Shopify and Amazon are similar in the most simplest terms. They both let store owners develop an eCommerce presence without the need for coding skills — but is one better than the other for your business? If you want to build an online store, it’s time to make a decision: Shopify vs. Amazon.
What Is Shopify?
Shopify is an eCommerce platform that offers comprehensive services from buying your domain to building, managing, and analyzing your online store without the need of hiring a web developer. Its strength in both online stores and retail POS systems has positioned the brand as a global leader in its industry.
What Is Amazon?
Amazon doesn’t really need an introduction as it’s the company on which all other eCommerce platforms are measured against. One of the four biggest tech giants, Amazon mainly focuses on eCommerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.
Shopify vs Amazon: Features and Functionalities
While the end result of both platforms is the same — to sell products online — their different approaches to services, features, and functionalities make a direct comparison difficult.
Both provide fully hosted services, but where Shopify helps you to build and run a stand-alone website with complete customization, Amazon gives you space to set up a storefront within the confines of it’s marketplace.
| Shopify | Amazon | |
|---|---|---|
| Summary | An eCommerce platform that gives you almost everything you need to start your online business | An eCommerce platform that lets you sell products through an online marketplace alongside other competitors |
| Difficulty | With more capabilities comes slightly more difficult setup and site management | Intuitively designed for beginners, which makes site setup extremely easy |
| Customization | +70 eCommerce themes and the ability to customize coding | 1 blank and 3 preset page templates |
| Traffic | You’re responsible for attracting customers | Amazon is responsible for attracting customers |
| Shipping | You’re responsible for warehousing, fulfillment, and shipping | Option of self-shipping or using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to ship on your behalf |
| Tools & Apps | Comprehensive support for every aspect of eCommerce | Comprehensive support for running a storefront on Amazon |
Difficulty
Winner: Tie
Shopify is very powerful, user-friendly, and easy to set up within a few hours. The high-quality themes, built-in functionalities, comprehensive apps, reliable support, and mobile responsiveness are all centered around making a powerful eCommerce website. Designing and arranging elements on your site are intuitive for even beginners and can be easily previewed through the back end.
One of Shopify’s core strengths is its dedication to 24/7 live customer support. There are a number of ways the service provides answers to all of your questions from design issues and technical glitches to marketing best practices.
With Amazon, it’s not about providing businesses with the means to create a unique space but to offer them the most efficient way to get their products in front of the largest number of people each day. This approach to business may also be the reason why Amazon’s seller support is so frustrating for store owners.
There are many limitations to Amazon’s services when compared to Shopify, but from another perspective those limitations can be looked at as providing simplicity that even Shopify can’t compete with.
Customization
Winner: Shopify
Shopify has over 70 eCommerce themes to choose from. Each has been designed to be fully functional out of the box, however, you also have the ability to modify the Liquid coding language with a little knowledge of HTML and CSS.
If you don’t have time to research coding for customizations, there are almost 5,000 free and paid apps available for changing your store design and functionality.
Amazon offers a few storefront templates along with a blank page that you can design from scratch, but there is only so much customization that you can do because it’s important for Amazon to have uniformity for each storefront.
Traffic
Winner: Amazon
There is no guarantee that customers will come to your Shopify site. As part of your online business plan, it’s important to research ways to promote your store and connect with customers, including:
- Google Ads
- Facebook / Instagram Ads
- YouTube
- Content marketing
- Influencers
- Affiliate marketing
- Email marketing
Through Shopify’s built-in functionalities and third-party apps, it’s possible to effectively run any of these promotional strategies. It’s very hands-on, but you also have the opportunity to really build a close relationship with your customers.
Amazon, on the other hand, requires little effort to bring traffic to its marketplace. Millions of customers complete orders every day, believing that Amazon provides the best deals on products, whether or not it’s true. This exposure can, in turn, dramatically increase the number of visitors who become aware of your brand and products.
Shipping
Winner: Amazon
When using Shopify, you have to manage inventory control, packaging, and shipping from your end, unless you’re dropshipping or selling digital products. Unlike many of Shopify’s competitors, the platform does negotiate discounted shipping rates with DHL Express, UPS, and USPS on behalf of its million users.
Amazon actually can take the shipping process out of your hands altogether, which makes it less work for you to close the sale. You ship your products to Amazon’s warehouses at about a 95% discounted rate, and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) then ships out your orders to customers on your behalf.
What you need to be careful about are the hidden fees that come with using FBA. They can add up if you’re not careful with pricing. (Skip to the “Pricing” section below for more information.)
Tools & Apps
Winner: Tie
Both Shopify and Amazon provide a wide range of tools and apps to make online selling as effective and easy as possible — your profit is their profit.
Because their services are so different from each other, it’s difficult to do a direct comparison of tools and apps. What can be said is that both are global leaders in what they do and a big part of their success is because of the support and functionalities they provide to store owners.
The following tables highlight some of the most commonly used tools on each platform.
| Shopify Tools & Apps | |
|---|---|
| Kit | Marketing automation for sending emails, posting on social media, creating ads, and more. You can use this tool on your phone to ensure that your marketing efforts are consistent. |
| Burst | New images are added to Shopify’s growing stock photography collection to ensure that your store has professional images of the latest eCommerce trends. |
| Shopify Payments | Shopify’s preferred payment gateway featuring no additional transaction fees. |
| Image Resizer | Ensure that your product photos have a unified look throughout your collections. Cropping, resizing, logo removal, and photo enhancement features are also available. |
| Business Name Generator | Find a business name for your store effortlessly. |
| Slogan Maker | Create a catchy slogan for your store. |
| Hatchful | Get help designing a professional logo. |
| Oberlo | Sell products from manufacturers directly to consumers through dropshipping. |
| Exchange Marketplace | Buy and sell functional Shopify stores. |
| Amazon Tools & Apps | |
|---|---|
| Advertise on Amazon | Advertise your products through product ads and display ads. |
| Amazon Seller App | A mobile app for managing your Amazon business. |
| Amazon Payments | The most trusted payment gateway for online consumers, featuring voice shopping capability and no additional transaction fees. |
| Fulfillment by Amazon | Free shipping, storage, removals, and returns for your customers and a greater potential for receiving Amazon Prime orders. |
Pricing
Winner: Shopify
It’s important to understand that with Shopify you will likely need additional apps to make your store function the way you want it to, so this will make a difference in how much you finally end up spending on developing and maintaining your store.
| Shopify | Amazon | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | Monthly Price | Plan | Monthly Price |
| Basic Shopify | $29 | Individual | $0.99 / item sold |
| Shopify | $79 | Professional | $40 |
| Advanced Shopify | $299 | ||
Also, it’s important to consider more than just the monthly fee for using each service.
| Additional Fees | Shopify | Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Payment processor fee | $0 with Shopify Payments | $0 with Amazon Payments |
| Referral fee | $0 | Up to 45% depending on the product category |
| Online credit card rate | 2.4% – 2.9% (+30¢ USD) | – |
| Shipping fulfilled by seller | Amount depends on shipping method | Amount depends on shipping method |
| Shipping fulfilled by Amazon | – | $1.97 – $137.32 / unit |
|
– | $0.48 – $1.20 / cubic foot |
| – | $6.90 / cubic foot |
When it comes to additional fees, Shopify is simply much easier to calculate what you can expect to pay.
However, if you’re able to move a lot of products and have the flexibility to increase prices to cover the additional fees that FBA requires, then Amazon is likely a stronger choice for your business.
Shopify vs. Amazon: Which Is Best?
There is no doubt that both of these eCommerce solutions can grow your business — no matter its size or your technical expertise. However, in terms of difficulty, customization, tools, and pricing, Shopify is equal if not better than Amazon.
Where Amazon wins out — traffic and shipping — a Shopify user can counter these weaknesses by actively driving traffic to the store and utilizing Shopify’s discounted shipping rates.
We hope this side-by-side comparison helps you with making the best decision for your business.
