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#588 - E-commerce Compliance & Amazon EU Expansion
Manage episode 434726650 series 2802048
Ever wondered how to navigate the complex world of tax and compliance as an Amazon seller? Join us as we chat with Bojan Gajic, the former CEO of Helium 10 and now CEO of Avask, who brings a wealth of knowledge and fresh perspectives on scaling your Amazon, Walmart, and e-commerce business. Bojan shares his experience from recent Avask x Helium 10 workshops in Europe, offering valuable insights into the benefits of advanced content and the irreplaceable value of in-person networking.
Balancing work, family, and personal interests while striving for business growth can be a tough juggle. We'll explore the current landscape for Amazon sellers, highlighting the increasing challenges in the saturated U.S. market and the promising opportunities in Europe. Learn practical strategies for maintaining healthy margins and adapting to market shifts, ensuring your business not only survives but thrives.
Expanding into the European market can be a daunting task, fraught with regulatory hurdles and compliance issues. We dive into the intricacies of choosing the right country for importing goods and the critical role of sophisticated compliance providers like Avask. Plus, we discuss the transition of Avalara’s tax support in Europe and offer guidance on selecting new service providers. Tune in for a rich discussion that also touches on the joys and heartbreaks of Serbian basketball and offers tips for your next trip to the UK.
In episode 588 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Bojan discuss:
- 00:00 - Amazon Sellers, Avask CEO Discussion
- 03:32 - Upcoming Avask x Helium 10 Workshop Announcement
- 07:53 - E-Commerce Seller Profitability Trends in Amazon
- 11:02 - Amazon's Marketplace Expansion Strategy in Europe
- 17:24 - Optimizing European Logistics for Amazon Sellers
- 25:27 - Global E-Commerce Compliance and Expansion
- 29:13 - Transitioning E-Commerce Tax Compliance Providers
- 30:40 - Transitioning to Avask for Tax Solutions
- 32:46 - Discussion on Serbian and UK Culture
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Transcript
Bradley Sutton:
Today we've got on the show the former CEO of Helium 10, who's now the CEO of Avask, the leading company in the world for tax and compliance for Amazon sellers. We're going to talk on a wide variety of topics, including new Amazon incentives for some marketplaces, how sellers can help their profitability, and even Serbian basketball. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Want to enter in an Amazon keyword and then within seconds get up to thousands of potentially related keywords that you could research? Then you need Magnet by Helium 10. For more information, go to h10.me/magnet. Magnet works in most Amazon marketplaces, including USA, Mexico, Australia, Germany, UK, India and much more. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely bs free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. So we have got somebody who is no stranger to the show. He's been on the podcast multiple times, former CTO and CEO of Helium 10, now current CEO of Avask, Bojan. Welcome back.
Bojan:
Thank you, Bradley. It's good to be back. It's always great to have a conversation with you and on Serious Seller Podcast, even better.
Bradley Sutton:
And especially, you now have this Walter White Heisenberg era. Look to you, you got the goatee and shaved heads. A little bit different look than when you had here at Helium 10. I like it. I like it. You got that Avask gear. I've got some of Avask gear. I got this Real Madrid jersey. For those who are watching this on YouTube a Real Madrid, Avask jersey that I got at our workshop. So let's just talk about that real quick. You know we've been doing these workshops over there together a Avask and Helium 10 in Europe. For the first time we did one in in Germany near the Avask office, and then we did another one in Spain and so, like what's been the feedback as far as these events that we’ve been doing?
Bojan:
There's excitement internally and externally. You were there, obviously, and I met people who woke up at 3am and then drove for four hours to meet you. So the level of excitement that you generate around the world is astonishing. I was familiar with that, but always impressed to see the level of excitement, the commitment that people have and are ready to make to exchange experiences with you. So that was great. Feedback was positive all across the board. So sellers that attended, they're saying that this kind of experience, this kind of focused content that is not beginner content but sort of content that allows you to move your business beyond proof of concept, beyond the early stages of something that is missing or was missing. There are opportunities to learn things wherever you are obviously interns, being global, et cetera but interacting in person, interacting, networking with other sellers that are in similar kind of stage that's a value that's really hard to reproduce and Europe sort. So fragmentation in Europe led to a lack of organized events like that. The two events that we ran together were very well received. There's a lot of demand for the next one, so I know we have something planned out. Maybe we don't want to share at the moment, but there will be another one coming soon. So, before the end of the year, be ready to join us again in the United Nations. So we have some activity for you.
Bradley Sutton:
So if you're in Europe, I mean, actually you don't have to be in Europe. There was somebody who went to the Germany one who flew from South Africa. I don't know if you met that gentleman, but he flew from South Africa to go to the event. But obviously, if you're in Europe you're like a 40 euro Ryanair flight away from wherever we're going to have our next workshops. Make sure to join. Now, real quick. I'm wearing this soccer jersey. I'm wearing my MLS actually LA Galaxy hat here. So you know, Bojan is a sports fan too. That was a close game between Serbia and the United States in basketball. I thought Serbia was going to take it. There's a lot of maybe disappointed people from your home country.
Bojan:
Just for you, sir, I'm wearing a jersey as well.
0:04:08 - Bradley Sutton:
You got the Helium 10. I love it. He just did a Superman, you know, like opening up his shirt right there. I love it.
Bojan:
So Split Allegiance is an investor. Oh here, I got a Helium 10 in the last cup.
Bradley Sutton:
I love it. I love it.
Bojan:
So, it's the game. Yesterday Serbia, US. It was a heartbreak, because I'm deep down rooting for Serbia, obviously, and I have no expectations whatsoever. I hope to not be blown out after losing two games within two weeks by 26. So I was like okay, hopefully it's not embarrassment. And then first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, I'm like yeah. I know things will turn around, but when the results were 75-63, I actually allowed myself to start hoping that things might end up the way I would like them to end up. And then you have KD and Booker score two threes within like three seconds and it goes from 11 to five and the game kind of falls apart. It's like man. But that's sort of the beauty of being a fan of small nation or underdog team you lose a lot of times and you sort of learn to find happiness in small successes and then from time to time there'll be a big win and you really enjoy that.
Bradley Sutton:
Makes it that much sweeter. That's why I'm a Clippers fan. I'm still waiting for that big moment, but switching gears, kind of on a personal note, like this too, but I think it's something that's important for entrepreneurs out there. I get this question a lot. I'm not sure if you get it a lot, but you're going to get it today. But people ask me sometimes. They say, hey Bradley you’ve got your family, you know I don’t have small kids anymore but they’re still in Home. And how do you manage it when you’re travelling so much for business and now you are working in a company based in UK, and I know you're going around and you've got offices all over the world too and you're probably traveling, I would assume, more than you did when you were at Helium 10. What is it, you know? And there's entrepreneurs out there like, hey, I need to, I need to spend a month in my factory in China, or I need to go to these conferences and stuff. How do entrepreneurs? What advice can you give them about juggling family life with travel? How do you make it work?
Bojan:
I tried everything I could think of. I tried commingling these two and bringing my family along. Even this summer, I spent three months in Europe visiting different offices and trying to combine that with family time and what I learned over years is that it doesn't really work out. If you're trying to split your attention between work and family and God forbid, you have sort of personal hobbies, you're most likely going to end up frustrating everyone. I would be frustrated by not being present for the family, where I want to be present for the family, and also not being on top of my game professionally. What I would recommend is accepting that there is a difference between your personal time and your professional time and being present for the topic that requires attention at the moment. So, when your family, when you're doing something for you personally, then try to create a big enough box where you can focus and enjoy that time and be there for your family and do that for yourself. When you focus on work, try to focus on work, and it's not trivial. I would assume that through failure rates from marriages that entrepreneurs will have probably second to military families. It's not trivial for sure, but my recommendation would be accept that there are sacrifices that need to be made on both sides and start from there, like make sure that you're maximizing the value of time that you do have and you can spend it without.
Bradley Sutton:
Let's talk about some strategies and things that are going on in the e-commerce world. You've got now a new kind of maybe perspective on things Obviously working here at Helium 10, you could see a lot, but now you're a little bit more on the accounting and regulations and things like that side. I think the top of thing on Amazon sellers in the USA right now in mind is like profitability, especially this year. I mean, obviously everybody should be worried about profitability. But when I say that it's like hey, no, they're worried about it's going down because of all these new fees, like what are you seeing? You know, obviously you have customers in Europe. You've got customers in US. Are there any trends? Like, do you see profitability going down amongst American sellers or more worry on that side? Is it the same worries that Europeans sellers are facing? What's the kind of like state of affairs as far as profitability goes amongst Amazon sellers that you have dealings with?
Bojan:
So you've been in industry longer than I have. So I don't remember since what? 2016. Since I started operating this space, I don't remember a year where dominant sentiment was, oh, this year is better than the last year. It's always like, hey, it's harder than it was last year and it's fair to assume that next year will be more difficult than this year. So, it depends on who you ask, depends on where you look. So, there are challenges, there are always new challenges, but what I'm seeing in the US is maturing of the market. So, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, amazon was still in sort of explosive growth mode in the US. So Amazon was drawing in terms of GMB some more money being moved to the platform. Amazon was drawing in terms of customer count. Today, when you look at number of clients drivers 180 million in the US they're not making that many more people in the US, so that's already a fairly saturated market. Going back to history, Amazon US you had a handful of categories. 15, 20 years ago, Jeff Bezos was floating about the ability to expand beyond books and being successful in the electronics category. So as Amazon grew over the last 10, 15 years in the US, growth of Amazon drove growth of individual sellers. So, you essentially had to find a niche, find an opportunity and sort of continue to grow with Amazon. What you're seeing now is a slowdown in that kind of growth that you experienced over the last 10, 15 years, and every industry has similar kind of trajectory Google, Google advertising, similar kind of stuff happened there. It's natural that the margins will be compressed. For most, there might be sellers that are finding ways to keep their margins protected based on the IP or unique positionings that they have or just brand investment they're making. But the US is challenging and I don't expect that to change much. Amazon is still drawing in the US and when you look at the share of third-party sales, that's drawing in the US. So someone is making money. It's possible that the growth of seller base, for maybe the first time ever, is outstripping the growth of the market as it is in the US. Amazon, on the other hand, essentially fully saturated the market, so they don't have strong incentives to invest in expanding seller base as they bring on new categories. If they are expanding more into food or fast fashion, or they're expanding into drugs, like. Yes, there will be incentives, but those incentives will be more localized now than ever before you have a maturing of their advertising platform. So, when the new product, the new advertising product comes online, when they, when they start pushing ads through TikTok, there will be an opportunity window of opportunity. But first, world advantage is valid for only so long. So, us, I see, I can feel the squeeze. Your customers, my customers, sellers it's real, it's your margin compression is real and people are trying to figure out how to keep that margin positive. There will be winners, there'll be losers. Winners will be survivors. So, as the picture clears out as successful mid-sized, larger brands or survive the squeeze, there'll be less competition for them. What I'm seeing in Europe is still the sort of 2015, 2016, 2017 Amazon. So Amazon is drawing and bulk of the growth Amazon's corporation is actually happening in Europe and it's drawing in large, established countries. So Amazon still has material growth in countries like Germany, France, UK, where they've been present for more than a decade. But they're also bringing on new wealthy markets to Amazon. Not sure if you heard about that, but Sweden became part of their Pan-EU program now so you can store goods in Sweden, which makes it more affordable. Less expensive to distribute to Nordic countries Norway, Finland, Denmark but Amazon is actually actively investing in bringing sellers to that market. They need selection. So what used to be mantra in the US, that's now happening in Europe, and while in the US fees are going up and new fees are being levied, in Sweden, for example, Amazon is covering the cost of compliance, but there is cost. There's fixed costs for compliance. Amazon is covering cost of compliance for a certain amount of time and they're lowering FBA fees by 50% per year. So it's a sort of limited time promotion. It's not open to everyone, but that's the kind of investment that Amazon is making in Europe. They used to make the same kind of investment or similar kind of investment in the US, but that's no longer the case. As you think about expansion, as you think about growing your business, there are essentially four ways to grow your business. One is product innovation. So whatever your product portfolio looks like today, you have to continue to innovate. So that's a must do. If you stop innovating, if you start bringing new products to market, your growth will turn negative. It applies to Nike, it applies to someone who just started in business. You can grow by spending more money on acquiring customers, which is essentially Amazon advertising in our sense. But marginal value is being squeezed there as well, so that especially in the US, that's pretty saturated. So you can product innovation must do regardless of where you are find more eyeballs through spending on advertising getting more and more expensive, so marginal return diminishing. You can go into new channels, you can expand into new channels in your existing market. So if you're in the US you will go B2C or you'll go Walmart or you'll go to Chewy Home Depot, whatever the category is there. You're sort of betting that Amazon will shrink. So it's more like insurance. If Walmart manages to take some of Amazon's market shares, Amazon will be shrinking, Walmart will be expanding, so you will expand. So you're placing that bet that someone will win and take over Amazon's market share. So, when you go through those three, option number four is geo-expansion. So, it is non-trivial, so you have to be ready to make an investment. There's fixed costs associated with geographic expansion, but tools allow you to automate and offset some of those costs or minimize the cost. Allow you to automate and offset some of those costs or minimize the cost localizing listings. I'm not sure if Helium 10 has the tool, but I believe that there are capabilities that would allow you to programmatically localize your listing to German and Dutch and whatnot, with high degree of quality. It's like by that total you get 80% of value for 20% of effort. So once you satisfy all those essential needs, it becomes really good growth opportunity. But if you want to grow, if you want to take advantage of this marginal opportunity and sort of be agile because that's what small businesses have like ability to adjust in the moment, as opposed to large businesses that have long-term plans like lack of flexibility so leverage your agility to take advantage of new opportunities and geo expansion into a market that has sort of similar purchasing profile as one in US.
Bradley Sutton:
There's no great interest, okay well, there's a lot of the stuff you mentioned there that maybe you know can be considered a little bit of the sexy side of things like expanding to new marketplaces and localizing your listings and optimizing this and that. But then out of Avask there's a lot of non-sexy stuff too, because most people don't think accounting and taxes and all that stuff, taxes and all that stuff. I'm just curious, like, is there any like, when you onboard a new client or something, are you anecdotally seeing something where it's like oh, my goodness, you know you've been, you've been reporting this. This way you're wasting a lot of money or what you're not? You know, putting this and making it a business expense. You know, like, or hey, you're double paying this tax. You don't need to pay this, like. Are there things like that that you see that maybe you can tell sellers about that that maybe haven't gone to you yet and there may be losing money because of it.
Bojan:
So, I do my own personal taxes still, because I'm too lazy to keep track of all the expenses in a way that allow an accountant to do taxes for me. So, I'm sort of scrambling at the end of the year, at the end of the period, to do taxes, and I know that I leave a lot of money on the table by doing that. Same thing happens in this industry. So there are two ways where you can lose. There are obvious two ways where you can lose money. One is you're just making poor business decisions and moving goods in Europe while it's automated. So, especially if you're selling through Amazon, Amazon will take care of logistics for you the same way it does in the US, so you don't have to think about finding people that will pick it back. So Amazon takes care of all of that. But how do you bring goods into Europe can have a dramatic impact on your cash flow. You could import goods into Amazon's network through France, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, and it's like on the surface everything feels the same. But then there are various tax schemes that will impact not necessarily how much you pay, but it will impact when you pay. So it's a thing having to prepay your taxes based on estimated earnings for a year, versus holding off until you actually sell goods and then you pay taxes based on sales as opposed to based on income. So I would say, don't go through Germany, like get to Germany by going through France or Netherlands. That's the recipe for success. Don't go through Italy and Spain unless you're incorporated in Italy and Spain, because local governments can be not very forthcoming if there's money that they owe you, if there's money that you owe them, they will be very agile, but if they owe you some money, it's like Mañana, come back next year. So that's one way to lose money or overspend money on compliance is by just making poor, uninformed business decisions. Another one is not having a sophisticated enough provider, and that's another thing that you're seeing a lot, because for a lot of businesses, compliance is part of, as you said, not very sexy, not very exciting things, and it's usually handled by professionals that are competent in their lane. Think accountant that handles your corporate taxes and whatnot but they don't necessarily have the experience with international fixations and rules. We very often have things or have instances where, not due to lack of desire but more like lack of skill, our clients have been overpaying or not reclaiming what they were supposed to reclaim.
Bradley Sutton:
It's funny because I've had Melanie from Avask and others on before and I have a general understanding of what you do. But then somebody just this week was asking me like hey, I'm trying to, you know, I want to expand to Europe and I'm not sure about the regulations. And I was like, oh yeah, you know, maybe hit up Avask. But then I'm like I'm not. You know, I know they can handle VAT things and help you with some compliance. But as far as like setting up corporations, you know, it was kind of like I worked so much with you guys. I'm like it was kind of embarrassing moment for me. But then so I have you on here now, two days later. What is it exactly? Like who should be thinking about, you know, using Avask? I mean, it's a no brainer to me Like, hey, somebody who's confused about VAT and somebody who needs an accountant service, you know, of course I know that, but like, I'm an Amazon seller in ex -country, at what point? Or like, who is Avask right for in other words?
Bojan:
Businesses expanding into Europe, businesses that are trading across Europe, there's marketing side of needs sort of like what Helium 10 supports and not Helium 10 addresses. So, what is sizing the opportunity? And then creating all the collateral that's needed to address the situation. What's the size of this niche in Spain? Should I get into this or not? And if I decide to do it, what does it mean to get into this niche in Spain? Creating listing, thinking about advertising so that's where Helium 10 fits in. Now, how that really happens, how do you make it past the regulatory hurdles that every government will put in front of you? That's where Avast comes in. So, yes, we can help with incorporation and we can help give you an advice. Does it make sense for you to incorporate or not? So there's this advisory component that you're happy to provide. The core focus for the business is around regulatory compliance and you don't want to hear everything that happens there. There's tax compliance and then there's echo compliance. So now, if you sell goods like you live in California, when California, when you buy a bottle of water, you pay a recycling fee, in Europe, that is seller's responsibility. So if you're selling goods in Europe, you as a seller, you're responsible for end-of-life care for that product. So let's say you're selling a battery operated shaver in Germany, you have to think about packaging. So eventually that packaging will have to be disposed of. You have to think about electronic components. Electronic components have to be disposed of. And you have to think about batteries. If you include batteries in your product, then I recommend you do, because that has to be disposed of, and in Germany there are three different bodies that regulate this. So taking care of batteries is separate from taking care of electronic components, is separate from taking care of packaging. Some countries have even more category. When you go to France it's like there's a lot like textile and plastics and this and that. So that has nothing to do with corporate taxes and sales tax. That is essentially sales tax and wrapped in the final cost of product. But you still need to do it, otherwise you will not be able to sell. So what Avask does is take care of that compliance requirement without you having to do more than register. There is like going to the doctor for inoculation, so if you get a jab, there's a little bit of pain and then you're done. So it's a similar thing here we will help you, walk you, guide you through registration process. Once you're done with that process, we take care of that. Environmental customs so just movement of goods. If you make a mistake, if you misdeclare, if you import into wrong port, customs duties could be pretty expensive. Customs fees could be expensive. If you have goods that have limited shelf life, obviously it could go bad and it could be in trouble. So these are three main buckets tax compliance, environmental compliance and then cross-border movement to goods compliance. Not sexy and I don't recommend like it's non-differentiated knowledge. If I'm a seller, I don't benefit from understanding all of it like I learned about it because it's needed in order to support businesses, but as a seller I would not waste my time dealing with it like as a seller, I'm looking at new opportunities, I'm trying to understand the needs of the market, I'm trying to understand sourcing. But so all of this can make me more successful in my business. If I can find goods at 10% lower cost in wherever I'm sourcing, that's great. That's a better margin. If I can improve conversion rate by optimizing my listing, that's a great margin. If I spend hours doing some administrative work and then hopefully I don't get in trouble by forgetting to check the box, like best case scenario, I am where I was. Worst case scenario I'm in a deep hole because I made a mistake. So that's the. It's a long answer, but compliance, so operational compliance in European countries. We have sales tax team in the US as well. For businesses who need reporting criteria in the US. Let's say you're selling D2C or you're selling large enough volume, you also have to report sales tax in the US. We have that capability as well. The bulk of the focus at the moment is in Europe.
Bradley Sutton:
Speaking of some North American and European things, there's an announcement we gave on the Weekly Buzz where now there's some new digital service fees that you're going to have to pay if you're like a Spain based seller selling in the US or vice versa. So make sure you guys know about some of those, just in general. You know, you have a lot of sellers you work with. You mentioned Amazon Sweden before, but what other Amazon marketplaces are you seeing people expand to most lately? You know, maybe some of the more off the wall ones you know I'm not talking about. Oh yeah, obviously there's always going to be a lot of people expanding to Amazon Germany or France, but you know, like in my circles I've heard a lot more than before from Amazon Saudi Arabia for one, and then you know people are. I heard Amazon Australia is finally growing a little bit. It was so slow for a while and more people thinking about Japan, but there's plenty of other newer marketplaces. Do you have anything that sticks out, or pretty much all businesses as normal the last year or so?
Bojan:
Nothing major if you have any global evidence for various marketplaces like Dutch and Belgium. Apparently there's. There's something happening there where, in certain categories, sellers are finding success, but our core focus is Europe. We are seeing you're seeing anecdotal evidence, but that might not be particularly relevant for your audience. Those might be sort of huge reds that have name recognition that they're leveraging and extracting value as opposed to trying to build new presence. I think Kim Kardashian trying to monetize her name in Australia much easier than if you need to establish your brand. So, nothing, no nuggets sitting there beyond Sweden and that sort. Our Nordic region, where investments are, you have off Amazon. You have this belt in Central Europe like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, but that also requires expansion beyond Amazon. There are others. You have Allegra that dominates that market, that sliver, which is a sizable market $15 to $20 billion but I would not recommend exploring that until you've mastered European markets in general and if you're an Amazon seller, that's where you would go. You can start with Amazon and ride the growth of Amazon. Huge positive things. Developments happening in terms Amazon and ride the growth of Amazon. Huge positive things. Developing is happening in terms of market growth in Europe for Amazon. I would just piggyback on that.
Bradley Sutton:
So you know you and I were talking, you know before something I hadn't heard of, because I don't sell in Europe, I don't deal with too many European sellers here in the States, but I believe that there was like one, a pretty large company that was helping hundreds, if not thousands, of sellers in Europe with some of their taxes and compliance, is trying to step away from the Amazon game. So can you elaborate on that and what those sellers need to know?
Bojan:
It's a huge company. It's one of those companies that are not well known to consumers or smaller businesses, but large businesses who recognize the name. Avalara is a company that provides sales tax calculation software in the US. Pretty much any company calculating sales tax in the US will use Avalara in some form on the back end. So you don't see it. But when they say hey, in this zip code it's 775, and that one over there is 7875, that most likely comes from Avalara. It used to be a private company but public, got bought by Pista Capital but potentially they can private again. So possibly due to optimization of their balance sheet, they left or they're leaving, and it's not a secret. They made it public. Both Avalara and Amazon communicated that to a larger audience. Avalara is leaving the market at the end of Q3 and they will stop providing bad support for sellers in Europe at the end of that quarter. So through the end of Q3, you're fine. After that if you're selling in Europe, you will need a different service provider. You can try to do this yourself. I'm not saying it's impossible, just not recommended. And there are a few other providers in the space. Avalara is sort of a big name because they're the first Amazon partner in this space. So, if you started selling in Europe when they were initially pushing Pan-EU and European expansion in 2016, 17, 18, you're most likely using Avalara for that, even if you were not aware of that. If you're interacting with Amazon, but on the back end, Avalara is actually providing services they're getting out. You didn't hear about it. On the other hand, in my world, that seems to be the only thing people talk about. So it's probably somewhere in the middle, like somewhere it's noise, somewhere it's signal. It can be very stressful for businesses, but obviously Avask is one company that provides alternative to that and the transition is pretty seamless. Starting with this can be painful. Getting registrations in place, et cetera, et cetera, used to be pretty challenging and painful. Now it's much easier because we have providers like Avask and also process of transitioning from one provider to another is not as painful as starting from scratch. So if you're a seller selling in Europe, then you have to pay taxes, obviously, and you might be impacted by this, but I don't want that level of stress to be particularly high, especially considering that you're getting into sort of prime day or whatever it's like prime selling. So prime of stress to be particularly high, especially considering that you're getting into Prime Day or whatever it's like Prime Selling. So Prime Day, number two, and then follow this Tax Staff will be taken care of. You just need to make a selection. You need to go to Amazon and select who will be handling your account. So could be me, absolutely, but we are not the only provider there.
Bradley Sutton:
Anyways, good segue into what I do at the end of episodes. Anyways, if anybody wants to, you know, get more information from Avask or reach out. You know one way they can do is just go to hub.helium10.com. You type in Avask and you'll be able to contact them right from within the Helium 10 portal. Here, you know, you can go to, to avaskgroup.com. How can people find you? Are you active on LinkedIn or how can they reach you out there?
Bojan:
LinkedIn is the best way to get a hold of me. I don't have a Facebook account. I actually spent a few minutes earlier today looking at my Facebook account, specifically some conversation on Helium 10 Elite. Someone remembered that you co-hosted AMA with Matt Benton yeah, I did a little trivia.
Bradley Sutton:
I did a little trivia there. Those are the old days and and that correct answer was Matt Benton, of who I used to co-host AMA’s was like six years ago and only one person got it right and that person won a free ticket to Amazon Accelerate.
Bojan:
$600 worth of value there so that that trivia paid off. But yeah, yeah, Avask.com or Helium 10, affordable, but Avask.com easier to remember and for me personally find that LinkedIn always happy to connect.
Bradley Sutton:
Do you have any last 30 second strategy or 60 second strategy? For us, it could be about the best Serbian food or best places to eat in the UK, since you've spent a lot of time there Accounting. It could be about Amazon software. You've got a lot of expertise, so go ahead and knock it out, whatever you want to talk about.
Bojan:
UK is wonderful June through early September, so if you're going to visit, it's a great country, great place, great area to visit during summer. If you spend more time there September through May, you will understand why they built all those ships and conquered the world. And I thought that was original when I said this, but then I was told that's a meme. So I'm not sure how valuable this is Beautiful country, great people but whether June through August. That's Okay.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, all right, good to know because I've been putting off my trip over there. I haven't been back since before COVID, so now I know when I can go. Well, Bojan, it's been great to have you back on the shows, great to see you in person at these recent events and everybody else out there, like we said, look forward to, perhaps in another announcement of another event, that that we're going to do. Uh, maybe October, maybe November, not sure when, but be looking out for that announcement and you can hang out with us and we can talk, uh, Serbian sports. Um, don't talk about Serbian soccer. That was a very not great performance this year, that it's a sore point for boy on there. But we'll talk about Serbian basketball, because that's always a positive one to talk about.
743 episoder
#588 - E-commerce Compliance & Amazon EU Expansion
Serious Sellers Podcast: Learn How To Sell On Amazon FBA & Walmart
Manage episode 434726650 series 2802048
Ever wondered how to navigate the complex world of tax and compliance as an Amazon seller? Join us as we chat with Bojan Gajic, the former CEO of Helium 10 and now CEO of Avask, who brings a wealth of knowledge and fresh perspectives on scaling your Amazon, Walmart, and e-commerce business. Bojan shares his experience from recent Avask x Helium 10 workshops in Europe, offering valuable insights into the benefits of advanced content and the irreplaceable value of in-person networking.
Balancing work, family, and personal interests while striving for business growth can be a tough juggle. We'll explore the current landscape for Amazon sellers, highlighting the increasing challenges in the saturated U.S. market and the promising opportunities in Europe. Learn practical strategies for maintaining healthy margins and adapting to market shifts, ensuring your business not only survives but thrives.
Expanding into the European market can be a daunting task, fraught with regulatory hurdles and compliance issues. We dive into the intricacies of choosing the right country for importing goods and the critical role of sophisticated compliance providers like Avask. Plus, we discuss the transition of Avalara’s tax support in Europe and offer guidance on selecting new service providers. Tune in for a rich discussion that also touches on the joys and heartbreaks of Serbian basketball and offers tips for your next trip to the UK.
In episode 588 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Bojan discuss:
- 00:00 - Amazon Sellers, Avask CEO Discussion
- 03:32 - Upcoming Avask x Helium 10 Workshop Announcement
- 07:53 - E-Commerce Seller Profitability Trends in Amazon
- 11:02 - Amazon's Marketplace Expansion Strategy in Europe
- 17:24 - Optimizing European Logistics for Amazon Sellers
- 25:27 - Global E-Commerce Compliance and Expansion
- 29:13 - Transitioning E-Commerce Tax Compliance Providers
- 30:40 - Transitioning to Avask for Tax Solutions
- 32:46 - Discussion on Serbian and UK Culture
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Transcript
Bradley Sutton:
Today we've got on the show the former CEO of Helium 10, who's now the CEO of Avask, the leading company in the world for tax and compliance for Amazon sellers. We're going to talk on a wide variety of topics, including new Amazon incentives for some marketplaces, how sellers can help their profitability, and even Serbian basketball. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Want to enter in an Amazon keyword and then within seconds get up to thousands of potentially related keywords that you could research? Then you need Magnet by Helium 10. For more information, go to h10.me/magnet. Magnet works in most Amazon marketplaces, including USA, Mexico, Australia, Germany, UK, India and much more. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely bs free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. So we have got somebody who is no stranger to the show. He's been on the podcast multiple times, former CTO and CEO of Helium 10, now current CEO of Avask, Bojan. Welcome back.
Bojan:
Thank you, Bradley. It's good to be back. It's always great to have a conversation with you and on Serious Seller Podcast, even better.
Bradley Sutton:
And especially, you now have this Walter White Heisenberg era. Look to you, you got the goatee and shaved heads. A little bit different look than when you had here at Helium 10. I like it. I like it. You got that Avask gear. I've got some of Avask gear. I got this Real Madrid jersey. For those who are watching this on YouTube a Real Madrid, Avask jersey that I got at our workshop. So let's just talk about that real quick. You know we've been doing these workshops over there together a Avask and Helium 10 in Europe. For the first time we did one in in Germany near the Avask office, and then we did another one in Spain and so, like what's been the feedback as far as these events that we’ve been doing?
Bojan:
There's excitement internally and externally. You were there, obviously, and I met people who woke up at 3am and then drove for four hours to meet you. So the level of excitement that you generate around the world is astonishing. I was familiar with that, but always impressed to see the level of excitement, the commitment that people have and are ready to make to exchange experiences with you. So that was great. Feedback was positive all across the board. So sellers that attended, they're saying that this kind of experience, this kind of focused content that is not beginner content but sort of content that allows you to move your business beyond proof of concept, beyond the early stages of something that is missing or was missing. There are opportunities to learn things wherever you are obviously interns, being global, et cetera but interacting in person, interacting, networking with other sellers that are in similar kind of stage that's a value that's really hard to reproduce and Europe sort. So fragmentation in Europe led to a lack of organized events like that. The two events that we ran together were very well received. There's a lot of demand for the next one, so I know we have something planned out. Maybe we don't want to share at the moment, but there will be another one coming soon. So, before the end of the year, be ready to join us again in the United Nations. So we have some activity for you.
Bradley Sutton:
So if you're in Europe, I mean, actually you don't have to be in Europe. There was somebody who went to the Germany one who flew from South Africa. I don't know if you met that gentleman, but he flew from South Africa to go to the event. But obviously, if you're in Europe you're like a 40 euro Ryanair flight away from wherever we're going to have our next workshops. Make sure to join. Now, real quick. I'm wearing this soccer jersey. I'm wearing my MLS actually LA Galaxy hat here. So you know, Bojan is a sports fan too. That was a close game between Serbia and the United States in basketball. I thought Serbia was going to take it. There's a lot of maybe disappointed people from your home country.
Bojan:
Just for you, sir, I'm wearing a jersey as well.
0:04:08 - Bradley Sutton:
You got the Helium 10. I love it. He just did a Superman, you know, like opening up his shirt right there. I love it.
Bojan:
So Split Allegiance is an investor. Oh here, I got a Helium 10 in the last cup.
Bradley Sutton:
I love it. I love it.
Bojan:
So, it's the game. Yesterday Serbia, US. It was a heartbreak, because I'm deep down rooting for Serbia, obviously, and I have no expectations whatsoever. I hope to not be blown out after losing two games within two weeks by 26. So I was like okay, hopefully it's not embarrassment. And then first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, I'm like yeah. I know things will turn around, but when the results were 75-63, I actually allowed myself to start hoping that things might end up the way I would like them to end up. And then you have KD and Booker score two threes within like three seconds and it goes from 11 to five and the game kind of falls apart. It's like man. But that's sort of the beauty of being a fan of small nation or underdog team you lose a lot of times and you sort of learn to find happiness in small successes and then from time to time there'll be a big win and you really enjoy that.
Bradley Sutton:
Makes it that much sweeter. That's why I'm a Clippers fan. I'm still waiting for that big moment, but switching gears, kind of on a personal note, like this too, but I think it's something that's important for entrepreneurs out there. I get this question a lot. I'm not sure if you get it a lot, but you're going to get it today. But people ask me sometimes. They say, hey Bradley you’ve got your family, you know I don’t have small kids anymore but they’re still in Home. And how do you manage it when you’re travelling so much for business and now you are working in a company based in UK, and I know you're going around and you've got offices all over the world too and you're probably traveling, I would assume, more than you did when you were at Helium 10. What is it, you know? And there's entrepreneurs out there like, hey, I need to, I need to spend a month in my factory in China, or I need to go to these conferences and stuff. How do entrepreneurs? What advice can you give them about juggling family life with travel? How do you make it work?
Bojan:
I tried everything I could think of. I tried commingling these two and bringing my family along. Even this summer, I spent three months in Europe visiting different offices and trying to combine that with family time and what I learned over years is that it doesn't really work out. If you're trying to split your attention between work and family and God forbid, you have sort of personal hobbies, you're most likely going to end up frustrating everyone. I would be frustrated by not being present for the family, where I want to be present for the family, and also not being on top of my game professionally. What I would recommend is accepting that there is a difference between your personal time and your professional time and being present for the topic that requires attention at the moment. So, when your family, when you're doing something for you personally, then try to create a big enough box where you can focus and enjoy that time and be there for your family and do that for yourself. When you focus on work, try to focus on work, and it's not trivial. I would assume that through failure rates from marriages that entrepreneurs will have probably second to military families. It's not trivial for sure, but my recommendation would be accept that there are sacrifices that need to be made on both sides and start from there, like make sure that you're maximizing the value of time that you do have and you can spend it without.
Bradley Sutton:
Let's talk about some strategies and things that are going on in the e-commerce world. You've got now a new kind of maybe perspective on things Obviously working here at Helium 10, you could see a lot, but now you're a little bit more on the accounting and regulations and things like that side. I think the top of thing on Amazon sellers in the USA right now in mind is like profitability, especially this year. I mean, obviously everybody should be worried about profitability. But when I say that it's like hey, no, they're worried about it's going down because of all these new fees, like what are you seeing? You know, obviously you have customers in Europe. You've got customers in US. Are there any trends? Like, do you see profitability going down amongst American sellers or more worry on that side? Is it the same worries that Europeans sellers are facing? What's the kind of like state of affairs as far as profitability goes amongst Amazon sellers that you have dealings with?
Bojan:
So you've been in industry longer than I have. So I don't remember since what? 2016. Since I started operating this space, I don't remember a year where dominant sentiment was, oh, this year is better than the last year. It's always like, hey, it's harder than it was last year and it's fair to assume that next year will be more difficult than this year. So, it depends on who you ask, depends on where you look. So, there are challenges, there are always new challenges, but what I'm seeing in the US is maturing of the market. So, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, amazon was still in sort of explosive growth mode in the US. So Amazon was drawing in terms of GMB some more money being moved to the platform. Amazon was drawing in terms of customer count. Today, when you look at number of clients drivers 180 million in the US they're not making that many more people in the US, so that's already a fairly saturated market. Going back to history, Amazon US you had a handful of categories. 15, 20 years ago, Jeff Bezos was floating about the ability to expand beyond books and being successful in the electronics category. So as Amazon grew over the last 10, 15 years in the US, growth of Amazon drove growth of individual sellers. So, you essentially had to find a niche, find an opportunity and sort of continue to grow with Amazon. What you're seeing now is a slowdown in that kind of growth that you experienced over the last 10, 15 years, and every industry has similar kind of trajectory Google, Google advertising, similar kind of stuff happened there. It's natural that the margins will be compressed. For most, there might be sellers that are finding ways to keep their margins protected based on the IP or unique positionings that they have or just brand investment they're making. But the US is challenging and I don't expect that to change much. Amazon is still drawing in the US and when you look at the share of third-party sales, that's drawing in the US. So someone is making money. It's possible that the growth of seller base, for maybe the first time ever, is outstripping the growth of the market as it is in the US. Amazon, on the other hand, essentially fully saturated the market, so they don't have strong incentives to invest in expanding seller base as they bring on new categories. If they are expanding more into food or fast fashion, or they're expanding into drugs, like. Yes, there will be incentives, but those incentives will be more localized now than ever before you have a maturing of their advertising platform. So, when the new product, the new advertising product comes online, when they, when they start pushing ads through TikTok, there will be an opportunity window of opportunity. But first, world advantage is valid for only so long. So, us, I see, I can feel the squeeze. Your customers, my customers, sellers it's real, it's your margin compression is real and people are trying to figure out how to keep that margin positive. There will be winners, there'll be losers. Winners will be survivors. So, as the picture clears out as successful mid-sized, larger brands or survive the squeeze, there'll be less competition for them. What I'm seeing in Europe is still the sort of 2015, 2016, 2017 Amazon. So Amazon is drawing and bulk of the growth Amazon's corporation is actually happening in Europe and it's drawing in large, established countries. So Amazon still has material growth in countries like Germany, France, UK, where they've been present for more than a decade. But they're also bringing on new wealthy markets to Amazon. Not sure if you heard about that, but Sweden became part of their Pan-EU program now so you can store goods in Sweden, which makes it more affordable. Less expensive to distribute to Nordic countries Norway, Finland, Denmark but Amazon is actually actively investing in bringing sellers to that market. They need selection. So what used to be mantra in the US, that's now happening in Europe, and while in the US fees are going up and new fees are being levied, in Sweden, for example, Amazon is covering the cost of compliance, but there is cost. There's fixed costs for compliance. Amazon is covering cost of compliance for a certain amount of time and they're lowering FBA fees by 50% per year. So it's a sort of limited time promotion. It's not open to everyone, but that's the kind of investment that Amazon is making in Europe. They used to make the same kind of investment or similar kind of investment in the US, but that's no longer the case. As you think about expansion, as you think about growing your business, there are essentially four ways to grow your business. One is product innovation. So whatever your product portfolio looks like today, you have to continue to innovate. So that's a must do. If you stop innovating, if you start bringing new products to market, your growth will turn negative. It applies to Nike, it applies to someone who just started in business. You can grow by spending more money on acquiring customers, which is essentially Amazon advertising in our sense. But marginal value is being squeezed there as well, so that especially in the US, that's pretty saturated. So you can product innovation must do regardless of where you are find more eyeballs through spending on advertising getting more and more expensive, so marginal return diminishing. You can go into new channels, you can expand into new channels in your existing market. So if you're in the US you will go B2C or you'll go Walmart or you'll go to Chewy Home Depot, whatever the category is there. You're sort of betting that Amazon will shrink. So it's more like insurance. If Walmart manages to take some of Amazon's market shares, Amazon will be shrinking, Walmart will be expanding, so you will expand. So you're placing that bet that someone will win and take over Amazon's market share. So, when you go through those three, option number four is geo-expansion. So, it is non-trivial, so you have to be ready to make an investment. There's fixed costs associated with geographic expansion, but tools allow you to automate and offset some of those costs or minimize the cost. Allow you to automate and offset some of those costs or minimize the cost localizing listings. I'm not sure if Helium 10 has the tool, but I believe that there are capabilities that would allow you to programmatically localize your listing to German and Dutch and whatnot, with high degree of quality. It's like by that total you get 80% of value for 20% of effort. So once you satisfy all those essential needs, it becomes really good growth opportunity. But if you want to grow, if you want to take advantage of this marginal opportunity and sort of be agile because that's what small businesses have like ability to adjust in the moment, as opposed to large businesses that have long-term plans like lack of flexibility so leverage your agility to take advantage of new opportunities and geo expansion into a market that has sort of similar purchasing profile as one in US.
Bradley Sutton:
There's no great interest, okay well, there's a lot of the stuff you mentioned there that maybe you know can be considered a little bit of the sexy side of things like expanding to new marketplaces and localizing your listings and optimizing this and that. But then out of Avask there's a lot of non-sexy stuff too, because most people don't think accounting and taxes and all that stuff, taxes and all that stuff. I'm just curious, like, is there any like, when you onboard a new client or something, are you anecdotally seeing something where it's like oh, my goodness, you know you've been, you've been reporting this. This way you're wasting a lot of money or what you're not? You know, putting this and making it a business expense. You know, like, or hey, you're double paying this tax. You don't need to pay this, like. Are there things like that that you see that maybe you can tell sellers about that that maybe haven't gone to you yet and there may be losing money because of it.
Bojan:
So, I do my own personal taxes still, because I'm too lazy to keep track of all the expenses in a way that allow an accountant to do taxes for me. So, I'm sort of scrambling at the end of the year, at the end of the period, to do taxes, and I know that I leave a lot of money on the table by doing that. Same thing happens in this industry. So there are two ways where you can lose. There are obvious two ways where you can lose money. One is you're just making poor business decisions and moving goods in Europe while it's automated. So, especially if you're selling through Amazon, Amazon will take care of logistics for you the same way it does in the US, so you don't have to think about finding people that will pick it back. So Amazon takes care of all of that. But how do you bring goods into Europe can have a dramatic impact on your cash flow. You could import goods into Amazon's network through France, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, and it's like on the surface everything feels the same. But then there are various tax schemes that will impact not necessarily how much you pay, but it will impact when you pay. So it's a thing having to prepay your taxes based on estimated earnings for a year, versus holding off until you actually sell goods and then you pay taxes based on sales as opposed to based on income. So I would say, don't go through Germany, like get to Germany by going through France or Netherlands. That's the recipe for success. Don't go through Italy and Spain unless you're incorporated in Italy and Spain, because local governments can be not very forthcoming if there's money that they owe you, if there's money that you owe them, they will be very agile, but if they owe you some money, it's like Mañana, come back next year. So that's one way to lose money or overspend money on compliance is by just making poor, uninformed business decisions. Another one is not having a sophisticated enough provider, and that's another thing that you're seeing a lot, because for a lot of businesses, compliance is part of, as you said, not very sexy, not very exciting things, and it's usually handled by professionals that are competent in their lane. Think accountant that handles your corporate taxes and whatnot but they don't necessarily have the experience with international fixations and rules. We very often have things or have instances where, not due to lack of desire but more like lack of skill, our clients have been overpaying or not reclaiming what they were supposed to reclaim.
Bradley Sutton:
It's funny because I've had Melanie from Avask and others on before and I have a general understanding of what you do. But then somebody just this week was asking me like hey, I'm trying to, you know, I want to expand to Europe and I'm not sure about the regulations. And I was like, oh yeah, you know, maybe hit up Avask. But then I'm like I'm not. You know, I know they can handle VAT things and help you with some compliance. But as far as like setting up corporations, you know, it was kind of like I worked so much with you guys. I'm like it was kind of embarrassing moment for me. But then so I have you on here now, two days later. What is it exactly? Like who should be thinking about, you know, using Avask? I mean, it's a no brainer to me Like, hey, somebody who's confused about VAT and somebody who needs an accountant service, you know, of course I know that, but like, I'm an Amazon seller in ex -country, at what point? Or like, who is Avask right for in other words?
Bojan:
Businesses expanding into Europe, businesses that are trading across Europe, there's marketing side of needs sort of like what Helium 10 supports and not Helium 10 addresses. So, what is sizing the opportunity? And then creating all the collateral that's needed to address the situation. What's the size of this niche in Spain? Should I get into this or not? And if I decide to do it, what does it mean to get into this niche in Spain? Creating listing, thinking about advertising so that's where Helium 10 fits in. Now, how that really happens, how do you make it past the regulatory hurdles that every government will put in front of you? That's where Avast comes in. So, yes, we can help with incorporation and we can help give you an advice. Does it make sense for you to incorporate or not? So there's this advisory component that you're happy to provide. The core focus for the business is around regulatory compliance and you don't want to hear everything that happens there. There's tax compliance and then there's echo compliance. So now, if you sell goods like you live in California, when California, when you buy a bottle of water, you pay a recycling fee, in Europe, that is seller's responsibility. So if you're selling goods in Europe, you as a seller, you're responsible for end-of-life care for that product. So let's say you're selling a battery operated shaver in Germany, you have to think about packaging. So eventually that packaging will have to be disposed of. You have to think about electronic components. Electronic components have to be disposed of. And you have to think about batteries. If you include batteries in your product, then I recommend you do, because that has to be disposed of, and in Germany there are three different bodies that regulate this. So taking care of batteries is separate from taking care of electronic components, is separate from taking care of packaging. Some countries have even more category. When you go to France it's like there's a lot like textile and plastics and this and that. So that has nothing to do with corporate taxes and sales tax. That is essentially sales tax and wrapped in the final cost of product. But you still need to do it, otherwise you will not be able to sell. So what Avask does is take care of that compliance requirement without you having to do more than register. There is like going to the doctor for inoculation, so if you get a jab, there's a little bit of pain and then you're done. So it's a similar thing here we will help you, walk you, guide you through registration process. Once you're done with that process, we take care of that. Environmental customs so just movement of goods. If you make a mistake, if you misdeclare, if you import into wrong port, customs duties could be pretty expensive. Customs fees could be expensive. If you have goods that have limited shelf life, obviously it could go bad and it could be in trouble. So these are three main buckets tax compliance, environmental compliance and then cross-border movement to goods compliance. Not sexy and I don't recommend like it's non-differentiated knowledge. If I'm a seller, I don't benefit from understanding all of it like I learned about it because it's needed in order to support businesses, but as a seller I would not waste my time dealing with it like as a seller, I'm looking at new opportunities, I'm trying to understand the needs of the market, I'm trying to understand sourcing. But so all of this can make me more successful in my business. If I can find goods at 10% lower cost in wherever I'm sourcing, that's great. That's a better margin. If I can improve conversion rate by optimizing my listing, that's a great margin. If I spend hours doing some administrative work and then hopefully I don't get in trouble by forgetting to check the box, like best case scenario, I am where I was. Worst case scenario I'm in a deep hole because I made a mistake. So that's the. It's a long answer, but compliance, so operational compliance in European countries. We have sales tax team in the US as well. For businesses who need reporting criteria in the US. Let's say you're selling D2C or you're selling large enough volume, you also have to report sales tax in the US. We have that capability as well. The bulk of the focus at the moment is in Europe.
Bradley Sutton:
Speaking of some North American and European things, there's an announcement we gave on the Weekly Buzz where now there's some new digital service fees that you're going to have to pay if you're like a Spain based seller selling in the US or vice versa. So make sure you guys know about some of those, just in general. You know, you have a lot of sellers you work with. You mentioned Amazon Sweden before, but what other Amazon marketplaces are you seeing people expand to most lately? You know, maybe some of the more off the wall ones you know I'm not talking about. Oh yeah, obviously there's always going to be a lot of people expanding to Amazon Germany or France, but you know, like in my circles I've heard a lot more than before from Amazon Saudi Arabia for one, and then you know people are. I heard Amazon Australia is finally growing a little bit. It was so slow for a while and more people thinking about Japan, but there's plenty of other newer marketplaces. Do you have anything that sticks out, or pretty much all businesses as normal the last year or so?
Bojan:
Nothing major if you have any global evidence for various marketplaces like Dutch and Belgium. Apparently there's. There's something happening there where, in certain categories, sellers are finding success, but our core focus is Europe. We are seeing you're seeing anecdotal evidence, but that might not be particularly relevant for your audience. Those might be sort of huge reds that have name recognition that they're leveraging and extracting value as opposed to trying to build new presence. I think Kim Kardashian trying to monetize her name in Australia much easier than if you need to establish your brand. So, nothing, no nuggets sitting there beyond Sweden and that sort. Our Nordic region, where investments are, you have off Amazon. You have this belt in Central Europe like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, but that also requires expansion beyond Amazon. There are others. You have Allegra that dominates that market, that sliver, which is a sizable market $15 to $20 billion but I would not recommend exploring that until you've mastered European markets in general and if you're an Amazon seller, that's where you would go. You can start with Amazon and ride the growth of Amazon. Huge positive things. Developments happening in terms Amazon and ride the growth of Amazon. Huge positive things. Developing is happening in terms of market growth in Europe for Amazon. I would just piggyback on that.
Bradley Sutton:
So you know you and I were talking, you know before something I hadn't heard of, because I don't sell in Europe, I don't deal with too many European sellers here in the States, but I believe that there was like one, a pretty large company that was helping hundreds, if not thousands, of sellers in Europe with some of their taxes and compliance, is trying to step away from the Amazon game. So can you elaborate on that and what those sellers need to know?
Bojan:
It's a huge company. It's one of those companies that are not well known to consumers or smaller businesses, but large businesses who recognize the name. Avalara is a company that provides sales tax calculation software in the US. Pretty much any company calculating sales tax in the US will use Avalara in some form on the back end. So you don't see it. But when they say hey, in this zip code it's 775, and that one over there is 7875, that most likely comes from Avalara. It used to be a private company but public, got bought by Pista Capital but potentially they can private again. So possibly due to optimization of their balance sheet, they left or they're leaving, and it's not a secret. They made it public. Both Avalara and Amazon communicated that to a larger audience. Avalara is leaving the market at the end of Q3 and they will stop providing bad support for sellers in Europe at the end of that quarter. So through the end of Q3, you're fine. After that if you're selling in Europe, you will need a different service provider. You can try to do this yourself. I'm not saying it's impossible, just not recommended. And there are a few other providers in the space. Avalara is sort of a big name because they're the first Amazon partner in this space. So, if you started selling in Europe when they were initially pushing Pan-EU and European expansion in 2016, 17, 18, you're most likely using Avalara for that, even if you were not aware of that. If you're interacting with Amazon, but on the back end, Avalara is actually providing services they're getting out. You didn't hear about it. On the other hand, in my world, that seems to be the only thing people talk about. So it's probably somewhere in the middle, like somewhere it's noise, somewhere it's signal. It can be very stressful for businesses, but obviously Avask is one company that provides alternative to that and the transition is pretty seamless. Starting with this can be painful. Getting registrations in place, et cetera, et cetera, used to be pretty challenging and painful. Now it's much easier because we have providers like Avask and also process of transitioning from one provider to another is not as painful as starting from scratch. So if you're a seller selling in Europe, then you have to pay taxes, obviously, and you might be impacted by this, but I don't want that level of stress to be particularly high, especially considering that you're getting into sort of prime day or whatever it's like prime selling. So prime of stress to be particularly high, especially considering that you're getting into Prime Day or whatever it's like Prime Selling. So Prime Day, number two, and then follow this Tax Staff will be taken care of. You just need to make a selection. You need to go to Amazon and select who will be handling your account. So could be me, absolutely, but we are not the only provider there.
Bradley Sutton:
Anyways, good segue into what I do at the end of episodes. Anyways, if anybody wants to, you know, get more information from Avask or reach out. You know one way they can do is just go to hub.helium10.com. You type in Avask and you'll be able to contact them right from within the Helium 10 portal. Here, you know, you can go to, to avaskgroup.com. How can people find you? Are you active on LinkedIn or how can they reach you out there?
Bojan:
LinkedIn is the best way to get a hold of me. I don't have a Facebook account. I actually spent a few minutes earlier today looking at my Facebook account, specifically some conversation on Helium 10 Elite. Someone remembered that you co-hosted AMA with Matt Benton yeah, I did a little trivia.
Bradley Sutton:
I did a little trivia there. Those are the old days and and that correct answer was Matt Benton, of who I used to co-host AMA’s was like six years ago and only one person got it right and that person won a free ticket to Amazon Accelerate.
Bojan:
$600 worth of value there so that that trivia paid off. But yeah, yeah, Avask.com or Helium 10, affordable, but Avask.com easier to remember and for me personally find that LinkedIn always happy to connect.
Bradley Sutton:
Do you have any last 30 second strategy or 60 second strategy? For us, it could be about the best Serbian food or best places to eat in the UK, since you've spent a lot of time there Accounting. It could be about Amazon software. You've got a lot of expertise, so go ahead and knock it out, whatever you want to talk about.
Bojan:
UK is wonderful June through early September, so if you're going to visit, it's a great country, great place, great area to visit during summer. If you spend more time there September through May, you will understand why they built all those ships and conquered the world. And I thought that was original when I said this, but then I was told that's a meme. So I'm not sure how valuable this is Beautiful country, great people but whether June through August. That's Okay.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, all right, good to know because I've been putting off my trip over there. I haven't been back since before COVID, so now I know when I can go. Well, Bojan, it's been great to have you back on the shows, great to see you in person at these recent events and everybody else out there, like we said, look forward to, perhaps in another announcement of another event, that that we're going to do. Uh, maybe October, maybe November, not sure when, but be looking out for that announcement and you can hang out with us and we can talk, uh, Serbian sports. Um, don't talk about Serbian soccer. That was a very not great performance this year, that it's a sore point for boy on there. But we'll talk about Serbian basketball, because that's always a positive one to talk about.
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