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Shopify vs Etsy

Shopify vs Amazon

Last updated: February 9, 2024

Shopify and Amazon are the two crowned kings of ecommerce. Both platforms allow merchants to sell products on their platform. Sellers have access to platform tools, features, and resources in exchange for a monthly subscription fee. But, which ecommerce platform is better? This article goes into detail about the differences between Shopify vs Amazon to help you decide which is best for your business so that you can unlock your online store's full potential. So, Amazon vs Shopify, which is going to be?!
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Shopify vs Amazon: The Fundamental Differences

The most important thing to keep in mind between Shopify vs Amazon is the fundamental differences and nature of the platform. Although Amazon is an online marketplace, Shopify is a specialised ecommerce platform. While Amazon allows you to sell through its marketplace alongside other online sellers across the world, Shopify gives you the resources to create your very own online business.

Selling on Amazon is therefore comparable to owning a stand at a popular street market. Thousands of people flood the area to explore and buy; the majority of them aren't really looking for your company, yet you still earn a lot of sales because everyone passing by notices your stand.

Selling through Shopify is more like leasing space for your company to operate. Customers actively search for your store after they are aware of your brand since you have your own location. Although it takes more effort to establish a loyal customer base, there is more room to develop a distinctive brand image.

These variations allow Shopify and Amazon to serve various kinds of online vendors. Individual sellers all the way up to small and medium-sized organisations can sell on Amazon. Meanwhile, small businesses up to much larger enterprises with sales volumes in the millions can benefit from Shopify.

Shopify vs Amazon: Ease of Use


Both Amazon and Shopify are made to be relatively simple for newcomers to ecommerce to start using. Both platforms offer an onboarding setup procedure that guides you through the crucial steps required to begin selling when you sign up for an account. A variety of online tools and video guides are also accessible to support you further. The learning curves for both platforms are very different, although not very steep. You must learn how to use a database used by Amazon, called "Amazon Seller Central," as efficiently as possible. The main issue that brand-new Amazon merchants have is making sure that the requirements for product names, descriptions, and catalogue numbers are met. Setting up product listings on Amazon can involve filling out a lot of forms and data. Additionally, there are a lot of requirements to meet before receiving an Amazon seller account.

On Shopify on the other hand, you are creating a brand new website. It's easier to add products to your store since you have the freedom to enter as much or as little information about them when you create them. And all you need to start using Shopify, at least initially, is an email address and some basic contact information. These are simply entered when a free trial is launched on the platform. Although Shopify has been created to make this as simple as possible, there is still a lot to learn if you are new to web design. Of course, there are Shopify Agencies available should you require professional custom Shopify theme development builds.

Shopify vs Amazon: Branding/UX


When selling on Amazon, a merchant's ability to display their brand's personality is somewhat limited due to the lack of customisation available. Although you can make a few adjustments to let your brand image shine (like adding your company logo, for example), your storefront layout will generally seem very "Amazony" and you won't be able to use the platform to build a lot of custom shopping experiences.

In many ways, this is advantageous because Amazon customers anticipate a particular experience, and straying too far from this would probably hurt sales. In a comparison of Shopify vs Amazon, Shopify allows you a great deal of control over your brand and customer experience through customisation. There are a plethora of themes and templates that may be customised to fit your branding. Additionally, if you possess the necessary technical know-how, you may modify the HTML and CSS code of your store to further personalise its design and the user experience you offer, or you can create it entirely from scratch for a wholly unique experience.

Amazon's designs are more constrained than this. Although you can post your own pictures and descriptions, Amazon has clearly influenced the overall look and feel of your store page. As an illustration, products are shown on the homepage with Amazon logo next to those of your rivals. Although this is perfect for the customer, it may be more difficult to send users to your own pages as a result of this high competition.

Shopify's multi-currency and multilingual tools let you further customise the user experience region by region; as a result, if you're looking for a highly customised purchasing experience catered to a specific consumer persona, market, or area, Shopify provides this in a way that Amazon does not.

Shopify vs Amazon: Marketing Capabilities


Marketing is essential if you want to reach potential buyers when you sell products online. Shopify provides consumers with a fundamental set of marketing tools and SEO capabilities to help them improve store-level content in order to achieve higher SERP positions and increase traffic. In addition to creating 301 redirects and auto XML sitemaps, you can update meta tags and add alt text to photos. Users cannot completely alter their URLs, though. Additionally, Shopify offers other noteworthy blog features including multiple authors, simple tag setup, and customised SEO criteria.

Furthermore, Shopify Email makes it simple to do email marketing. This programme has ready-made email templates and a report generator, just like any email marketing tools. You can send up to 2,500 emails to your clients for no cost. Notably, Shopify's interfaces with Google and Facebook also make it simple for you to create advertisements for these networks. The Shopify marketplace has a vast range of apps that can be integrated into your store to greatly help improve your marketing capabilities if the above products do not adequately address your demands. See our guide on Best Shopify Apps to see our hand-picked selection. You can always install more marketing apps from the Shopify marketplace if these products do not adequately address your demands.

When comparing both Shopify vs Amazon, Amazon is more limited in terms of SEO and marketing, as sellers will have to optimise their product pages on the Amazon marketplace search engine, rather than Google. A benefit of using Amazon, however, is the shipping and fulfilment that the platform provices through Amazon FBA. 'Fulfilled by Amazon' helps improve customer confidence of online stores as Amazon's shipping and fulfilment is trusted by store visitors across the world. Orders can go through the Amazon Prime program also, meaning that customers have access to a fast shipping method that they're used to if they want their products quickly. The marketing features of both platforms shine in their own ways, however, when comparing both Shopify vs Amazon, Shopify seems to offer more impressive marketing features as a whole with the help of its app marketplace.
On the other side of Shopify vs Amazon, if you have a store on the Amazon marketplace, potential clients will browse there and look for the goods they need. To rank as high as possible on search result pages, you should therefore concentrate on Amazon SEO rather than Google SEO. You must optimise both the content and search terms of your product information in order to achieve that. Additionally, Amazon has a variety of marketing options. For instance, Amazon gives you access to their demand-side platform, Amazon DSP, which enables you to purchase display, video, and audio ads both on and off the retailer's website. Another example is Amazon Live, which enables you to stream real-time, interactive films that are shoppable on the whole Amazon site.

We can see that Shopify vs Amazon both offer powerful marketing resources. However, if you want to develop your personal brand, Shopify will be a better option than Amazon.

Shopify vs Amazon: Pricing


Of course, a big deciding factor choosing between Shopify vs Amazon can be the price. Both platforms have different plans available to suit different business needs.

Amazon
To sell goods online with Amazon, you must register for a "seller account." There are two options of this available. Individual: $0.99 for every item sold. Professional: $39.99 each month (These are US prices; pricing elsewhere varies a bit by territory, but the plan types are consistent).

The 'Individual' plan is a 'pay-as-you-go' plan, meaning there is no monthly subscription fee to be paid; instead, a seller fee is applied to each item. This is one of the main differences between these payment methods. However, this plan prevents you from using any Amazon advertising services, selling more than 40 goods each month, and accessing comprehensive reports.

Since the "Professional" plan is a subscription service, there is an ongoing fee. It enables you to use all of Amazon's selling capabilities, sell across several categories, create your own shipping rates, sell an unlimited amount of items, advertise on the site, and add additional users to your account.

In addition to the fees for the plans mentioned above, Amazon also charges fees for each sale. The amount varies greatly depending on the kind of product you're selling, but typical selling fees range from 8 to 15 percent. Shopify is a better choice if you want to avoid these fees and have extra flexibility with better rates for high-volume sellers.

Shopify
On the other hand, Shopify has five different pricing plans available that cater to businesses of different sizes. These plans consist of: Shopify Starter — $5 per month. Basic Shopify — $29 per month. Shopify — $79 per month. Advanced Shopify — $299 per month. Shopify Plus — $2000 per month or a sliding model of 0.25% of monthly revenue. All of these plans give you access to essential ecommerce features, such as limitless access to physical and digital product catalogues, credit card processing, gift cards, abandoned cart recovery, discount codes, and an SSL certificate, but there are some important distinctions between Shopify plans to be aware of.

Instead of allowing you to create a standalone online store, Shopify's "Starter" plan enables you to sell goods via social media platforms, messaging services, or by placing a "purchase button" on an already-existing website. The maximum number of users per account varies significantly depending on the plan. For instance, "Advanced Shopify" allows for fifteen staff accounts while "Basic Shopify" only allows for two. Only the $79 "Shopify" plans and higher offer professional reports. Read our article to learn more about the differences between Shopify Plus vs Advanced

The "Shopify Plus" plan caters to larger enterprises, and costs vary according to requirements. Shopify Plus has advanced security, API, and fulfilment features, along with dedicated account management. It's worth noting that with the the more pricier plans, there are fewer transaction fees for the variety of payment options. If you utilise Shopify Payments, that is the built-in payment gateway of Shopify, there are no transaction fees. If your online store has a large custromer base and you are looking for a solution to sell to visitors all over the world, Shopify is perhaps the better choice between Shopify vs Amazon.

Integrating Amazon into Shopify


The decision of choosing between Shopify vs Amazon can be difficult. Both platform offer a wide range of different features, services payment options, marketing capabilities and so. Some businesses might not be able to choose between the two platforms. The good news is that Amazon can be connected into your Shopify site, so don't worry if you're still on the fence between the two options. It means that you can create your own ecommerce website and simultaneously promote your goods on the biggest ecommerce marketplace on the planet as an additional sales channel. The beauty of doing this is shipping, fulfilment and inventory can all be harmonised between both stores on both platforms to make everything run more smoothly within your business.

After successfully integrating Amazon with Shopify, you can do many things like create Amazon offers and listings directly from Shopify, sync inventory and product information, link goods, and more. For an additional sales channel to maximise market reach, consider Shopify vs Etsy.

Summary: Shopify vs Amazon


When it comes to ecommerce, Shopify vs Amazon both have a lot to offer in terms of features and resources, but overall, we'd suggest Shopify as the superior platform overall. It's one of the greatest e-commerce platforms available, and it works well for small startups as well as built up and well-known brands. If you're considering moving to Shopify, consider Charle as a Shopify Agency to help design, develop, optimise and launch a fully bespoke Shopify store from the ground up, or migrate an existing store over from another platform. Contact us and talk to us about your Shopify project.
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