Amazon has answered questions about a new wallet it’s rolling out to help merchants who sell internationally. In his initial announcement on July 25, he said, “This early-stage solution provides sellers with an easy, hassle-free way to hold, view, and transfer product from the Amazon store directly to their bank account on their schedule, all within Seller. Central, the go-to resource for small businesses selling on Amazon.

In a accompanying publication on Seller CentralAmazon explained that sellers can hold, view, and remit any amount of sales proceeds directly to their local bank, and it said sellers with international bank accounts can convert US dollars into any of 19 supported currencies. charge,” with volume-based international transaction fees to convert and transfer funds.

Some sellers were unaware that the new wallet was for those selling internationally and wondered if it could lead to faster payouts. Currently, Amazon reserves sales proceeds for 7 days after the delivery date and releases eligible product every 2 weeks.

An Amazon moderator (who sometimes referred to the new wallet as SW) answered questions as follows:

“Funds are available in the seller’s wallet immediately after the disbursement is complete. SW does not accelerate the disbursement cadence (for example, if sellers receive funds every 14 days now, they will receive those disbursements in SW every 14 days).

“If the SW balance is positive, sellers can disburse daily, or multiple times per day, from SW accounts.”

This response led one seller to write, “Glad we’re spending time and $$$ making it easier for overseas sellers instead of fixing the many known issues.”

The moderator responded to sellers who questioned the relevance of the portfolio announcement for US sellers, “a lot of our US sellers also sell internationally, which is why it’s been categorized as such.”

They added, “While a range of specialist teams are focused on a wide range of improvements, the SW team is focused on simplifying the global selling experience.”

As we previously reported, the Amazon Seller Wallet is currently available to Amazon.com sellers by invitation only.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is the co-founder and editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on e-commerce since 1999. She is a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is the author of “Turn eBay Data Into Dollars” ( McGraw-Hill 2006). His blog was featured in the book “Blogging Heroes” (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (September 2005 – present) and Investigative Journalists and Editors (March 2006 – present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send topical tips to [email protected] See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.