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Selling on Amazon in Europe remains to be a huge opportunity – if you do it right.
There is significant demand (Amazon Germany, for instance, generates more revenue than Amazon UK) and also lower levels of competition.
However, as time has gone on more rules, regulations, and compliance challenges have been introduced and created a higher barrier to entry.
In this episode of the Brand Builder Show we’re joined by Anton Hermann from SPACEGOATS.
We discuss how to overcome these higher barriers to entry, and why they are in fact a big positive for those that are willing to put in the work.
Episode Links
Ben Donovan 00:00
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of The Brand Builder Show and today we’re gonna be talking about selling through Europe, there’s so much opportunity in Europe, so many hungry buyers ready to buy your products. And so today we are going to talk all things Europe with our guest today. Anton. Anton, welcome to the show today.
Anton Hermann 00:19
What an energetic intro. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. I’m very excited after this. Thank you so much.
Ben Donovan 00:27
Well, hopefully they can maintain that through through our site. Yeah, it’s great to have you on. I know a little bit about you from just obviously doing a little bit of research before the episode, we were introduced by a good friend. But I’m excited to hear more about you, what you do and your expertise, particularly in the area of selling in Europe. I know a lot of our listeners will be based in Europe and want the idea of selling in multiple marketplaces is something we’re big believers in a Brand Builder University. So before we dive into all of the specifics of that, why don’t you give us a bit of background info on yourself your origin story, how you kind of got into the world of E-commerce, and catch us up to where you’re at today.
Anton Hermann 01:07
I would love to thank you very much. So my name is Anton Herman. I’m German or I’m at least here in Germany since 27 years and born in the Soviet Union came here with my parents, as original Germans living there moved here to be like Russian jurors in years of everywhere a foreigner. Anyhow, I was always into mathematics and physics. So I started studying mechanical engineering after my degree of school degree, and actually finished the bachelor’s degree. It’s what’s not mechanical engineer was automotive engineer, because I’m actually located in Stuttgart. It’s like Ben’s town as Snoop Dogg would call it or Porsche town. So here’s basically the brain of the mechanical and mechanical and automotive industry of Germany. And after my bachelor’s degree, I still wanted to make my mother proud, so to speak. And I also went to my master in mechanical engineering, so I switched to product development and construction, tech techniques. And while my studies I was already working for Bosch, you might know Bosch for the power tools. It’s also here. So that’s a very good place for that kind of stuff. But in this days, or during my work, I experienced that this is not the thing for the rest of my life. The guy next to me was like 60, something. And he was doing exactly the same job as I did. And I was like, No, I’m not sitting here for 40 more years to do exactly the same what the others are doing. So I tried to discover new business opportunities. I always wanted to have my own thing. So I knew it from from the childhood already that I will do that. And I came to Amazon. I heard about it first time like Amazon FBA, I heard about it first time in 2015 or so. And in 2016, I actually started during my studies during my master’s degree. And I was selling my first product in the end of 2016. On under my own brand, Planet Bumble was it called, it’s not running anymore, because I switched my focus, we will see what what what I mean with this afterwards. But it worked much better. It worked out much better than I ever could expect. So I ordered the first church in China with my bamboo toothbrushes, and I was selling this 2000 pieces in I don’t know, two months or so. And I was like, totally impressed what’s going on. I thought about this project. I told my friends about this project and current co-founders Demian Manuel, and they did the same and one year later, we just said, hey, why not combining our forces and do a common thing. And that’s what we did one year later. And I was basically the mechanical engineer in the team for product development and also much into a lot into Amazon because I started with this and it was marketing, PPC, and all that stuff. My other friend and Co-founding colleague today, in responsible for finance, everything was the finance guy, basically or economics guy. And the third guy Dimitrios he was software engineer, not fitting at all to some e-commerce project. But that’s that’s how it was. It was even more successful, because we had experience and we raised some money from friends and fools, so to speak, friends and family. And so we built up five more brands on Amazon and then we had the idea in 2017, something like that, in the end of 2017, to do more than just selling stuff on Amazon. So we were thinking about building a big brand. Out of the brands. We already started on Amazon. You cannot call it something A brand if it’s only on Amazon, in my humble opinion. So that was option one. Option two was why we’re not building up a service combined with a tool. And we looked into our competencies in the team, we had a software engineer. And he said, like, okay, but we had nobody from marketing, like the real marketing students. creative stuff. So we said, like, Okay, let’s go for a tool. And that’s what we did in 2018. But I don’t want to have a monologue. So you can, I will just play the ball back to you.
Ben Donovan 05:31
yeah, no, that’s good, man. It’s good. I like to hear because I think, of course, we want to talk about building brands and e-commerce, but I think understanding how, how entrepreneurs got to where they are. Everybody listening to this podcast is going to be an entrepreneur. So if it’s not specifically, you know, e-commerce, or you know, if it’s your story, I think it’s still really really helpful. So, so the, what you’re doing now is called Space goats. Right?
Anton Hermann 05:55
It is called Space goats. Yes.
Ben Donovan 05:57
Well, firstly, where where does that name come from?
Anton Hermann 06:00
There is an official and unofficial story and official story only with a beer in my hand and the official the official story is that we call our customers goats, okay, because goats has two meanings, you know, the goats, the animals, which are always climbing up the mountains, you know, the pictures which are standing there, so they always want to get up and go this also, of course, Cassandra Nida, greatest of all time, so it was, so it’s a good match. So we call our Customer goats, because
Ben Donovan 06:34
they sorry, that’s gonna be really controversial. So you’re saying right now they’re not Messi?
Anton Hermann 06:39
Yeah, of course I do. And I knew that it will be controversial, because I’m the Ronaldo fan but we will see. We are right now in Qatar, blah, blah, blah. So we have the opportunity to see Ronaldo and Messi in the final in the last tournament playing for the World Cup. I would love. I would love it. I would just love it. And then we will see who is who’s the god anyhow. So we, our customers are the guys, which always click one to climb up. And we give them the space to do so. And together we have the space goat. That’s
Ben Donovan 07:11
so good. Absolutely love it. Maybe one day we’ll get that beer in your hand and find out Yeah, sure. Sounds good. Good stuff. So what kind of stuff do you specialize in? Give us a bit of a rundown on what what you do.
Anton Hermann 07:23
So in one sentence, what we do is we sell other companies and brands products through our Amazon account, all over Europe, plus UK. Plus, since a couple of weeks USA without our customers need to have their own Amazon account their own VT infrastructure, any competence and product compliance translations, and so on and so forth. And it’s a modular solution. So whatever competences and skills you bring on the table, you can keep, and you can book the rest what you don’t have in your team from us. So basically, you can go from, I just need your distribution network, like VT infrastructure, and so on. And I do the marketing everything myself, or here’s my product, I would love for you to sell a product all over the world. And we will do it for you in a full service. So basically, we cover all this next person. So
Ben Donovan 08:18
would it be different to the whole like, you’re more obviously more than just I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but it’s more than just wholesaling from these clients.
Anton Hermann 08:27
That’s what that is more than just wholesaling. We provide our so we can lease our distribution infrastructure, our Amazon account, our compliance infrastructure, all this registrations, and so on so forth to our customers, and they could run their business themselves, just leasing this infrastructure by now comes to clue by using our software to run the business. So, of course, we cannot give everybody access to our Amazon account, data protection, GPR whatever. So we built a platform where they can log in, see their sales can run their PPC campaigns can edit people edit their PPC campaigns, upload products, book, other services, and so on. So it’s not exclusive wholesale. Nothing like that. Yeah.
Ben Donovan 09:13
Yeah, sounds far more complicated.
Anton Hermann 09:17
Unfortunately.
Ben Donovan 09:19
So yeah, you’re running this through also one Amazon account?
Anton Hermann 09:22
Yes and then do two and use a we have a second one. So two Amazon accounts. Yes.
Ben Donovan 09:28
Like that would give me some sleepless nights.
Anton Hermann 09:30
No, it’s okay. It’s okay. The bigger your account is then lower the probability that something goes wrong and as and as we have the control about, I would say critical stuff like customer communication and product compliance, like the main issues to get an account blocked. We have to control about what is going on over there and we are pretty strict. On the other hand, we have we are paying tons of money to Amazon for us super good. You maybe you know the Amazon 360 Program where we have to like a person consult then where can we have like an escalation hotline if something goes wrong, and so on and so forth. So it’s then bigger the company is the lower the lower the risk, and the more you take care of your stuff, then the lower the risk. So now, so far, no second Amazon account was in danger at all.
Ben Donovan 10:20
Are you able to share about the like the volume that’s going through those accounts?
Anton Hermann 10:23
Yes. So last year, we made like 20 million on this account. So it figures and we are doing this officially since 2019. So I guess.
Ben Donovan 10:34
And so let’s talk about Europe, then how much of this is going through Europe?
Anton Hermann 10:39
Almost all almost everything. We just started with USA with one test customer. So just forget this revenues in the USA, almost all the revenue is in Europe.
Ben Donovan 10:48
Yeah. So there’s, you know, a few different trains of thought some people think that, you know, the golden days of selling into Europe on Amazon are over. Would you disagree with that? Obviously, you get a lot of revenue from there. If someone’s just starting out now is Europe still a viable option for them?
Anton Hermann 11:06
Europe is still a viable option if you have a good supply chain, and if you have good purchasing prices, so the competition is of course bigger than it was years years ago. But the market itself is also bigger. So Amazon is still growing in Europe, and they are different Europe is not for the Americans here. Europe is not one country, it would be nice if we would have the United States of Europe, but we don’t have. So we have we have a Germany as I would say the bull bull country. That’s like the biggest in Europe besides UK. Of course, they’re still bigger than UK, but not too much. But we have also the other European marketplaces like France, Italy, Spain, Ned, now Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and since a couple of months or so Belgium, So Amazon is coming up with new marketplaces, new marketplace opportunities, it is investing heavily in growing that marketplaces and getting rid of their competitors. And that’s where we can like benefit from from the marketing and power of the brand of Amazon. So I think we can do stuff. But it’s tougher than it was in the past. So the typical, I’m like my bamboo toothbrush example, I just ordered OEM stuff from China and put my brand on it. And that’s it. I think that’s that’s not very sustainable. But if you come up with like new product ideas, develop your own, like ODM develop your own product, with good margins, maybe higher price products, then you’re still good to go. Also in Europe,
Ben Donovan 12:45
of those marketplaces, obviously, a lot of people are familiar with Germany, Spain, Italy, France. Yeah. You mentioned obviously some newer ones, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, of those, which are the ones that are a growing a strong would you recommend people getting into.
Anton Hermann 12:59
So I would say they are all not too much compared to Germany yet. But the growth numbers, for example, France is growing much faster, much faster than Germany. So France still is a good opportunity to get into because the competition is much lower, and the growth is much higher. But let’s talk about the smaller marketplace. I would say Netherlands and Sweden are super interesting for the start. Because Netherlands and Sweden they have a big high purchasing power. So the rich people living there. So they’re super digital in their mind. So they especially the Sweden stay there really love digital products, and they’re really into e-commerce. And the growth there is pretty, pretty strong. But still, of course, you cannot compare this revenues with Germany yet, but we’re if we invest in the sustainable business, we should keep that in mind. I think
Ben Donovan 13:58
it’s still much of a first mover advantage, because I know when I started selling in particularly Germany, you know, it was back in the days when there was no review sharing. So if you got to that market early, and you built up some review, a review note mode, you had that early mover advantage, but now since there are review sharing, is there still much of an early mover advantage?
Anton Hermann 14:20
You have? This is a big advantage, in my opinion, because you can scale to what you said like the revenue sharing because you you are generating reviews on your home marketplace, and they will display on the other marketplaces as well. So I think it’s more an advantage, the review sharing but about the first mover advantage, and you’re building rankings right on specific keywords and this rankings then longer than longer. The history is then longer you perform well under keywords, then stronger SEO. Stronger, you’re set on the specific places so the first mover advantage might be less than it was back in the day. But still, because of these rankings, you can you can have this advantage from Yeah. So you got my point, I think.
Ben Donovan 15:10
Sure, yeah, that’s good. And in terms of ranking for keywords, launching products, similar to the US, the UK, it’s just about volume on specific keywords, and then you’re gonna position position Well,
Anton Hermann 15:21
exactly, that’s, that’s the same, that’s the same font, same setup the same functionality. But right now we’re starting in USA. And it’s so much more expensive to launch a product there, it’s insane how much products you need, how many reps you need to generate, how much you have to spend for PPC, you cannot compare it at all with launching a product in Spain or France or not, let’s not even talk about the smaller, smaller marketplaces. So
Ben Donovan 15:54
the launch the relaunch of the EFM program, is that helped people get into Europe at all,
Anton Hermann 16:00
I think yes, I think yes. You mean the relaunch of the between UK and
Ben Donovan 16:05
yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, of course,
Anton Hermann 16:07
it helped from a technical perspective, but it’s nice. It’s not, it’s not good for all does not work for all products, because you know, this, this rattles for the customs and 135 pounds or something, something like that. But still, it helps. But what a big issue is what Amazon does not tell you because we have to take compliance serious as basecoats because it’s our account and that’s why that’s why we are into the compliance thing. Amazon does not tell you that you have new compliance requirements and it’s not like pushing a button and EFM is going on you need more to cover before you can actually do that. So yep,
Ben Donovan 16:48
yep. perfect segue into compliance stuff. So say for instance, for me I’ve got a you know, relatively new toy brand that we launched a year or so ago. And we’re just selling in the UK at the moment just about to start looking into the US let’s do a bit of a case study. I want to get those products into Europe. What’s the best route this workshop it Yeah, what do I What do I do
Anton Hermann 17:12
compliance first, I’m always saying it compliance first because if your product is not compliant, then Amazon will take it off and it will be influenced even stricter in the future maybe heard about the digital market Act, which the European Union came up with, it’s like it’s like they take the biggest marketplace more into account about what is going on in their marketplace. So Amazon is basically responsible if you selling fake products, not compliant products and so on and so forth. It means if you have a product which has not for example, then Amazon has to take it off otherwise Amazon will get in trouble so I would say compliance for so that’s let’s talk toys perfect example. See, so that’s that’s like the first thing you should cover because see you have an CE logo as the label and you would need to have it in Europe as well. It’s not super complicated because basically your supplier gives you the CE certification or you can even give it your self but that’s something you need to you need to cover first so it’s a product compliant Do you Do you fulfill all the all the requirements for the product The second thing is the brand okay, you have in the past it was like that, you know, maybe your iPod it was like the European brand authority. So you registered your brand once in this at this authority and then it was a brand that was registered for all over Europe that’s not the case any more so it means you have a UK brand and you should you have to get a second brand for the European you don’t have to get actually but then you get the rest that somebody just hijacks your brand and we’ll just take it away if you don’t if you don’t protect it so
Ben Donovan 18:50
so you can’t get brand registry with a UK or US trademark
Anton Hermann 18:56
You can technically it is possible but only technically but legally you’re have nothing in your hand if you’re if you don’t transfer the brand to the other market. It’s not rocket science it costs let’s say 1000 bucks or something like that to reduce the European brand but you have to do it to do it. But if you did it before the Brexit if you had the European brand before the Brexit it was of course irrelevant. It was of course yeah how you call it you could use it for UK and and Europe because you got a free subs substitution or a free duplicate of your trademark into the UK. If you did after the Brexit you need to register it double.
Ben Donovan 19:47
Yeah, I know because we with another brand. We’ve had issues where we’ve got a US trademark. We’ve had loads of hijacker issues in Canada. We’ve got brand registry in Canada, but because when we try and report an IP violation in Canada, they will Question The trademark number and it’s a US trademark, it doesn’t give you the authority. So exactly is that G exactly the same in Europe is
Anton Hermann 20:06
100%. You can use that funny part, you can use the features, like a plus brands or brands. But if somebody something happens, then you don’t have anything in your hand to protect yourself.
Ben Donovan 20:21
Yeah. Do you use transparency for similar reasons on?
Anton Hermann 20:26
We are about to do it for one customer. But we did not try it out yet. Because it’s, it’s not the cost of I don’t know, five cents, six cents per product. What is the problem? But the supply chain? complication? Do you do you use it for your brand?
Ben Donovan 20:46
Yeah we have just started last few months. Yeah. And you have to get a a willing supplier because they have to individually label each unit? Yep. And there’s no getting around it because each code is unique. So yeah, the cost isn’t much because they do promotions as well, you can almost get it for free, you know, other than the printing the labels because they do certain promotions and that kind of thing. So it’s very minimal cost. It’s just yeah, like you say the the logistical challenge. But for us, because that Canada issue and Canadian trademarks, there’s like a three year wait at the moment. It’s just ridiculous. And we were having major issues in Canada. So it was worth it. And it’s been good. And I would recommend it in certain instances. But yeah, if you just want extra protection, if you’re just selling in one marketplace, and you have a trademark, you know, you don’t need it, but
Anton Hermann 21:32
still it helps.
Ben Donovan 21:34
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Cool. All right. So then product compliance, trademark, anything else to be aware of?
Anton Hermann 21:40
Yes, one more thing, also in the compliance field, I would say because I have have it here, I don’t want to show the brand. But I have some. Anyhow, I have some bad batteries here. I just ordered them from Amazon, just for for my for my personal usage. And they are not compliant. So to make it make it compliant, I have value presentation only about the common pitfalls, how you can screw it up to the so to speak. And then I think you should really get into this labeling part. And into into the responsible persons address part you’ve made me might know this is not the same as importer of record. But you have it in UK, I know it because we are also selling UK. And we have to same in Europe, the rule is and many do not know it at all. If you’re selling a product in the European Union, then you need some, you need some company liable for the product on the product itself, if it’s possible, or on the packaging, which is liable for this product sitting in this European Union. So as a UK company, you are not even able to do this what are presently legally because you’re sitting in UK and UK is not part of the European Union anymore. And therefore you need to partner or set up an entity in Europe if you do so go to Netherlands. They’re cool. They’re the capitalists in Europe, in continental Europe. But But that’s something many people do not know. And one little little hint here because there are people like we enjoy at least in Germany, I know for sure there are people out there which are which you can hire, which will block your competitors if they don’t do it. Right. Okay. So you have 10 competitors, you hired a guy, I don’t like this business model at all, but I know their existing. And they will just order all the 10 products and see everything, check everything check the labelings here everything fine. If something’s not fine, they have a direct connection to Amazon, they will just block all your listings. So if you do it, right, and one one hint about this, like I didn’t know it myself, before I was creating this presentation, you have to print this address. It’s super nerdy, but you have to print this address on the product itself. If it’s possible, not on the packaging, like I would say 90% of sellers will know that rule or national law, they think that it needs to be in the packaging. No, it needs to be in the product itself if it’s possible. And now comes now comes the funny part. If the if if you say so possibly print on the packaging and one competitor comes and proves that it is possible because he has on his product then you are not then your product is not compliant anymore. Because it’s proven that it’s possible to print his address on the product itself. And then he can just block your listing and that’s that’s why I’m talking so much about product complaints because it’s such a huge field and you can make so many mistakes about this one.
Ben Donovan 24:47
Well, yeah, that was gonna be my question is how do you determine what is and is impossible?
Anton Hermann 24:53
Yeah, so you can just go for it. Okay, but if somebody else proves the opposite then you’re, then you’re wrong. That’s that’s the point. So it’s just about, yeah, who is doing what? And it depends on the category. I think if you have like, the Red Sea categories, or the blue sea categories where you have like, for example, supplements for supplements, if you’re selling supplements in Europe or anywhere, anywhere, I think, then everything must be 150%. Correct, because they are they’re fighting against each other as crazy. And yeah, so that’s, that’s, that’s something that’s something that is important. And also connected to product compliance, I would say the product labeling in different languages is also important. In the past, we did not care or nobody cared too much. But with the new due to market act, you need to have the relevant product information in every language of the target country, not the marketplace country, if you’re exporting to, I don’t know Hungary, then you would need to have the, the description, which describes the product in Hungarian. So you need to translate all the relevant information and all the different languages, but you can also make a paper and put it into the packaging to cover this one. But please be aware of it, because many asked me who will find it out, your competitors will find it out at some point, if you’re big enough, and you and you have some attention from your competitors, they will find out that Amazon is searching for you, the competitors are searching for you and then they will blame you in front of Amazon. So that’s also also connected. So proper packaging, translation. And then I could talk like one hour more about compliance maybe too. So I will say like product compliance super important. Let’s let’s make a checkmark over here. Let’s go to the let’s go to the funny part or to the exciting part. The marketing. So translations Yeah, for UK we’re talking about UK company which will expand to Europe, right. So you that your product research, you did your keyword research you you wrote this beautiful content, beautiful copywriting beautiful title. The worst thing you could do now is to use the translation from Amazon. That’s like the worst you could do. I give you one except one fun example to make it a bit more exciting. In German, we have the organic label, you know, the organic label of organic products, it’s called BO, in German, biologisch. It’s like biological. That’s that’s the word for it in German. If one customer he had a product that was not biologically he said like organic or organic is not a it’s not like trademarks secured or something like that. It’s just just a word because it comes from organic materials, whatever. Amazon translated biologas into organic automatically. So it was organic, like it needs organic certification, organic label, the product gets shut down from Amazon. And now Now comes the bad news forever, we never were able to unlock the product anymore because of one stupid translation automatic translation from Amazon. It’s an edge case, I’m not talking it was just to tell the story what could go wrong. But to get back to the, to the real to the reality. Please don’t use automatic translations. Please don’t use translators, which are not familiar with Amazon search engine optimization. And because if you would ask your grandmother to write your listing in British she’s she’s British, maybe she’s the British language teacher or whatever, she would write a terrible search engine optimized language says listing, you can be sure about it. And that’s what your translators will do as well, if they’re not familiar with the Amazon algorithm. So hire some agency, there are a couple out there, which actually know the drill and do a keyword research upfront. They do a PPC keyword research upfront, they give you the search volumes, and so on and so forth. So so that’s the next part. Proper translations for this search engine optimized things. Content not for a plus con, nobody cares about a plus content because it’s not search engine optimized, it can use your grandmother to translate your product, but please not for the for the for this one. And then one thing Amazon came up with, I think one year ago, one and a half years ago, it’s like localized pictures, localized images. It’s a beautiful thing is also not search engine, relevant but still. You can you can get something out of this. I tell you why. Maybe you’re not familiar with the continental European culture, I mean, the listeners. French people hate speaking English, they hate it. They hate them, even though even if they know they don’t speak to you, it’s insane. It’s insane. Germans are cool in this regard. So they learn English in school, you can get go to a bakery, they will know at least a little bit of English at least a little bit. So Germany is fine. But if you go to France, they have just their brother brotherhood problems from the past with the British Empire. So they hate speaking English, Spanish people and Italian people, they just cannot speak English, they would love to if they could do that they would speak to you in English, but they are not able to speak English. So if you’re trans, if you have like, in the past, it was like, Okay, if you’re a German seller, German English, for example, German English wordings on your images. Now you have the opportunity to actually localize your images. And please do that, please use the Joker. But to do so you need a brand registry. So then circle.
Ben Donovan 31:03
And how does that work? Because I do remember when I first started selling in Europe, and I got all of my listings, translate my images, translated, graphically designed them, you know, had it all in Italian, I remember uploaded the images. And then I went back to check my UK listing, and it’s changed all my UK ones into Italian.
Anton Hermann 31:21
Yeah, you’re 100%. Right, that was the case in the past. Now, Amazon, I’m looking it up for the proper language. Now, Amazon has a feature, especially for this one. So if you go on the catalog or on the stock management, there, you have like one, one feature, it’s called something like localized pictures. So there is a feature in Seller Central, where you can upload images per country, it was not possible in the past, what you explained that always happened and also so knowing there was also a hack around it, you know that you have a different parents in every country. And you just give the parents two pictures, and then the child in the different countries will see will display this pictures, but then your PPC was not running properly. So now they fix that there is a specific feature where you can change the content of different countries.
Ben Donovan 32:16
Good, good. Good. Okay. And you’ve given us quite a comprehensive sort of rundown. I feel like we’ve learned lots about selling on in Europe. Is there anything else? Like is it worth mentioning, like the OPR, the packaging, a bit of a pain that one as well?
Anton Hermann 32:34
Yeah, I didn’t want to talk too much about pro complex. But that’s, of course, that’s that’s also something it’s a part of the digital markets Act, or at least what came before Amazon is preparing for it already. So what they did in Germany and in France already in June this year, June 22, you needed to upload your packaging registration number to the seller, central otherwise, your your all your listings in this countries would would be like suppressed. So you need this number for the different marketplaces. And not every marketplace actually has that issue. For example, in Netherlands, they don’t care if you’re selling less than x. So there’s a huge quantity you can sell for free basically UK, I think as well. But Germany, you need to have it from the first sale. And we have a central register where everybody can look up the brand and it has it in France have it as well in Spain too. And in Italy. It’s it’s not not It’s not executed yet, but it will be executed pretty soon. I’m 100% sure that will happen. And that’s one thing like the packaging registration, the other things like the WEEE thing, it’s like electronic trash. Basically, when you sell a product, it’s the same concept of as the product packaging registration. If you’re selling stuff in Germany, for example, your stuff is producing trash. So and somebody needs to pay for the trash, and that’s normally the seller who pays for the trash. So you have to packaging registration, you have to pay per year, it’s not expensive, but you have to do it. How many times have paper you saw it and blah, blah, blah for the other packaging event, you have the same for electronical devices. And that’s also that’s also required from January 1st as I remember in 2023. So next from next year on so that’s also something you have to cover, then you have like the textile registration is also it also needs to be covered. And you have the battery registry I don’t know the English term for it. But if you’re selling something with the battery, there’s different registration you would need this number as well uploaded to Amazon. Amazon has some dashboard where you can upload all that stuff for the different countries.
Ben Donovan 34:53
Yeah. So like in summary, obviously there’s there’s it’s getting harder and there are more sort of hoops To jump through, but sounds like there’s still lots of opportunity and worth it for the right business the right product,
Anton Hermann 35:05
can I say something about what you said, it’s getting more difficult. That’s true. But if you have the mindset to make it right, if you have the opportunity to make it right, you get an advantage, because let’s let’s, let’s name them, many Chinese sellers, they didn’t care at all about what’s going on Europe than zero. So the EU would have competitors with a competitive advantage, because they did not care. And all this bad products will be removed from the marketplaces. So the good products, the compliant products will survive. And if you’re compliant, this is an advantage for even though the start is harder than it was used to be. So I don’t think it’s a disadvantage. Another example for UK. The Chinese sellers were never paying VAT, they just did not care. And then Amazon said like, okay, in Germany, then we will pay your VAT. And suddenly, the prices just went up because they had to pay VAT, because of course you can, you can sell your products for a lower price if you don’t need to pay 20%. VAT. Right. And now they have to and now they the prices went up, and you are again competitive, competitive to their prices. So it’s not only a disadvantage, I think it’s more advantage for the guys to do it. Right.
Ben Donovan 36:24
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. A higher barrier to entry is is an advantage sometimes, isn’t it? So? Yeah, absolutely. Good. Is there anything I haven’t asked that you feel? Good to mention anything you want to add? Before we close up?
Anton Hermann 36:37
I think we are we covered most of it. We could talk about it for more time. But I think the most the most stuff we we covered.
Ben Donovan 36:46
Yeah. Good. Yeah, I feel like it’s a really good overview. I’ve learned lots I feel like anybody listening that wants to sell in Europe is going to be you know, certainly well informed. As you say we couldn’t necessarily cover every topic in, you know, full detail, because it’s a massive, massive topic. But it’s I think, given everyone the headlines of what they need to go away and really research it if people want to find out more about space goats and what you do, where’s the best place to find you.
Anton Hermann 37:11
You can add me on LinkedIn, Anton Hermann, you can follow us on LinkedIn Space goats. Or you can go to our websites basically, sorta Oh, there we explain what we actually do. All this EPR stuff is not relevant with us anymore. We can help you with product compliance, we will check your copyrights for health claims and whatever. So that’s what we can all cover. And you just can focus on whatever you want to focus and just feel free and hit us up. We’re very excited about it.
Ben Donovan 37:40
Sounds good? Sounds good. All right. Well, we’ll we’ll leave all of those links, etc, in the show notes in the description for everyone to check out. And Tom, thanks for your time today. Really appreciate it. I feel real great knowledge shared there today.
Anton Hermann 37:52
Thank you very much for having me and everybody have a great start into the new year. Thank you very much.
Ben Donovan 37:58
Awesome. All right, guys. Thanks for joining us for this episode. I’m sure you got lots of value out of it. If you did, don’t forget to LIKE subscribe, leave a review, share all that good stuff. We really do appreciate it. And we’ll see you in the next episode real soon.
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of The Brand Builder Show and today we’re gonna be talking about selling through Europe, there’s so much opportunity in Europe, so many hungry buyers ready to buy your products. And so today we are going to talk all things Europe with our guest today. Anton. Anton, welcome to the show today.
Anton Hermann 00:19
What an energetic intro. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. I’m very excited after this. Thank you so much.
Ben Donovan 00:27
Well, hopefully they can maintain that through through our site. Yeah, it’s great to have you on. I know a little bit about you from just obviously doing a little bit of research before the episode, we were introduced by a good friend. But I’m excited to hear more about you, what you do and your expertise, particularly in the area of selling in Europe. I know a lot of our listeners will be based in Europe and want the idea of selling in multiple marketplaces is something we’re big believers in a Brand Builder University. So before we dive into all of the specifics of that, why don’t you give us a bit of background info on yourself your origin story, how you kind of got into the world of E-commerce, and catch us up to where you’re at today.
Anton Hermann 01:07
I would love to thank you very much. So my name is Anton Herman. I’m German or I’m at least here in Germany since 27 years and born in the Soviet Union came here with my parents, as original Germans living there moved here to be like Russian jurors in years of everywhere a foreigner. Anyhow, I was always into mathematics and physics. So I started studying mechanical engineering after my degree of school degree, and actually finished the bachelor’s degree. It’s what’s not mechanical engineer was automotive engineer, because I’m actually located in Stuttgart. It’s like Ben’s town as Snoop Dogg would call it or Porsche town. So here’s basically the brain of the mechanical and mechanical and automotive industry of Germany. And after my bachelor’s degree, I still wanted to make my mother proud, so to speak. And I also went to my master in mechanical engineering, so I switched to product development and construction, tech techniques. And while my studies I was already working for Bosch, you might know Bosch for the power tools. It’s also here. So that’s a very good place for that kind of stuff. But in this days, or during my work, I experienced that this is not the thing for the rest of my life. The guy next to me was like 60, something. And he was doing exactly the same job as I did. And I was like, No, I’m not sitting here for 40 more years to do exactly the same what the others are doing. So I tried to discover new business opportunities. I always wanted to have my own thing. So I knew it from from the childhood already that I will do that. And I came to Amazon. I heard about it first time like Amazon FBA, I heard about it first time in 2015 or so. And in 2016, I actually started during my studies during my master’s degree. And I was selling my first product in the end of 2016. On under my own brand, Planet Bumble was it called, it’s not running anymore, because I switched my focus, we will see what what what I mean with this afterwards. But it worked much better. It worked out much better than I ever could expect. So I ordered the first church in China with my bamboo toothbrushes, and I was selling this 2000 pieces in I don’t know, two months or so. And I was like, totally impressed what’s going on. I thought about this project. I told my friends about this project and current co-founders Demian Manuel, and they did the same and one year later, we just said, hey, why not combining our forces and do a common thing. And that’s what we did one year later. And I was basically the mechanical engineer in the team for product development and also much into a lot into Amazon because I started with this and it was marketing, PPC, and all that stuff. My other friend and Co-founding colleague today, in responsible for finance, everything was the finance guy, basically or economics guy. And the third guy Dimitrios he was software engineer, not fitting at all to some e-commerce project. But that’s that’s how it was. It was even more successful, because we had experience and we raised some money from friends and fools, so to speak, friends and family. And so we built up five more brands on Amazon and then we had the idea in 2017, something like that, in the end of 2017, to do more than just selling stuff on Amazon. So we were thinking about building a big brand. Out of the brands. We already started on Amazon. You cannot call it something A brand if it’s only on Amazon, in my humble opinion. So that was option one. Option two was why we’re not building up a service combined with a tool. And we looked into our competencies in the team, we had a software engineer. And he said, like, okay, but we had nobody from marketing, like the real marketing students. creative stuff. So we said, like, Okay, let’s go for a tool. And that’s what we did in 2018. But I don’t want to have a monologue. So you can, I will just play the ball back to you.
Ben Donovan 05:31
yeah, no, that’s good, man. It’s good. I like to hear because I think, of course, we want to talk about building brands and e-commerce, but I think understanding how, how entrepreneurs got to where they are. Everybody listening to this podcast is going to be an entrepreneur. So if it’s not specifically, you know, e-commerce, or you know, if it’s your story, I think it’s still really really helpful. So, so the, what you’re doing now is called Space goats. Right?
Anton Hermann 05:55
It is called Space goats. Yes.
Ben Donovan 05:57
Well, firstly, where where does that name come from?
Anton Hermann 06:00
There is an official and unofficial story and official story only with a beer in my hand and the official the official story is that we call our customers goats, okay, because goats has two meanings, you know, the goats, the animals, which are always climbing up the mountains, you know, the pictures which are standing there, so they always want to get up and go this also, of course, Cassandra Nida, greatest of all time, so it was, so it’s a good match. So we call our Customer goats, because
Ben Donovan 06:34
they sorry, that’s gonna be really controversial. So you’re saying right now they’re not Messi?
Anton Hermann 06:39
Yeah, of course I do. And I knew that it will be controversial, because I’m the Ronaldo fan but we will see. We are right now in Qatar, blah, blah, blah. So we have the opportunity to see Ronaldo and Messi in the final in the last tournament playing for the World Cup. I would love. I would love it. I would just love it. And then we will see who is who’s the god anyhow. So we, our customers are the guys, which always click one to climb up. And we give them the space to do so. And together we have the space goat. That’s
Ben Donovan 07:11
so good. Absolutely love it. Maybe one day we’ll get that beer in your hand and find out Yeah, sure. Sounds good. Good stuff. So what kind of stuff do you specialize in? Give us a bit of a rundown on what what you do.
Anton Hermann 07:23
So in one sentence, what we do is we sell other companies and brands products through our Amazon account, all over Europe, plus UK. Plus, since a couple of weeks USA without our customers need to have their own Amazon account their own VT infrastructure, any competence and product compliance translations, and so on and so forth. And it’s a modular solution. So whatever competences and skills you bring on the table, you can keep, and you can book the rest what you don’t have in your team from us. So basically, you can go from, I just need your distribution network, like VT infrastructure, and so on. And I do the marketing everything myself, or here’s my product, I would love for you to sell a product all over the world. And we will do it for you in a full service. So basically, we cover all this next person. So
Ben Donovan 08:18
would it be different to the whole like, you’re more obviously more than just I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but it’s more than just wholesaling from these clients.
Anton Hermann 08:27
That’s what that is more than just wholesaling. We provide our so we can lease our distribution infrastructure, our Amazon account, our compliance infrastructure, all this registrations, and so on so forth to our customers, and they could run their business themselves, just leasing this infrastructure by now comes to clue by using our software to run the business. So, of course, we cannot give everybody access to our Amazon account, data protection, GPR whatever. So we built a platform where they can log in, see their sales can run their PPC campaigns can edit people edit their PPC campaigns, upload products, book, other services, and so on. So it’s not exclusive wholesale. Nothing like that. Yeah.
Ben Donovan 09:13
Yeah, sounds far more complicated.
Anton Hermann 09:17
Unfortunately.
Ben Donovan 09:19
So yeah, you’re running this through also one Amazon account?
Anton Hermann 09:22
Yes and then do two and use a we have a second one. So two Amazon accounts. Yes.
Ben Donovan 09:28
Like that would give me some sleepless nights.
Anton Hermann 09:30
No, it’s okay. It’s okay. The bigger your account is then lower the probability that something goes wrong and as and as we have the control about, I would say critical stuff like customer communication and product compliance, like the main issues to get an account blocked. We have to control about what is going on over there and we are pretty strict. On the other hand, we have we are paying tons of money to Amazon for us super good. You maybe you know the Amazon 360 Program where we have to like a person consult then where can we have like an escalation hotline if something goes wrong, and so on and so forth. So it’s then bigger the company is the lower the lower the risk, and the more you take care of your stuff, then the lower the risk. So now, so far, no second Amazon account was in danger at all.
Ben Donovan 10:20
Are you able to share about the like the volume that’s going through those accounts?
Anton Hermann 10:23
Yes. So last year, we made like 20 million on this account. So it figures and we are doing this officially since 2019. So I guess.
Ben Donovan 10:34
And so let’s talk about Europe, then how much of this is going through Europe?
Anton Hermann 10:39
Almost all almost everything. We just started with USA with one test customer. So just forget this revenues in the USA, almost all the revenue is in Europe.
Ben Donovan 10:48
Yeah. So there’s, you know, a few different trains of thought some people think that, you know, the golden days of selling into Europe on Amazon are over. Would you disagree with that? Obviously, you get a lot of revenue from there. If someone’s just starting out now is Europe still a viable option for them?
Anton Hermann 11:06
Europe is still a viable option if you have a good supply chain, and if you have good purchasing prices, so the competition is of course bigger than it was years years ago. But the market itself is also bigger. So Amazon is still growing in Europe, and they are different Europe is not for the Americans here. Europe is not one country, it would be nice if we would have the United States of Europe, but we don’t have. So we have we have a Germany as I would say the bull bull country. That’s like the biggest in Europe besides UK. Of course, they’re still bigger than UK, but not too much. But we have also the other European marketplaces like France, Italy, Spain, Ned, now Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and since a couple of months or so Belgium, So Amazon is coming up with new marketplaces, new marketplace opportunities, it is investing heavily in growing that marketplaces and getting rid of their competitors. And that’s where we can like benefit from from the marketing and power of the brand of Amazon. So I think we can do stuff. But it’s tougher than it was in the past. So the typical, I’m like my bamboo toothbrush example, I just ordered OEM stuff from China and put my brand on it. And that’s it. I think that’s that’s not very sustainable. But if you come up with like new product ideas, develop your own, like ODM develop your own product, with good margins, maybe higher price products, then you’re still good to go. Also in Europe,
Ben Donovan 12:45
of those marketplaces, obviously, a lot of people are familiar with Germany, Spain, Italy, France. Yeah. You mentioned obviously some newer ones, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, of those, which are the ones that are a growing a strong would you recommend people getting into.
Anton Hermann 12:59
So I would say they are all not too much compared to Germany yet. But the growth numbers, for example, France is growing much faster, much faster than Germany. So France still is a good opportunity to get into because the competition is much lower, and the growth is much higher. But let’s talk about the smaller marketplace. I would say Netherlands and Sweden are super interesting for the start. Because Netherlands and Sweden they have a big high purchasing power. So the rich people living there. So they’re super digital in their mind. So they especially the Sweden stay there really love digital products, and they’re really into e-commerce. And the growth there is pretty, pretty strong. But still, of course, you cannot compare this revenues with Germany yet, but we’re if we invest in the sustainable business, we should keep that in mind. I think
Ben Donovan 13:58
it’s still much of a first mover advantage, because I know when I started selling in particularly Germany, you know, it was back in the days when there was no review sharing. So if you got to that market early, and you built up some review, a review note mode, you had that early mover advantage, but now since there are review sharing, is there still much of an early mover advantage?
Anton Hermann 14:20
You have? This is a big advantage, in my opinion, because you can scale to what you said like the revenue sharing because you you are generating reviews on your home marketplace, and they will display on the other marketplaces as well. So I think it’s more an advantage, the review sharing but about the first mover advantage, and you’re building rankings right on specific keywords and this rankings then longer than longer. The history is then longer you perform well under keywords, then stronger SEO. Stronger, you’re set on the specific places so the first mover advantage might be less than it was back in the day. But still, because of these rankings, you can you can have this advantage from Yeah. So you got my point, I think.
Ben Donovan 15:10
Sure, yeah, that’s good. And in terms of ranking for keywords, launching products, similar to the US, the UK, it’s just about volume on specific keywords, and then you’re gonna position position Well,
Anton Hermann 15:21
exactly, that’s, that’s the same, that’s the same font, same setup the same functionality. But right now we’re starting in USA. And it’s so much more expensive to launch a product there, it’s insane how much products you need, how many reps you need to generate, how much you have to spend for PPC, you cannot compare it at all with launching a product in Spain or France or not, let’s not even talk about the smaller, smaller marketplaces. So
Ben Donovan 15:54
the launch the relaunch of the EFM program, is that helped people get into Europe at all,
Anton Hermann 16:00
I think yes, I think yes. You mean the relaunch of the between UK and
Ben Donovan 16:05
yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, of course,
Anton Hermann 16:07
it helped from a technical perspective, but it’s nice. It’s not, it’s not good for all does not work for all products, because you know, this, this rattles for the customs and 135 pounds or something, something like that. But still, it helps. But what a big issue is what Amazon does not tell you because we have to take compliance serious as basecoats because it’s our account and that’s why that’s why we are into the compliance thing. Amazon does not tell you that you have new compliance requirements and it’s not like pushing a button and EFM is going on you need more to cover before you can actually do that. So yep,
Ben Donovan 16:48
yep. perfect segue into compliance stuff. So say for instance, for me I’ve got a you know, relatively new toy brand that we launched a year or so ago. And we’re just selling in the UK at the moment just about to start looking into the US let’s do a bit of a case study. I want to get those products into Europe. What’s the best route this workshop it Yeah, what do I What do I do
Anton Hermann 17:12
compliance first, I’m always saying it compliance first because if your product is not compliant, then Amazon will take it off and it will be influenced even stricter in the future maybe heard about the digital market Act, which the European Union came up with, it’s like it’s like they take the biggest marketplace more into account about what is going on in their marketplace. So Amazon is basically responsible if you selling fake products, not compliant products and so on and so forth. It means if you have a product which has not for example, then Amazon has to take it off otherwise Amazon will get in trouble so I would say compliance for so that’s let’s talk toys perfect example. See, so that’s that’s like the first thing you should cover because see you have an CE logo as the label and you would need to have it in Europe as well. It’s not super complicated because basically your supplier gives you the CE certification or you can even give it your self but that’s something you need to you need to cover first so it’s a product compliant Do you Do you fulfill all the all the requirements for the product The second thing is the brand okay, you have in the past it was like that, you know, maybe your iPod it was like the European brand authority. So you registered your brand once in this at this authority and then it was a brand that was registered for all over Europe that’s not the case any more so it means you have a UK brand and you should you have to get a second brand for the European you don’t have to get actually but then you get the rest that somebody just hijacks your brand and we’ll just take it away if you don’t if you don’t protect it so
Ben Donovan 18:50
so you can’t get brand registry with a UK or US trademark
Anton Hermann 18:56
You can technically it is possible but only technically but legally you’re have nothing in your hand if you’re if you don’t transfer the brand to the other market. It’s not rocket science it costs let’s say 1000 bucks or something like that to reduce the European brand but you have to do it to do it. But if you did it before the Brexit if you had the European brand before the Brexit it was of course irrelevant. It was of course yeah how you call it you could use it for UK and and Europe because you got a free subs substitution or a free duplicate of your trademark into the UK. If you did after the Brexit you need to register it double.
Ben Donovan 19:47
Yeah, I know because we with another brand. We’ve had issues where we’ve got a US trademark. We’ve had loads of hijacker issues in Canada. We’ve got brand registry in Canada, but because when we try and report an IP violation in Canada, they will Question The trademark number and it’s a US trademark, it doesn’t give you the authority. So exactly is that G exactly the same in Europe is
Anton Hermann 20:06
100%. You can use that funny part, you can use the features, like a plus brands or brands. But if somebody something happens, then you don’t have anything in your hand to protect yourself.
Ben Donovan 20:21
Yeah. Do you use transparency for similar reasons on?
Anton Hermann 20:26
We are about to do it for one customer. But we did not try it out yet. Because it’s, it’s not the cost of I don’t know, five cents, six cents per product. What is the problem? But the supply chain? complication? Do you do you use it for your brand?
Ben Donovan 20:46
Yeah we have just started last few months. Yeah. And you have to get a a willing supplier because they have to individually label each unit? Yep. And there’s no getting around it because each code is unique. So yeah, the cost isn’t much because they do promotions as well, you can almost get it for free, you know, other than the printing the labels because they do certain promotions and that kind of thing. So it’s very minimal cost. It’s just yeah, like you say the the logistical challenge. But for us, because that Canada issue and Canadian trademarks, there’s like a three year wait at the moment. It’s just ridiculous. And we were having major issues in Canada. So it was worth it. And it’s been good. And I would recommend it in certain instances. But yeah, if you just want extra protection, if you’re just selling in one marketplace, and you have a trademark, you know, you don’t need it, but
Anton Hermann 21:32
still it helps.
Ben Donovan 21:34
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Cool. All right. So then product compliance, trademark, anything else to be aware of?
Anton Hermann 21:40
Yes, one more thing, also in the compliance field, I would say because I have have it here, I don’t want to show the brand. But I have some. Anyhow, I have some bad batteries here. I just ordered them from Amazon, just for for my for my personal usage. And they are not compliant. So to make it make it compliant, I have value presentation only about the common pitfalls, how you can screw it up to the so to speak. And then I think you should really get into this labeling part. And into into the responsible persons address part you’ve made me might know this is not the same as importer of record. But you have it in UK, I know it because we are also selling UK. And we have to same in Europe, the rule is and many do not know it at all. If you’re selling a product in the European Union, then you need some, you need some company liable for the product on the product itself, if it’s possible, or on the packaging, which is liable for this product sitting in this European Union. So as a UK company, you are not even able to do this what are presently legally because you’re sitting in UK and UK is not part of the European Union anymore. And therefore you need to partner or set up an entity in Europe if you do so go to Netherlands. They’re cool. They’re the capitalists in Europe, in continental Europe. But But that’s something many people do not know. And one little little hint here because there are people like we enjoy at least in Germany, I know for sure there are people out there which are which you can hire, which will block your competitors if they don’t do it. Right. Okay. So you have 10 competitors, you hired a guy, I don’t like this business model at all, but I know their existing. And they will just order all the 10 products and see everything, check everything check the labelings here everything fine. If something’s not fine, they have a direct connection to Amazon, they will just block all your listings. So if you do it, right, and one one hint about this, like I didn’t know it myself, before I was creating this presentation, you have to print this address. It’s super nerdy, but you have to print this address on the product itself. If it’s possible, not on the packaging, like I would say 90% of sellers will know that rule or national law, they think that it needs to be in the packaging. No, it needs to be in the product itself if it’s possible. And now comes now comes the funny part. If the if if you say so possibly print on the packaging and one competitor comes and proves that it is possible because he has on his product then you are not then your product is not compliant anymore. Because it’s proven that it’s possible to print his address on the product itself. And then he can just block your listing and that’s that’s why I’m talking so much about product complaints because it’s such a huge field and you can make so many mistakes about this one.
Ben Donovan 24:47
Well, yeah, that was gonna be my question is how do you determine what is and is impossible?
Anton Hermann 24:53
Yeah, so you can just go for it. Okay, but if somebody else proves the opposite then you’re, then you’re wrong. That’s that’s the point. So it’s just about, yeah, who is doing what? And it depends on the category. I think if you have like, the Red Sea categories, or the blue sea categories where you have like, for example, supplements for supplements, if you’re selling supplements in Europe or anywhere, anywhere, I think, then everything must be 150%. Correct, because they are they’re fighting against each other as crazy. And yeah, so that’s, that’s, that’s something that’s something that is important. And also connected to product compliance, I would say the product labeling in different languages is also important. In the past, we did not care or nobody cared too much. But with the new due to market act, you need to have the relevant product information in every language of the target country, not the marketplace country, if you’re exporting to, I don’t know Hungary, then you would need to have the, the description, which describes the product in Hungarian. So you need to translate all the relevant information and all the different languages, but you can also make a paper and put it into the packaging to cover this one. But please be aware of it, because many asked me who will find it out, your competitors will find it out at some point, if you’re big enough, and you and you have some attention from your competitors, they will find out that Amazon is searching for you, the competitors are searching for you and then they will blame you in front of Amazon. So that’s also also connected. So proper packaging, translation. And then I could talk like one hour more about compliance maybe too. So I will say like product compliance super important. Let’s let’s make a checkmark over here. Let’s go to the let’s go to the funny part or to the exciting part. The marketing. So translations Yeah, for UK we’re talking about UK company which will expand to Europe, right. So you that your product research, you did your keyword research you you wrote this beautiful content, beautiful copywriting beautiful title. The worst thing you could do now is to use the translation from Amazon. That’s like the worst you could do. I give you one except one fun example to make it a bit more exciting. In German, we have the organic label, you know, the organic label of organic products, it’s called BO, in German, biologisch. It’s like biological. That’s that’s the word for it in German. If one customer he had a product that was not biologically he said like organic or organic is not a it’s not like trademarks secured or something like that. It’s just just a word because it comes from organic materials, whatever. Amazon translated biologas into organic automatically. So it was organic, like it needs organic certification, organic label, the product gets shut down from Amazon. And now Now comes the bad news forever, we never were able to unlock the product anymore because of one stupid translation automatic translation from Amazon. It’s an edge case, I’m not talking it was just to tell the story what could go wrong. But to get back to the, to the real to the reality. Please don’t use automatic translations. Please don’t use translators, which are not familiar with Amazon search engine optimization. And because if you would ask your grandmother to write your listing in British she’s she’s British, maybe she’s the British language teacher or whatever, she would write a terrible search engine optimized language says listing, you can be sure about it. And that’s what your translators will do as well, if they’re not familiar with the Amazon algorithm. So hire some agency, there are a couple out there, which actually know the drill and do a keyword research upfront. They do a PPC keyword research upfront, they give you the search volumes, and so on and so forth. So so that’s the next part. Proper translations for this search engine optimized things. Content not for a plus con, nobody cares about a plus content because it’s not search engine optimized, it can use your grandmother to translate your product, but please not for the for the for this one. And then one thing Amazon came up with, I think one year ago, one and a half years ago, it’s like localized pictures, localized images. It’s a beautiful thing is also not search engine, relevant but still. You can you can get something out of this. I tell you why. Maybe you’re not familiar with the continental European culture, I mean, the listeners. French people hate speaking English, they hate it. They hate them, even though even if they know they don’t speak to you, it’s insane. It’s insane. Germans are cool in this regard. So they learn English in school, you can get go to a bakery, they will know at least a little bit of English at least a little bit. So Germany is fine. But if you go to France, they have just their brother brotherhood problems from the past with the British Empire. So they hate speaking English, Spanish people and Italian people, they just cannot speak English, they would love to if they could do that they would speak to you in English, but they are not able to speak English. So if you’re trans, if you have like, in the past, it was like, Okay, if you’re a German seller, German English, for example, German English wordings on your images. Now you have the opportunity to actually localize your images. And please do that, please use the Joker. But to do so you need a brand registry. So then circle.
Ben Donovan 31:03
And how does that work? Because I do remember when I first started selling in Europe, and I got all of my listings, translate my images, translated, graphically designed them, you know, had it all in Italian, I remember uploaded the images. And then I went back to check my UK listing, and it’s changed all my UK ones into Italian.
Anton Hermann 31:21
Yeah, you’re 100%. Right, that was the case in the past. Now, Amazon, I’m looking it up for the proper language. Now, Amazon has a feature, especially for this one. So if you go on the catalog or on the stock management, there, you have like one, one feature, it’s called something like localized pictures. So there is a feature in Seller Central, where you can upload images per country, it was not possible in the past, what you explained that always happened and also so knowing there was also a hack around it, you know that you have a different parents in every country. And you just give the parents two pictures, and then the child in the different countries will see will display this pictures, but then your PPC was not running properly. So now they fix that there is a specific feature where you can change the content of different countries.
Ben Donovan 32:16
Good, good. Good. Okay. And you’ve given us quite a comprehensive sort of rundown. I feel like we’ve learned lots about selling on in Europe. Is there anything else? Like is it worth mentioning, like the OPR, the packaging, a bit of a pain that one as well?
Anton Hermann 32:34
Yeah, I didn’t want to talk too much about pro complex. But that’s, of course, that’s that’s also something it’s a part of the digital markets Act, or at least what came before Amazon is preparing for it already. So what they did in Germany and in France already in June this year, June 22, you needed to upload your packaging registration number to the seller, central otherwise, your your all your listings in this countries would would be like suppressed. So you need this number for the different marketplaces. And not every marketplace actually has that issue. For example, in Netherlands, they don’t care if you’re selling less than x. So there’s a huge quantity you can sell for free basically UK, I think as well. But Germany, you need to have it from the first sale. And we have a central register where everybody can look up the brand and it has it in France have it as well in Spain too. And in Italy. It’s it’s not not It’s not executed yet, but it will be executed pretty soon. I’m 100% sure that will happen. And that’s one thing like the packaging registration, the other things like the WEEE thing, it’s like electronic trash. Basically, when you sell a product, it’s the same concept of as the product packaging registration. If you’re selling stuff in Germany, for example, your stuff is producing trash. So and somebody needs to pay for the trash, and that’s normally the seller who pays for the trash. So you have to packaging registration, you have to pay per year, it’s not expensive, but you have to do it. How many times have paper you saw it and blah, blah, blah for the other packaging event, you have the same for electronical devices. And that’s also that’s also required from January 1st as I remember in 2023. So next from next year on so that’s also something you have to cover, then you have like the textile registration is also it also needs to be covered. And you have the battery registry I don’t know the English term for it. But if you’re selling something with the battery, there’s different registration you would need this number as well uploaded to Amazon. Amazon has some dashboard where you can upload all that stuff for the different countries.
Ben Donovan 34:53
Yeah. So like in summary, obviously there’s there’s it’s getting harder and there are more sort of hoops To jump through, but sounds like there’s still lots of opportunity and worth it for the right business the right product,
Anton Hermann 35:05
can I say something about what you said, it’s getting more difficult. That’s true. But if you have the mindset to make it right, if you have the opportunity to make it right, you get an advantage, because let’s let’s, let’s name them, many Chinese sellers, they didn’t care at all about what’s going on Europe than zero. So the EU would have competitors with a competitive advantage, because they did not care. And all this bad products will be removed from the marketplaces. So the good products, the compliant products will survive. And if you’re compliant, this is an advantage for even though the start is harder than it was used to be. So I don’t think it’s a disadvantage. Another example for UK. The Chinese sellers were never paying VAT, they just did not care. And then Amazon said like, okay, in Germany, then we will pay your VAT. And suddenly, the prices just went up because they had to pay VAT, because of course you can, you can sell your products for a lower price if you don’t need to pay 20%. VAT. Right. And now they have to and now they the prices went up, and you are again competitive, competitive to their prices. So it’s not only a disadvantage, I think it’s more advantage for the guys to do it. Right.
Ben Donovan 36:24
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. A higher barrier to entry is is an advantage sometimes, isn’t it? So? Yeah, absolutely. Good. Is there anything I haven’t asked that you feel? Good to mention anything you want to add? Before we close up?
Anton Hermann 36:37
I think we are we covered most of it. We could talk about it for more time. But I think the most the most stuff we we covered.
Ben Donovan 36:46
Yeah. Good. Yeah, I feel like it’s a really good overview. I’ve learned lots I feel like anybody listening that wants to sell in Europe is going to be you know, certainly well informed. As you say we couldn’t necessarily cover every topic in, you know, full detail, because it’s a massive, massive topic. But it’s I think, given everyone the headlines of what they need to go away and really research it if people want to find out more about space goats and what you do, where’s the best place to find you.
Anton Hermann 37:11
You can add me on LinkedIn, Anton Hermann, you can follow us on LinkedIn Space goats. Or you can go to our websites basically, sorta Oh, there we explain what we actually do. All this EPR stuff is not relevant with us anymore. We can help you with product compliance, we will check your copyrights for health claims and whatever. So that’s what we can all cover. And you just can focus on whatever you want to focus and just feel free and hit us up. We’re very excited about it.
Ben Donovan 37:40
Sounds good? Sounds good. All right. Well, we’ll we’ll leave all of those links, etc, in the show notes in the description for everyone to check out. And Tom, thanks for your time today. Really appreciate it. I feel real great knowledge shared there today.
Anton Hermann 37:52
Thank you very much for having me and everybody have a great start into the new year. Thank you very much.
Ben Donovan 37:58
Awesome. All right, guys. Thanks for joining us for this episode. I’m sure you got lots of value out of it. If you did, don’t forget to LIKE subscribe, leave a review, share all that good stuff. We really do appreciate it. And we’ll see you in the next episode real soon.
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