Amazon multi-country inventory is another alternative to storing goods and making deliveries faster to your customers. Different from the PAN-EU scheme where Amazon automatically moves your goods. With Multi-country inventory you get to pick and choose in the countries you wish to store goods in. You could store goods in France & Germany or Spain, Germany and Italy. This allowed you to really target your customer base where you think you will make the most sales and supply goods to them faster while avoiding the additional costs and VAT obligations of storing in countries where you feel you will not sell much goods. Amazon currently have locations in Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Poland and Czech Republic
VAT Obligations
Just like the other Amazon FBA schemes the multi-country inventory comes with it’s own VAT obligations. Storing in all of these countries require you to register for a VAT number where you intend to store. Due to recent VAT changes it is likely that Amazon will no longer allow you to store in a country before receiving a VAT number so you will need to pre-register for VAT on the basis you will be storing goods in the country.
In addition, exceeding any of the distance sales thresholds would also require you to register for VAT even if you are not storing goods where the thresholds was exceeded. You can check the distance sales thresholds for each country here.Â
Advantages of MCI
Amazon Multi-Country Inventory (MCI) allows you to ship your FBA inventory to Amazon fulfilment centres in multiple european countries of your choice. The UK is now excluded
Fast Delivery
Goods are delivered faster locally thanks to the inventory being stored closer to the end customer
Amazon Prime
Due to storing in Amazon FBA, your listings now have visibility with Amazon Prime members and qualify for accelerated shipping options including Amazon Prime One-Day Delivery, Free Super Saver Delivery and Next-Day Delivery (where applicable)
Lower Shipping Fee’s
When shipping bulk orders to fulfilment centre’s you’ll be able to take advantage of Amazons fulfilment network by not only using prime and getting goods to consumers faster but your local shipping fee’s will be much cheaper as a result
