As a digital business owner, One of your most crucial decisions is which online marketplaces you’ll utilize to sell your items online. And because they’re two of the most prominent brands in e-commerce, you’ll have to choose between Shopify or Amazon. Both have pros and disadvantages. You might discover your business gains by combining both platforms.
With Shopify, you’re in complete control of your online store, including design, branding, and experience. If you choose to sell on Amazon, you will be able to leverage the massive, already existing Amazon audience without handling a lot of small-scale marketing on your own. This is what you need to know before deciding between Shopify and Shopify.
A brief outline of Shopify
Shopify is a cloud-based storefront platform that allows online retailers to create and manage their online stores. Shopify can be scalable, too, as companies as prominent as Kylie Cosmetics, Tesla, Budweiser, and Nestle utilize Shopify to run their online stores. However, the basic plans for services are ideal for one-person businesses.
If you want to sell your items in person and on the internet, you can make use of Shopify POS, the platform’s selection of point-of-sale equipment that is physically accessible. Users can select from over 70 professional-designed templates that can be modified according to their preferences and can accept payment on the internet via Shopify Payments, the platform’s integrated payment processor, which Stripe runs. Additionally, you can use Shopify’s massive number of store-related and customer-management tools, such as social media integration discounts or gift card purchases, safe customer data storage, connections to the fulfillment center (including Amazon), etc. Suppose Shopify cannot provide the answer you’re looking for. In that case, You’ll likely locate it on the Shopify App Store, which includes thousands of applications that work in your Shopify store and will allow you to improve your workflow further.
Shopify pricing
Shopify provides three-priced plans to increase monthly fees capacities, features, and features, and offers discounts in Shopify Payments and Shopify Shipping. A few of the features all programs offer include an unlimitedly customized web-based store with unlimited items as well as 24/7 customer service, the capability to sell on other marketplaces online and social media platforms, manual order creation discount codes as well as a no-cost SSL certificate, and the ability to recover abandoned shopping carts. However, all plans are also connected to Shopify Payments, Shopify Shipping, and Shopify Point of Sale, with different capacities and discounts.
- Basic Shopify: $29 per month.
- Shopify: $79 per month.
- Advanced Shopify Monthly cost: $299.
Businesses and enterprises that handle large orders could opt for Shopify Plus, which charges custom pricing. On the other side of the range, even the smaller small-scale businesses that sell through Shopify, such as hobbyists and side hustlers, can enroll in Shopify Lite. For just $9 per month, the plan allows you to market via social media, in-person using the point of sale application from Shopify, or through your website or blog using the Shopify Buy button.
A brief outline of Amazon
If you’re selling products through Amazon (or in the case of selling services via Amazon Home Services), you’ll have access to a base of customers comprised of millions of people across the world. This is why selling your products on Amazon is highly beneficial for small or new companies that do not have enough inventory to launch an online store on their own and establish a customer base. Amazon can be equally beneficial to established businesses by generating additional revenue and redirecting a growing group of customers back to their online stores.
It can take some time to master the art of working on selling products through Amazon -and you’ll have to ensure you’re complying with Amazon’s policies and rules. Setting up the seller’s profile and listing your items is pretty simple. A huge benefit is the possibility of Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA), and Amazon will keep your inventory in its warehouse for you and after which it will handle shipping and packaging as orders are received. (If you’re selling only a handful of items, however, you can handle fulfillment your way.) Please take a look at our complete tutorial on selling your products on Amazon to get a step-by-step guide to becoming an Amazon seller.
Amazon pricing
If you’re looking to sell your products on Amazon, you’ll need to choose between two Amazon service plans: Professional and Individual.
The Individual plan is ideal for small-scale business owners who intend to sell less than 40 items each month. The plan doesn’t require a monthly subscription. However, you’ll have to be prepared to shell out $0.99 per sold item in addition to Amazon’s selling fees, such as variable closing fees and shipping charges.
The Professional plan is $39.99 each month. There’s no requirement to pay selling fees per item for this plan. However, you’ll be required to make a payment for a referral charge that differs based on the item’s category and different closing and shipping costs.
Along with the selling costs and your monthly subscription (if you’re on a Professional subscription), you’ll need Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) charges when using the service to fulfill order fulfillment or inventory storage. Amazon’s charges can be challenging to calculate and track, and therefore, you should examine Amazon’s Fee Schedule for more information. Amazon Fee Schedule for a more comprehensive breakdown.
What do entrepreneurs from small businesses and marketing experts say about Shopify and? Amazon?
Shopify store. We sought out small-business owners and experts for their thoughts on Shopify and Amazon. The majority of them advised the use of both platforms. You can utilize Shopify to create your website, and it is crucial for branding, customer relations management, and being in control of the way you decide to market and sell your products. Additionally, you can utilize your Amazon profile as a powerful marketing channel and a method of driving traffic into Shopify.
They’re not mutually exclusive.
“Shopify and Amazon are great platforms for selling online, but they’re not necessarily exclusive. For businesses selling goods, Amazon is nearly essential because of the amount of traffic it provides. Shopify is a fantastic alternative to Amazon, and there are apps available within Shopify that directly connect the inventory of both. For instance, if you make use of Fulfillment by Amazon, You can use Amazon’s Amazon inventory to fulfill orders made through Shopify and Amazon. Amazon and Shopify (this is known as Amazon MultiChannel Fulfillment).
“Plus, Shopify provides a legitimate web presence that increases the trust of Amazon customers who are looking for your website. There are also limitations on Amazon regarding the number of details you can give regarding your brand and product. However, Shopify allows you to display the information about your product completely and can certainly aid in the branding .”
- Laura Douglas, e-commerce and Amazon specialist at FountainheadME, a marketing firm.
Utilize both of them to increase your reach
“Ideally, an effective eCommerce campaign should have an official website hosted on a platform such as Shopify or WordPress and have a significant presence on platforms such as Amazon. Combining these methods will enable you to reach an even larger audience and rank in more frequent relevant searches, leading to higher conversion rates. A primary website for your e-commerce lets you rank for organic results in search and use online tools and features that aren’t accessible on other platforms such as Amazon. The primary benefit of Amazon is its ability to reach a huge audience. Amazon is responsible for the bulk of sales on e-commerce and could be a great way to further sales for your primary website. .”
Matt Benevento is a senior SEO specialist at Geek Powered Studios, an SEO and web design business.
The most appropriate choice depends on the business you run.
It’s recommended to offer your products across both platforms; however, choosing one platform over the other is dependent on the small-business abilities and competitiveness.
Amazon is an excellent market, to begin with, for small-business owners who do not have their customer base or a concept of their ideal customer. Over 50 percent of Americans are members of Amazon Prime membership, so they are already Amazon to purchase your products. If you’re a business with many competitors and the Amazon market is already saturated, it could be an issue because of the higher cost of advertising compared with other platforms.
If you’re a brand new business that has launched on Amazon and you want to use the data from your Amazon sales to build your brand name and bring visitors to your Shopify. Additionally, you can use your Amazon customer information to create your customer profile.
At the same that, if you’re a small business that already has loyal customers and customer profiles, you could easily create your own Shopify and traffic.
Youn Jung Chung, the founder of Dal Enterprises, builds software for Amazon sellers.
Channel ownership is key.
Most vital is ownership of the channel. With Amazon, you don’t have ownership of the platform you sell on. In exchange, you have accessibility to the Amazon brand and the acclaim the platform enjoys globally and access to global customers who have already embraced their trust in the Amazon brand. But, connecting your company to a single online marketplace is not without risk.
Recently, Amazon ousted several merchants without notice and forced many merchants to confront the consequences of their single-channel plan. Amazon’s other criticisms should be considered; however, an essential lesson for merchants is this: Amazon intends to build its bottom line. If your business doesn’t fit into its plans, it could result in you being lacking access to this coveted channel.
With Shopify or Shopify Plus, the merchants control their channel and the properties they sell their products through. There are some challenges to this method; however, they are mainly focused on bringing visitors to your site (provided your products are ones that people are looking for in a purchase). The process of building your customer base will require longer and require more investment; however, the benefit is that the avenue is entirely yours. Shopify does not remove sellers from its e-commerce platform without good reasons (like repeated copyright violations that require multiple filing complaints and reviews from Shopify before removal ).”
