Shopify vs. Amazon

Matt Clark

Shopify is Just Selling On Your Own Site
Fulfillment By Amazon
Reasons To Use Shopify
Advice For Selling On Your Own Site
Marketing
Getting Customers
From $17,000 to $569,000 a Month
Benefits of Amazon
Targeting Keywords On Amazon
Do Both Amazon & Shopify If You Can
Amazon vs. Shopify
The Winner?

If you want to get into e-commerce a big question right now is should you get started on Shopify vs Amazon? So hopefully I want to clear some of this stuff up for you so you know which routes best for you. So first of all let’s talk about the differences if you’re selling on Shopify.

Shopify is Just Selling On Your Own Site

Shopify is just a platform. It’s a software tool basically just a platform for you to sell products on your own website. So when you’re talking about selling on Shopify you’re really just talking about selling on your own website, versus Amazon is you’re selling on Amazon’s website. So it’s like should you sell on your own website or should you sell on Amazon’s website? That’s really what we’re talking about

Fulfillment By Amazon

Usually when we’re focused on Amazon we’re using what’s called fulfillment by Amazon which is Amazon’s actually handling all the shipping and everything for you. Whereas if you’re selling on your own website, on Shopify for example, you’re usually having a third party person, not Amazon, but somebody else that owns a bunch of warehouses, and they’re doing the fulfillment for you. If you’re private labeling and you’re not selling somebody else’s brand doing drop shipping that kind of thing now.

Reason To Use Shopify

I started out years and years ago my very first business was selling on my own website. At the time the big ecommerce platform back then was Big Commerce. Since then Shopify has dominated the space. They’ve crushed everybody because it’s a great amazing platform if you’re gonna sell on your own website. Billion dollar brands on Shopify, people just getting started. So if you are gonna sell on your own website, my opinion a hundred percent, you’re crazy to use anything else other than Shopify.

Advice For Selling On Your Site

However if you’re gonna sell on your own website you have to figure out a few things that you don’t necessarily have to do with Amazon. So if you’re gonna sell on your own website and you’re starting from scratch with no experience, no list, no nothing, you’re gonna have to figure out a few things.

Marketing

First is you’re really gonna have to figure out the marketing of this. So this means you know headlines, and sales copy, I mean in addition to what product you’re gonna sell. Then you have to figure out what are these people going to buy? How do you get them to buy a lot of stuff?

Getting Customers

Then the hardest part is where you’re gonna get these customers. Today most people crushing it on Shopify with their own website are likely getting customers using Facebook Ads. They’ve got some people that are big influencers or they’re tapped into a bunch of influencer networks and maybe they have that going. Or maybe they have their brand recognition from a YouTube channel or something like that. But most people if they’re crushing it on Shopify they’re getting that traffic from Facebook Ads.

From $17,000 to $569,000 a Month

So you’re not only gonna have to figure out copy and stuff for your own website you’re also gonna have to figure out Facebook Ads. Now I say all this not to scare you away because I actually started a business that I partnered with a friend, and he already had it going, but it’s kind of just treading water. I ended up getting involved and now it’s crushing it. In about the first 11 or 12 months we took it from about $17,000 a month to about $569,000 a month. A hundred percent on on website a hundred percent using Shopify not even touching Amazon yet.

Benefits of Amazon

But you do have to learn some skill sets that may take a little work if you’ve never done any marketing or selling anything online before. On Amazon on the other hand, if you can really figure out a good product to sell on Amazon FBA, then your job in your life is gonna be a lot easier. Now a good product that sells, not just the quality of it, but the opportunity. Is there a keyword or multiple keywords that you can target on Amazon that are not fully exploited yet? Keywords where there’s not a ton of competitors and you can go out there with a good product?

Targeting Keywords On Amazon

You can outrank them for those keywords and you can build a brand that way. We teach people how to do that all day long, still a great opportunity. The only downside is you have a little bit less control which is why some people end up selling on their own website so they can control the whole sales process. They get the full customer details, they build their email list, and all that kind of thing.

Do Both Amazon & Shopify If You Can

Now at the end of the day what you really want to do is, do both. You want to be selling on as many places as possible because it diversifies your sales in case anyone sales channel ever takes a dip. Which you know, they inevitably do. No matter where you’re selling or what you’re selling you’ve got diversified sources of sales coming in and your business is worth more if someone’s gonna buy your business. Which right now ecommerce businesses are incredibly hot.

So somebody’s gonna buy your business, they want to know that you don’t have all your eggs in one basket. Not all your sales are coming from just one place, whether it’s just Amazon or just Shopify. Even though we have seen brands where that’s all they had going on, you’re gonna be able to sell your business for more. It’s going to be worth more and your profits and cash flow are going to be more consistent if you have multiple sources of sales working for you.

Amazon vs. Shopify

So if I had to advise you, should you sell on Shopify or should you sell on Amazon? I would say that if you’re interested in learning marketing, copywriting ,and Facebook ads, all those kind of things, then selling on your own website is a perfectly good option. Shopify is the best platform to do it if you want your life to be a little bit easier getting started.

If you want to basically just be able to focus on selling a really good product, picking the product, sourcing the product, creating a cool brand, then Amazon may be an easier option. Because over there you know if you use fulfillment by Amazon they’ll take care of all your payment processing and you don’t have to worry about fraud and that kind of thing. They’ll take care of all your shipping.

They’ll take care of all your returns and refunds and a lot of things that you have to worry about on your own website, but you don’t have to worry about with Amazon.

The Winner?

So I wouldn’t necessarily say one is way better than the other, they’re just different. So hopefully this gives you some good insight into which platform or which way you may want to go with your own business. Either way like I said eventually you want to do both. Now if you want to get more information on how to sell on Amazon, how to sell on your own website using Shopify, subscribe to our youtube channel right now!