Amazon is an American technology company headquartered in Seattle aimed with the industry focus on e-Commerce, cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence, Digital distribution, and Grocery stores. It is considered to be the world’s most influential and economic force and among Big 4 technology companies along with Google, Apple and Microsoft.
On the other hand, Shopify Inc. is an e-Commerce company based in Ottawa, Ontario. It is a hosting e-Commerce platform for online stores and retail POS systems. Shopify provides a variety of online services for retail businesses that constitute payments, marketing, shipping, customer engagement services to simplify the process of online stores for small merchants.
Shopify and Amazon are the biggest rivalries of all times where their popularity has increased in a short span. With everyone familiar with these renowned names of the e-Commerce industry, it is needless to say and no doubt these platforms attract millions of users within a few seconds.
While starting any business it is very important to come up with a business plan and position your product accordingly. Therefore, it is very important to choose from either of the platforms concerning your expense plan and budget feasibility. To begin with your business either with Shopify or Amazon it is very important to design a roadmap as setting up your product on e-Commerce is the same as opening up a standalone store in the street or opening up at a big mall.
Amazon
Amazon is an international market for millions of sellers and buyers and it is the most accessible medium for these entities. It has a comprehensive cloud-based program, Amazon Web Services (AWS) founded in 2006, rendering online services and custom applications.
The following are the characteristics of Amazon that will up your game in the e-Commerce industry
Without any doubt, amazon is an international market where people can deal with their business most conveniently. Regardless of any geographical boundaries buyers and sellers can meet and do business hassle-free.
One of the most amazing features that it has to offer in the Amazon catalog system, that helps the buyers to select their desired product from the catalog. It helps to sync your business with google searches and eventually tends it to grow exponentially.
It is quite rare in online businesses that people are looking for a particular brand. What is most desirable is the need that exactly matches the items available in the product list. With these characteristics, doing business with Amazon is not free from any challenges.
One of the challenges that smaller businesses have to offer despite being Amazon is adding income to your venture and aligned with the regulations of Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). It is important to carefully look at the expense plan and that is keeping up with your feasibility. Any activity being done at Amazon as a part of your business is not free of charge.
On the other hand, there are stringent sales and tax collection regulations as per the US state policy. Moreover, the strict guidelines took some time for the small businesses to get used to its prep and ship policies.
Shopify
Shopify Inc. was founded in Ottawa, Ontario – Canada in 2004, it is one of the most valuable hosted eCommerce platforms that became popular in no time among its users.
Following are the characteristics that Shopify has to offer:
- With the clarification built-in tool, it allows the e-Commerce store to be set up with 70 formats available.
- With e-commerce business, it becomes pretty much challenging to secure the sensitive information of your customer especially when it comes to the use of debit cards. Shopify has 100% SSL that means with all these transactions the critical information of customers is secured.
- Marketing is the most important part that Shopify has to offer, not only the tools but these can be accessed on their App marketplace. It has made the use of Google ads, Facebook ads, emails a lot easier. Now with this platform, more users can visit your landing pages.
As with the Amazon, Shopify is not free from any challenges:
- Shopify has a monthly fee, but it also has an App Store. Adding third-party apps can increase your monthly costs.
- As discussed in the beginning, starting a business requires the business plan that constitutes the marketing plan as well. Using Shopify as a platform does not mean that it helps in promoting the business, hence creating brand awareness and marketing is the sole responsibility of your own business.