What is COS

Call-Off-Stock, or Cos for short, is an advanced version of the Pan-EU program launched by Amazon for European merchants. Joining this program, merchants do not need to register French and Spanish VAT tax numbers to open the local area compliantly. Warehousing and delivery, local delivery fees are also available.

How does COS work

Simply put, it’s a streamlined process using EU-wide VAT regulations that allow merchants to carry out such transactions as long as certain needs are met. Amazon satisfies these requirements by first purchasing the merchant's inventory and reselling it to the final seller when they place an order.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of joining COS?

Advantage

1. The seller does not need to bear the cross-border logistics cost of the European logistics network (shipping from Germany to France), but only needs to bear the local logistics cost (the logistics payment from the local warehouse in France to the local buyer). For example, the seller can place local inventory in France to speed up Buyer order fulfillment speed without having to register a VAT number in these countries. This will help sellers to grow their business on amazon.fr faster. COS also gives sellers access to pan-European FBA fulfillment fee discounts, saving sellers up to 53% compared to European Fulfillment Network (EFN) fulfillment fees.

2. You only need to register the VAT number in the country where the inventory is mainly placed, and you can enjoy the local distribution fee discount in other countries that meet the COS conditions, while saving many countries (the countries expected to be covered by the COS plan are Germany, France, Italy , Spain) the cost of registering a VAT number and reporting VAT.

disadvantage

1. The product must be sold within 12 months. If it is not sold at the end of the 12-month period, Amazon will send the item back to the seller.

2. With the improvement of compliance requirements, the tax bureau has gradually paid more attention to the declaration of cross-border B2B. Therefore, if you participate in the COS program in the future, you will inevitably need to declare cross-border B2B, which may increase the additional cost of your declaration.

3. At present, the COS plan is free of additional service fees, but Amazon may incur additional commission costs depending on the situation.

Since there are so many discounts, how can merchants join the COS plan?

Unfortunately, at present, merchants cannot apply to join on their own, only when the platform receives an invitation notice from the Amazon platform.

If you've received an invitation now, you can see if you actually meet the relevant criteria. If you have not received an invitation, you can also learn in advance and prepare for the future participation in the COS program!

Conditions for joining COS

A. Seller Eligibility

1. The countries that currently support COS are France and Spain. The premise is that you cannot have a tax ID in the two countries;

2. Sellers cannot set up companies in countries that join the COS project;

3. The seller's Amazon account in Germany, France, Italy and Spain needs to be available;

4. The seller needs to register to join Amazon's VAT Calculation Service (VCS) and use the invoice generated by Amazon;

B. Commodities eligible for the COS program

1. At least one AIIN is eligible for the COS program (only COS-registered ASIN inventory will be transshipped to a country where COS placement is enabled)

2. The products sold must meet the placement requirements of Pan-EU FBA and be sold on the Amazon platform in Germany, France, Italy and Spain at the same time;

3. The seller's FNSKU must use Amazon's barcode.

For the specific operation of joining COS, please follow the operation steps on the Amazon platform! ↓

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