The Mercury Blog | Ideas & Insights | Major Tom

Start generating new revenue in 30 days by expanding your Amazon reach

Written by Chris Breikss, Founding Partner | Nov 27, 2025 4:00:00 PM

If your business is already generating consistent revenue on one Amazon marketplace, you can start generating new revenue in as little as 30 days by expanding into the US and Canadian marketplaces. The audience is enormous, the infrastructure is ready, and this is the easiest year yet to do it — provided you avoid the most common setup mistakes.

Here's the 30-day plan.

Why sell on Amazon in the US and Canada?

The North American Amazon marketplaces remain the largest single eCommerce opportunity available to international sellers:

Walmart Marketplace, TikTok Shop, and Shopify Markets are all worth a look. None of them are a substitute for Amazon presence.

How to get started selling on Amazon in North America

Before you can expand your reach, you need to open your US- or Canada-based Amazon shop. The streamlined process:

  1. Research: Confirm there's market demand for your product, that you can legally import it, and that local regulations (FCC, FDA, Health Canada, CPSC, depending on category) don't block your category.
  2. Choose a seller plan: Professional ($39.99/month) is right for most expansion plays. Individual plans charge $0.99 per item sold and lack access to Amazon advertising, Brand Registry, and Buy Box eligibility.
  3. Get your business identifiers: EIN or ITIN, a North American bank or multi-currency account that accepts USD/CAD payouts, and your business registration documents ready to upload.
  4. Submit your application: Online registration typically yields approval within a few business days for sellers with clean documents. Have an alternate phone number and proof-of-address handy in case verification asks for it.

For most UK and EU sellers, the smartest move is signing up for a North American Unified Account so you can share product listings across the US, Canadian, and Mexican marketplaces for the same monthly fee.

The 30-day plan to expand your reach

Once your account is approved, here's how to use the next 30 days.

Days 1–7: Conduct a competitive audit and prep listings

Don't copy-paste your UK listings into the US. Take a fresh look at the US market for each product:

  • Search your top product keywords on Amazon US. Note the top 10 listings — their titles, bullets, A+ Content, image styles, prices, and review counts.
  • Pull keyword data through a tool like Helium 10, Jungle Scout, or Semrush to understand US search volume and competitiveness.
  • Identify what's missing in the top listings (features, use cases, audience segments) — that's where your differentiation goes.
  • Update product titles, bullets, descriptions, and A+ Content with US-specific copy. The same product often sells with different angles in the US than in the UK.

Days 8–14: Refresh your creative

Image and video quality is now the single biggest differentiator between top-performing Amazon listings and average ones. Plan:

  • Hero image with the product on pure white background (Amazon's requirement) — but invest in styling.
  • Six to nine secondary images mixing lifestyle shots, infographics highlighting features, comparison charts, and usage scenes.
  • A product video (15–30 seconds) for the main listing carousel — Amazon has been increasing the visibility of listings with videos.
  • A+ Content (formerly Enhanced Brand Content) with comparison charts, brand storytelling modules, and additional product imagery.
  • If you have Brand Registry, build an Amazon Storefront — it's free and acts as your branded landing page on Amazon.

Amazon's generative AI creative tools launched in 2024 can speed up lifestyle background generation for product images — useful for getting more variants live faster.

Days 15–21: Launch advertising

The "build it and they will come" approach doesn't work on Amazon, especially in a new marketplace. Start with paid:

  • Sponsored Products — automatic campaigns for the first two weeks to harvest data, then build manual campaigns around the strongest converting keywords.
  • Sponsored Brands — if you have Brand Registry, launch a Sponsored Brands campaign targeting category keywords to drive traffic to your Storefront.
  • Sponsored Display — set up retargeting for shoppers who viewed your listings but didn't buy.
  • Dynamic bidding (up and down) — Amazon's algorithm has matured; let it adjust bids for high-converting placements.
  • Budget — plan for an ACoS higher than your target during the first 30 days. You're buying sales velocity, reviews, and ranking, not just immediate revenue.

Days 22–30: Reviews, logistics, and optimization

Reviews are still one of the biggest conversion levers on Amazon. Without them, even great ads struggle.

  • Enroll in Amazon Vine. Vine is Amazon's official review program for Brand Registry sellers — submit 1–30 units of a new product and Vine reviewers (vetted by Amazon) leave honest reviews. It's the only sanctioned way to seed reviews on a brand-new listing, and it replaced the now-discontinued Early Reviewer Program.
  • Use Amazon's "Request a Review" feature — a single-click ask sent through Amazon to recent customers. Fully compliant with Amazon's policy.

  • Bonus tip: the highest-converting listings pair Vine reviews with a steady cadence of Request-a-Review pulls in the first 90 days.
  • Monitor Account Health Rating (AHR) daily. New sellers are scrutinized more closely; one or two bad signals (late shipments, defective product reports) can pause your account.
  • Refine your PPC campaigns. Pause underperforming keywords. Increase bids on converting ones. Build phrase and exact-match campaigns from broad-match learnings.
  • Streamline logistics. ~80% of Americans shop on Amazon partly because of fast, free shipping. If FBA isn't keeping up, look at expanding to additional fulfillment centers via Amazon's distributed inventory placement service or consider Seller-Fulfilled Prime (SFP) if your warehouse can hit Amazon's delivery standards.

How to keep growing past 30 days

The first 30 days are about getting live, getting your first sales, and getting your first reviews. The next 90 are about ranking improvement, ad spend efficiency, and expanding the product catalog you have live in the marketplace. Brands that compound from there often hit 6- and 7-figure Amazon revenue in the new marketplace within their first year.

If you need help building an Amazon expansion plan — competitive audit, listings, ads, fulfillment, and the operational discipline that protects account health — talk to our eCommerce strategy team. For Wild Grapes, our integrated approach drove a 98% increase in monthly Amazon sales, with five of their products on the first results page for their core search terms.

FAQs

How long does it take to start selling on Amazon US as a non-US business?

From account application to first live listing is typically 7–14 days. From decision to first US sale (including FBA inventory transit and listing optimization) is more realistically 30–60 days for most non-US sellers, which is why a 30-day plan focuses on getting active in the marketplace and 60–90 days is when meaningful revenue typically lands.

What is the Amazon North American Unified Account?

The Unified Account is a single Seller Central account that lets you list and sell across Amazon US, Canada, and Mexico for one monthly Professional Seller fee. Inventory, listings, ads, and case management live in one interface, with localized product detail pages per country. It's the recommended path for any seller expanding into North America from outside the region.

How do I do a competitive audit on Amazon?

Start with the top 10–20 organic listings for your target keywords. Capture their titles, bullet points, image strategy, A+ Content modules, price, review count and rating, Buy Box position, and whether they're FBA or FBM. Pull keyword volume data with a tool like Helium 10 or Jungle Scout. Identify what's missing across the top listings — feature gaps, audience segments, use cases — and use those gaps as your differentiation.

What's the best PPC strategy for a new Amazon listing?

Start with Sponsored Products on automatic targeting for 7–14 days to let Amazon's algorithm discover the keywords and ASINs that drive conversions for your product. Then build manual broad-, phrase-, and exact-match campaigns around the winning terms. Layer Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display once Sponsored Products is profitable. Plan to spend more aggressively in the first 30–60 days than you would on a mature listing — you're paying for sales velocity that drives organic rank.

Should I use FBA or FBM when expanding to a new Amazon marketplace?

For most non-US sellers expanding to Amazon US, FBA is the only realistic option — meeting Prime's one- and two-day delivery expectations from across an ocean is impossible. FBA also gives you automatic Prime eligibility and removes the operational burden of US-side fulfillment and customer service. The exception is for very large, heavy, or low-priced items where FBA fees would eat your margins; in those cases FBM or Seller-Fulfilled Prime via a US-based 3PL may make more sense.

How do I get reviews on a brand new Amazon listing?

The two main compliant paths in 2026: enroll your product in Amazon Vine (available to Brand Registry sellers) where you provide free units to Vine reviewers and they leave honest reviews, and use Amazon's "Request a Review" feature on each order to send a single-click review request through Amazon's own messaging. The Early Reviewer Program was discontinued in 2021. Soliciting reviews outside these channels — paid reviews, friends-and-family reviews, incentivized reviews — violates Amazon's terms and risks account suspension.