Fulfill your European International Orders through Fulfillment by Amazon & ShipStation!

A few weeks ago, we announced our integration with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). The integration is a great step forward for retailers who sell on multiple channels to take advantage of having Amazon fulfill your products rather than you having to keep your items in your warehouse/storeroom/etc. The greatest benefit to our integration was that it opened up the process to easily have Amazon fulfill your products that you’re not selling on Amazon.

Now, we’ve opened the gate even wider, and are happy to announce that you can also set up an FBA UK account! What this means is that you can ship your products off to a UK warehouse, and then have Amazon fulfill those orders to many European countries, just like you were a UK seller (meaning, cheaper rates than shipping them from the US to Europe). If shipping prices were a barrier to you selling your products overseas, this new integration can certainly help with that.

So, how does it work?

*Images courtesy of Amazon UK
Basically, you ship your products to Amazon’s UK fulfillment centers, and pay the appropriate fees. List your items on your chosen platform (eBay, Buy.com, Shopify, etc.), and when they sell to certain countries in Europe, you can fulfill them via Amazon. Using ShipStation, you can even automate this process using Automation Rules & product tags. (We’ve got detailed instructions at the bottom of the article here.)

As with signing up for Amazon’s US FBA service, there are some things you’ll need to do to sign up for FBA UK. Amazon.co.uk has a fantastic resource here, and you can delve a bit deeper by going into the FAQs or by getting in contact with them. You might also want to talk to a tax professional to make sure that you’re covered with the different tax laws that shipping overseas entails. If you’ve already been selling on Amazon, or on Amazon.co.uk, it’ll probably be a bit of an easier process, but if you’re not, it’s definitely worth looking into.

Automating your FBA UK Orders in ShipStation

You’ll first need to make sure that you have your FBA UK account set up in your ShipStation account. You’ll also need to have the products in ShipStation that you plan to fulfill via FBA UK.

1. In your Products page, tag each of your products that could be fulfilled by FBA UK with an “FBA UK” tag. (If you’re selling these domestically, too, don’t worry about the tag causing conflicts).
2. Now, go to Settings -> Order Automation Rules and create a new rule.
3. Make a new filter, and choose the following criteria:
   • Order tag = FBA UK
   • Country = Austria;Belgium;Germany;Denmark;Spain;Finland;France;Greece;Ireland;Italy;Luxembourg;Netherlands;Portugal;Sweden;United Kingdom;Bulgaria;Cyprus;Czech Republic;Estonia;Hungary;Latvia;Lithuania;Malta;Poland;Romania;Slovakia;Slovenia
     • You can Ctrl + click (or Cmd + click on a Mac) to select all of these countries (or just paste in this list)
4. Save your filter, and go back to create the actions for your rule.
5. Here, choose to create the action “Set Fulfillment Provider” to “FBA UK.”
6. Save the automation rule, and watch it go into effect the next time you have orders come in matching the criteria above.

Happy Shipping!

I’m Erika, the social media & content manager for ShipStation. You’ll find me on Twitter, Facebook, and the other areas of the ShipStation world. In my free time, I love playing & streaming video games, taking pictures of my cats, and doing other—generally nerdy—things. :)

Maria Fagerland

Maria is a multifaceted writer and editor who is passionate about creating content that helps businesses succeed. When she's not writing, Maria can often be found in her garden tending to her plants.

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