Shopify vs Amazon: Which Platform Should You Use?

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Shopify and Amazon both have very different things to offer when it comes to ecommerce, but overall, we’d recommend Shopify as the better platform out of the two.

It’s one of the best ecommerce platforms on the market, and it’s suitable for first-time stores all the way up to big brand names.

However, that doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone. Everyone and their dog has heard of Amazon, and there is a reason. It has a lot to offer, and in the US alone, it gets over 2.45 billion visitors per month!

Below, we’ll put both to the test, digging into their differences so you can choose the one that’s right for you.

Best all-round ecommerce platform

4.8

out of 5
Top Choice
Ease Of Use

3.5 out of 5 stars

Design Flexibility

3.9 out of 5 stars

Customer Score

4.4 out of 5 stars

Help and Support

3.9 out of 5 stars

Value For Money

3.6 out of 5 stars

Website Features

4.2 out of 5 stars

Sales Features

4.7 out of 5 stars

Shopify is better if you want the control and customization of building your own online store...

Shopify lets you build your own online store and really make it your own. Not only is it a digital presence with its own brand and identity, but Shopify is also one of the best ecommerce providers, giving you all the support you could ever need and helping you get started if you’re a beginner. If you like to go by the beat of your own drum, Shopify is the one for you!

Amazon is better for small sellers who don't want to pay upfront costs...

Amazon is the massive online marketplace we all know. Its main selling point is its huge amount of customers that visit every day, connecting you with your audience immediately. Amazon can be a much cheaper option for small sellers, starting at $0.99. You may have increased competition with other sellers, but you won’t need to build your own store.

Shopify vs Amazon: Pros & Cons

Shopify Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
Powerful ecommerce tools: Shopify has a range of ecommerce tools designed to help you build and promote your online store.
Unique brand identity: Because you create your own ecommerce website, you also create a strong and unique brand to go with your business.
Extra costs: Shopify has a monthly fee, but it also has an App Store. Adding third party apps can increase your monthly costs.
Marketing: You are fully responsible for promoting your business and building your brand awareness.
Shopify logo 2

Are You Stupefied By Shopify?

Shopify is one of our best-rated ecommerce website builders with an overall score of 4.6 out of 5 in our research. Try it out today and you can have a professional online store live in no time at all!

Amazon Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
Traffic: Millions of people visit the Amazon marketplace per month. This gives your products great exposure.
Extra services: Amazon can handle your inventory storage, packing and shipping for you, making it easier for you to run your business.
Competition: Amazon sells millions of products, so you’re up against a ton of competition. At times you’ll be directly competing with Amazon itself.
Branding: It’s very difficult to create a unique or strong brand image by selling on Amazon.
Amazon logo

Will You Follow The Amazon?

Amazon is the biggest online retailer in the world, with over 10 million products in its inventory. Become part of it today and start selling with thousands of other businesses.

If that wasn’t in-depth enough for you, try our quick comparison table for size:

Category Shopify Amazon
Ease of Use
Winner: It's A Draw!
Shopify makes it easy and accessible to set up an online store. All you have to do is set up your Amazon seller account, upload your products and get selling!
Design Flexibility
Winner: Shopify
Shopify has a professional range of really customizable templates. You can easily build your own unique brand. Amazon controls the design of your store pages and product displays. While easy, this limits your business identity.
Ecommerce Tools and Features
Winner: Shopify
Shopify has the best sales features on the market. It has tons of in-built tools plus an app store. Amazon has a wide range of features that cater to different sellers’ needs.
Payment Options & Fees
Winner: Shopify
Transparent pricing: no transaction fees when using Shopify Payment gateway, all other fees and charges clearly listed. Support more than 100 payment options. Supports Amazon Pay payment gateway, which accepts credit and debit cards. Extra fees are definitely included but are too variable to be transparent.
Attracting Customers
Winner: Amazon
With Shopify you must do all the marketing and SEO yourself. Shopify provides you with the tools to succeed, but you’re responsible for your own traffic. Amazon gets millions of visitors every month, so your traffic is brought to you on a plate! You do have to compete against other sellers (and Amazon itself), and optimize to rank in Amazon’s searches.
Help and Support
Winner: Shopify
Shopify has something for everyone. From 24/7 phone and live chat to the help center, you’re covered. Amazon has good support options, including a help forum, but it’s less accessible than Shopify’s.
Pricing
Winner: Shopify
Shopify has three price plans ranging from $29 to $299 per month. There’s a 3-day free trial, and you pay $1/month for the first 3 months on the Basic plan. Amazon has two plans: one at $0.99 per item, and the other at $39.99 per month. Both are subject to extra variable fees.
Are You Ready? Try Shopify Try Amazon

Further Information

What’s the Difference Between Shopify and Amazon?

You can make money by using Shopify or Amazon to sell your products online. You pay a monthly subscription to both and have access to all the tools and resources they have to offer.

But they are not the same!

Amazon and Shopify may seem similar, but they work in different ways.

The Major Difference Between Shopify and Amazon

The key thing to remember is Shopify is a specialized ecommerce platform and Amazon is an online marketplace. Shopify gives you the tools to build your very own online store, while Amazon lets you sell through its marketplace alongside other online sellers.

So selling through Amazon is like having a stall in a famous boot-fair. Thousands of people swarm in to browse and buy – most of them aren’t looking for your business in particular, but you still make a lot of sales because of everyone walking past and seeing your stall.

Selling with Shopify is more like renting a building to set up your business in. You have your own space and customers actually come looking for your store once they know your brand. There’s more room to create a unique image, although it’s harder work building up that regular customer base.

Because of these differences, Shopify and Amazon cater for different types of online sellers. Amazon caters for individual sellers up to small and medium sized businesses. Shopify is ideal for everything from small businesses up to much larger brands.

Ease of Use

shopify vs amazon featured image
The Winner

It's A Draw! Shopify and Amazon are both easy to use

They’re both easy to use in their own ways. Amazon involves less work than Shopify because you just have to set up and get selling. But Shopify makes it really easy to build your own online store.

Whether you’re selling a pair of socks or setting up your ecommerce empire, you want your online selling experience to be as smooth as possible.

If the thought of setting up your very own online store seems a little overwhelming, don’t worry! Shopify is designed to make building your ecommerce website as easy as possible. It’s got clean, clear design, tons of help pages, and super easy navigation.

shopify dashboard
The Shopify dashboard encourages you to get started, and provides an easy quick-view of your total sales, top products and sales breakdowns.

Shopify does an amazing job at making powerful sales tools accessible to everyone. Now that’s something easier said than done, so Shopify deserves credit for its inclusive approach to ecommerce.

With Amazon all you need to do is create an account, complete each set-up stage and then you’re ready to get selling!

Amazon sellers account before you start
Amazon has an easy-to-follow setup process.

Once you’re registered you just have to list your products, sell them, ship them and then the best part – get paid!

This is all quite straightforward and Amazon has tools to make it as simple as possible. For example, you can sort out shipping yourself or use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).

FBA takes one of the headaches of the ecommerce world – shipping – and takes it out your hands. So you don’t have to worry about shipping at all if you don’t want to. Instead, you sell your products and Amazon sorts the rest out for you.

Both Shopify and Amazon are designed to make your life as easy as possible. You’ll find useful tools and streamlined setups with both.

Design Flexibility

shopify
The Winner

Shopify has the better design flexibility

Shopify wins! It gives you more freedom over your design than Amazon. Shopify’s customization is great for creating a unique brand image for your business. Amazon controls your design, which is less work but much more limiting when it comes to marketing.
Try Shopify Today

There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to browse online when bad design is getting in the way at every click. Luckily with Shopify and Amazon you don’t need to worry about losing shoppers through ugly design.

Shopify gives you loads of control over the layout and design of your online store. But you don’t have to design it from scratch – instead, you choose from over 80 themes and then customize to match your brand.

shopify themes
Shopify has a range of modern and professional themes for you to build your store with. There’s a mix of free and paid themes which you can customize.

Shopify has 9 free themes and over 80 premium ones which cost between $140 to $180. You can edit, personalize, and even switch your theme, so you create a unique brand image for your business. In our research, we gave Shopify a 3.9 0ut of 5 for design flexibility.

Amazon is more limiting in its designs. All Amazon pages are laid out in a similar way. You can upload your own images and descriptions, but the overall layout and design of your store page is recognizably Amazon’s rather than your own.

amazon products page design
Products are promoted on the Amazon homepage without branding. While this is good for marketing your products, it makes it difficult for your brand to stand out from the crowd.

On the homepage, for example, products are listed in Amazon’s branding, alongside your competitors’ products. This is ideal for the customer but can make it more challenging to direct visitors to your own pages.

Of course, there are elements you can customize with Amazon, but overall it’s much less flexible than Shopify.

shopify

Entranced By Shopify's Designs?

Shopify has you in control of the design of your store, meaning you can tailor it to whoever your main audience will be. With over 80 themes as well, you can start selling in style. Check it out today!

Ecommerce Tools and Features

shopify
The Winner

Shopify has the better ecommerce features

Shopify wins! It puts the tools in your hands to manage your online store and help you succeed. Amazon has a wide range of features and makes it easy to sell online, but doesn’t have the same range as Shopify.
Try Shopify Today

Bust the myth that looks and savviness don’t go hand in hand. Create a store that has ecommerce power tools in its pocket as well as stunning design.

Amazon has a vast range of products sold through its marketplace, from electronics to toys and books. You can even sell services rather than physical goods.

It welcomes individual sellers as well as businesses, and has the tools in place to support your online selling. This includes unique stores such as Amazon Handmade, global selling, and the creation of targeted adverts.

One example is the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program, which allows you to access Amazon Prime customers, and lets Amazon handle the storage, packing and shipping of your products.

amazon selling fulfilled services by amazon
Fulfillment by Amazon takes the hard work out of your hands and lets Amazon handle the storage, package, shipping, and even customer support.

You send your products to Amazon, which then packages and ships them to customers once the products get sold. There are fees for this, but if you don’t want the hassle of dealing with shipping it’s a useful solution!

Shopify has the widest and most in-depth range of sales tools on the market.

shopify sales tools
Shopify has an immense range of sales tools and features to help grow your business quickly and easily

Here are just some of the ecommerce tools Shopify offers:

  • Abandoned cart recovery
  • Powerful inventory system
  • Automatic tax calculation
  • Logo maker
  • Multichannel selling
  • App integration

Shopify provides all the necessary tools to make your online store succeed, while also making your life as a business owner as easy as possible. What’s more, Shopify has recently teamed up with dropshipping suppliers like DSers to support dropshipping businesses.

If you don’t find what you’re looking for in your Shopify dashboard, don’t worry. Shopify has an extensive app store that you can use to expand and advance your ecommerce website. In our own research, we gave Shopify a 4.5 out of 5 for sales features – the highest of any ecommerce builder we tested!

Further Information

  • Shopify’s app store gives it tons of extra features. But if you’d rather have all your tools built into your builder, check out our BigCommerce review. It has the most amount of inhouse features of any ecommerce platform.
  • If you want to see how Shopify’s features compare to its competitors, take a look at our Shopify vs BigCommerce Comparison.
  • Wondering what the difference between Dropshipping vs Ecommerce Fulfillment is? Our helpful breakdown explains the difference!

Payment Options and Fees

shopify
The Winner

Shopify has the better payment options and fees

Shopify wins! It has more payment options than Amazon. You don’t have to pay transaction fees if you’re using Shopify Pay. Amazon’s fees are super dependent on the individual seller but overall are much less transparent, and so harder to budget for.
Try Shopify Today

Sometimes you have to look deeper than the upfront costs. Transaction fees and credit card rates can increase your monthly outgoings, so it’s always best to check before you commit.

It’s no surprise Amazon supports Amazon Pay as its main payment gateway. You can accept credit and debit cards through this, but not PayPal.

For ‘Professional Sellers’, Amazon has selling fees plus its monthly subscription. These fees vary by category but are made up of referral fees and shipping fees.

If you use FBA there are a range of fees varying from $2.41 up to $137.32 for fulfillment fees (per unit). Then there are monthly inventory storage fees ranging from $0.69 to $2.40 per cubic foot. These prices are totally dependent on the size, volume, and type of product, and even the time of year. You can check the various prices here.

Shopify fees table
You will have to pay different fees depending on the product you wish to sell, so its best to get the grips with this table. Click here to see it in full.

Individual sellers don’t pay a monthly subscription like Professional Sellers do. Instead, you would pay a $0.99 fee for every product you sell.

Shopify has its own payment gateway, Shopify Payments. When you’re using this you don’t have to pay any transaction fees!

That’s not all Shopify has to offer – it also provides over 100 different payment gateways, including Amazon Pay and PayPal. These all have transaction fees ranging from 0.5% to 2% depending on which one you’re using and which plan you’re on.

Credit card fees apply to all payment gateways, including Shopify Payments. The regular credit card rate on Shopify is 2.9% + 30¢. As you upgrade through Shopify’s price plans your online credit card rates decrease from 2.9% + 30¢ to 2.4% + 30¢.

Attracting Customers

Amazon logo
The Winner

Amazon is the best at attracting customers

Amazon wins! Even though you can’t just sit back and relax, your customers come to you and your store will benefit from Amazon’s massive search volume. Shopify gives you all the tools you need to succeed, it’s just a more hands-on approach.
Try Amazon Today

Selling online is one of the best ways to connect with shoppers. But getting your customers’ attention can be a challenge. With competitors targeting your customers with ads in their social feeds and with distractions at every click, it’s a race to get noticed first.

This is where Amazon really shines. With millions of visitors a month, the odds are stacked temptingly in your favor. You don’t have to tackle search engine optimization (SEO) or run email campaigns – people come to Amazon with their eyes peeled and wallets primed.

amazon traffic
Amazon has over 150 million visitors a month in the US alone! This presents a great opportunity for your products to get found by a large customer base.

You have more time to manage your inventory and deal with orders – instead of you going to them, your customers are coming to you.

Or so you hope!

The drawback of Amazon is, once millions of visitors are on the site, they need to get to your products instead of your neighbor’s. And when Amazon itself is also selling on the same platform, competition is pretty fierce.

You may not need to worry about Google’s SEO. But you will need to comply with Amazon’s SEO in order to rank as high up in its search results as you can. This will give you the best chance of being chosen over your competitors.

Shopify doesn’t have the same search volume as Amazon. That’s because you create your very own brand – people actually need to search for your business to find you. This means marketing is essential to widen your customer base.

Email campaigns, multichannel selling, and a strong social media presence, personalized shopping, abandoned cart recovery, and the infamous SEO  – all of these are important for growing your brand and building a customer base.

The good news is, Shopify is there to help you every step of the way. It automatically includes all these marketing tools, and you can find even more in the Shopify App Market.

Amazon logo

Want To Go From A to Z with Amazon?

Amazon’s strength is its size. As the #1 online outlet, you don’t need to worry about marketing to customers, so you can sit back and relax. See what you can achieve and try it out.

Further Information

Help and Support

shopify
The Winner

Shopify has the best help and support

Shopify wins! Its support is much easier to access than Amazon’s and there are a lot more help options for you to choose from. Amazon does offer support but it’s less flexible than Shopify’s.
Try Shopify Today

Amazon doesn’t have the clearest support system – there is phone support where you request a call and Amazon gets in contact with you. There are forms you can submit for support and community forums where you can discuss issues. However, it’s not the most streamlined or easy to use support system out there.

Shopify has a comprehensive set of help options, including:

  • 24/7 phone
  • Social media
  • 24/7 live chat
  • Forum
  • Email
  • Video tutorials
  • Advanced specialist support

This covers you no matter what you need. Video tutorials and forums help you learn new skills, and phone support is invaluable in getting the right help when you need it.

Shopify also has a Help Center with articles and guides. It’s super easy to navigate and has tons of resources to browse.

Pricing

shopify
The Winner

Shopify has the best value for money

Shopify wins! Although Amazon’s Individual plan is more suitable for small-scale sellers, overall Shopify offers better value for money. It’s cheaper than Amazon’s Professional plan, and is more scalable and transparent with its pricing than Amazon, making it easier to budget for.
Try Shopify Today

At the end of the day you want to be making more money than you’re spending. There’s no point choosing a platform that’ll cost you hundred of dollars if you’re only selling a few handmade items a month.

Neither Amazon or Shopify are as pricey as that, so you should find something here to fit your budget.

Amazon has two selling plans:

  • The Professional Selling plan costs $39.99 per month, plus extra selling fees (which vary depending on your products).
  • The Individual Selling plan doesn’t have a monthly fee – instead you pay $0.99 per item sold. This is in addition to extra selling fees, which again vary by category.

The Individual plan is suitable for anyone planning to sell less than 40 items per month. Because of this, it has fewer features available. For example, you can’t customize shipping rates on the Individual plan.

amazon selling plans and fees
There are more differences than price between the Individual and Professional selling plans. Overall, you unlock more capabilities on the $39.99 per month Professional plan.

There are extra costs when you use FBA, but this is extremely variable and dependent on your products and business.

Shopify has three price plans:

  • The Basic Shopify plan costs $29 per month
  • The Shopify plan costs $79 per month
  • The Advanced Shopify plan costs $299 per month

You unlock more features as you upgrade through the pricing plans. Below you can see which features are available on each plan.

Basic Shopify Shopify Advanced Shopify
$29 per month $79 per month $299 per month
Unlimited Products ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Staff Accounts 2 5 15
Multi-channel Integration ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Discount Codes ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Abandoned Cart Recovery ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Gift Cards ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Reports ✔️ ✔️
Online Credit Card Rates 2.9% + 30¢ USD 2.6% + 30¢ USD 2.4% + 30¢ USD
Transaction Fee (Without Shopify Payments) 2% 1% 0.5%
Third-Party Calculated Shipping Rates at Checkout ✔️
Shipping Discount Up to 77% Up to 88% Up to 88%
Shipping Labels ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
USPS Priority Mail Cubic Pricing ✔️ ✔️
Sell in 133 Currencies ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
International Domains ✔️ ✔️
International Pricing ✔️ ✔️

The Basic Shopify plan gives you everything you need to set up your ecommerce website. You can then add apps to expand your store’s functions, and upgrade whenever you’re ready.

Extra costs can occur if you’re adding third-party apps to your store. However, these help scale your business so should reflect a rise in customers and profits.

The prices Shopify displays for all its plans are yearly prices, which can lead to up to 25% cheaper than paying month-by-month. The Basic plan becomes $39 per month if this method is chosen.

shopify

Let Your Customers Shop Till They Drop With Shopify

Shopify has three main price plans. While they can seem expensive, if you chose the Basic plan, you’ll only have to pay $1 per month for your first three months. Follow the link to see how much you can save.

Further Information

Using Amazon with Shopify

Amazon and Shopify are pretty well-matched. They both offer certain things which the other does not. Just like peanut butter and jelly, why not put them together to make something great?

You can integrate Amazon into your Shopify store. Yes, that means exactly what you think it does: you can build your own ecommerce business while promoting your products on the world’s largest marketplace… at the same time… and with just a few clicks.

shopify amazon integration
You can integrate Amazon with your Shopify store to maximise your exposure, sales, and customer base.

This will let you create Amazon listings and offers straight from Shopify, sync inventory and product details, link products, and more!

All you have to do is set up an Amazon Seller account and then add the Amazon Sales Channel to your Shopify Store.

The main thing to be aware of is you still have to pay for the Amazon Professional Seller account. You will already be paying your monthly subscription to Shopify, and then you will pay for the Amazon Professional plan on top of that.

But if your business is ready for more exposure and expansion, combining these two powerhouses is a worthwhile investment.

Shopify vs Amazon: Conclusion

Shopify and Amazon are two impressive sales platforms. In this article, we have explored why they’re different and dived deep into their features, pricing, design, and more.

Most importantly, we’ve looked at how these things can help you.

Overall, we recommend Shopify for anyone setting up their ecommerce business. It gives you greater control, a stronger brand identity, and more scalable pricing.

Amazon is good for small sellers who don’t want to pay an upfront cost, but it’s variable extra fees make it difficult to judge how quickly those costs could rack up.

Shopify provides the better solution in the long-term, and with the option to integrate Amazon into your Shopify store, you don’t have to miss out: it’s a win-win!

shopify

Is It Time To Start Your Own Online Store?

Of the two, we think freedom and better support make Shopify the better choice. Create your own store today with Shopify and take control!

Shopify vs Amazon: FAQs

There’s no definite answer, and it totally depends on what you’re selling and all the other factors that go into running a business! There are success stories for both Shopify and Amazon.

Overall, Shopify supports more long-term growth for your business and helps you stand out from your competitors more.

People usually go to Amazon in search of discounts and deals, so there’s more pressure to have competitive prices.

You can make it big using either platform, but you’re more in control if you choose Shopify. We recommend signing up to Shopify and then integrating with Amazon to get the benefits of both platforms.

Shopify is one of the best all-around ecommerce platforms on the market. It scored the top marks for sales features with a 4.5 out of 5 in our research and the highest customer score with a 4.7 out of 5 from our users. While these are great scores, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for you.

Why not check out our Online Store Comparison Chart to see these leading brands side by side? Or read our Shopify Review to find out why we recommend it so highly.

Out of the monthly subscriptions, Shopify is the cheapest option. Its lowest plan is the Basic Shopify at $29 per month. Amazon has its Professional Selling plan at $39.99 per month, plus extra selling fees.

If you sign up for Amazon’s Individual Seller plan you don’t pay a monthly fee – instead, you pay a $0.99 fee on every item you sell. The extra seller fees also apply to this plan.

The Amazon Individual Seller plan is the cheapest option if you’re selling small amounts – it’s only suitable for those selling under 40 items per month. But be careful: you could end up paying around $40 per month on this plan.

Read our Shopify Pricing Review for a detailed look at its price plans and value for money.

Written by:

I’m the Content Manager here at Website Builder Expert, which means I read and edit nearly all the content we publish, and work with our wonderful writers and researchers to bring you the best possible advice for achieving your online goals. Over the past five years I’ve built demo websites using all the website builders we review, so I have the experience and expertise to help you out. You’ve got the experts on your side – I’m here to help you reach your online goals, and enjoy the process too!

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