Amazon FBA vs Shopify: The Ultimate Comparison in 2024

Amazon FBA vs Shopify – takes you to the path of uncertainty. Choosing one of these can be daunting no matter if you have a start-up or a professional brand for years. As both have benefits and drawbacks, it can become overwhelming to choose one. To ease up your decision making a little, we discussed all the positive and negative aspects of these two platforms.

FBA stands for Fulfillment By Amazon. Using FBA, you can sell your products without much hassle. Amazon has the largest network for fulfilment. With FBA, you store your products in the fulfilment centres of Amazon, and they will pick, pack, ship and provide customer support on your behalf. You can easily increase your reach by using FBA.

Shopify is an online platform where you can build your store for both online and offline. No matter if you are a small business owner or an e-commerce expert, you can use Shopify. People can buy your products from the online store of yours in Shopify, or they can purchase products from POS (Point of Sale). POS is an application that allows you to sell your products at stores, pop up shops, trade shows or other events.

Ease of Use

Amazon

Shopify

Amazon is an already existing e-commerce site where you only have to list your products for sale. You do not have to worry much about building your business site.

With FBA, you do not even have to think about inventory, stock or shipping related issues.

All you need to do is create an account, complete some steps of set up, and you are done for making a sale post for your product.

Shopify has a user-friendly interface for the users to build their online store or customized e-commerce site. It also has an easy to understand administrative interface.

Even any inexperienced people can make their store and use the platform to sell their products. They also offer some professionally made templates for websites for free. 

Branding

Amazon

Shopify

Amazon is a renowned brand, and it boosts your business. You do not need branding separately to sell your products.

Though selling is easier, you do not get much exposure as an individual brand. Your product is more like an Amazon product, not your own brand’s product.

You have to create your brand value and brand awareness. Shopify works as a medium to provide you with a place to sell your goods.

After that, you are on your own. Unlike FBA, your customers will know your products by your brand name.

Flexibility of Design

Amazon

Shopify

You do not have many options for designing the visual appearance of your product on the site.

Amazon is an already built website, where you just have to put your product and information. You do not get much choice on customization.

Shopify is fully customizable. You can make your store look however you want for beginners, you can choose one of their templates, but if you want to make your store more personalized, you can do that too. You get the full freedom to decorate your site the way you want.

Customer Base

Amazon

Shopify

As Amazon has already a huge customer base, they will automatically become your potential customers too. You have to attract and gain trust of the already existing customers of Amazon.

You have made your own customers. As you are as an individual business owner, you have to get to your target audience to improve your business.

Customer Service or Support

Amazon

Shopify

Amazon lacks in this field. They do not have any clear or convenient support system. They will contact you on your request. Otherwise, you can fill up a form to contact them.

Shopify has 24/7 customer support. They have a live chat, phone call, email, social media, forum, etc. types of support. They will work on solving your problems as soon as possible.

Attracting Customers

Amazon

Shopify

Competition is high, and the exposure is high as well. When a customer is looking for a product on Amazon, they are most likely judging the product by its reviews and other information if you have provided accurate information.

Your e-commerce site needs to be attractive to engage your customers. You have to gain their trust through professionalism and authenticity. You need to do marketing for your business. Reviews can help you get new customers too.

Competition

Amazon

Shopify

Amazon has thousands of users or sellers. When you make a sale post, you have to compete with thousands of stores and millions of products. It seems like you have competed with Amazon itself at some times.

On Shopify, you have your own store. You need to improve your store for the betterment of your business.
Though you have competition, still it is not like you have competed with Shopify.

Marketing

Amazon

Shopify

When you post a product on Amazon, you do not need to market that separately.

Amazon itself does its marketing and people who come to shop on Amazon can find your product. You just have to properly list your product so that people find it. Amazon does the marketing job for you.

For Shopify, you need to do your own marketing as you are an individual here. Your store is your own, and you are in charge of marketing.

What strategies you want to input is up to you. Shopify may help you with some tools, yet the responsibility is yours.

Traffic

Amazon

Shopify

The number of customers of Amazon is massive. They have 310 million active customer accounts worldwide. Naturally, the traffic for amazon is way more compared to Shopify.

Shopify also has a huge number of active customers. 1.2 million To be exact. It might not be much compared to Amazon, yet they get a lot of traffic. Depending on your business, you will get traffic.

E-Commerce Tools and Features

Amazon

Shopify

It comes with the necessary features to sell products on Amazon. There is not much room for customization.

You get all the tools needed for building an e-commerce site. Website building, inventory management, customer support, etc. – all the necessary tool is available and customizable.

Customer and User Payment

Amazon

Shopify

Amazon has its own payment system, which is Amazon Pay. You can use that forthe transaction.

However, you, as a seller, can accept credit or debit card too with this Amazon’s gateway, but not PayPal.

Shopify has its own payment gateway called Shopify Payments. The best thing is you do not have to pay any transaction fees if you use their gateway.

Moreover, they have 100+ payment gateways, including AmazonPay, PayPal, etc.

Pricing

Amazon has two types of selling plans

Shopify has three types of selling plans

1. If you are an individual and want to sell some products of yours, then you can choose the individual selling plan. If you are willing to sell less than 40 products, this could be the better option. In this plan you do not have to pay monthly fees, however, you have to pay $0.99 per item sold. It a perfect plan for small scale sellers or businesses.

2. The other plan is professional selling plan which cost $39.99 per month. It also has some additional fees depending on your product category. It comes with some additional features too. You can customize your shipping rates if you get the professional selling plan. There is a little lack of transparency as there are some additional fees included that may vary depending on the product.

1. Basic Shopify plan is $29 per month. It offers you all the basic things an e-commerce site needs including Ecommerce website & blog, Unlimited products, 2 staff accounts, 24/7 support, Multichannel selling, Manual order creation, Discount codes, Free SSL certificate, Abandoned cart recovery, Fraud analysis, Shopify POS App and Standard credit card rates.

2. Shopify selling plan comes at the price of $79 per month. It provides all the benefits of basic Shopify with some additional features like more staff accounts, gift cards, etc.

3. Advanced Shopify plan is $299 per month and provides every feature you need for a professional e-commerce website.

Physical Store

Amazon

Shopify

With FBA, you do not have to worry about shipping or delivering. Amazon will take care of everything. They will take your product to store and do the rest.

Shopify allows you to sell products both online and offline. Customers can buy products from POS, which can be pop up stores, trade fairs or other events.

Free Trial

Amazon

Shopify

There is no free trial for FBA. You have to pay for certain things. However, you might get some discounts on various occasions.

You can get a 14 days free trial for Shopify. If you are not sure about Shopify, you can utilize this time to see if you like it or not.

Though Amazon and Shopify have the differences that do not make them rivals in any way. There are some pros and cons of selling on Amazon, so they are on Shopify. However, they can also go hand in hand.

As a business owner or entrepreneur, you can use both together. If you have a Shopify store, you can include buying option from Amazon. It can be beneficial for your target audiences, hence, increase your sales.

Similarly, when you post a product for sale on Amazon, you can also link your store, which is made with Shopify. You can customize and create an attractive storefront for your business and connect it with Amazon to let them handle the shipping, inventory management jobs. This way getsthe best of both worlds.

Amazon FBA or Shopify both are doing a tremendous job in their respective sector. They are similar yet very different, which makes it challenging to choose one of them. You cannot say one is best or better than the other. Both are good in their own way.

If you want to increase sales without much hassle, then Amazon FBA could be the best choice for you. However, if you are thinking about the long run and want to establish your brand as a unique brand, then you should work on Shopify. The answer to the argument of Amazon FBA vs Shopify depends on your business type and what you want to achieve.

• Is Shopify better than Amazon?

For small scale sellers or individuals, Amazon could be a good choice. However, Shopify is great for professional businesses and offers better value for the price.

• Does Amazon use Shopify?

If you want to see some significant growth in your organic reach or ranking on the search engine, it will take at least 06 moYou can integrate these two platforms if you want. You can have an e-commerce site on Shopify and connect the items to the Amazon marketplace, from where people can buy your products.nths. However, in this period, you need to continue working on optimization on your site. We will drive results faster than any other agency because we have the best strategy, including on-page & off-page optimization, that the search engine loves.

• Why should you not use Shopify?

Creating brand recognition can be challenging as Shopify have a fixed number of themes for websites. Your website can look like someone else’s website too.

• Is it better to sell on Amazon or your own website?

Amazon has more users, and your product will get more exposure. Therefore, selling products there becomes easier. If you want to sell your products from your website, you need to market your product to potential customers.

• Is Shopify good for beginners?

You can run a complete e-commerce store using Shopify. It is a low-cost option for start-ups. If you are planning to expand your business, you can go for Shopify. On the other hand, if you wish to only sell a few pieces of stuff and Amazon could be better.