Amazon has many different websites in different countries. However, each country is unique, which means that differences between different countries can affect the sales patterns of Amazon’s websites. So why does Amazon Canada have so few sellers? The following uses the US site as an example to illustrate some of the differences between Amazon’s US site and Canada.
1. Market size.
As of now, Canada has a population of about 38.4 million, while the US has a population of about 331.4 million. The US population is almost 9 times that of Canada. This also shows that the market size of Amazon’s US site is much larger than that of Canada. This is a challenge for Canadian sellers because, on average, Amazon Canada may sell 10 times less phones than the US. So if a seller can sell 100 phones per month on Amazon’s US site, the seller may only sell 10 phones per month on the Canadian site.
2. Competition.
The total number of items on Amazon’s US site is about 350 million, while the total number of items on Amazon’s Canadian site is only 133 million. As we all know, with so many products on Amazon’s website, competition is very fierce. But based on these data, Amazon Canada’s competition seems to be only one-third of that in the United States. Competition also affects the cost of PPC. According to Kenjiroi, PPC is more effective and cheaper on Amazon Canada than in the United States. This is because the Canadian market is less saturated and competition is weak, which also means that there are fewer bidders for price increases. But the downside is: due to the smaller market, the search volume for each keyword on the Canadian site is only a small fraction of the corresponding keyword on the US site.
3. Pricing.
When comparing the same or similar products, the average price of items sold on Amazon Canada is higher (when US dollars are converted to Canadian dollars) than in the United States. This can be explained by two reasons. The first is simple supply and demand. With less competition, Amazon and Canadian products can be sold at a higher price. The second reason is transportation.
4. Transportation.
Most freight forwarders make it much more expensive to ship goods to Canada than to the United States. The increase in shipping costs will be reflected in higher product prices. In addition, shipping products in Canada will be much more expensive than in the United States. As a large country with a relatively small population, shipping costs are much more expensive and shipping speeds are much slower. This means that if Amazon sellers plan to sell products through FBM, they will need to consider the additional costs in the price.
Based on these aspects, we can see why there are fewer sellers on the Canadian site, mainly because of market size, competition, pricing, and shipping costs. If you want to open a store on Amazon but don’t know which site to open, you can try starting with the US site and then consider the Canadian site.