More Than One-Quarter Of Amazon Merchant Sales Cross Borders

Amazon

Amazon is encouraging its eCommerce vendors to sell their goods internationally, as cross-border sales are becoming an increasingly important part of the retailer’s revenue.

According to news from Reuters, citing Amazon Vice President Eric Broussard, more than a quarter of all Amazon sales for third-party sellers came from cross-border transactions last year. That’s up more than 50 percent from the previous year. Reuters said that amounts to between $50 billion and $75 billion for merchants that are selling their wares to customers in different countries.

The jump in cross-border sales volume, which was higher than the 31 percent increase in overall net sales last year, presents a huge opportunity for the Seattle, Washington, eCommerce giant, noted Reuters.

“The speed with which sellers have been selling globally has accelerated over time,” said Broussard, who oversees Amazon’s international marketplaces, in the Reuters interview. Tech Armor, a smartphone accessories company located near Los Angeles, told Reuters in an interview that business grew faster outside the U.S. and that since 2012, it has shipped more than 12 million units via Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) through the company’s encouragement.

“Someone from the FBA business called,” Tech Armor Co-Founder Joe Jaconi told Reuters. “They wanted to talk to us about Canada.”

International sales have also been benefiting rival eCommerce platform eBay, which told Reuters in February that the company is planning on taking its service overseas to Japan as part of a global expansion initiative. Alibaba, the leading eCommerce player in China which sells products from brands residing in 63 countries and regions, has recently been branching into the U.S. as it eyes markets outside its home country. Amazon currently gets a cut of those merchants transactions, which, according to Reuters, could be as much as 30 percent of the sale for a piece of jewelry, for example.