E-Commerce Services for the United States Market

The American market is enormous but structurally mature, which changes the nature of the opportunity. • Market size: US retail e-commerce exceeded $1.1 trillion in annual sales as of 2024 on Census Bureau figures — about 16% of all retail spending, still growing faster than physical retail. • Concentration: Amazon alone captures close to 40% of US online retail, with Walmart.com a distant but fast-growing second. • Channels: More than half of transactions begin on mobile, and social discovery through TikTok, Instagram and YouTube drives a real share of first purchases. • Expectations: Free shipping, two-day delivery, free returns and responsive English-language support are table stakes, not differentiators. The US is therefore rarely a cheap test market. A serious entry plan budgets for domestic inventory, US-facing support and sustained advertising from the outset.

Marketplaces are the fastest route to US revenue, but each has a distinct approval process. Amazon.com: Open registration. A foreign company can open a seller account with corporate documents, a director's ID, an internationally chargeable credit card and a payable bank account. Category approval ("ungating") is required for grocery, supplements, beauty and jewellery. Walmart Marketplace: Application and approval based. Walmart reviews your business registration, tax identification, catalogue and marketplace track record, and favours sellers who can demonstrate US fulfilment capability. eBay: Open registration and the most forgiving route for used, refurbished, parts and collectibles stock, with category-dependent final value fees plus a fixed per-order charge. Etsy: Restricted to handmade, vintage (20+ years) and craft supplies, with a per-listing fee and a transaction fee on each sale. Reselling is actively policed. Target Plus: Invitation only — a later-stage aspiration, not an entry channel.

Amazon is usually the first and largest channel, and setup decisions are difficult to reverse. Account and plan: The Professional plan costs $39.99 per month and is the only realistic choice for a commercial seller — it unlocks bulk listing, advertising, Buy Box eligibility and category applications. The Individual plan charges roughly $0.99 per item sold and suits only very low volume. Referral fees are deducted per sale and vary by category, commonly around 8–15%. Foreign sellers complete a tax interview and file Form W-8BEN-E; an EIN from the IRS is generally advisable. Brand Registry: Requires a registered or pending USPTO trademark, and unlocks A+ Content, Sponsored Brands, Stores and the tools used against counterfeit and hijacked listings. FBA vs FBM: Fulfilment by Amazon confers Prime eligibility, improves Buy Box performance and hands returns to Amazon, in exchange for fulfilment, storage and inbound placement fees. Fulfilment by Merchant preserves margin but obliges you to hit Amazon's own delivery metrics. Most foreign brands run a hybrid.

An owned channel protects margin and customer data and reduces single-platform dependence. • Shopify — the default for international brands entering the US: hosted, fast to launch, deep app ecosystem. • BigCommerce — stronger native B2B and multi-storefront features, popular with catalogue-heavy merchants. • WooCommerce — maximum control and no platform fee, but you own hosting, security and PCI scope. Payments: Stripe and PayPal are the standard pairing; Authorize.net remains common where an acquiring relationship already exists. US shoppers pay overwhelmingly by card, with digital wallets and buy-now-pay-later providers such as Affirm, Klarna and Afterpay taking a significant share of checkout. Risk: Almost all e-commerce is card-not-present, so the merchant — not the issuer — bears fraud liability, unlike card-present retail. Chargebacks are consumer-friendly under the Fair Credit Billing Act, and card networks impose monitoring programmes when dispute rates approach roughly 1%. Address verification, clear billing descriptors, delivery confirmation and prompt refunds are the practical defences.

The US has no national VAT. Sales tax is imposed by 45 states plus the District of Columbia, and in many states by counties and cities too, producing thousands of rate and rule combinations. Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon levy no statewide sales tax, though Alaska permits local taxes. Economic nexus: In *South Dakota v. Wayfair* (2018) the Supreme Court held that a state may require an out-of-state seller to collect sales tax with no physical presence. Every sales-tax state now applies an economic nexus threshold — commonly $100,000 in sales or 200 transactions a year into that state, though thresholds vary and several states have dropped the transaction test. Inventory in a warehouse creates nexus independently. Marketplace facilitator laws: Every sales-tax state now requires marketplaces such as Amazon, Walmart, eBay and Etsy to calculate, collect and remit tax on facilitated sales. What remains yours: Direct sales through your own store are never covered, some states still require registration and informational returns even where the marketplace collects, and stored inventory can trigger income or franchise tax filings.

Imports are managed by Customs and Border Protection alongside a set of product agencies. Entry and classification: Commercial shipments require a customs entry, normally filed by a licensed broker. Every product is classified under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTSUS) at ten digits; the code sets the duty rate and any additional tariffs, and misclassification is the most common source of penalties. Formal entry generally applies above $2,500, with a Merchandise Processing Fee due on entry. De minimis: Section 321 historically let low-value shipments enter free of duty and formal entry. That rule changed substantially and its scope was curtailed and suspended during 2025, so any model relying on duty-free direct-to-consumer parcels must be re-verified against the rules in force at the time of shipment. Importer of Record: Someone must take legal responsibility for classification, valuation, duty and compliance. A foreign entity may act as IOR but needs a CBP-assigned number and a customs bond — single-entry, or continuous for regular importers. Most brands shipping at volume form a US entity instead. Product compliance: The FDA covers food, supplements, cosmetics and medical devices; the FCC requires equipment authorisation and FCC ID marking for radiofrequency devices; the CPSC enforces CPSIA testing, Children's Product Certificates and tracking labels. Country-of-origin marking, FTC textile and care labelling and California Proposition 65 warnings apply at product level.

The continental US spans roughly 4,500 kilometres, so network design determines both delivery speed and shipping cost. The two-node model: No single warehouse reaches the country in two days by ground. The standard answer is an East Coast and West Coast split — typically New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Georgia paired with California, Nevada or Texas — which places the large majority of the population within two-day ground service at a fraction of air-freight cost. A Midwest third node follows as volume justifies it. 3PL networks: Providers such as ShipBob, Deliverr and many regional operators offer multi-node inventory allocation, marketplace integrations and returns processing without capital expenditure, and can act as the prep and forwarding point into FBA. Carrier mix: • UPS and FedEx — the backbone for ground and express parcels, with rates that improve sharply with committed volume. • USPS — the cheapest option for light parcels and the only carrier reaching every residential address, PO boxes included. • Regional carriers and Amazon Logistics — often cheaper on specific lanes and useful as peak-season hedges.

US customer acquisition is expensive and fragmented, and pricing conventions differ from European norms. Amazon Ads: The primary lever for marketplace sellers. Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display run on an auction model in which organic rank and advertising performance reinforce each other, and budgeting for a deliberately unprofitable launch period to build reviews and rank is standard practice. Google Shopping and Meta: Product listing ads through Google Merchant Center remain the main off-Amazon demand channel, where feed quality matters more than bid management. Meta is the workhorse for prospecting and retargeting, while influencer and affiliate programmes run through networks such as Impact or ShareASale are central to beauty and apparel launches. Pricing: US prices are quoted excluding sales tax, which is added at checkout — the reverse of the European convention and a frequent source of migration errors. Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and back-to-school anchor the promotional calendar. Returns: Free returns within 30 days are a competitive baseline, apparel return rates frequently exceed 20%, and Amazon approves customer returns largely automatically. Returns must be modelled as a cost of sale from day one.

The Federal Trade Commission is the principal federal regulator of online selling under its authority over unfair and deceptive acts and practices, supported by active state attorneys general. 1. Mail, Internet or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule — ship within the time stated, or within 30 days if none is stated, and give the customer a delay notice with the right to cancel and a prompt refund. 2. Endorsement Guides — influencer, affiliate and employee endorsements require clear and conspicuous disclosure of the material connection, and incentivised or fabricated reviews are actively enforced against. 3. Made in USA Labeling Rule — an unqualified "Made in USA" claim requires the product to be all or virtually all made in the United States. 4. Pricing claims — reference or "was" prices must reflect genuine former prices, and mandatory fees should be disclosed up front rather than at the final checkout step. 5. Subscriptions — automatic renewals are governed by ROSCA federally and by an expanding set of state laws; this area is actively litigated and should be reviewed regularly. CAN-SPAM governs commercial email, the TCPA imposes strict consent rules on SMS marketing, and state privacy laws led by California's CCPA/CPRA require privacy disclosures and opt-out mechanisms.