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Shopify vs Amazon: Which is Best for You? Where to sell products is one of the biggest decisions an eCommerce entrepreneur needs to make. Of course, you can choose to sell them across multiple platforms, but for most startups it’s usually a fifty-fifty selection chance between Shopify and an Amazon store. Digital marketing continues to provide excellent business expansion opportunities for people looking to make money online. And while you might find the thought of earning profits on your laptop.
Shopify vs Amazon: Which is Best for You?
Where to sell products is one of the biggest decisions an eCommerce entrepreneur needs to make.
Of course, you can choose to sell them across multiple platforms, but for most startups it’s usually a fifty-fifty selection chance between Shopify and an Amazon store.
Digital marketing continues to provide excellent business expansion opportunities for people looking to make money online. And while you might find the thought of earning profits on your laptop form the comfort of your home may seem somewhat intimidating – especially if you have little or no experience - you can make it happen.
Shopify and Amazon rank among the most viable ecommerce platforms available out there where anyone can register and create a website for selling online.
Both of them are incredible digital marketing platforms with many similarities but how do you know which one is better suited to your brand or business?
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the Shopify vs. Amazon comparison and provide you with the benefits and drawbacks of using each store builder.
Major Differences between Amazon and Shopify
Amazon is essentially an online marketplace while Shopify is an ecommerce platform.
While Amazon lets you build a webpage marketplace for selling your products next to other companies, Shopify is an established marketplace which focuses more on developing a reputation for your digital storefront. This means that Shopify merchants can create a stand-alone eCommerce store.
In contrast, your Amazon store is not an external website that anyone can visit. While Amazon merchants can choose to create a personalized storefront, the only way someone can find their online shop is through Amazon which is not the same thing as owning a website.
So, which platform is better for selling? Keep reading to find out!
Pricing
Fortunately .Shopify and Amazon both offer low-cost set up options.
Amazon comes two different Professional and Individual seller plans to choose from.
Amazon’s Individual plan lets you get started free of charge. And while you’ll have a limited account, you get to experience the Amazon store operations firsthand before committing to the Professional account which costs 39.99USD monthly.
New Shopify users can enjoy a 2 week free trial period before they’ll have to subscribe to the basic selling plan at 29.99USD per month. The Shopify plan is available at 79USD each month while Advanced Shopify costs 299USD monthly.
Limited payment options are one of the Amazon platform’s major drawbacks. There are no third-party payment options like PayPal as the platform only provides Amazon debit and credit card payment solutions.
Amazon can limit you from offering services to customers who prefer using diverse payment options.
Ease of Use
Your eCommerce platform’s ease of use of is essential to your storefront operations. Most merchants will struggle to anything done with a comprehensive and feature-laden dashboard that they don’t know how to use.
You’ll want a user-friendly, effective and tidy interface that you can navigate quickly.
With Shopify, you can set up your merchant account, create your first online store, and start selling products within a day.
Overall, Shopify provides a straightforward eCommerce merchant and shoppers with a user interface that offers a quick product and sales overview - especially if you have only a few products uploaded.
The Amazon merchant account is even easier to build that the Shopify store. The straightforward registration process provides useful pointers to guide you each step of the way and you can start your product listings upload as soon as you finish.
Amazon offers its users complete eCommerce management solutions along with the logistics required for expanding your online business. This means you can easily manage your Amazon warehouse inventory while catering to customer picking, packing, and shipping orders through your dashboard.
Designs and Templates
Your site’s design makes it easier to navigate. Most people don’t stick around and browse once they discover a website with poor design. Chances are they’ll continue their search elsewhere.
You’ll need an attractive Shopify or Amazon store to capture your audience’s attention if you wish to convert them into paying customers.
The Shopify store offers up to 10 custom themes for free. However, you can choose from over 50 user-friendly template design options once you activate a paid plan.
In contrast, the Amazon store template options are not as flexible since Amazon prefers to maintain consistent branding across the platform. As such, you don’t get to select your store’s listing design or modify templates in any way. Amazon merchants only optimize their product descriptions and titles.
However, this limitation could eventually turn out to be a blessing as it saves you plenty of time during the store building and setup process.
Customer Support
You’ll need quick help if you encounter problems with your eCommerce platform and luckily, both Shopify and Amazon offer adequate customer seller support where merchants looking to begin their online selling journey can ask questions.
In addition, both store builders come with abundant resources and useful content for answering frequently asked questions.
With Shopify, you have a dedicated eCommerce platform that features 24/7 phone, email, live chat, and social media support.
We discovered that Shopify’s live chat support was the most effective. It takes you about 45 seconds to reach a representative.
Amazon on the other hand, sometimes leaves you stranded when you’re looking for quick help. It takes much longer for the support team to respond or the phone call request to function. Sellers mostly have to rely on the online community forum for support.
Editor
Amazon sellers can choose to have the FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) program handle their product sales. The FBA works by letting you register your products with Amazon’s fulfillment centers. Whenever a customer makes a product order, the program will automatically select, package, and ship the merchandise to the customer.
In contrast, Shopify cannot process customer orders as sellers can handle their product inventory, packaging, & shipping.
Most Amazon merchants find it easier to sell their products since they don’t have to bother about shipping or customer management services.
Ecommerce
Designing an attractive digital storefront is an essential aspect of opening your online business. Your shop will improved eCommerce functionalities to guarantee your ability to process multiple sales transactions while catering to your customers’ needs.
Shopify features an in-built “Business-in-a-box” system that comes with robust eCommerce applications and tools for optimizing your site’s customer conversion offerings.
Shopify lets you grow your online store quickly, and with minimal effort.
You’ll find lots of handy tools such as an inventory system AI for stock monitoring, abandoned cart recovery that offers your prospective customers another chance to checkout their order, a logo maker for building your Shopify store’s brand, and more.
Amazon also boasts of some excellent eCommerce tools, however, they are limited when compared to Shopify.
The Amazon platform allows sellers to create shop listings. Afterwards, they can ship their products to the Amazon fulfillment warehouse where the customer’s orders are picked, packaged, and shipped.
Apps and Widgets
Shopify dominates this aspect of our comparison as the platform offers you all the eCommerce tools you’ll for a successful online market campaign.
There are hundreds of apps available for you to choose from on the Shopify App Store. Each one can optimize your store’s performance and help you boost product sales.
And although Amazon also features handy eCommerce tools and widgets you can use with your FBA reseller account, they lack Shopify’s diversity.
SEO
Selling online becomes easier with SEO marketing. Once you can apply working strategies to make your product visible to your target audience, you can make more sales.
Shopify is a standalone eCommerce platform which means it also includes market optimization tools for your web-based store.
The Shopify App Store also features loads of SEO marketing applications such as an email campaign manager for sending bulk campaign notifications and updates to your listed contacts.
Shopify also offers to SEO programs and multi-channel selling for promoting your online store. However, Amazon’s SEO offerings are almost unrivalled.
The best part about Amazon’s digital marketing feature is the way the platform handles the entire process for you.
Yet another significant Amazon FBA seller advantage is the benefit of increased website traffic.
Attracting more customers to your digital store’s listings is the ultimate purpose of SEO and Amazon boasts of over 100 million potential customers visiting the website every month. You won’t find any Shopify SEO tool that can match such prospects.
Blogging
Your Shopify eCommerce store comes complete with an in-built-blogging engine for generate more traffic and building your audience through relevant, engaging posts.
With a deliberate and thoughtful blogging strategy, you can nurture a customer relationship with a fitness enthusiast reading your body wellness blog on his/her device.
The Amazon platform also supports blogging but only after you subscribe to the free Amazon Associated program.
Afterwards, you’ll get an affiliate link which you can begin adding to product blogs that are useful to your readers.
Conclusion
Amazon’s FBA reselling approach is an excellent choice for people looking to start selling online quickly.
Amazon merchants can start by marketing third-party products and gradually work their way into full FBA program participation.
Shopify is a great online selling platform that offers a rewarding online store building experience.
However, your digital marketing efforts will likely require more time to develop on Shopify than with Amazon.