How European Brands enter the US market with Amazon FBA and third party warehousing

Entering new consumer markets is a massive project and requires knowledgeable partners to guarantee success from planning to running a full supply chain of goods to the US.

There are numerous strategies to enter the US market for international brands, manufacturers and suppliers. All of these strategies scale best and, typically, cost when you leverage vetted and trusted third party partners.

Table of Contents:

• Partners to help grow into the US market
• Finding third party warehousing partners
• How 3PLs help enter the market
• Services of third party warehousing providers
• Case Study – How European brands sell and ship goods with third party warehousing
• Learn more

Partners to Help Grow into the US Market with Amazon FBA

Expanding into the US market puts strain on your company and will impact all business units. It is important to make sure the leadership team is poised to grow, strategically and tactically.

Luckily, there are skilled partners out there that specialize in helping growing businesses. Many of these partners are free and share extensive knowledge to speed up your execution.

• Investors and financial marketing: Outside of the scope of this article, but make sure your leadership team and dollars are set to scale.
• Economic Development Councils: Non-profit, state and federal organizations offer support to businesses entering new markets. These organizations know the local area extremely well and have partners across industries they can introduce you to. Research economic councils in regions of the US where you plan to store your goods.
• Associations and Investment Groups in your niche: Does your niche, industry, federal or city offer free (or paid) associations that bring businesses together to grow into new markets? These groups often have resources that can get you started.
• Mentors in your industry: Similar companies who have expanded into the US Market.
• Marketing gurus: Get off on the best foot by partnering with experienced markets who are already excelling in your new market, such as Amazon FBA sales across the US.
• Amazon: Amazon wants its sellers to be successful. They provide resources and insight online, along with other agencies supporting their business model.
• Third Party Logistics Provider (3PL): 3PLs provide skilled outsourced labor, space and other supply chain resources required to fulfill, distribute, store, move and handle goods. 3PLs other a variety of services and specialize in inbound, outbound and storage services.
• Freight Forwarders & Customs Agents: Freight forwarders and customs agents provide transportation, paperwork completion and drayage to businesses moving goods to or from logistics gateways, such as removing containers from a sea port.
• USA-based Customer Service Call Centers: Customer service representatives are an important role to selling and supporting customers in some business models. If this describes your needs, compare price and service level agrees of: call centers in the States, call centers off-shore and any services offered by 3PLs.

As you create an Operations Budget for the product launch in the USA, it is time to reach out to third party warehousing services and 3PLs. The 3PLs can provide an accurate, free quote for your unique needs.

Finding a third party warehousing providers

When you are a modern business running enterprise software and selling across eight channels, finding third party warehousing providers to support expansion into the USA is challenging.

Getting the best service takes a lot of researching and knowing:

• exactly what you need,
• when you need it,
• how often inventory will turn and
• how much you are able to pay for the services.

3PL partners play an important role in your supply chain expansion, so select options that can handle your portfolio of needs.

When calculating ROI, it can be hard to compare vendors with different rate structures. To accurately compare the “total cost of ownership” with each third party warehouse, ensure you understand your costs per inbound, outbound and monthly storage scenario.

Checkout this complete guide to comparing third party warehousing service costs.

How a third party logistics (3PL) warehouse helps enter the US consumer market

Third party logistics (3PL) providers are supply chain professionals with experience operating in the US market. These partners offer a portfolio of warehousing services to meet any company’s fulfillment, distribution, storage and value-added product needs.

3PLs can take the pressure off you, when it comes to finding vendors, local logistics professionals and connecting to USA sales channels. Third party warehousing is a team sport filled with collaboration and communication between the warehouse and the client’s Team.

We offer an account manager to every client to ensure you have the support you need for daily work and any exception in your supply chain. This experienced professional helps manage communications and optimize the supply chain.

What services does third party warehousing offer?

Third party warehousing provides offer a variety of standard services such as inbound and outbound shipments. They can also perform custom jobs like kitting and customer service per your requirements.

Third party warehousing services:

• Order Fulfillment & Value Added Services
• B2B and B2C/D2C Fulfillment
• Distribution
• Multi-Client Warehousing
• Amazon FBA Prep and Replenishment
• 3PL eCommerce Fulfillment
• Kitting
• Light Assembly
• Pick, Pack and Ship
• Cross docking
• Logistics services
• and more

Case Study – How European brands sell and ship goods with third party warehousing

Selling the first item in the US is a project that can require a long runway. Before selling the first time and shipping the first order, there are a lot of supply chain pieces to align.

Selecting your 3PL partner is only the beginning to your new international supply chain expansion to the USA. Now that you have goods being shipped to the States, you will face a few final logistics challenges before you’re goods are safely stored in the warehouse.

Firstly, you will need to plan and cut the first Purchase Order (PO) from your manufacturer(s). These POs will ultimately be sent to your third party warehousing partner in the USA. POs are often placed months ahead of their shipment.

After the manufacturer fulfills the PO, the goods will be sent by container to a local port to exit the country of origin. This often requires a local freight broker, container rental and drayage company to get goods to the port. Your container will be loaded on a shipping vessel on a standard route destined for your selected US port, such as the Tampa Bay Port.

Now is a good time to start the US customs paperwork, so you avoid roadblocks in the future. This paperwork takes time to review and process.

Once the boat docks and the containers are unloaded, another customs, freight broker and drayage company is needed to take the container to and from the warehouse.

Containers are returned to their port of origin and basically rented by each shipper. For this reason, it’s important goods enter the States near the warehouse facility to avoid drayage surcharges.

Once the containers of goods are unloaded at the warehouse, your inventory is ready to sell and ship!

Learn more about third party warehousing in the US

Logistics partners in the US can hep get your products to new B2B and D2C customers in the States quickly. Third party warehousing services in Florida can get products to customers for lower cost and speed up your supply chain lead times.