[Breaking news] Necessary items are also banned from sale! Amazon Europe site earthquake

On the 22nd of last month, Amazon announced that it would suspend orders for non-essential goods on its French and Italian sites, and would only accept products from six essential categories for warehousing and sale, including mother and baby, health & home, beauty and personal care, food and health, scientific research and industry, and pet supplies.

But this morning, bad news suddenly came from the French station. Even the six major necessities could not be sold normally, and all were shown as out of stock.

This is not a bug caused by Amazon's mishap, but the French government has ordered Amazon to ban the sale of all products except food and medical supplies, otherwise it will face a fine of 1 million euros a day!

I have also received confirmation from multiple foreign media reports that the ban has been issued and Amazon will have 24 hours to implement the ban. If there are still illegal products on sale after 24 hours, Amazon will be fined by the court. The ban will last for one month, and the court may lift it early depending on the situation.

Why is Amazon banned from selling at this time when the whole country is under martial law and people have to get their necessities from e-commerce platforms?

Reasons for banning the sale of essential goods

It turns out that several French unions have previously expressed doubts about Amazon's working conditions and health standards during the outbreak. Some unions even called for a complete suspension of all Amazon business activities in France until an assessment of Amazon's working environment is completed.

The Nanterre Court in France, which heard the case, finalized its ruling on Tuesday, restricting Amazon's activities in France and allowing it to receive and deliver only basic products related to the epidemic, such as food, health care, etc.

Amazon has issued a statement strongly opposing the Nanterre Court's ruling, and is evaluating the impact of the ban on its French sites and actively preparing for an appeal. However, so far Amazon can only temporarily comply with the ban and remove related products from the shelves.

Amazon has now begun to gradually ban the sale of six essential categories, including maternal and child products, pet products, etc. These categories are large in size, and many sellers were involved in them before the epidemic. After the epidemic, because only these six categories can be shipped and sold, a large number of sellers have poured into these markets.

It was OK for masks, disinfectants and other epidemic prevention supplies, but products in categories such as maternal and child care and pets were directly banned, without giving sellers any chance to react. Currently, the inventory stored in the French FBA cannot be sold remotely on other European sites.

Because of this ban, the French site is temporarily out of business, and Amazon has no other options except to appeal for a lifting of the ban. However, I expect that the storage fees for the affected inventory should be exempted, which can be regarded as a small compensation for sellers.

In Europe, Amazon has received more orders due to the impact of the epidemic. After Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and other countries have successively adopted strict home bans, Amazon is the only place where people can safely buy supplies. Therefore, Amazon's online sales in Europe are still rising.

Compared with the French government's radical ban, Germany and the UK did not strangle the e-commerce platforms, but instead released favorable policies to delay sellers from paying VAT taxes.

Now that the French site is temporarily shut down, it is time to focus more on the two European sites in Germany and the UK, so that we can take advantage of the surge in online shopping demand caused by this epidemic!

Of course, these two large-scale European sites also require registration of local VAT tax numbers before entry. The high VAT registration fee has always been the threshold for European sites. The price of several thousand has discouraged countless Amazon sellers who want to enter the European market.

Recently, we came across a magical VAT service provider, Kuashuiyun , which offered a magical price of only RMB 198/year for UK site registration and declaration, and RMB 498/year for German site registration and declaration. How did they do it? !

Why is there a super low VAT?

In fact, when registering for VAT and filing tax returns, the most expensive part is labor, because in the traditional VAT declaration and registration model, a lot of labor is needed for docking, processing and calculation operations. If the labor cost can be saved, the price can be greatly compressed.

The VAT service provider we came into contact with this time, Kuashuiyun, is such a platform. It eliminates all the complicated manual links in the VAT declaration and registration process, directly connects the tax bureau system and sellers , and establishes a SaaS system similar to the Golden Tax Phase III software.

Sellers can directly upload the relevant information on the cross-tax cloud platform to register VAT tax numbers and declare taxes by themselves. These data will be directly connected to the local tax bureau in Yingde and the entire process will be transparent and monitorable. There is no manual tax calculation and processing steps in traditional tax filing services, so the price is astonishingly low.

Eliminating redundant links also brings another advantage of Kuashuiyun, which is that the registration is very fast . Even at the end of March when the epidemic was severe, it was possible to get a tax number 2-3 days after registration. Compared with the traditional registration method that has no news for ten days or half a month, it can be said to be quite fast, especially suitable for sellers who want to take advantage of the current epidemic to enter the European site to make a quick buck.

Although redundant manual steps are eliminated, Kuashuiyun is also very clear about the necessary accountant intervention. It has a professional team of tax accountants to connect with sellers and review data to ensure that sellers can declare relevant taxes safely and in compliance with regulations.

Cheap, fast, safe and compliant, these are almost the most important issues when we register for VAT. Kuashuiyun has exaggerated advantages in these factors. Taxes are cheaper, and consumer demand is also skyrocketing. Now is the best time to set up a European site.