On July 28, Amazon announced that the Belgian site is open to registration for global sellers. Sellers can now register and open an account through .be to prepare for the Belgian launch.

Belgium attracts Amazon to set up a site here with its own economic, geographical and other advantages.

Image source: 360 Maps

So if you want to start a business in Belgium, what should sellers pay attention to?

1. The Belgian site can register and open an account through .be. If you already have a European Amazon joint account (an account that can sell products on 8 other Amazon European sites* at the same time), you do not need to create a separate seller account for .be, .be will automatically appear in your seller account (click the drop-down menu to see the Belgium station).

2. Currently, there are more than 24 categories of products that can be sold, but individual categories have additional requirements. Sellers must follow the prompts when uploading products. And currently, no second-hand, collectible or refurbished products are allowed, only new products.

3. For links that are not automatically synchronized by Amazon's official instructions, you need to provide French product information for the product. But it also shows that Belgium's English penetration rate is very high, ranking sixth in the English proficiency index among 112 countries/regions in the world. And different regions use different languages ​​for business communication. Dutch is more commonly used in the north of Belgium, and French and German are mainly used in the south and east of Belgium.

4. In Belgium, Amazon does not have an FBA warehouse for the time being. All the seller's FBA order needs will be met by the FBA warehouses of Amazon Germany and France. However, it is necessary to consider whether these sites are registered and opened. Germany and France require local inventory. Registered with a VAT number. In addition to the above methods, sellers can also self-delivery.

5. If the seller's company is established outside the EU and has no inventory stored locally, no matter whether the seller uses the Amazon Fulfillment (FBA) service for delivery or self-fulfillment (MFN), there is no need to register a VAT number in Belgium; but if the seller If your company is based in the EU and does not store goods in Belgium, sellers may need to register for a local VAT number when their sales exceed the new EU-wide distance selling threshold of €10,000 (shipping from another EU country). Unless the seller has opted for One Stop Shop in the EU eCommerce VAT package.

Belgium has three different VAT rates, the standard rate is 21% (R03), 12% (R02) (applicable to some food, energy products, agricultural supplies, etc.), 6% (R01) (applicable to some books), for Certain special goods and services are subject to zero rate (R00).

When opening a new site, sellers need to do and consider tax compliance, intellectual property compliance, product compliance, and platform operation compliance. These are all things that need to be taken into account when preparing for a new site. Europe is a huge potential market, and Amazon may promote the construction of more national sites in the future.