Amazon Agency in Belgium: Who Needs One, and From When

Most Belgian and French companies that contact an Amazon agency do it too late, after a year of trying in-house, with a badly structured account and an advertising budget already spent. Others call too early, before having a viable product, and pay fees to compensate for insufficient margin. So the right question is not "do we need an Amazon agency", but "at what point, for what scope, and on what terms". This article gives concrete criteria to decide.

What an Amazon agency actually does

Behind the word agency, scopes vary enormously. A full-service Amazon agency generally covers five blocks.

Marketplace strategy. Which marketplaces to open, price positioning, range architecture, the Seller Central versus Vendor Central decision, launch calendar.

Catalogue and content. Creating and maintaining listings, keyword research, titles, bullet points, backend keywords, A+ Content, Brand Store, translation and adaptation per marketplace.

Amazon Ads. Structuring Sponsored Products, Brands and Display campaigns, steering bids against margin, managing seasonal budgets, profitability reporting.

Logistics and operations. FBA setup, inventory forecasting, handling stockouts and overstock, dealing with suppressed listings, Amazon disputes and reimbursements.

Compliance and brand protection. Brand Registry, monitoring unauthorised resellers, handling account or ASIN suspensions, compliance in regulated categories.

A serious agency will tell you which of those blocks it genuinely covers and which it subcontracts. That is the first filter. Our own scope is described on our services page.

The five signals that it is time

You do not need an agency because your competitor has one. You need one when at least two of the following are true.

1. Your Amazon revenue exceeds 15,000 to 20,000 euros per month. At that level, one point of ACOS or two points of conversion rate is worth more than the cost of the engagement. Below it, a one-off project or training is often more rational.

2. Nobody has the time, or clear ownership. When Amazon is managed by the e-commerce lead "whenever there is a moment", the symptoms are always the same: stockouts twice a year, campaigns never optimised, listings out of sync with the catalogue.

3. You want to open new countries. Moving from Belgium into France, Germany and the Netherlands adds VAT obligations, translations, different logistics grids and different competitive landscapes. This is the use case where external support pays back fastest.

4. You have a problem you do not know how to solve. Account suspension, unexplained Buy Box loss, listings wrongly merged, parasitic resellers: these are resolved with precise knowledge of Amazon's procedures, not with time.

5. Your sales stagnate despite a rising advertising budget. That is the classic sign of a structural ceiling: an unoptimised listing, mispositioned price or badly built catalogue. Adding budget to a conversion problem only accelerates the loss.

Conversely, three situations where it is better to wait: you have not yet validated a gross margin above 55%, your product has no clear differentiation against incumbent sellers, or you cannot fund 6 to 12 months of support. An agency accelerates a trajectory, it does not create a viable product. If you are just starting out, begin with our guide to selling on Amazon in Belgium instead.

What it costs, and how agencies bill

Three billing models dominate the Belgian and French market.

Many agencies combine a lower base retainer with a variable share. That is often the healthiest structure: it aligns interests without putting all the risk on one party.

Two budget cautions. First, agency fees are separate from the advertising budget: plan for both. Second, be wary of percentages calculated on total revenue rather than on growth: on an already established account, you are then paying for volume that existed before the engagement.

The profitability calculation is simple to set up. For an account at 30,000 euros of monthly revenue, a 2,500 euro per month engagement has to generate roughly 8% of growth or advertising savings to pay for itself. That is achievable on an unoptimised account, much less so on an already well-managed one.

What separates a good agency from a bad one

Four observable criteria, before you even discuss price.

It shows you a method, not logos. Ask how an account is steered, and with which indicators tracked over time: ACOS, TACOS, conversion rate, organic revenue trend. An agency that only presents brand names has no method to show.

It asks about your margin before talking about growth. Without knowing your landed cost, no advertising target can be set correctly. An agency that promises a target ACOS without having seen your cost structure is improvising. Our article on ACOS and TACOS explains the calculation to run together.

It knows Amazon's procedures in detail. Suspensions, catalogue disputes, compliance cases: the difference comes from mastering the official processes and being able to document a case properly. Our approach is described on our Amazon compliance page.

It is willing to say no. An agency that accepts every account, including those whose economics do not work on Amazon, is selling time, not an outcome.

FAQ

How much does an Amazon agency cost in Belgium? Common models range from 1,500 to 5,000 euros per month as a management retainer, or a percentage of revenue between 3 and 10%. A one-off audit generally sits between 1,500 and 4,000 euros.

From what revenue level does an agency become profitable? In practice, from roughly 15,000 to 20,000 euros of monthly Amazon revenue, or earlier if the company is preparing a structured European launch.

Can an agency work without access to my account? Not for day-to-day management. Amazon provides user permissions with limited scope, which lets you grant access to advertising and the catalogue without sharing banking data.

What is the difference between an Amazon agency and a generalist e-commerce agency? Amazon has its own search algorithm, catalogue rules, logistics and advertising platform. A generalist agency rarely masters Seller Central at an operational level, which shows most in catalogue management and suspension cases.

Do you need a Belgian agency to sell in Belgium? Not necessarily, but knowing bilingual listings, Belgian VAT and how traffic splits between Amazon.com.be, Amazon.fr and Amazon.nl makes a measurable difference to results.

Conclusion: the decision in one question

Ask yourself this: over the next twelve months, do the time and skills needed to run Amazon properly exist inside the company? If the answer is no and your volume exceeds 15,000 euros per month, outsourcing is almost always the more profitable choice. If the answer is yes, a one-off audit and training engagement will probably be enough.

Let It Grow supports Belgian and French SMEs across the whole Amazon channel, from marketplace strategy to advertising and logistics. We always start with a free audit of your account and catalogue, which will tell you, with numbers, whether there is a case for working together. Get in touch to schedule it.