Amazon? According to Jungle Scout research, 76% of Amazon sellers say their business is profitable, and 63% say it only took a year. And when it comes to online sales, the Amazon marketplace is a giant as it firmly holds 40% of the U.S. ecommerce market.
Or maybe Shopify? With how many features the platform has for helping you launch and manage your own store, it’s often the first pick both for those starting out but also large established brands.
Actually, do you even have to pick one or another? You don’t! Whether you are just starting or already having an active Shopify store, you can easily integrate with Amazon to sell on that marketplace as well. And in this article, we are going to tell you why you should do it – and how.
Connecting Shopify to Amazon – how does it work?
On the internet, you’ll come across numerous articles and discussions comparing “Shopify vs Amazon – which is better for new businesses” or debating whether it’s preferable to start dropshipping on Amazon or Shopify. Undoubtedly, this decision holds significant importance for any seller. Choosing between Shopify and Amazon can be particularly challenging considering the contrasting nature of both platforms.
Amazon offers access to an immense customer base and takes care of most logistics tasks. Additionally, you can leverage features like one-click Amazon Pay or Prime shipping. However, establishing a brand name and customer base on Amazon isn’t a walk in the park, as the platform provides limited branding options, especially if they handle your deliveries. Moreover, Amazon enforces strict policies, and failing to meet their requirements may result in your products not appearing in listings or, worse, your shop getting blocked.
In contrast, Shopify welcomes aspiring entrepreneurs who want to build their own brand and provides an array of tools to customize their shop and products according to their preferences. However, everything, from promoting the Shopify store and finding customers to management and shipping logistics, rests solely on the seller’s shoulders. Despite Shopify’s growing popularity, it still attracts only a fraction of the customer base that Amazon boasts.
But what if you could combine the best of both worlds by integrating the two platforms? Is it worth connecting Amazon to Shopify?
The concept behind integrating Amazon and Shopify is simple. If you already successfully sell products on Shopify, there’s a good chance you can utilize Amazon sales channels to expand your product reach. By doing so, you can build your own brand while tapping into Amazon’s extensive customer base and reputation. When executed effectively, this integration can drive a substantial increase in customer visits and rapid sales growth.
All you need is a method to seamlessly connect your Shopify e-commerce store with the Amazon marketplace.
Why is Shopify Amazon integration a good option for your business?
Handling two shops on two entirely different platforms can seem like a hassle, though – wouldn’t that mean double the work? Well, while you will need to work a bit on finding the right method to connect Shopify with Amazon and optimizing the products for Amazon requirements, there’s also a list of benefits you can get from the joint stores.
The biggest one is obviously the access to millions of Amazon users and buyers. The marketplace is more than well-known for having a large customer base – according to recent statistics, Amazon has 310 million customers worldwide. What’s more, the marketplace is actually the most popular search destination for consumers, used more often than even search engines (66% of consumers start their search from Amazon). With so much traffic there every day, there are plenty of opportunities for you to promote and sell products there.
For various reasons, there are also plenty of customers who are far more likely to trust a new store that works on Amazon rather than on a separate website. If those customers shop, then it’s on Amazon.
By showing your Shopify products to those users, they’re more likely to find and purchase from you through the sales channel they’re already comfortable with. That way, Amazon can also help you build a base of customers that will eventually start buying on your Shopify e-commerce store as well.
Amazon to Shopify integration – benefits
Expanding your reach far beyond the Shopify store and boosting your sales and revenue through selling products on Amazon? That does sound neat.
But connecting the Shopify store with Amazon has far more benefits – and features that could help you a lot in running both businesses.
Amazon Shopify integration can help you with order fulfillment
If you are now imagining that with Amazon and Shopify integration, you would have to manage the orders coming from both stores separately and track inventory manually, I have good news – you won’t. Instead, the app you use for the connection will take most of the heavy loading onto itself – like importing all Amazon orders to the Shopify dashboard, managing the inventory settings (including the inventory sync), updating Shopify order status, or tracking the existing Amazon listings.
So you don’t have to worry about doubled inventory management tasks, tracking manually orders coming from multiple sales channels or keeping a separate Shopify catalog and an Amazon one.
But the thing you could find even more useful is the access to Multichannel Fulfillment. Basically, using the feature you can leave storing, packing, and delivering the products to Amazon. So while your main Shopify store still handles the orders, processes payments, and manages customer support, everything related to shipping the products to and from your customers is handled by Amazon.
Even better is that this feature also allows you to store your existing products in warehouses all around the world – and sell those products internationally. If you were thinking about building an Amazon dropshipping business, this would be ideal
The only problem here is that all deliveries come in Amazon boxes rather than your custom branded packaging, so if you want to add a custom touch to the products with a unique box or package, then Amazon fulfillment service might not be a good option here.
Using the integration, you can allow Shopify buyers to use “Pay with Amazon”
With how many stores disappear as just quickly as they appear (unfortunately, often with the customers’ money), you can’t blame customers for being very cautious when shopping somewhere for the first time. If the main payment option you offer to them is a credit card – well, there’s a good chance they will leave out of worry you might be yet another scammer.
How about easing their nerves by offering them a payment method they can trust, meaning Amazon Pay? Not only could they pay for a product they want to buy in one click (by using the details in their Amazon account) but also be more at ease knowing that their payment goes through a well-known payment provider. A fast and secure checkout = more sales.
Keep in mind though, that Amazon Pay accepts only USD, GBP, JPY, and EUR currencies – if you use local currencies besides those, the payment option won’t be available.
You can sync product content (and price) between both stores with ease
Maintaining the content, product descriptions, and price for one online store is hard enough. And looking at how many Amazon listing guidelines there are and how strict the platform is about those, it might look like you would have to write entirely new descriptions for the products just to fit the guidelines.
Thankfully, that’s not the case either. When using a dedicated app for Shopify integration with Amazon, you can use the same item descriptions, images, and even pricing on both sales channels, as the app will take care of converting the Shopify content to match the requirements. The product attributes and inventory settings will be automatically synced between both stores as well – so actually, you’ll have less work handling two online stores than one!
You can show Amazon reviews on your Shopify account – or send shoppers to Amazon
Do you have a five-star review on Amazon that you would want Shopify users to see? There’s an app in the Shopify app store for that as well! With a few clicks, you can import all of your Amazon reviews into the Shopify store and then put them on your store page. And as nine out of ten customers read reviews before buying a product, showing them your brilliant reviews coming from (pretty strict) Amazon could be a nice way to encourage Shopify store visitors to stay and buy something.
But if that won’t work, there’s one more trick you can use to convince the customers to buy something from you – using “exit intent”. Several Shopify apps will allow you to create a special popup that will appear once your customers indicate they are planning to leave the site.
You could use those to tell the shopper that your products are also available on Amazon and give them a link to your account. Or better yet, provide them with a discount code or free Prime shipping for the Amazon purchase. You get the sale, and the shopper leaves satisfied – a double win!
How to sell on Amazon using Shopify
Connecting Shopify to Amazon used to be quite straightforward in previous years. You just needed to open the Shopify account, go to admin settings and, on the “Sales channels” page, add Amazon as your chosen new sales channel. Then you could manage everything related to the Amazon sales channel straight from the Shopify admin page.
Plenty of “Shopify Amazon integration for your store” guides still recommend this way as the “Best Shopify Amazon integration” method.
Last year though, Shopify announced that it would no longer support the “Amazon as a sales channel” feature and removed the option from its platform. Why they did that isn’t exactly clear – one theory says it’s because Shopify was losing money and customers to Amazon. Another is that with how many and how often changes Amazon adds to their platform, updating the native connector was requiring far more effort than it was worth it. And the third one is saying that Shopify simply saw there’s far more for them to gain from promoting third-party connectors to Amazon than on giving the feature for free.
Either way, you now need a third-party app if you want to connect Shopify to Amazon. Thankfully, you have a lot of options here, thanks to multiple Amazon connectors available on the Shopify app store.
What steps do you need to take to connect Shopify with Amazon?
Before you pick an app through which you will join your online stores, you need to do a few technical tasks. The first one is checking the requirements for Amazon listings and preparing all necessary information – especially product ID’s or GTIN (Global Trade Item Numbers). If the items you want to sell belong to restricted categories (more on that in a sec), you’ll also need to prepare all documents confirming that the products you sell are genuine.
Once that is ready, you can start with the actual Shopify Amazon integration steps:
Create an Amazon seller account
If you don’t have an active professional seller account on Amazon yet, then the first thing you need to do is to open an account there. On the Amazon seller central website, you’ll have the option to sign up and create an account. But before you click on the “Sign-up” button, there are a few things you need to prepare to make the account creation process faster:
- Business name and address
- Phone number
- Credit card details
- Bank account information
- Tax ID issued by the government
Amazon will also ask you to pick one of two pricing plans – individual (where you pay $0.99 for every item) and Professional ($39.00 a month + selling fees). You can only link Shopify store when you are on the Professional plan though, so you don’t exactly have a choice here.
Check whether the products you want to sell on Amazon will require the platform’s permission first
For some products, Amazon might ask you to show them product documentation before they allow you to add the listings – to ensure that the products you sell are genuine. If you plan to sell beauty products or books, then you don’t need to ask for approval. But if you want to offer jewelry, watches, or artwork, then you must fill “Request for approval” form first and send all required documents to Amazon before you can list the products. You can check all products for which you will need category approval from Amazon on this page.
For handmade products, Amazon has a special website – Amazon Handmade. But here, you’ll need to be verified by Amazon too though, before you can list your products – and the verification process might take up to 2 weeks.
Install the Amazon Integration app in your Shopify store
Since the native integration isn’t available any longer, you need an app to actually connect the Shopify store to Amazon. One idea is to simply install one of the Shopify Amazon integration apps available – like Amazon Integration Plus. Since those can be added to your Shopify website like any other Shopify plugin, you shouldn’t have many problems with the setup process. The app will then ask you to connect the Amazon seller account with the app. Once you do it, the app will start importing the data and synchronizing both stores.
If you don’t know though which Shopify app you should pick or you worry that something might go wrong while importing the data, then it’s a good idea to contact either a development company who can handle the integration for you or a provider of the app you picked. If neither of the apps available on the market has the features you need to have, then reaching out to a development company is your best bet, as they can also write a custom integration app for you.
Start your Shopify Amazon integration with WeCanFly Agency
Even though Shopify removed the direct integration with Amazon from their platform, the connector apps available work just as well – and have a number of useful features inside. That said, configuring the integration, importing data, and setting the Amazon account isn’t exactly that easy – or quick. So if you want to make sure that the integration will work exactly as needed or are looking for something more customized than the apps available in store, then we might be of help.
As experts in everything Shopify related (including Amazon integrations), we can make sure that your Shopify storefront will be connected with Amazon seamlessly.
Recommending the best ways to start selling internationally? Suggesting how to optimize existing Amazon listings (or Shopify ones) and how to link product descriptions? Giving you tips on starting multichannel selling? Creating custom apps and integrations (like an Shopify Ebay Amazon integration app you currently need)? Or maybe you simply need someone to make sure the Shopify Amazon integration goes smoothly? We’ll be happy to help.
Conclusion
If you already run a successful store on Shopify, you should definitely consider integrating it with Amazon as the new sales channel. With the integration, you get all the benefits the Amazon platform can offer, while you can still build your brand the way you want it – and not simply be one of the millions of sellers.
Just make sure that before you start the process, you do your homework. Check the requirements Amazon has for product listings, prepare all necessary details and spend some time comparing different connector apps to find the one that is the most useful for your online store.
Once you complete these steps and integrate Shopify with Amazon store, you’ll open yourself up to millions of new customers, which can only benefit your online business. And if you’ll need any help while preparing for the integration, WeCanFly will be happy to assist you to make sure the integration will be a success.