The company
Bling Jewelry sells affordable sterling silver and cubic zirconia fashion jewelry. Founder Elena Castañeda started the business in 2008 out of a one-bedroom New York apartment, after an earlier bakery venture ended when it was robbed — not her first attempt at a business, but the one that stuck.
Where they started
Castañeda's first real taste of internet retail success had actually come earlier, selling gingerbread houses online and generating $50,000 in sales on minimal ad spend — a signal that a well-merchandised, low-friction online product could travel further than a physical storefront ever would. She carried that lesson into Bling Jewelry, launching on Amazon's US marketplace in 2008. The question from there wasn't whether Amazon could sell jewelry — it clearly could — but how far a small, US-based seller could actually take that reach internationally.
What they did
Bling Jewelry expanded onto Amazon's international storefronts in stages rather than all at once:
- 2008 — launched on Amazon's US store.
- 2010 — expanded to the UK.
- 2013 — expanded to Canada.
- 2014 — expanded to France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan in the same year.
- 2016 — expanded to China and Mexico.
To support that footprint without building separate warehouse operations in each country, Bling Jewelry used Pan-European FBA to fulfill across the EU from a more centralized set of inventory, leaned on the Amazon Service Provider Network for local tax guidance and listing translations, and used Amazon's international account management support to navigate country-specific requirements as each new storefront went live.
The numbers
As of a November 2016 update, Amazon's case study reports Bling Jewelry's year-to-date international growth at 160% in Japan and 70% in Europe, with the company describing having doubled its sales by selling internationally. Excluding China, international sales had grown to match US sales in scale. By the time of a separate 2018 Amazon profile, the company had grown into a multi-million dollar operation with more than 45 employees and was preparing to quadruple its headquarters space with a new 15,000-square-foot facility.
Source: Amazon Global Selling's Bling Jewelry case study. YTD growth as of Nov. 2016: 160% in Japan, 70% in Europe.
Why this worked
The sequencing matters as much as the destinations. Bling Jewelry didn't launch in nine countries simultaneously — it added markets one or a few at a time over eight years, each expansion presumably informed by what worked (or didn't) in the last one. Pairing that gradual expansion with Pan-European FBA meant the EU countries specifically didn't require a separate warehouse relationship per country, and the Service Provider Network handled the tax and translation work that would otherwise require hiring local expertise in each new market before it could even launch.
What to take from this if you're earlier in this path
If you're considering international expansion, Bling Jewelry's staged approach — one or two new countries every year or two, rather than all at once — is a reasonable template for managing the operational load of tax, translation, and compliance requirements that come with each new storefront. See How to Choose Which International Market(s) to Expand Into for a framework on sequencing that decision, and Currency, Duties & VAT Basics for Cross-Border Selling before committing to a specific country.
FAQ
Does Pan-European FBA mean a seller doesn't need to register for VAT in each EU country? No — Pan-EU FBA determines where Amazon may store inventory across the EU, which is a separate question from where a seller has a VAT registration obligation; storing inventory in a country under Pan-EU FBA can itself create a VAT registration requirement there. See Currency, Duties & VAT Basics for Cross-Border Selling and EU/UK Product Compliance for Cross-Border Sellers before assuming Pan-EU FBA alone covers your tax obligations.