I saw a Facebook post the other day where somebody asked, “Can someone explain the global storefronts like I’m five?” The problem is that every time I explain it, I feel like I’m five, and a day later I feel like I’m four, because we keep learning new stuff and not all of it makes sense. But I’m going to try to get you close. If your global storefront reporting looks broken, if tracking IDs vanished from your consolidated report, or if you’re still seeing your Canada and UK videos in carousels even though your Creator Studio says they’re archived, this is what I think is going on.

In This Article

How Tracking Worked Before the Rollout

Let’s get basic. When you manually signed up for other countries, Amazon gave you two IDs per country: an on-site ID and an off-site ID. Sometimes they had a suffix, like the “21” that UK and Netherlands tacked on. Every video you put on a product in Canada or the UK carried that country’s ID with it. Somebody clicked it, watched it, bought something, and the earnings showed up under that specific ID in your reporting.

That’s the whole system in one sentence: content carries an ID, the ID is how you get paid.

What Happened When You Claimed the US as Your Home Store

When Amazon rolled out the global storefront and asked, “Do you want to claim the US?”, I said sure. I only ever did Canada and UK manually, so it wasn’t a big deal for me. About 24 hours later it said my storefront was done.

Here’s what I believe happened at that moment. The country-specific IDs assigned to your Canada or UK storefront essentially stopped working, maybe even ceased to exist. All the content you had already placed in those countries inherited your US ID. And at the same time, that content got archived in your Creator Studio. In theory, an archived video shouldn’t be visible anywhere, regardless of what ID it carries.

Archived Videos That Are Still Visible

Except Amazon said “we’ll raise you one” and left them on the carousels anyway. Chris from Chuching made a video about this a couple of days ago because he could see Chuching-sourced videos still sitting in international carousels. I checked mine and yeah, I see them too, and I only ever did mine through Oink.

I know these are the archived versions because every video you upload has its own long, unique video ID. When I look at a Canadian product page and pull the ID off my video there, that exact ID is listed as archived in my Creator Studio. Not just the video, the actual ID in the background.

So what we have is a bunch of videos that are the shell of what they used to be. They inherited the correct US ID for tracking, which is good. But they have one foot in the archive. And if a video is archived, I don’t know whether you can earn on it, visible or not. To me, that at least partly explains why people saw their earnings drop off while still seeing themselves in carousels. There’s a disconnect, and I think this is it.

Why Your Old IDs Disappeared From Reporting

Open your consolidated reporting and set it to 30 days. You’ll see a mix of your old country IDs and your new ones, because that window spans the switchover. Now set it to 7 days. If you opted in more than a week ago, the old IDs are gone.

That isn’t because your content disappeared. It’s because the content no longer carries those IDs. Your old IDs are not missing from the report; they’re missing from your videos. Everything is now tracked under the US-based IDs, and in my 7-day view I can see my Canada on-site and UK on-site both earning something under those new IDs. The numbers aren’t what I’d normally expect, and I don’t know whether that stays this way or gets sorted out, but the mechanism makes sense.

Strangely, I’ve also started earning in Poland on the off-site side. Not a lot, but it showed up on its own. I didn’t do anything to make that happen. Some people say you can click into certain menus to make countries appear; I don’t think so. I think they show up whenever they want to show up. If a country you expected isn’t on your report, it’s most likely because it isn’t earning you anything, and there’s nothing I can see that needs to be added.

Where Are the New Storefront Videos?

This is the part that bugs me. If those archived videos shouldn’t be visible, and Amazon eventually enforces that, what’s left in the international carousels? Right now I’m not seeing representation from the new global storefronts out there. What I’m seeing are remnants, shells of what was there before. Where are the videos from my actual storefront?

Maybe it just hasn’t happened yet. Maybe it’s coming. But if they truly pull visibility on archived videos, I think most of what’s currently in those carousels would be gone. I’m putting a pin in that because it’s a real gap in the picture right now.

Should You Manually Upload to Other Countries?

I see this question constantly: should I keep uploading my videos to Canada and the UK the way I used to? I think that’s a bad idea for two reasons.

  1. It’s working around a system Amazon is clearly moving everyone to. It feels like taking advantage of an open door, and we don’t know what that looks like when the rollout finishes.
  2. Duplicates. Say you upload individually to Canada right after Amazon archived your whole Canadian storefront. Then you post the same video to your US storefront and Amazon syncs it to other countries like it’s supposed to. Now you have two of the same video on one product in that country, and we have no idea how Amazon handles that.

You’d be making a decision on an incomplete picture. Some people haven’t even had this roll out to them yet. What we’re looking at right now is goofed, there’s no other way to put it, and I wouldn’t be making moves inside a system that’s goofed.

What About Unarchiving or Picking a Country at Upload?

You can unarchive videos in your US Creator Studio, and the documentation says an unarchived video gets placed on your US storefront. But think about it: that Canadian video is still sitting on the Canadian product page, just archived and not earning. Unarchiving it puts it on your US storefront, where that video already is. I don’t think there’s anything there.

There’s also a new option during upload where you can pick a country of origin from a dropdown. I don’t fully understand its purpose yet. My worry is this: if you’re opted in (and you are, whether or not you clicked yes on the US prompt), and you upload directly to Canada, does it sync back to your US storefront since it’s all connected? And if so, does the US copy get hosed because the whole thing is tangled? I don’t see any reason to test that with my own content right now.

My Advice Right Now

Wait. That’s it. We don’t understand the earning situation on archived-but-visible videos. We don’t know what happens if Amazon fully pulls those videos off product pages. There are too many weird unknowns, and because Amazon dropped this right before Q4 started, this might be what we’re living with for a while before they touch it again.

If you’re putting off selecting the US as your home store, I get it. My only concern is that Amazon decides you’re not paying attention, removes the prompt, and suddenly you’re not opted into anything. Otherwise, sit tight. The IDs you think you’re missing, you’re probably not missing. Amazon is straddling both sides of the fence right now and the reporting reflects that.

In the meantime, the best use of your energy is still the fundamentals: find products that convert, make good content for them, and keep your storefront tidy. Oink’s Storefront Cross Check and Unavailable Video Matching exist for exactly this kind of mess, so you can see what’s actually live on your storefront versus what’s been archived or gone unavailable. When I hear or learn anything new on the global storefront front, I’ll let you know.

Want a clear view of what’s actually working on your storefront while Amazon sorts this out? Grab Oink at oinkforinfluencers.com.

I'm an Amazon Influencer since 2023 and blogger since 2021. My goal is to help you succeed in the Amazon Influencer Program.

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