Selling to customers in New York, London, or Dubai used to mean freight forwarders, a foreign entity, and a lot of guesswork. Amazon Global Selling collapsed most of that into a seller account and a shipping choice. The harder part today is not listing your products abroad, it is getting the money home cleanly once the orders start landing. This guide covers both: how to sell on Amazon Global from India end to end, and how the payments actually reach your Indian bank account.
TL;DR
- Amazon Global Selling opens 18 international marketplaces to Indian sellers; register with your GST, PAN, and business bank account, then list your products with ASINs or fresh listings.
- Pick your fulfilment model: FBA (Amazon stores, packs, and ships, and lifts your Buy Box odds) or MFN (you control logistics yourself); most new exporters start with FBA.
- The sale is only half the job: settling those payments in INR with transparent pricing and automatic FIRA is what decides how much margin you actually keep.
What Amazon Global Selling gives an Indian seller
Amazon Global Selling opens 18 international marketplaces to Indian sellers, including the USA, UK, UAE, and Australia. The scale is real: in 2023, Indian sellers exported over $8 billion worth of goods through the platform. That is the headline reason to look outward instead of fighting for the same domestic shelf everyone else is on.
The catch is that "global" is not one market. The US, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific each reward different products. Fashion tends to move in Europe; electronics do well in the US. So the first real decision is not *whether* to sell abroad, it is *which* corridors match what you already make well. Start with one or two, learn how they behave, then widen.
How do you register and list products?
Registration is straightforward and mostly about having your paperwork ready before you start. You need valid business details, your GST number, and your PAN.
To register as an Indian seller, keep these handy:
- GST (Goods and Services Tax) number: mandatory for any business selling goods or services in India.
- PAN (Permanent Account Number): used for taxation, for both individuals and businesses.
- Business bank account: required to receive your settlements.
- Valid business information: the documents for your entity type, whether a sole proprietorship, a private limited company, or something else.
Once you are registered, listing is the next step. Amazon lets you attach existing products to their ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Numbers) or create fresh listings for unique products, then publish across marketplaces like the US, Germany, and Japan. You can tailor each listing for its market, which is where the real visibility comes from later.
FBA or MFN: which fulfilment model fits you?
Amazon gives you two fulfilment paths, and the choice shapes your workload, your costs, and your delivery speed.
Merchant Fulfilled Network (MFN): you keep control. You store, pack, ship, and handle returns and customer queries yourself. This suits sellers who already have logistics muscle and want to own the whole chain.
Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA): Amazon does the heavy lifting. Your stock sits in their fulfilment centres, and they pick, pack, ship, and support the buyer. It also improves your odds of winning the Buy Box, the default "Add to Cart" slot on a product page that drives the bulk of sales.
For most sellers new to exporting, FBA is the practical starting point. Amazon's fulfilment network shortens delivery times, and faster delivery keeps buyers happy. The numbers back it: FBA products are 30% more likely to win the Buy Box than MFN products, and the Buy Box is where the sales concentrate.
Amazon Global Selling fees to budget for
Selling on Amazon's international marketplaces involves several fees, and the exact amounts depend on the marketplace, product category, size and weight, and whether you use FBA or MFN. Before you set your prices, it helps to know what each fee is for.
Amazon fees
| Fee | What it covers | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Selling plan fee | Access to sell on the marketplace, charged as a monthly subscription (Professional plan) or per item sold (Individual plan). | Every marketplace you sell on, under either plan. |
| Referral fee | Amazon's commission on each sale, calculated as a percentage of the total sale price. | Every order, on FBA and MFN alike. Rates vary by category. |
| Closing fee | A fixed fee per item sold in certain categories. | Mainly media categories, such as books and video, in some marketplaces. |
| FBA fulfilment fee | Picking, packing, shipping and customer service for each unit Amazon delivers. | FBA orders only. Depends on size and weight tier. |
| Monthly storage fee | Space your inventory takes up in Amazon's fulfilment centres. | FBA inventory, charged per unit of volume. Usually higher in peak season. |
| Aged inventory surcharge | Extra storage charges for stock that's been in the warehouse for a long time. | FBA inventory past Amazon's age thresholds. |
| Inbound placement fee | The cost of distributing your inventory across fulfilment centres. | FBA shipments in some marketplaces, depending on the placement option you choose. |
| Low-inventory-level fee | A charge when stock levels are consistently low relative to demand. | FBA in some marketplaces, for certain products. |
| Returns processing fee | Handling customer returns. | FBA, for categories where Amazon offers free returns. |
| Removal and disposal fees | Sending stock back to you or having Amazon dispose of it. | FBA inventory you choose to remove. |
| Refund administration fee | Processing a refund to the customer. | When an order is refunded. |
| Advertising costs | Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and other ads. | Optional. Charged per click or based on your campaign budget. |
Other costs to plan for
| Cost | What it covers | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| International shipping | Getting your goods to Amazon's warehouses or to customers abroad. | Every shipment, whether you send stock for FBA or ship MFN orders. |
| Customs duties and import taxes | Duties and taxes charged by the destination country. | Goods imported into the marketplace country. |
| VAT, GST or sales tax compliance | Tax registration, filing and any agent or adviser fees. | Marketplaces where you must register for and collect local taxes. |
| Currency conversion | Converting your marketplace earnings back to your home currency. | Every payout, whether through Amazon's currency converter or a third-party provider. |
| Product compliance and certification | Testing, labelling and certificates required in the destination country. | Regulated categories, such as electronics, toys and cosmetics. |
Note: Amazon's fees vary by marketplace and change regularly. Check the current fee schedule for each marketplace you plan to sell on in Seller Central before you finalise your pricing.
Why fulfilment quality decides whether you scale
Good fulfilment is not a nice-to-have; it is what lets you grow without your ratings collapsing. A few concrete payoffs:
- Happier customers: on-time, reliable delivery builds the trust that turns a first order into a repeat one.
- Lower running costs: the right fulfilment model trims shipping spend, storage fees, and logistics headaches, freeing you to scale.
- Wider reach: international fulfilment centres put your products within fast-shipping range of more regions.
- Less operational drag: with Amazon handling packing and shipping under FBA, you spend your hours on marketing and product instead.
- A sharper edge: a smooth delivery experience is a real differentiator when buyers are choosing between similar listings.
Managing multiple marketplaces from one dashboard
Running a business across several countries sounds heavy, but Amazon's Seller Central dashboard keeps it in one place. From it you can monitor inventory across regions, track sales, manage orders and returns, and handle buyer questions and feedback.
The Linked Accounts feature is the one to know if you sell in more than one region. It lets you manage multiple international marketplaces from a single view, so you can sync listings, prices, and stock across, say, the US and Europe at once. That consistency is what stops multi-market selling from turning into multi-market chaos.
Amazon will also convert and transfer your earnings, and this is exactly where the payments question starts to matter, which we come back to below.
Export compliance and documentation you cannot skip
Exporting means paperwork, and getting it right is what keeps your goods (and your money) moving. Amazon's Export Compliance Dashboard helps you keep the essentials in order: Commercial Invoices, Certificates of Origin, Packing Lists, and the other documents customs authorities expect.
Requirements vary by destination. Exporting electronics to the US can trigger product-safety and standards rules; sending textiles to the EU may need a certificate of origin and specific labelling. The dashboard helps you track what each corridor demands so a shipment does not stall at the border.
One document to have on your radar from day one is your IEC (Import Export Code), the registration Indian businesses need to export. And on the money side, each inward payment generates a paper trail, the FIRA (Foreign Inward Remittance Advice) and, downstream, the e-BRC, which prove the export payment actually came in. Keep these; you will need them for GST and RBI purposes.
Every export payment you receive is tracked by the RBI through the Export Data Processing and Monitoring System (EDPMS), so keeping your FIRA and e-BRC in order is what closes each shipment out cleanly.
Optimising listings for each market
Your listing is the first impression, and a generic one converts poorly abroad. The Build International Listings (BIL) tool does a lot of the groundwork: it translates product descriptions into the target language and shows prices in local currency, so a French listing reads in French and prices in euros, a Japanese one in yen.
BIL automates the mechanics, but the parts that actually win the click still need a human pass:
- Titles and descriptions: tune them for what the local buyer searches and cares about.
- Images: meet the visual expectations of that market.
- Measurements: convert sizes, weights, and volumes to local units (centimetres or inches, litres or gallons).
- Keywords: adapt your search terms to local phrasing so buyers can actually find you.
The upside is measurable. As of July 2024, Statista reported 5.45 billion internet users worldwide, and Amazon's own data shows localised listings can lift sales by as much as 20%. Localisation is not polish; it is a sales lever.
How Indian Amazon sellers get paid (and where margin leaks)
Here is the part that decides how much of that $8 billion opportunity you actually keep. Selling on Amazon Global is now the easy bit. Getting paid, in full, in INR, without watching a chunk vanish into conversion charges, is where sellers quietly lose margin.
Two things eat into an export seller's take-home: opaque forex markups on every conversion, and slow or unclear settlement that makes reconciliation and GST filing painful. A weak payment setup does not announce itself; it just shows up as a smaller number in your bank account than you expected.
This is where a dedicated cross-border payments partner changes the maths. PayGlocal is an RBI-authorised cross-border payments provider (authorised as a Payment Aggregator - Cross Border - Inward & Outward, and as an Online Payment Aggregator) and part of the ICICI Bank Group. For an Amazon seller, the practical benefits are:
- Settlement in INR into your Indian bank account, with transparent, success-based pricing (you pay when you transact, not for setup or platform access).
- Automatic FIRA on each inward payment, so the export documentation you need for GST and RBI is generated for you rather than chased down.
- A high Payment Success Rate, so more of the international payments you are owed actually complete.
ACCS vs a cross-border payment provider
Indian sellers have two main ways to receive their marketplace earnings in rupees. They can use Amazon Currency Converter for Sellers (ACCS), Amazon's built-in conversion service, or connect a cross-border payment provider that receives the funds abroad and settles them into an Indian bank account.
| ACCS | Cross-border payment provider | |
|---|---|---|
| How it works | Amazon converts your earnings from the marketplace currency and pays out in INR to your Indian bank account. | Amazon pays out to a local receiving account the provider gives you in the marketplace currency. The provider then converts the funds and settles them in INR. |
| Setup | Built into Seller Central. You add your Indian bank account and select ACCS. | You sign up with the provider, get receiving account details and add them in Seller Central as your deposit method. |
| Conversion cost | Usually built into the exchange rate as a markup, rather than shown as a separate fee. | Usually a stated fee, a markup on the exchange rate, or both. Varies by provider. |
| Exchange rate transparency | You see the rate applied, but not how it compares to the market rate unless you check yourself. | Many providers show the rate against a benchmark, which makes costs easier to compare. |
| Control over conversion | Funds are converted automatically at each disbursement. | Depends on the provider. Some let you choose when to convert or settle. |
| Export documentation | Check what documentation is available to support your foreign inward remittance records. | Many providers issue an e-FIRA or similar record for each payment, which you can use for GST and FEMA compliance. |
| Other marketplaces and clients | Only for Amazon payouts. | Usually works for other marketplaces and overseas clients too. |
For a closer look at how ACCS charges are worked out, see our guide to the [Amazon ACCS fee](/blog/blog-amazon-accs-fee-explained).
Export documents for Amazon Global Selling from India
The documents you need depend on how you ship, where you're selling and what you sell. Use this checklist to make sure you're covered at each stage.
Before you start exporting
- Import Export Code (IEC): Issued by the DGFT. You need it to export goods commercially from India.
- GST registration: Needed to file your export invoices in GST returns and to claim refunds.
- Letter of Undertaking (LUT): Lets you export without paying IGST. You file it on the GST portal, and it must be renewed every financial year.
- AD code registration: Your bank's Authorised Dealer code, registered with Customs at each port you'll export from. Needed for shipping bills and export refunds.
- Current account for export receipts: A bank account that can receive foreign inward remittances, registered with Customs if you'll claim IGST refunds.
- RCMC (Registration-cum-Membership Certificate): From the relevant Export Promotion Council. Needed if you plan to claim export incentives.
For each shipment
- Commercial invoice: Shows the buyer or consignee, product details, HS codes, quantities, value and currency.
- Packing list: Gives carton-wise contents, weights and dimensions.
- Shipping bill: The export declaration filed with Customs. For courier shipments, this is usually a Courier Shipping Bill (CSB-V for e-commerce exports). For postal exports, it's a Postal Bill of Export.
- Airway bill or bill of lading: Issued by the carrier as the transport contract and receipt for the goods.
- Certificate of origin: Needed when the destination country requires it, or to claim lower duties under a trade agreement.
For FBA shipments
- Importer of record arrangement: Someone in the destination country must act as importer for customs. Amazon doesn't do this, so you'll need your own entity, a freight forwarder or a third-party service.
- FBA shipment and carton labels: Generated in Seller Central for every carton you send to Amazon's warehouses.
For your products
- Product compliance certificates: Test reports and certificates required in the destination country, such as CE marking in Europe or FCC and CPSC requirements in the US for certain categories.
- Labelling: Country-of-origin marking, safety warnings and any language or ingredient labelling the destination market requires.
After you get paid
- e-FIRA, FIRC or bank advice: Records of foreign currency received, issued by your bank or payment provider.
- e-BRC (electronic Bank Realisation Certificate): Confirms that export proceeds have been received. Used for incentive claims and GST and FEMA compliance.
Note: Requirements vary by destination country, product category and shipping method, and they change from time to time. Check with your freight forwarder, customs broker or the destination marketplace's compliance pages before you ship.
