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Amazon webstore your thoughts? advantages vs disadvantages?

by 6figure101
14 replies
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I have a client that I manage all their SEO and online marketing...

They currently are on Prestashop and want to make the switch to Amazon webstore. They have approximately 2500 SKU's and are convinced that they will get a ton of benefits from being on the webstore platform... including tons of free traffic from Amazon.

I am not familiar enough with Webstore to give my opinion. But I am not yet convinced that this is a good move for them. I was hoping you guys could shed some light and share your expertise!

Any help or suggestions are appreciated
#advantages #amazon #disadvantages #thoughts #webstore
  • Profile picture of the author lotsofsnow
    Don't fix it if it ain't broken.

    I would suggest to start a small pilot project with a selcet number of SKUs and test the webstore platform. If it works in that test for your clients products: fine, carefully increase the number of products and if it does not work simply stick to what you have.
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  • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
    Originally Posted by 6figure101 View Post

    I have a client that I manage all their SEO and online marketing...

    They currently are on Prestashop and want to make the switch to Amazon webstore. They have approximately 2500 SKU's and are convinced that they will get a ton of benefits from being on the webstore platform... including tons of free traffic from Amazon.

    I am not familiar enough with Webstore to give my opinion. But I am not yet convinced that this is a good move for them. I was hoping you guys could shed some light and share your expertise!

    Any help or suggestions are appreciated
    A few things, depending what modules you have for Amazon, you may or not may not get increased functionality but I am betting less functionality.

    1. It is not like Amazon will be advertising your store, they only advertise for on site (amazon.com) sales.
    2. If the product is not on Amazon already, expect Amazon to see your sales numbers, and back door you on the best products right from your suppliers.
    3. There are third party tools to allow you to sell and manage inventory and sales on multiple sales channels (amazon, ebay, etc).
    4. There are other ways to increase sales to your online store without having to involve Amazon, or ways to use Amazon without them listing.

    Stores see Amazon and think, they are gonna make me rich, when in reality, their platform is no better than any others but while Amazon makes you think they are the good guys, they can destroy your business quite quick.
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    • Profile picture of the author malia
      The biggest downside is Amazon's system/backend is the worst. It's not user friendly. I could go on, but bad, bad bad.

      Benefits, the integration is slick. Especially if you want to use Amazon checkout and/or Amazon fulfillment. A colleague selling fitness clothes experienced 25% sales increase JUST by moving their ecommerce store to Amazon Webstore. That does NOT include the increase in SELLING ON Amazon (and they are two different, but related things). So that means JUST their store bumped up by 25% and they attributed it to the trust of Amazon checkout, the integration of Amazon's payments, and the Amazon Prime being factors.

      Since this company manufactures their own product, there are no Amazon shenanigans. But even if there were, there's no guarantee Amazon won't find your product ANYWAY or just happen to come across it, or GET PITCHED the product if another company manufactures it.

      They likely WILL get a double digit increase in revenue from Amazon integration. I'd use Amazon webstore in a heartbeat if it wasn't so horrible to use. It's really cheap, it has the Amazon backbone, you can integrate Amazon payments, which is affordable, reliable and protected against fraud, and if you choose, Amazon fulfillment, which is really price competitive.

      However, you can also integrate Amazon payments, checkout, etc., with other ecommerce solutions. But if they are going to sell most of their inventory on Amazon anyway, it just makes sense to go ahead and use webstore and have one place to manage the inventory.
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  • Profile picture of the author ohgworld
    Well, just one note to Amazon ... they just doubled their fees from $39/m to $79/m., and increased their listing fee from 1 to 2% beginning Feb. 14, 2014 ... in addition to their other fees in average of 15% .... further, they only pay out every week if you use their Merchant Services ... you better do your math before deciding to go with an Amazon Storefront.
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    • Profile picture of the author amcg
      Originally Posted by ohgworld View Post

      Well, just one note to Amazon ... they just doubled their fees from $39/m to $79/m., and increased their listing fee from 1 to 2% beginning Feb. 14, 2014 ... in addition to their other fees in average of 15% .... further, they only pay out every week if you use their Merchant Services ... you better do your math before deciding to go with an Amazon Storefront.
      True. I used webstore but found it pretty inflexible for my needs - but then again, it's an Amazon product built on their infrastructure so naturally it's going to favor their platform.

      I think nowadays especially you're better off with an independent hosted solution i.e Shopify, BigCommerce etc or your own hosted install e.g Magento. At least you can still take advantage of Amazon's marketplace regardless and roadtest their third party services, payments etc without going all in.
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      • Profile picture of the author Solid Commerce
        I say, why not both?

        A few people have mentioned problems dealing with Amazon's back-end.

        You can basically eliminate that heartache, and put your inventory on TWO channels, instead of just one or the other, with Solid Commerce.

        Take a look: Multi Vendor eCommerce | Multi Vendor eCommerce Platform Solid Commerce

        We'll sync your Amazon inventory up with other marketplaces like eBay, Rakuten, Half.com, Overstock.com, and others...as well as your own webstore. Volusion, Magento, BigCommerce, 3dcart, and others are all supported.

        I hope this helps. You're more than welcome to PM me if you want to talk about it a little more.

        _ Sean
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  • Profile picture of the author Solid Commerce
    ...Oh, and your client is right. With that many SKUs? They'd definitely benefit from expanding their inventory to at least another channel.
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  • Profile picture of the author 6figure101
    Thanks guys....

    I am having a meeting with my client tomorrow and we will make a decision and finalize both the direction and the strategy!
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  • Profile picture of the author 6figure101
    They ended up deciding on switching over to Magento.
    Given the circumstances, I think they made a good choice

    Thanks to all for their input!
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    • Profile picture of the author Solid Commerce
      Nice! Let me know if they happen to be looking for something to help them automate things and get their inventory all synced up on more than one channel (ie, their webstore AND Amazon AND eBay, etc, etc).

      Because that's totally what we do. And we're good at it.

      Best of luck, either way!!

      _ Sean
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  • Profile picture of the author obms
    Good tips by everyone. Thank you. It opened my eyes about Amazon's webstore and the pros and cons associated with that. I was thinking of using their platform in future but now I should reassess. I guess BigCommerce would be a better option.
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  • Profile picture of the author malia
    Well, just one note to Amazon ... they just doubled their fees from $39/m to $79/m., and increased their listing fee from 1 to 2% beginning Feb. 14, 2014 ... in addition to their other fees in average of 15% .... further, they only pay out every week if you use their Merchant Services ... you better do your math before deciding to go with an Amazon Storefront.
    Just to clarify these are fees/issues for selling ON Amazon.com (being an Amazon marketplace seller). This is different than Amazon Webstore. There's no (up to) 15% fee for Amazon webstore.
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  • Profile picture of the author alterjones
    For what it's worth, I always recommend to go both ways..I wouldn't necessarily switch from One platform to AWS, I'd rather keep the one and then open up a separate store to test it out.. Wouldn't want to mess with something that isn't broken.. Why have 1 when you can have both ?
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