Selling on Amazon US: The Largest, Most Competitive Marketplace

Key takeaways: Amazon.com is where the most shoppers, the most competitors and the most advertising tools are. Cost per click is the highest of any marketplace, so the accounts that win are the ones with the tightest campaign structure, the lowest wasted spend and the best-converting pages. The fee schedule changes more often here than elsewhere, and profit per ASIN has to be rebuilt each time.

Why the US is the reference market

For most brands, amazon.com is where the business started or where the largest share of revenue sits. The shopper base is the largest, Prime penetration is deep, and the search volume on any given term is several times what the same term carries in the UK or Germany. The advertising toolset is also the most complete: every format Amazon launches arrives here first, and Brand Analytics, Search Query Performance and Manage Your Experiments give a US account more data to work with than any other store.

The other side of that is competition. More sellers bid on every keyword, more brands run A+ Content and video, and more of the results page is paid placement. A listing that would rank on page one in Canada on the same effort will sit on page three in the US. The US is not a market you enter and leave alone; it is the one that needs the weekly cycle run most rigorously.

What is different

Tax

There is no VAT. Sales tax is set by state and, in many states, by county and city, and Amazon collects and remits it on marketplace orders under marketplace facilitator laws in the states that have them. That removes most of the collection burden from the seller, but it does not remove all obligations: holding FBA stock in a state, having staff or an office there, or selling through other channels can create registration and filing duties of your own. Check the current position with a US tax adviser, because the rules differ by state and change.

Fulfillment and fees

FBA in the US is the deepest network Amazon runs, and it comes with the most detailed fee structure. Inbound placement fees depend on how many fulfillment centers you send to, low-inventory-level fees apply when an ASIN's cover falls below Amazon's thresholds, and capacity limits tied to the Inventory Performance Index cap how much you can send in. Each of these rewards a seller who forecasts accurately and penalizes one who does not. Fee changes are announced with notice and mostly take effect early in the year, with storage rates rising for the fourth quarter; the profit table needs rebuilding each time.

Listings

US spelling and imperial units first. The search index is the largest, which means more long-tail terms to research and more competition on every head term. Rufus, Amazon's AI shopping assistant, is most active on amazon.com and reads the listing's bullets, description, A+ Content and reviews to answer shoppers' questions, so a US listing that answers real questions rather than listing features gains twice. Brand Registry unlocks A+ Content, Brand Story, the Store and the protections against unauthorized sellers, and it is effectively a requirement for a serious US account.

Advertising

Cost per click is typically the highest of any Amazon marketplace, and competitive categories can see it several times higher than the same term in Europe. That changes the priorities: wasted spend that would be tolerable in a smaller store is a serious leak here, campaign overlap costs real money, and placement modifiers need to be read against placement conversion rather than set by feel. The upside is the full toolset: Sponsored TV, Amazon DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud are available for brands ready for upper-funnel spend, and Sponsored Brands video is a standard part of a mid-sized account's mix.

The peak calendar

Prime Day in July, Prime Big Deal Days in October, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, then the December run to the holiday shipping cut-off. Back-to-school in late July and August moves several categories. Each event has its own deal submission deadline and inbound cut-off, published in Seller Central, and each needs stock ordered eight to ten weeks ahead.

Amazon PPCPrime Day PPC Strategy: Before, During and AfterPrime Day is won in the four weeks before it. The stock, rank and budget checks to make in advance, how to bid during the event and how to step down afterward.

How we run a US account

Because clicks are expensive, the US account starts with the advertising audit and the removal of waste and overlap before anything is scaled. Structure comes next, so every campaign has one job. Listing and creative changes are tested rather than assumed, because the traffic is there to read a test quickly. Upper-funnel formats are added when the performance layer is profitable, not before. WeSpark is based in Houston, and the US is the marketplace most of our accounts began on.

B12How we audit your advertising accountseven audits that show where money is wasted, which placements convert and how much we expect to save — before we change anything.

B13How we structure your campaignsan account where every campaign has a purpose — discovery, control, defence or brand — and nothing overlaps.