Shopify vs Amazon (2024 In Depth Comparison)

Choosing between Shopify and Amazon can be tricky due to their extensive advantages. Before starting an online business, understanding the pros and cons of each platform is crucial. Both platforms offer millions of potential customers, aiding small-scale businesses to gain exposure. Another option is Fynd Platform, a cost-effective alternative to Shopify. Regardless of the platform chosen, a thorough store setup is key to maximising profits and facilitating expansion.

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Shopify vs Amazon: Pros & Cons

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Both platforms have various features, making them popular for entrepreneurs to expand online. Here are the pros and cons of Amazon:

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Amazon

The pros and cons associated with Amazon are:

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Shopify

Shopify's advantages and drawbacks are-

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What’s the Difference Between Shopify and Amazon? 

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Multiple channels have paved the road for online enterprises by introducing COVID-19 and digital innovations. Entrepreneurs can set up online stores, including access to payment processors, subscriptions, memberships, and more. Apart from creating their online websites and stores, it is recommendable to try existing marketplaces, especially for newcomers. 

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Numerous well-known online marketplaces like Amazon, Shopify, and others host many shops that sell various goods and make significant profits using these platforms. Amazon is synonymous with online shopping due to its popularity among users and is ranked among the top online marketplaces in India and globally. Amazon has over 100 million loyal customers and more than 300 million monthly visitors on the platform. Shopify is a global E-commerce platform hosting over one crore businesses with over 2.1 billion daily active users.

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Ease of Use

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The primary feature any businessman wants is a seamless and smooth business experience. The Shopify dashboard offers an intuitive, quick view of your total sales, top goods, and sales breakdowns, motivating you to get going. Shopify excels at making practical sales tools available to everyone. Building an E-commerce website with Shopify is simple and feasible. Its navigation is quite simple and possesses a clean, clear appearance.

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Amazon offers an easy-to-follow set-up process where one needs to create the account, complete the set-up, and start selling. After registration, the products can be listed and sold through the platform. This process is straightforward, and Amazon has the tools to make it user-friendly and transparent. Fulfilment by Amazon is one option that takes away all the headaches of an E-commerce world, and the seller doesn't worry about shipping.

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The final statement

It's a win-win situation for both; each is simple to use uniquely. Amazon requires less effort because the only work needed is setting up and selling. However, creating your online store using Shopify is quite simple.

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Design Flexibility

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A well-designed page is essential for maintaining the product's charm. Customers can be frustrated by encountering a poorly designed interface with every click. Thankfully, both Shopify and Amazon prioritise user experience and strive to avoid any loss of customers due to bad design. However, Shopify stands out for its extensive design flexibility when comparing the two platforms. It offers a wide array of templates and grants users considerable control over the layout and appearance of their online stores. With the ability to customise the built-in templates according to their brand's demands, Shopify provides a seamless way to establish a unique brand identity. 

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Offering 81 modern and professional themes that can be easily edited and personalised, Shopify ensures businesses can create visually appealing and user-friendly platforms to showcase their products effectively. Within the price range of $140-$180, Shopify provides 71 paid themes and ten free themes, all of which are user-friendly and come with convenient features such as keyboard shortcuts and quick undo functionality for hassle-free adjustments. 

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Whether you want to change colours, layout, fonts, themes, logos, or banners, Shopify allows for effortless customisation to align with your brand's identity. The only minor drawback is that changing themes in the middle of the design process requires starting over, but this hardly detracts from its overall design capabilities.

Although primarily categorised as a website builder, Shopify surpasses its competitors, like Amazon, by offering more E-commerce features, making it an excellent choice for designing online stores. On the other hand, Amazon's design flexibility could be improved since it functions primarily as a marketplace. All pages on Amazon follow a standard layout, and while sellers can modify images and descriptions, they lack the freedom to alter the overall layout extensively. 

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This restriction prevents sellers from creating a distinctive brand image and hinders their customisation options. Amazon's limited selection of three templates contributes to the overall uniformity of product pages, which may not suit every seller's branding needs. Also, Amazon's homepage prominently features product promotions, creating a competitive seller environment. While this benefits customers by offering them various options, it can prove disadvantageous for sellers as visitors might get diverted to other products, making it challenging to direct them to their intended product page. Furthermore, Amazon's store-building process is perceived as time-consuming and complicated.

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The final statement

In conclusion, Shopify wins the title of design flexibility when compared to Amazon. With its extensive customizability and diverse theme options, Shopify empowers businesses to create a distinct brand identity and showcase their products in an appealing and user-friendly manner. Conversely, while Amazon may require less effort in design control, it significantly restricts promotional possibilities and individuality for sellers.

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Ecommerce Tools and Features

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E-commerce tools and features are crucial criteria for choosing a platform. Amazon and Shopify, leading global business platforms, offer numerous E-commerce features. However, they differ in the types of tools they provide to sellers.

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E-Commerce features of Shopify

1. Product Management System: Shopify's back-end interface allows easy addition of new products. Filling in product details is straightforward, and users can intuitively assign products to relevant categories.

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2. Inventory tracking System: Shopify's advanced tools efficiently manage inventory, allowing sellers to hide out-of-stock products from customers. The only disadvantage is that creating sub-categories requires installing applications, as the default system supports only up to three product variants.

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3. Abandoned Cart Recovery: Shopify's platform includes this feature across all pricing plans, automatically sending messages to customers who did not complete transactions at the last stage.

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4. Other Features: Shopify provides automatic tax calculation tools, reducing sellers' headaches. Additionally, it offers a QR code generator and logo maker, enabling the creation of simple logos to help brands stand out. Notable highlights of the Shopify platform include multiple channel selling and application integration. Shopify has also partnered with dropshipping suppliers to support dropshipping businesses. Furthermore, it offers an advanced app store where sellers can purchase applications to enhance their E-commerce websites.

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E-Commerce features of Amazon

Amazon is an excellent tool for all types of businesses, individual sellers or large-scale enterprises.

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1. Product Management: Amazon enables convenient product management through interactive listing tools. New products can be easily added using these tools. Additionally, Amazon offers an editable Inventory File template in Microsoft Excel, making adding multiple products at once efficient. Sellers can also effortlessly include product variants in their accounts. Furthermore, Amazon allows the selling of physical products and services.

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2. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program: This great feature provides access to Amazon Prime customers. With FBA, Amazon takes care of the products' storage, packing, and shipping, allowing sellers to focus solely on their products. Sellers with this feature only need to send their products to Amazon's storage, and Amazon handles the rest, fulfilling orders as needed.

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3. Seamless Global sale: Amazon offers the Seller Central language switcher, supporting various languages like French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese. If the seller is already using FBA, they can efficiently manage sales through other channels with the help of the Multi-Channel Fulfillment feature.

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The Final Statement

Amazon and Shopify offer robust E-commerce tools and services to grow the business. However, a comparative analysis showcases that Shopify is ahead in the race compared to Amazon.

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Amazon

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Amazon offers two pricing plans to its sellers:

1. Individual seller Plan: This free plan doesn't require any monthly fee. However, a $0.99 fee will be deducted for every purchase made through Amazon based on the product category. This fee is in addition to the extra selling fee that Amazon already deducts based on the product category. The Individual Seller Plan allows sellers to list products in various open types and provides access to feeds or spreadsheets to view inventory information. However, options for advanced features are limited.

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2. Professional seller plan: This plan requires a monthly fee of $39.99. Sellers must also pay certain amounts to third parties based on the product. The Professional Seller Plan offers access to order-related feeds and reports, and sellers can customise shipping rates.

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FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) costs $2.41 to $137.31, depending on the product's size and volume. Monthly inventory storage fees range from $0.69 to $2.40 per cubic foot, depending on the product category, size, and volume. These inventory costs may vary at different times.

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Referral fees: Referral fees, which vary based on the product category, are deducted by Amazon, starting from 8% per item sold.'

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Miscellaneous Fee: In some cases, additional costs may incur. For instance, if the seller has many active non-media listings that take more than a year to sell, they are bound to pay high-volume listing fees, with Amazon charging a monthly fee of $0.005 per eligible listing. Regarding payment gateways, Amazon doesn't accept third-party applications for transactions. It primarily supports Amazon Pay as the payment gateway, followed by credit and debit cards. Amazon does not accept gateways like PayPal.

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Shopify

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Shopify offers three plans:

1. Basic Shopify plan: $29/month

2. Shopify plan: $79/month

3. Advanced Shopify plan: $299/month.

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The features increase gradually as the seller purchases a higher plan. Shopify offers the flexibility to upgrade or downgrade the plan at any time. It provides a 10% discount for annual payments and a 20% discount for biennial payments. Additionally, it offers a free trial for fourteen days. Shopify has its payment gateway in the form of Shopify Payments.

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If the seller uses this provision, there are no transaction fees on purchases made through the platform. Shopify offers over a hundred payment gateways, including Amazon Pay and PayPal. However, all other payment gateways except Shopify Pay bear transaction fees ranging from 0.5% to 2%, based on the method used and the subscription. The online credit card processing fees are substantially reduced upon upgrading the Shopify pricing plan.

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The Final statement

Shopify offers more payment options compared to Amazon. Moreover, Shopify doesn't charge transaction costs if you use Shopify Payments. In contrast, Amazon's fees are less transparent, offering limited payment options. Amazon also imposes multiple fees for products sold through the platform. Therefore, Shopify wins the battle in terms of payment options and fees.

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Attracting Customers

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Online selling is one of the top ways to connect with customers. The platform allows the seller to communicate with a massive base of shoppers. Amazon and Shopify are globally acclaimed leaders enjoying millions of customer bases at national and international levels. However, despite the advantage of having a global presence, the amount of work to grab the customer's attention is enormous, and with increasing competitors, it becomes a challenge. Multiple competitors target customers with advertisements in their social feeds, emails in their mailbox, and distractions at every click; getting noticed first is a tight race. Amazon and Shopify have ways of attracting customers; however, when compared, Amazon holds the upper hand.

Amazon

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Amazon is a platform visited by millions of customers, and this platform also enjoys a loyal customer base in the form of Prime members. The platform has more than 150 million visitors in the U.S. itself, which shows its deep-rooted presence. It can act as an excellent opportunity to attract many customers. Amazon has powerful SEO tools that save the seller and the product. The SEO of Amazon is very high, and it helps list the products at high ranks on Google. It also runs email campaigns for the seller. However, all that glitters is not gold; similarly, this platform comes with a significant disadvantage, and that is the competition given by other sellers.

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Amazon promotes the product on the homepage of Amazon, parallel to the competitor product, which enhances competition. It benefits the customer, but this situation may be a significant disadvantage to the seller as the competition makes it challenging to direct the visitors to the product page. Additionally, the product must comply with Amazon's SEO to fetch higher ranks.

Shopify

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Shopify has comparatively less search volume compared to Amazon. The reason is on Shopify, the seller creates their brand, which needs to be searched by the customers to spot them. Therefore, rigorous marketing is necessary with Shopify if the seller wants to grab the customer's attention. Shopify offers multiple tools to undertake marketing and enhance brand awareness. 

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Email Campaigns, multichannel selling, strong social media presence and integration, personalised shopping, abandoned cart recovery, and strong SEO are a few features offered by Shopify to help the seller grow their business. Shopify also allows integrations with third-party applications, and that includes Amazon as well. If somebody is an existing seller on Amazon, then Shopify enables the retailer to link the product listing on its site. In addition, one can even add new Amazon listings and connect them to the Shopify business. There are advanced marketing tools that a business owner can purchase from the Shopify app market to enhance their customer base.

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The Final Statement

Amazon's powerful SEO tools and massive search volume reduce the seller's work. On the contrary, Shopify offers the tools required to attract customers, but the seller has to put in considerable effort to fetch the desired results. If both are compared based on this parameter, then Amazon is way ahead of Shopify.

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Help and Support

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Shopify offers a wide range of customer support services, including:

• Round-the-clock phone service

• Round-the-clock live chat service

• Discussion forums

• Video tutorials

• Email support

• Advanced professional assistance

• Social media support

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Shopify provides video tutorials and forums to help users adapt and learn the skills needed to operate the platform. Their phone support aids sellers in times of need. Moreover, Shopify has a comprehensive help centre with easy-to-understand articles and guides, offering vast resources to help retailers better understand the platform. Amazon, on the other hand, offers phone support, where sellers can request a call from Amazon to get in touch with them. There are also options to submit forms for help, and community forums are available to discuss issues. However, these services could be more streamlined and easier to navigate.

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The final statement:

Shopify excels in providing help and support services compared to Amazon. Shopify's support system offers easier access and comprehensive services, while Amazon's support services are limited, inflexible, and less user-friendly, with room for improvement in navigation.

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Pricing

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Amazon and Shopify are among the top ten global leaders in the E-commerce sector, offering their customers economical plans with a vast range of features.

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Shopify:

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Shopify presents a budget-friendly solution for selling products through different websites. They offer the following plans:

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1. Shopify Lite: This plan is suitable for those who already have a website or a social media store and want to sell products through those platforms. It costs $5 per month and allows a "Buy Now" option, but it does not offer the full range of features available in other plans.

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2. Basic Shopify: Priced at $29 per month, this plan includes unlimited product hosting, e-store tools, staff accounts, and round-the-clock support. It also provides social media integrations, discount codes, SSL certificates, gift cards, abandoned cart recovery, and more.

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3. Shopify: The most popular version, priced at $79 per month, includes all the features of the Basic plan, along with professional reporting, support for up to five locations, staff accounts, fraud analysis, POS (Lite) technology, and the option to sell in multiple languages.

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4. Shopify Advanced: Priced at $299 per month, this plan is designed for significant businesses with large-scale product sales and offers access to international domains, fraud analysis, multi-country languages, and premium services.

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5.Shopify Plus: This enterprise version requires interaction with Shopify personnel for pricing and can cost around $2000 per month, varying based on specific requirements.

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Transaction costs decrease as the subscription level increases. Shopify allows users to upgrade or downgrade their plans at any time. They offer a 10% discount for annual payments and a 20% discount for biennial payments, with a free trial period of fourteen days. Shopify provides its payment gateway, Shopify Payments, which eliminates transaction fees on purchases made through the platform. Shopify offers over a hundred payment gateways, including Amazon Pay and PayPal. Still, all other gateways, except Shopify Pay, have transaction fees ranging from 0.5% to 2% based on the method used and subscription level. Upgrading the Shopify pricing plan reduces online credit card fees substantially.

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Amazon

Amazon offers two seller plans:

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1. Individual Seller Plan: This free plan doesn't require any monthly fee to enjoy its benefits. However, the downside of this plan is that for every purchase through Amazon, a $0.99 fee will be deducted based on the product category. This fee is in addition to the extra selling fee that Amazon deducts per product category. The plan allows the seller to sell products in various open categories and provides access to feeds or spreadsheets to view inventory information.

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2. Professional seller plan: This plan requires a monthly fee of $39.99. Depending on the product, sellers may also need to pay a certain amount to third parties. The plan offers access to order-related feeds and reports. Through this plan, sellers can customise shipping rates for FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon). The deducted fees range from $2.41 to $137.31 based on the product category, size, and volume. Monthly inventory storage fees account for $0.69 to $2.40 per cubic foot based on the product category, size, and volume. Amazon also deducts a referral fee starting from 8% per item sold, depending on the product category.

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Using Amazon with Shopify

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An online store serves as the foundation of a business, allowing one to build their brand, engage with customers, and eventually sell products. Shopify is a commercial website builder that allows sellers to customise their stores and expand their business. There are numerous methods to use Shopify channels to connect with and sell to existing and new audiences. Particularly, the new Amazon connection for Shopify grants the seller the golden opportunity to reach out to potential buyers browsing the marketplace. Amazon is one of the leading global marketplaces visited by billions of customers daily, and listing products on such a platform can significantly boost sales.

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Benefits of Shopify Amazon integration 

A Shopify vendor with a famous product line will find it easy to make money on Amazon. On the contrary, beginners may encounter a lot of risks while learning how to sell items on Amazon, as they need a tested business plan. An established Shopify vendor has already built a customer base; therefore, extending to Amazon and offering the same products can be of massive advantage to the seller.

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Studies show that 49% of consumers start by searching for a product on Amazon, which can significantly boost sellers. Investing time to integrate Shopify business with Amazon can undoubtedly lead to a significant revenue increase.

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Requirements for integrating both accounts:

The primary mandate is an active Amazon Professional Seller account and an active Shopify store. The seller must complete the "Tax Interview" questionnaire to set up the Amazon account. The basic requirements to integrate Amazon with Shopify include having the necessary international bank accounts to target a global customer base. The return policy must be identical to Amazon's policies. Additionally, one must ensure that the pricing of products corresponds to the currency used in the Amazon marketplace. It is also necessary to obtain permission from Amazon to sell the product on their site based on the product type.

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Choosing the right product:

If one has tasted success on Shopify, it indicates that selling on Amazon will attract more buyers. However, Amazon offers a different environment with a diverse customer base and different display modes. Therefore, one should research the products before launching them on Amazon. After thorough analysis, one should only list specific products on Amazon while limiting others to the online store. Fortunately, numerous market tools can help you make a smart decision. These types of tools assist the seller in selecting the most robust and well-performing products from the Shopify store that may also perform well in the Amazon marketplace. You should carry out this kind of research before beginning any integration process.

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Shopify listing vs. Amazon listing

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A successful Shopify store is a testimony to optimising listings per Google SEO requirements. However, Amazon follows its search algorithm. Therefore, one must include all the keywords in the listings used by people on the site to look for products. The right keyword will fetch better visibility for the product. Additionally, more organic rankings on Amazon are attained by consistently generating sales for a search term mentioned in the listing. Many tools are available to select the keywords for an Amazon listing, making the job easier.

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Make sure to include all of the pertinent high-volume keywords in the listing, including the product title, bullet points, product description, and the listing's URL. There is no advantage to a keyword appearing more than once, so there is no reason to repeat them. Additionally, one must incorporate them naturally so that the listing language continues to make sense and conveys the necessary information to the customer.

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Steps of integration

The integration process will follow four steps:

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1. Add Amazon as a Sales Channel:

a. Amazon can be added as a sales channel through the admin page of Shopify.

b. First, log in to the Shopify admin account and click the "+" icon next to "sales channels."

c. A list will be displayed, and the admin has to select "Amazon" by clicking on it and then selecting "Add Channel."

d. The next step is to click "Connect to Amazon."

e. Follow the directions to link the Shopify and Amazon Seller Central accounts.

f. Once the process is completed, go to the Amazon Seller Central account to confirm that Shopify can access the account.

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2. Link Amazon listings:

a. Click the "Create Listing" option through the Shopify admin page. Then choose the category and publish it when completed.

b. If the product is already on Amazon, click "find the product" and select the item that matches the product.

c. Enter the price and click on "Publish."

d. To link the products from the admin page of Shopify, click on the "Amazon" icon. Click on "Link products" and select "Browse products." Choose the product that must be linked and tap "Select Product." Fill in the required information, then click "Link Products."

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3. Managing the Inventory:

There are two options for updating the inventory: manually or automatically syncing Shopify inventory with Amazon.

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Fulfil Orders:

When a buyer places an order on Amazon, it gets recorded in Shopify orders like any other. However, the orders are labelled "Amazon" to distinguish them from other sources. One must strictly adhere to the policies laid out by Amazon while fulfilling orders. The steps to be followed are:

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1. Log in to the admin page of Shopify.

2. Click on the tab "Orders" and select the order number.

3. Click "Start fulfilling" under the "Order Details" tab to land on the fulfilment page.

4. Verify the shipping method the customer selected, then choose their preferred method.

5. Click "Mark as Fulfilled" and "Fulfill items" to complete the process.

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Amazon can appear to be a bane to the brand at first glance due to its global presence, colossal audience, and popularity as a place for consumer search. However, if utilised correctly, Amazon can be a boon, helping the brand gain better visibility by unlocking new markets. Additionally, Amazon promos can help the brand take centre stage compared to competitors.

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Ethics of Shopify vs. Amazon

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Ethics must be considered when comparing leading global E-commerce platforms. This discussion on ethics often needs to be seen while comparing Shopify and Amazon. It is challenging to ignore Amazon as a sales channel if you're running an online business because it's the primary method of shopping for millions of consumers. 

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The growing popularity of Amazon has made it synonymous with online shopping. If you don't offer your products on Amazon, you will be cutting yourself from a sizable client base and the world's second most widely used search engine. However, over the years, several questions have been raised over Amazon's policies towards paying its fair share of taxes and treating its employees appropriately. 

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Such issues can create considerable dilemmas in your mind based on your political stance. By listing your products on Amazon, you are adopting the company's culture and assisting in its financial success. One must be comfortable accepting this from a moral perspective. Amazon's most unethical practice is creating a white-label version of the top-selling products and offering them at a lower price, negatively impacting retailers.

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On the contrary, opening a Shopify store might be a smart option if you have ethical concerns in this area and wish to do business more ethically. Shopify has positioned itself as a "good shop to Amazon's bad shop" in recent years. Whether this is entirely accurate depends on how its users use the platform. Still, there's no denying that Shopify allows you to sell online in a way that aligns with your values and ethical approach to doing business. Additionally, Shopify does not hold stock, and the brands control the supply chain, unlike Amazon. Shopify aims to develop through its sellers that promote an ethical approach and relationship building.

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How does Shopify vs Amazon Stack Up?

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There are many pricing alternatives for both platforms. Shopify has a monthly basic plan for $29, enabling the retailer to build and customise an online store, add products to listings, control inventories, and process orders. Access to their comprehensive reporting capabilities, calculated carrier delivery, and foreign pricing adjustments is available with more expensive solutions.

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Amazon offers two pricing tiers: An Individual plan and a Professional plan. For each item sold under the Individual plan, retailers must pay $0.99. The Professional plan, meanwhile, costs $39.99 per month. For consumers who don't use Shopify Payments, Shopify levies a transaction cost of up to 2%, whereas Amazon imposes a referral fee based on the product category for each item sold.

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Additionally, Amazon merchants have little control over the appearance of their storefronts. They rely on Amazon paid advertisements to draw customers, but the platform is quite competitive. On the contrary, Shopify users can design and tailor their online stores but must create their brand from scratch.

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Amazon Vs Shopify at a glance:

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Shopify vs Amazon: Conclusion

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Choosing between Shopify and Amazon can be challenging, especially because both platforms have excellent features and reputations. It all comes down to the future aspirations for your business. While Amazon lets you open a store on their marketplace app, Shopify enables you to build an entire E-commerce website for your business.

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There is also the matter of budget. However, both platforms have almost identical fees involved. Nevertheless, Shopify requires additional third-party payments based on the apps and plugins you are integrating. If you are on a budget, Amazon is a good choice. You can also use both platforms simultaneously to maximise your exposure to potential clients. Since no platform can integrate all the features, this approach can be immensely useful. Whether you choose Amazon or Shopify, you must have a viable business plan. Only then will any online store you build be profitable.

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Alternatives to Shopify and Amazon

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There are several alternatives to Shopify and Amazon in the E-commerce space. Some popular alternatives to Shopify include BigCommerce, known for its scalability and feature-rich platform, and WooCommerce, a self-hosted solution with flexibility and control over the online store. Wix eCommerce is also viable, offering user-friendly drag-and-drop functionality and various templates for smaller businesses.

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As for alternatives to Amazon, eBay is a well-established online marketplace with a wide range of new and used products. Etsy caters to a niche audience, specialising in handmade, vintage, or unique products, and provides a creative community of sellers. Google Shopping allows sellers to list products on Google's search results, reaching a vast audience and leveraging Google Ads for product promotion. These alternatives offer diverse options for businesses seeking different platforms to sell products and connect with their target audience.