ending looks like a promotion finishing, not a price going up. Step the voucher down over a few weeks while you watch unit session percentage, and price in the fee every voucher carries.

A barcode number is global, so the UPC (Universal Product Code) on your US pack is valid on amazon.co.uk and the EU stores. If a reseller has already listed your product on that number, your offer joins the page they built, with its title, images, reviews and sellers in place. Brand Registry gets you control of that page's content rather than a clean start, so check each store for your barcode first, and expect a fresh European launch to mean new barcodes for the European pack.

Treat the sales estimates in Amazon's global selling tools as a sizing exercise rather than a plan. They can't allow for the things that decide a European launch, like arriving with no reviews in that store, no rank and no recognition. A steadier starting point is how your products sell on amazon.com, scaled to each store's size, then discounted because you'd be starting again on reviews in every country.

Browse node IDs, Amazon's codes for categories, differ by country even where the names match, so a listing copied across Europe needs its own set of nodes in each store. Amazon publishes a browse tree guide per store, and some sub-categories have no equivalent at all. We found a sports supplement sub-category on amazon.co.uk and amazon.fr with nothing matching it on amazon.de, amazon.it or amazon.es, which left one product well placed in two stores and buried in three.

Every listing carries a product tax code telling Amazon which VAT (value added tax) rate applies, and the default is the standard rate in every store. Where a product qualifies for a reduced rate, as many foods do, and Amazon is the one calculating the VAT, the full rate keeps coming out of every sale until the code is changed. A VAT agent filing your returns won't necessarily spot it, and a code set on an offer only covers the store you set it in.

Storing stock in an EU country normally means registering for VAT (value added tax) there, and that includes a prep centre, the warehouse that labels and boxes your stock for Amazon. So a cheaper centre across a border can bring a registration, returns to file and extra freight with it. We've had a low-cost provider announce a move to another country partway through a supply cycle, which turned its address into a tax question overnight. Ask where stock will sit and whether the provider plans to stay there.

Goods entering the EU need an import declaration, and the business named on it, the declarant, generally has to be established in the EU. So a UK or US company can't clear its own goods in, even holding EU VAT (value added tax) numbers and an EU EORI (Economic Operators Registration and Identification) number. The usual answer is an EU-established indirect customs representative, which declares in its own name on your behalf and is liable for the duty alongside you.

A customs declaration is your own assessment, so clearing without questions doesn't mean anyone agreed with your commodity code, the tariff number that sets the duty rate. HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs) can normally demand underpaid duty for 3 years after an import, so a wrong code builds a bill with every shipment. The first 6 digits are the same worldwide, so UK and EU codes that differ there are worth settling. An Advance Tariff Ruling does that, and HMRC aims to reply in 30 to 120 days.

Many food supplements enter the EU under heading 2106, food preparations not elsewhere specified, which carries import duty rather than arriving duty free. Within that heading the subheading turns on sugar, starch and milk-fat content, so gummies and sweetened powders can sit on a different code and rate from tablets in the same range. Customs can ask you to prove that split, and a certificate of analysis won't do it, because it shows purity rather than what the product is made of.

Amazon asks for your LUCID number, the ID from Germany's packaging register, but registering is only the first step under German packaging law. Packaging that reaches consumers also needs a licence with a dual system, one of the private schemes that collect and recycle it, and declarations in LUCID that match the volumes you licensed. So you can pass Amazon's check and still fall short, and the rules differ again in every other EU country.

VAT (value added tax) and packaging EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) are separate rules, so paying a representative in an EU country for one doesn't cover the other. In Italy, joining CONAI, the national packaging consortium, is the membership step, and the obligation that follows runs on periodic declarations and contributions on the packaging you put on the market there. Imported packaging can also get declared twice, once by the agent clearing your goods and once by your EPR provider.

For products like baby sleepwear, the EU's General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) means a technical file, usually backed by lab tests against the relevant EN (European Standard) test methods. US test reports rarely cover those, because they're written against different standards. Fit, cords and fabric warmth are design decisions no label can fix, so a failed test can mean changing the product rather than the sticker. Test a sample before you order stock for Europe.

A label that works across the EU can still fall short in Belgium. Supplements have to be notified to the federal health service there before they go on sale, and that's a condition of selling rather than a formality. Belgium also sets its own maximum daily amounts for some nutrients, so directions like 'once or twice daily' can put a product over the limit at the higher dose. A pack needs the language of each region it's sold in, so Dutch and French, plus German in the east.

If you import or sell food supplements in the UK, you have to register as a food business with your local council, through the Food Standards Agency's online service, at least 28 days before you start trading. It's a notification rather than an application to be approved, and one registration covers every brand you import. We registered once as an importer, paid nothing and found Amazon linked it to a product by matching the business name and address on the label.

Since January 2024, food and supplements sold in Great Britain have needed a UK business name and address on the label, and where the brand isn't based in the UK that's normally the importer. EU packs need an EU-established business named the same way. The two rules don't clash, because one artwork can carry both addresses, each marked for its market. The company named has to be the one that imports the goods and stands behind them.

UK and EU rules require the label to state the amount recommended for daily consumption, with a warning not to exceed it. A US serving size doesn't meet that. Where an overlabel, the sticker that covers the US wording, hides the original directions, the pack can end up with no dose on it at all while still warning shoppers not to exceed one. Give it an explicit daily intake line, and a net quantity line so the pack size isn't lost.

US labels show each vitamin and mineral as a percentage of the Daily Value, while UK and EU labels use the Nutrient Reference Value, and the reference amounts differ. Vitamin D's reference value is 5 micrograms in the UK against 20 in the US, so 100% on a US pack becomes 400% on a UK one. Folate given in US dietary folate equivalents overstates how much folic acid you can declare, and sodium has no reference value at all.

On a US supplement the vitamin and mineral compounds, such as magnesium citrate, sit in the Supplement Facts panel and never reach the ingredients line. A UK list has to name all of them, in descending order of weight, and mineral salts weigh several times the mineral they carry, so the order gets rebuilt from the formula rather than copied off the label. Additives are named by what they do as well, so 'for freshness' becomes 'Preservative (Potassium Benzoate)'.

UK law names 14 allergens that have to stand out in the ingredient list, against 9 in the US, and the extras include celery, mustard, lupin, molluscs and sulphites, which hide easily in natural flavour blends. So 'no known allergens' on a US pack only means it was checked against the shorter list, and your supplier needs asking about the rest. It works the other way too, because coconut, which older US packs list as a tree nut, isn't one under UK rules.

Trading Standards and Amazon judge a pack as a shopper sees it, so a UK sticker over the Supplement Facts panel still leaves the front-of-pack claims, the US Food and Drug Administration disclaimer and the guarantee roundels on show. Directions elsewhere on the box count too, and we've seen an uncovered end panel invite extra servings, which contradicted the pack's own warning not to exceed the daily dose. Walk the whole box, because one more sticker often clears several problems at once.

UK rules give the product the legal name 'food supplement', and the US term doesn't meet that even though it reads like a synonym. The name has to sit in the same field of vision as the net quantity, so one front sticker carrying both fixes two things at once. Where a product contains added sugar and a sweetener, the name has to say so as well. Check your listing images too, because artwork built from the US pack puts the old wording straight back in front of shoppers.

In Great Britain a supplement can only carry a health claim that sits on the GB nutrition and health claims register, in wording that means the same as the authorised version. The product also has to hold enough of the nutrient to qualify. Magnesium has no authorised immunity claim at all, and an energy claim only works in its authorised wording. A product name counts as a claim too, so a word like 'Stamina' in it can get the listing taken down.

An ingredient not eaten to a significant degree in the EU or the UK before 15 May 1997 counts as a novel food, and it needs authorisation before it can be sold as food in either market. So 'it isn't on a banned list' is the wrong test, because a trending ingredient can clear that one and still have no authorisation behind it. Healing claims are a separate risk, because a supplement that reads like a cure can fall under medicines rules instead.