Amazon FBA: US vs Europe — The Brutal Truth

I started my Amazon FBA business on Amazon.de — the German marketplace. Looking back, I wish someone had given me the honest breakdown of what selling in Europe actually looks like compared to the US. Not the polished “you can sell in 9 countries from one account” pitch, but the real, day-to-day reality of running a business on each platform.

Here is what I have learned from experience on both sides of the Atlantic.

The US Market: Bigger, Faster, More Forgiving

Scale Is Everything

Amazon.com is the single largest e-commerce marketplace in the world. The customer base is massive, the search volume dwarfs every European marketplace combined, and the sheer number of transactions means that even niche products can generate meaningful revenue.

When I launched the same product on Amazon.com and Amazon.de, the US listing generated roughly four times the daily sales within the first month. The market is simply larger, and that scale advantage compounds over time through reviews, organic ranking, and best seller rank momentum.

Review Culture Is Different

American customers leave reviews at a significantly higher rate than European customers. This matters more than most new sellers realize, because reviews are the social proof engine that drives conversion rates and organic ranking.

On Amazon.de, getting your first 50 reviews can take months. On Amazon.com, the same product can reach that threshold in weeks with the same velocity of sales. Faster reviews mean faster ranking, which means faster scaling.

One Country, One Tax System

Selling in the US means dealing with one country’s tax regulations. Yes, sales tax nexus rules vary by state, but the infrastructure to handle this is mature and well-supported by tools like TaxJar and Amazon’s own tax collection service.

In Europe, the story is very different.

The European Market: Fragmented and Complex

The Tax Nightmare

This is the single biggest pain point of selling in Europe. Each EU country has its own VAT registration requirements, rates, and filing deadlines. If you store inventory in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland through Amazon’s Pan-European FBA program, you may need VAT registrations in all five countries.

I once received a tax filing requirement from Finland for €25. The cost of having my accountant file the return was more than the tax itself. Multiply this across multiple countries and the administrative burden becomes staggering, especially for a small seller.

The EU’s One-Stop Shop (OSS) scheme has simplified some cross-border VAT obligations, but it does not eliminate the need for local VAT registrations in countries where you store inventory. The compliance cost alone can eat hundreds of euros per month before you sell a single unit.

Language and Listing Localization

Selling on Amazon.de requires German listings. Amazon.fr requires French. Amazon.it requires Italian. You cannot just throw your English listing onto these marketplaces and expect results.

Professional translation for a single listing — title, bullets, description, A+ Content, and backend keywords — costs $100-$300 per language. For a catalog of 10 products across five languages, you are looking at $5,000-$15,000 just for translations. And those translations need to be done by someone who understands Amazon SEO in that language, not just a generic translator.

Shipping Times from China

If you source from China, shipping to the US West Coast takes roughly 15-20 days by sea. Shipping to a European port takes 30-40 days. That extra two to three weeks affects your inventory planning, your cash flow, and your ability to react to demand spikes.

Air freight partially solves this, but at a cost that makes many lower-priced products unprofitable. The logistics are simply more complex and more expensive for the European route.

Smaller Individual Markets

Amazon.de is the largest European marketplace, but it is still a fraction of Amazon.com’s volume. Amazon.es and Amazon.it are smaller still. You are not selling in “Europe” — you are selling in five to nine individual countries, each with its own demand patterns, competitive landscape, and operational requirements.

So Should You Start in the US?

For most new sellers, yes. The US market offers larger scale, faster feedback loops, simpler tax compliance, and a single-language listing to perfect before expanding.

Start with Amazon.com. Learn the fundamentals of product research, listing optimization, PPC, and inventory management on one marketplace. Once you have a profitable, well-optimized product and the operational bandwidth to handle additional complexity, then consider European expansion.

When Europe Makes Sense

Europe is not a bad market. It is a different market with different strengths.

Less competition in many niches. The US market is saturated in many categories. European marketplaces often have fewer sellers fighting for the same keywords, which means lower PPC costs and faster ranking for new products.

Higher customer loyalty. European customers who find a product they like tend to repurchase more consistently. Subscription-based and consumable products can perform extremely well in European markets.

Currency diversification. If you are building a long-term brand, selling in multiple currencies protects you against exchange rate fluctuations and economic downturns in any single market.

Pan-European FBA efficiency. Once you have the VAT infrastructure in place, Amazon’s Pan-European program distributes your inventory across multiple fulfillment centers automatically, giving you fast Prime delivery across the continent from a single shipment.

My Recommendation

Start in the US. Build your skills, build your cash flow, build your brand. Once your US business is generating consistent profit and you have the resources to handle multi-country VAT compliance, European expansion becomes a powerful growth lever.

But if you are just getting started, do not let the “sell in 9 European countries” pitch distract you from the fundamentals. Master one marketplace first.

I share more details about my personal experience — including the specific numbers from my German launch — in the video above. It is a quick watch and might save you from making the same mistakes I did.