Amazon Or Shopify For Your Online Store?
Amazon and Shopify are the two leading platforms in the world of e-commerce. If you are going to start a web-based store, you need to make a choice between these two giants. You will build your e-commerce empire on your chosen platform.
Although the success of your business doesn’t depend on this platform, our choice can have a great impact on how your store operates. Therefore, we have elaborated on a few primary differences between Amazon and Shopify. The article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each and helps you get started.
Let’s first take a look at the summary of the advantages and disadvantages of Amazon and Shopify.
Advantages and disadvantage of Amazon:
Advantages:
- Built-in traffic source
- Great potential for tons of passive traffic
- Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
Disadvantages:
- You depend on the traffic system of Amazon
- Little customization
- Stiff competition
Advantages and disadvantage of Shopify:
Advantages:
- Complete customization
- Tons of apps and themes
- The ability to develop a brand identity
- You can get your own traffic
Disadvantage
- No readily available sales channels
- Requires more effort store development and maintenance
- Requires paid apps and coding skills for high-level customization
- No fulfillment or storage
The primary Differences between Amazon and Shopify
First of all, Shopify allows complete customization, which means you can develop and manage your online store from A to Z.
By contrast, Amazon is a type of marketplace where you can create a list of your products, but you have no control over the product pages or the store.
These were some basic differences between Amazon And Shopify. Now, let’s get into details.
Customization
The ability to customize your store is the first key difference. If you give a lot of importance to branding and visual identity, take note. If you have some coding experience, Shopify allows you to customize all of your websites. It works like WordPress, which is why Shopify is quite easy to use.
The plug-ins and themes offered by Shopify make it quite easier for you to change the theme of your site to make it look the way you want.
By contrast, product listings on Amazon feature defined templates. Although you can customize a lot of things, you still need to follow the Amazon TOS.
With Brand Registry, it’s possible to perform a bit more customization using Enhanced Brand Content and Amazon Storefronts. But you don’t have a lot of freedom when it comes to customizing your product pages or store.
Traffic generation
Although Shopify is great from the flexibility and customization point of view, you don’t enjoy this freedom as far as traffic generation is concerned. This is the reason Amazon has an edge over Shopify.
For your Shopify store, it’s your responsibility to get customers to your store. This platform doesn’t offer any marketplace to showcase your product listings to your prospective customers.
Millions of buyers check out tons of products on Amazon on a daily basis. Therefore, your products may be viewed by a lot of interested customers on this platform. Nobody can deny the importance of visibility you can enjoy if you start a store on Amazon.
FBA and shipping channels
Apart from attracting potential customers, Amazon sends your products out to make a great difference. Amazon FBA is on the list of greatest features that you can enjoy if you choose to sell on this platform. FBA takes care of everything related to fulfillment, such as storage, packing and shipping of the products. Apart from this, they can complete orders on a lot of channels.
In fact, fulfillment is an important part as far as selling online is concerned. If not done well, it may have a negative impact on the reputation of your business.
Just like FBA, Shopify is going to develop a fulfillment network. We may see a shipping network from the provider in the near future. Amazon FBA is quite trustworthy and reliable, which is why it offers 2-day shipping across the US.
Ownership
As far as ownership of your store is concerned, Amazon doesn’t allow total control over your online store. The control of your site and customers is with Amazon, and you have to follow their rules while doing your business. Breaking the rules means the termination of your privileges as a seller, and you won’t be able to present your products to the customers on Amazon.
On Shopify, you have more responsibilities but the ownership of your store belongs to you. On this platform, there is no concept of renting a spot for your store, unlike Amazon.
The takeaway
Both Amazon and Shopify have a lot of sellers, buyers, and online stores. If you are going to have your own store on these platforms, you may want to consider the advantages and disadvantages of both. This will help you choose a platform that can more suitable for your online business.
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