Should I sell on Shopify or Amazon FBA?
So you are interested in starting your own e-commerce business? That’s very smart! This business model is growing very fast, and I can tell you from my own experience that you can make a lot of money in e-commerce!
Within e-commerce, there are two very famous methods: Shopify and Amazon FBA. Both are very strong, but each has its own differences and pros and cons.
In this article, I will tell you exactly what each method is about and its pros and cons.
What is the difference between Shopify & Amazon FBA?
Shopify is a platform on which you can build your own e-commerce store. You are completely free to design the store and put whatever products you want on it. However, you are also completely responsible for driving customers to your store and handling the logistics of the orders!
With Amazon FBA, you are selling on the Amazon website(s). So, it is more of a marketplace where people are allowed to sell their items. This means Amazon already has a huge number of customers on its website who might be interested in your products.
What is Fulfillment by Amazon?
The FBA part of Amazon stands for Fulfillment By Amazon. This means Amazon will take care of all the logistics of running your e-commerce store. They will store your products, send them to your customers, and even handle returns and customer service! So Amazon FBA is way more hands-off than Shopify!
Pros & Cons of Amzon FBA
Pros |
Cons |
| Amazon will supply a steady flow of customers |
15% commission to sell on the Amazon platform.
|
| Logistics is taken care of by Amazon FBA |
Forbidden to sell some restricted products.
|
| Very easy to get started and start selling | Lots of competition. |
| Trustworthy & customer friendly, as most customers are already Amazon customers |
Restricted to use the Amazon product page layout.
|
|
Dealing with customer support can be a hassle.
|
Pros & Cons of Shopify
Pros |
Cons |
| Very low platform fee: 2%. |
You have to drive your own traffic to your store!
|
| Higher profit margin because of the low platform fee’s. |
Hard to build credibility & trustworthiness.
|
| Option to design your store how you prefer. |
You have to handle logistics yourself.
|
| Great support. | |
| Customizable with app integrations. |
Comparing Shopify vs Amazon FBA
The main difference between Shopify and Amazon FBA is that with Shopify, you will have to build traffic to your own store in order to generate sales, while with Amazon FBA, Amazon will already have a very large customer base.
This is probably the most important thing about running an e-commerce store: How do I get customers?
If you already have experience with marketing and advertising and know-how to drive traffic to a website, then you can probably solve this problem really easily. Shopify will be a great tool for you, where you can set up your own e-commerce store without having to pay a 15% platform commission and deal with lots of competition.
However, if you have no experience driving traffic to a website and the terms PPC, A/B testing, and SEO mean nothing to you, then I would advise you to start with Amazon FBA! Amazon will supply you with a large customer base, and you can focus on building your business instead of finding customers.
Which one is cheaper? Amazon FBA or Shopify?
Amazon FBA membership costs $39,99 per month and you pay a fixed commission of 15% to sell on the Amazon platform, plus additional FBA charges based on your product size.
The Shopify Basic plan costs $29 per month, and you pay a $2,9 commission per sale.
Shopify is cheaper than Amazon FBA.
Is Amazon FBA or Shopify best for beginners?
I would say both are very beginner-friendly. Anyone with basic computer skills can set up a nice-looking Shopify webshop. However, to take this shop to the next level and drive traffic and sales, a lot more skills are required. Also, setting up a logistics network to handle all shipping and returns of your orders isn’t the easiest task.
Starting an Amazon FBA business might seem a bit more difficult in the beginning. But once you have done it with one product, it is very easy to repeat and expand your business!
How to get started with Amazon FBA?
- Find a product to sell.
This is IMO the most important step. Find a niche that doesn’t have a lot of competition, but enough that you can still make a nice profit out of it. For this step, a product research tool is very handy. - Manufacture & ship your product.
Time to look for suppliers, negotiate with them and ship your product ( either with Air or Ocean shipping ) to Amazon. - Launch the product on Amazon.
In this step, we take a look at the best methods to get sales and rank our product above our competition!
