- What is Shopify?
- What advantages does Shopify offer me as an Amazon Seller?
- Why should I sell on Amazon as a Shopify seller?
- Amazon Brand Store as an alternative to a Shopify Store?
- How can I connect Shopify with Amazon?
- Conclusion
While some retailers sell exclusively on Amazon, other brands sell their goods solely through their own online store. However, one does not exclude the other and so today you can find more and more brands that operate on two or more tracks. Thus, pure Marketplace sellers eventually create their own online store while store owners create a Seller account on Amazon to offer their products on Amazon Marketplace.
When choosing the right platform for their online store, Shopify is the first choice for many sellers. In this article, we would like to show you the ways you can link your store on Shopify with your Seller account on Amazon to connect both worlds.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is a platform for creating and running online stores. The platform makes it very easy for sellers to set up their own store. This way, they don't have to be designers or developers: Shopify offers different design templates and also takes care of the technology in the background. Shopify is not only used by small sellers: Companies like Google or Tesla also use Shopify for selected projects. According to its own data, around 1.7 million companies worldwide use Shopify's service.
Shopify is a so-called "software-as-a-service" offering, which means you rent a store. While you take care of the setup and administration, Shopify takes care of the rest.
Shopify can be extended by apps - similar to apps on a smartphone - to provide functions that Shopify does not offer out of the box. This makes Shopify very powerful.
What advantages does Shopify offer me as an Amazon Seller?
As a seller on Amazon, you take a big disadvantage: you have no direct relationship with the buyers of your products. Amazon alone has this. You do learn who buys from you, but you are not allowed to use this data for marketing purposes, for example. Also, you cannot give cookies to customers to address the same customer again via retargeting campaigns.
An own store, on the other hand, offers you the possibility to establish this so-called direct-to-consumer connection. Provided you have the appropriate permission, you can provide your customers with e.g. e-mail campaigns and prompt them to make repeat purchases. External marketing measures can also be carried out on Facebook or Instagram. Shopify offers deep integrations with the respective social network here.
Another plus point is the optional linking of Shopify and Amazon FBA. This means that orders that have accumulated in the Shopify store can be fulfilled automatically from the Amazon warehouse if desired.
Also advantageous are the lower sales fees per order: Shopify takes a fixed monthly amount between $29-$299 and a percentage amount when using Shopify's payment processing (Shopify Payments).
Last but not least: In your store you are the boss. There are many competitors on Amazon and Amazon does a lot to give the customer the best offer. In your store, on the other hand, you don't have to fear any competitors. Here, the customer only compares products from your brand(s).
Why should I sell on Amazon as a Shopify seller?
As a Shopify seller, it can be worthwhile to use Amazon as an additional sales channel. Amazon is the largest marketplace with a large, loyal customer base and can become an additional source of revenue. After all, the buyers are already there: millions of potential customers start their search on Amazon every day. You don't have to spend time and effort acquiring these customers. In this way, you can also acquire new customers who would otherwise never have become aware of your store. If your store still lacks brand awareness, customers may feel more confident about buying on Amazon and may visit your online store in the future.
One challenge, however, is the limited visibility of your products. New products naturally have a hard time, as they do not yet have a sales history. Likewise, new products usually have few or no reviews. This is also a disadvantage compared to existing products.
The "Fulfillment by Amazon" program is a real asset. As a Marketplace seller, you do not have to ship your products yourself, but can transfer this task to Amazon. This gives you first-class logistics that Amazon Prime customers in particular trust. In addition, you can also use Amazon's logistics for orders in your online store.
Amazon Brand Store as an alternative to a Shopify Store?
Amazon provides brands with an alternative to their online store with the Amazon Brand Store. This is a "shop-in-shop" concept, which means that the Amazon Brand Store is part of the Amazon platform. You could call it a protected space, where the customer only encounters your brand's products. But: as soon as the customer steps out of the store back to a regular product detail page, he will also immediately be shown competitor products and ads again. Also important to know: The Amazon Brand Store is only accessible to brands registered in the Amazon Brand Registry.
The Brand Store is easy to create and provides you with metrics to measure success, such as conversion, visits, and sales generated through your store. Since Amazon is also a "building block" system, the store cannot be customized in any way. With the help of images and graphic designs alone, you can give your Amazon brand store its own look. To promote the store, you can also carry out marketing activities outside of Amazon, for example through Facebook or Instagram ads.
Inside Amazon, stores are hard for customers to find and many Amazon sellers search for a product instead of the store. Likewise, the full Amazon fees hit when purchases are made. Therefore, you don't achieve the actual goal of entering the "direct-to-consumer" space with an Amazon branded store.
How can I connect Shopify with Amazon?
Prerequisite for a Shopify-Amazon integration is - in addition to a Shopify store- a professional Amazon Seller account. The direct integration of Shopify and Amazon is not possible. You will need a third-party app for this. You can find these similar to Apple or Android in Shopifys App Store.
Below, we'll introduce you to a few apps that you can use to connect Shopify and Amazon as examples.
Amazon by Codisto
Amazon by Codisto enables integration of a Shopify store with Amazon Seller Central.
The main features are:
- Synchronized inventory: the inventory of a product is synchronized between your Amazon and Shopify account. This prevents duplicate sales.
- Product catalog update: The app automatically uploads product images, titles, prices, and variations from your Shopify store to Amazon.
- Product-level customization: you can customize your prices, titles, descriptions, and policies specifically to Amazon's requirements
Pricing Options:
- Starter: $19/month (up to 100 orders per month).
- Growth: $59/month (up to 500 orders per month)
- Pro: $99/month (up to 1000 orders per month).
The app can be tested for free for 30 days.
Magnalister
Magnalister also acts as an interface between Shopify and Amazon. With the help of the app you can sell products from your own webshop on Amazon and automate follow-up processes.
The main features are:
- Items from Shopify are automatically uploaded to Amazon
- Automated price matching, individually per marketplace
- Synchronized inventory
- Transmission of order status
Pricing options:
- Business: 29€/month (1 marketplace connection, up to 350 orders per month)
- Ultimate**: 59€/month (2 marketplace connections, up to 3000 orders per month)
- Flat: 99€/month (3 marketplace connections, unlimited orders per month)
The app can be tested free of charge for 30 days.
Amazon FBA Shipping ByteStand
Shopify's direct "Fulfillment by Amazon" integration is only available to Amazon sellers with Amazon Marketplace accounts in the US or Canada. For example, if you have an Amazon Marketplace account in Germany, you must use a third-party app.
Amazon FBA Shipping serves as an interface solution that allows you to connect your Amazon FBA account to your Shopify store.
The essential features are:
- Orders from your Shopify store are shipped via Amazon FBA
- The app sends shipping confirmations to your customers
Pricing: $25/month.
The app can be tested free of charge for 7 days.
Amazon Reviews ratings
Amazon Reviews-Bewertungen imports your Amazon reviews as well as your seller feedback from Amazon and displays it in the form of Widgets in your Shopify store.
Pricing: $5.99/month
The app can be tested free of charge for 7 days.
Conclusion
Currently, Amazon and Shopify integration is only possible via third-party apps. Shopify does not support this directly. And it is also not expected that this will change. The two companies are too much competitors for that. Neither company wants to lose its customers to the other.
The range of third-party apps is currently still manageable. Since selling on Amazon has many pitfalls, as a Shopify seller, you should be very aware of the third-party app options before you start selling. Make a detailed checklist of your requirements and check with the app developer if necessary. It is important to know exactly the possibilities and limitations of the apps.
If you are a retailer and don't want to have your own store on Amazon, the Amazon Brand Store could be an alternative.
