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Entering the US on Amazon: What an International Brand Decides Before It Counts as Entry

Expanding internationally on Amazon is not the same as opening a seller account and converting the home-market price into dollars. A global brand still has to decide who the US customer is, what the overseas catalog costs after duties and fees, and which channel leads. An account, a translated listing, and a parcel are a test until a customer can understand the brand, receive it reliably, and buy it again.

AEG builds brands in the US market. The team has almost two decades in business, including a decade on Amazon. This essay is the sequence we use before a brand spends on ads. It is current as of October 2026. It is not legal, tax, or customs advice. Classify the product and read the pages cited below before you ship. The channel choice that follows is the cross-channel essay, and the engagement is Services. A shorter start is expanding into the US.

What order should the work follow?

Home-market success is evidence that a product can be loved. It is not evidence that the US comparison set, the price, or the channel mix will match. Read the US shelf, including who already sells the product, before you inherit their version of the brand.

The order of the work
Four steps in order: Diagnose, Position, Launch, Scale. 01 Diagnose 02 Position 03 Launch 04 Scale

Diagnose. What is already true in the United States? Is there a listing, and who controls it? What price is on the page? Who else sells the product, including unauthorized sellers? What can the brand honestly claim about ingredients, origin, and performance? A factory and an existing brand start in different places. The factory is designing the offer, not only translating it.

Position. Who is the brand for in the US, which products belong in the first catalog, and what is the price architecture? Positioning is the decision that lets a brand hold a price. A listing that copies the home-market page usually competes as a commodity.

Launch. Put that story on the channels that deserve it, with an operation that can keep the promise on the page. A promise the warehouse cannot keep is how a new market learns not to trust you.

Scale. Keep a rhythm of review, promotion, and new products that protects price and the equity behind it. A weekly sales spike is not the same thing as a brand.

Why file a trademark before the ad budget?

Most brands should file, or already hold, a trademark before they spend to make the name famous. Amazon Brand Registry asks for a pending or registered trademark from a government intellectual-property office in a country where Amazon has a store. The mark must be a word mark, or a design mark that contains words, letters, or numbers. The applicant has to be the trademark owner. Agents can be added after the brand is enrolled. The brand name on Amazon must match the trademark record, except for capitalization. The name has to be permanently affixed to the product or packaging — printing, sewing, or etching, not a sticker or a hangtag you can peel off — and the application needs a real photograph of that product or packaging, not a mockup. One Brand Registry account covers the brand globally, and trademarks from other countries can be added after approval. If the filing went through WIPO, Amazon wants the national-office number, not only the WIPO number. Those requirements are on Amazon’s Brand Registry pages.

A US registration is not the only path. The Madrid Protocol, administered by WIPO, is a way for a foreign brand to seek protection in the United States from a home-office filing. The USPTO examines the US designation. Processing is often measured in months, not days. The current rules are on the USPTO trademark site and in WIPO’s Madrid explanation. Do not launch a US advertising program on a name you cannot defend.

What changed for small shipments into the United States?

For years, many brands treated a direct-to-consumer parcel under $800 as duty-free. That assumption is no longer safe.

On July 30, 2025, Executive Order 14324 suspended duty-free de minimis treatment. A Federal Register notice on September 2, 2025 implemented that order for postal and non-postal shipments. On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court held in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the additional tariffs that had been imposed under that statute. The same day, one executive order terminated those IEEPA additional duties, and a separate order, Executive Order 14388, continued the suspension of duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries. In June 2026, Customs and Border Protection published an interim final rule that indefinitely suspends the de minimis exemption in 19 U.S.C. § 1321(a)(2)(C) for merchandise arriving by modes other than the international postal network. Merchandise valued at $800 or less in those modes has to use a formal or informal entry. CBP’s own FAQ says the suspension applies to all countries and modes, including mail, unless a separate exception applies. A new mail informal-entry process took effect on July 24, 2026. From October 22, 2026, certain Chapter 98 and Chapter 99 claims, free-trade-agreement claims, and merchandise subject to a partner-government-agency requirement are excluded from that mail process. Congress has also set July 1, 2027 as the date the statutory de minimis basis is repealed.

What this means in practice: do not plan a US launch on the old $800 duty-free parcel. Ordinary duties, fees, and duties under statutes other than IEEPA can still apply. Do not copy a duty rate from a 2025 headline. Classify the product, read the current Harmonized Tariff Schedule, and ask a broker. The primary pages are the September 2025 Federal Register notice, the February 2026 continuation of the suspension, the June 2026 CBP interim final rule, and CBP’s e-commerce FAQ.

Which channel should lead a global brand’s US launch?

Amazon is often the first place a US shopper will meet the brand, because that is where comparison happens. It is not automatically the only channel, and it is not the brand. Walmart Marketplace is a second retail shelf with its own onboarding rules, including a US return path. A Shopify store is where the brand owns the page, the email, and the price presentation. Wholesale is a different customer: a buyer who needs a margin, a case pack, and a story that still works at retail.

Pick a lead channel for the first catalog. Adding every channel on day one usually means none of them is staffed. The cross-channel essay goes through that choice.

What result belongs to one partnership?

Pecksniff’s, a UK brand, had no US presence when the US work began in mid-2023. AEG built its US positioning, catalog, and pricing, reaching $750K+ in US sales since mid-2023, built from zero. AEG now also manages Pecksniff’s UK Amazon account and operates the brand’s official US store under the Pecksniff’s name, as the official US brand partner, not a reseller. That result belongs to that partnership. It is not a forecast for anyone else.

Questions

Can a factory enter the same way as an existing brand?

The sequence is the same. The starting point is not. A factory is building the name, the price, and the channel together. The offer has to be designed.

Is an Amazon account the same as a US business?

Sometimes Amazon is enough for the first year of discovery. It is not a brand strategy. If the only asset at the end of the year is an account login, the brand does not yet have a US business.

Should a global brand match its home-market price in dollars?

Only after US duties, freight, marketplace fees, and returns are in the price. A converted retail price that ignores those costs is how brands train the US customer to expect a discount.

Sources

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If the US market is the work in front of you, send a brief or Book a strategy call. The sequence is Services.