Balancing Sales Efforts: Amazon & Shopify
For ecommerce businesses, selling both on Amazon and a proprietary Shopify store offers distinct advantages. Amazon provides access to its massive customer base and fulfillment network, while Shopify offers complete control over your brand and customer relationships. However, balancing these two platforms effectively is essential for long-term growth and profitability. Here’s how to strategically manage your sales efforts between Shopify and Amazon without compromising either.
1. Understand the Strengths of Each Platform
Amazon: The key advantage of Amazon is its enormous customer base. In 2023, over 50% of online shoppers in the U.S. began their product searches on Amazon
. It’s a prime platform for capturing high-intent buyers, especially when combined with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to handle logistics. Moreover, the credibility of the “Prime” badge is a magnet for consumers seeking convenience and fast shipping.
Shopify: Shopify offers unmatched flexibility and control. With your own store, you own your customer data, which is crucial for building a long-term relationship through email marketing and personalized experiences. You also have complete control over branding, customer experience, and pricing without having to adhere to the constraints of Amazon’s policies.
2. The Importance of Brand Control on Shopify
One of the biggest downsides of Amazon is the lack of brand ownership. While Amazon gives access to a large pool of shoppers, it limits the branding experience to just product listings and seller pages. In contrast, Shopify allows you to create a fully customized shopping experience where you can emphasize your brand story, build customer loyalty, and have direct access to customer data.
Key Takeaway: Leverage Shopify as the platform to establish your brand identity, build customer loyalty, and control pricing and discounts. Use it as the foundation for driving repeat sales and increasing customer lifetime value.
3. Amazon for Visibility, Shopify for Loyalty
Amazon’s sheer scale and reach make it a perfect platform for gaining visibility, especially for new products or categories where you want to establish a presence quickly. However, loyalty is harder to build on Amazon since customers tend to be more price-sensitive and brand-agnostic, often gravitating towards the Prime badge for convenience.
Key Takeaway: Use Amazon for customer acquisition and driving volume. Once a customer purchases from Amazon, guide them to your Shopify store (through packaging inserts, email marketing, etc.) to foster loyalty and increase repeat purchases. On Shopify, you can offer exclusive deals, loyalty programs, and personalized shopping experiences to keep customers coming back.
4. Optimizing for SEO and Paid Ads
Each platform has its strengths when it comes to marketing and driving traffic.
Amazon SEO: To maximize visibility on Amazon, it’s essential to optimize your listings for Amazon’s search algorithm (A9), which prioritizes products based on relevance, pricing, and customer reviews. Investing in Amazon Ads can also help your products rank higher and gain more visibility quickly
.
Shopify SEO: On Shopify, you’ll need to focus on traditional SEO tactics, such as keyword optimization, content marketing, and building backlinks. This effort can drive organic traffic from search engines like Google to your store, complementing the customer acquisition you’re already doing through Amazon
.
Key Takeaway: Invest in both Amazon SEO to capitalize on its search-heavy marketplace and Shopify SEO to drive organic traffic and reduce dependency on paid ads.
5. Managing Inventory Between Platforms
Managing inventory across Shopify and Amazon can be tricky, especially if you use FBA. Overselling can lead to penalties on Amazon, while running out of stock on Shopify can harm your brand image.
Amazon Inventory: With FBA, Amazon takes care of storage and fulfillment, but you need to keep a close eye on inventory levels to avoid stockouts and long-term storage fees
.
Shopify Inventory: On Shopify, you have full control over your inventory and fulfillment, which means greater flexibility but also more responsibility. You can use third-party logistics (3PL) providers to manage Shopify orders or fulfill them in-house.
Key Takeaway: Use a multichannel inventory management system to avoid overselling and streamline fulfillment across both platforms. You could also consider using Amazon’s Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) to fulfill orders placed on Shopify if you already use FBA
.
6. Navigating Fees and Margins
One of the challenges of selling on Amazon is the cost of using FBA, referral fees, and the pressure to offer competitive pricing. On average, Amazon takes between 15% to 20% of your revenue after fees
. While this can still be profitable due to high sales volume, it may squeeze your margins.
In contrast, Shopify gives you more control over pricing and fewer fees, but the onus of driving traffic is on you. You'll need to budget for paid ads (e.g., Google Ads, Facebook Ads) or invest heavily in SEO to bring in customers.
Key Takeaway: Strike a balance between Amazon’s high volume but lower margins and Shopify’s higher margins but more marketing effort. Analyze your profit margins on each platform and allocate resources accordingly.
7. Building a Unified Brand Experience
Consumers today expect a seamless experience across all platforms. Whether they buy on Amazon or Shopify, they should feel like they’re interacting with the same brand.
Amazon Branding: Although limited, use your product descriptions, images, and Enhanced Brand Content (if available) to tell a compelling brand story.
Shopify Branding: On your Shopify store, take branding a step further with custom web design, storytelling through blogs, personalized email marketing, and loyalty programs.
Key Takeaway: Deliver a consistent brand message across both platforms. Use Amazon for product visibility and transactional sales while creating a unique, brand-first experience on Shopify.
Conclusion: A Balanced Approach to Maximize Revenue
Ultimately, balancing your sales efforts between Amazon and Shopify comes down to leveraging each platform’s strengths. Amazon can drive high visibility and customer acquisition, while Shopify allows you to own the customer relationship, build loyalty, and maximize profitability. By using Amazon to capture new customers and Shopify to nurture those relationships, you can create a balanced, sustainable ecommerce strategy.
