Amazon Vs Shopify: What’s Better to start a Business in e-Commerce industry

 

Amazon Vs Shopify: What’s Better to start a Business in e-Commerce industry

Amazon is American Technology Company based in Seattle with the focus on e-Commerce, cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence, Digital distribution and Grocery stores. It is considered to be the world’s most valuable brand and among Big 4 technology companies along with Google, Apple and Microsoft.

On the other hand, Shopify Inc. is an e-Commerce company headquartered at Ottawa, Ontario. It is a proprietary e-Commerce platform for online stores and retail point of sale systems. Shopify offers a wide range of online services for retailers that constitutes payments, marketing, shipping, customer engagement services to simplify the process of online stores for small businesses.

Being said that, Amazon and Shopify are one of the strong competitors in the e-Commerce industry with hundreds and thousands of sellers and shoppers.

The analogy between Amazon Vs Shopify to start your company is the same as opening up a new standalone store in City Street or in a major mall. Hence, to get the insights regarding the better e-Commerce platform to run a business we will be discussing here the pros and cons of Shopify and Amazon.

Amazon

Amazon is an international market and a cloud-based platform where sellers and shoppers can meet in the most convenient way. One of the robust cloud-based systems, Amazon Web Services (AWS) established in 2006 to provide online services for the sites and custom applications. Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Easy to Storage Service (S3) are the company’s large and developing collection of Web services.

The following are some amazing characteristics about the Amazon e-Commerce store.

1) The scope of Amazon to expand your business is beyond any geographical limits as it enables the sellers to reach out to their customers hassle-free.

2) Amazon catalogue system is exemplary and eases the searching for buyers so the product can reach exactly to its target audience. Syncing your product with the Google searches allows your business to grow.

3) Being new to the business is not a problem, as your potential customers may not be looking for a particular brand but their demand will be in accordance to their needs being fulfilled.

Following are the challenges being faced as a part of Amazon for your e-Commerce business.

1) Amazon is the most desirable platform for boosting your income, but it's not useful. Whether you have justified all FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) regulations, but it is important that the charges will be dealt with in all the actions. It is essential that you have thoroughly examined Amazon's expense plan before going any further.

2) Every US state has various regulations on sales and tax collection.

3) In order to prepare and ship your products, Amazon has strict guidelines, so getting used to them is very important.

The Shopify

In a very short span, Shopify acquired popularity. Therefore, since it is a hosted e-Commerce platform, it helps you connect millions of users in a few minutes.

Some amazing features that Shopify has to offer are the following;

1) Shopify has a built-in clarification tool that provides details on how to set up an accessible 70-format e-commerce store.

2) One of the key challenges of running an e-commerce store is to make it easier for your customers to meet their needs and ensure that it is ultra-secure, especially when you deal with debit cards. Shopify offers 100% SSL to ensure that their customers' sensitive information is protected and secure.

3) Another significant aspect where Shopify stands out is marketing. The reason is that they not only provide marketing tools, but on their App marketplace, you can access them. This has made Facebook ads, Google ads, and emails a lot easier. So that more users can access your landing pages, you can use that platform.

If you have chosen to grow your business in the e-Commerce industry, Shopify has the following challenges.

1) Shopify has a monthly fee, but there is also an App Store for it. Adding third party apps can increase your monthly costs.

2) Using Shopify for your business does not mean that your brand can be easily promoted via this platform. Brand awareness and marketing strategy is entirely your responsibility.     

Loizos has been reporting on Silicon Valley since the late \'90s, when she joined the original Red Herring magazine. She is currently the Silicon Valley Editor at Folio3 migration services company