Amazon Webstore vs Independent Ecommerce Platform

[Hertford Bob]

Has anyone here had any experience of using Amazon webstores, at first glance they seem like a simple and cost effective solution for setting up shop. Monthly charges are comparable to server costs and commision at 3.4% compares favourably to Paypal.
Are there any major issues which merchants here have experienced with them? Or pitfalls/hidden charges to be aware of?

 

[gibby]

It depends what your wanting to do with your biz.

One one side Amazon is trusted and gets alot of traffic. Its easy to set up & pretty cheap. For many its a great way to get started.

On the other side, you are trusting Amazon with your biz. Some have fallen out with Amazon or had accounts & funds frozen and unable to resolve the issues.
If your items sell really well there is a good chance Amazon will start selling them too, at better prices.

Personally I would also set up your own website and not rely too much from income from just one channel.

Amazon can be a great way to get started but do be careful

G

 

[kulture]

In using an Amazon web store, your customers are not really yours, they are Amazon's. You never get their real e-mail address but a scrambled one. All e-mails go through Amazon. All sales information goes to Amazon. So Amazon knows what you sold, how much you sold it for and to whom. Do you really want a competitor to know all that?

Yes it is cost effective, and yes Amazon is a trusted brand. So yes you will get a good conversion rate if you get visitors, but as has already been said, if you are too successful, Amazon will start stocking your products.

 

[Hertford Bob]

Thanks for your responses, it does seem to be something to consider. My major concern currently would be SEO for these sites, is the homepage URL going to contain Amazon, will we have lots of links to Amazon built into our site and will it make it harder to generate traffic than using a platform such as Magento.

 

[charlesdupont]

I agree - what you're selling matters. If you're selling products that are easy for Amazon to source at a similar price to yours, I'd be very wary of their webstore offering.

As other have mentioned, the Amazon web store gives you only limited opportunity to grow past a certain point. If you're only testing the waters / building understanding of a particular segment, it might make sense to kick-start your sales with a web-store.

In the longer term, the key to competing on anything other than cost or sourcing is to have a USP that drives traffic, preferably building loyalty too. That's a lot easier to do on your own site, where you own the customer relationship, and you can follow up with promo e-mails etc.

Hope this helps!

 

[ClarkDanial]

You can go for Amazon web store here you can register your product globally . I am sending you a PM for further details.

 

[joshgeake]

It just depends on how much you want to share your data with Amazon.

Once they can see a peripheral site selling more of a certain ASIN than they expect, they'll be calling the supplier and undercutting you.

I expect it's the same for FBL, then they don't just know how much it's selling but also who the supplier is.

I may well be getting ahead of myself with my conspiracy theories though.

One thing's for certain, even though I've been selling online for years, their latest postage change confuses me. If it confuses me then surely it's going to confuse their customers too.

 

[Danny Peters]

There are lots of newly developing indi eCommerce platforms. Some of them are trying to solve these problems, others not.

That's my cue I think! Our orangebox e-commerce software solves many of these problems and because it is our own baby we are able to solve any others as we go along. It also means we can offer out of the box solutions or as much bespoking as you like. We run our own e-commerce businesses too, so we know our stuff.

We would of course be very happy to have a chat with you should you decide to go the non-amazon route.

 

[kulture]

I have merged these two threads as they are identical.

 

[skinz]

I agree - what you're selling matters. If you're selling products that are easy for Amazon to source at a similar price to yours, I'd be very wary of their webstore offering.

As other have mentioned, the Amazon web store gives you only limited opportunity to grow past a certain point. If you're only testing the waters / building understanding of a particular segment, it might make sense to kick-start your sales with a web-store.

In the longer term, the key to competing on anything other than cost or sourcing is to have a USP that drives traffic, preferably building loyalty too. That's a lot easier to do on your own site, where you own the customer relationship, and you can follow up with promo e-mails etc.

Hope this helps!

Is Rangespan not founded by ex amazon executives

 

[charlesdupont]

Hi Skinz,

Yep - I guess I should have mentioned that, sorry. I didn't speak to them about it, so this is just my perspective.

My point was based off of my experience at Rangespan, working with a lot of manufacturers / distributors in the UK on the one hand, and Amazon sellers / competitors on the other.

 

[AndyP]

<pls ignore> posted in error

 

[skinz]

Hi Skinz,

Yep - I guess I should have mentioned that, sorry. I didn't speak to them about it, so this is just my perspective.

My point was based off of my experience at Rangespan, working with a lot of manufacturers / distributors in the UK on the one hand, and Amazon sellers / competitors on the other.

I only meant that you could provide a unique view from both sides

 

[ZipserSir]

Does anyone here think that by developing an independent webstore and by investing in it, they will have a long term asset that can continue to generate income into the future or be sold off?

Whereas with someone else's webstore you are simply investing in their long term pension fund?

 

[japancool]

When I buy something new on Amazon, there's one thing and one thing alone that I'm looking for - price. I'm usually looking for a specific product.

Can you compete with the other Amazon sellers who are pushing the same products as you?

Of course, that's buying through normal Amazon, I have no idea how webstore works.

 

[eTray Sales]

We have been using an Amazon Webstore for a couple of years now and, in general, I am pretty pleased with it.

We have the advantage that we manufacture our own product and don’t supply it to third parties, so we don’t have to worry that Amazon will start undercutting us.

For us, the main advantages were that it required a minimal upfront investment andthe user interface is integrated with our Amazon market place sales, so it is easy to manage.

It is fairly easy to set up, but you may need to do some CSS coding (or find someone to do it for you) to get some aspects of the store looking the way you want them.

The user documentation is not great, but Amazon’s support is pretty good – on one occasion I had a response within minutes of raising an issue, for every other issue I have had a response within hours.

We changed to the Amazon Webstore from using a combination of Roman Cart and PayPal. One of the most significant differences for us was in the timing of payments. Amazon do not charge the customer’s card until you tell them that you have shipped the item, and then they only pay out at fortnightly intervals. PayPal (and I assume other card service) charges immediately, and it is possible to get those funds in your bank account fairly quickly if you need to. This can have a significant impact on cash flow, particularly at busy times when you might need to restock quickly, and it could be important for you to take that in to account.

 

[ProjectOcto]

Put simply, an Amazin store gives you access to a huge marketplace, but right alongside competitors. It's all on Amazons terms too - design, % fees, urls etc but you are virtually guaranteed to be found by customers who automatically go there.

Your own web store/eCommerce site is harder work (cost, SEO, terms etc) but bigger rewards if you get it right. You determine everything from brand to prices to returns policies and more. There are plenty of off-the-shelf packages like EKM, Shopify etc which are good value but limited unless you have an excellent designer/developer on board. A more bespoke platform (built by an eCommerce development firm who OWNS the code) means you get exactly what you want, and the control over your own business increases even more.

 

[John07900]

ETray; Do you sell to retailers? By the time you pay Amazon 15-20% and add the cost of selling one item to one customer, would it not be more profitable to give away say 25% and deliver in bulk?

You seem to have the products that would be suitable for selling through this route, or perhaps you already do so, in which case I would be interested to know why you need Amazon necessarily.

 

[Metalfrogboss]

Other people have posted, but I will reiterate, that having your own store gives you control. Your brand, your product, and with precisely the message you want to convey. Amazon, of course, is a massive brand, but you are just one of a number within it. Nobody can deny (I think) that it works, but you can create a beautiful online shopping cart/ccommunity of your own and have a business plan which can mean selling it on after a few years, or loving it like your own for life - the choice in that scenario is yours, not Amazons - plus the fees everyone else has mentioned (like eBay) will continue to rise.

 

[JonathanSEO]

Self hosted is always better.

But I wouldn't use an unheard of ecommerce platform that's tied to a specific agency as some suggest. What happens if they go tits tomorrow? Goodbye support.

Stick with a well known platform. Much easier and better.

 

[Metalfrogboss]

Self hosted is always better.

But I wouldn't use an unheard of ecommerce platform that's tied to a specific agency as some suggest. What happens if they go tits tomorrow? Goodbye support.

Stick with a well known platform. Much easier and better.

I agree with this to an extent, but I would say that if you build something, as long as you have been trained, and the code is open source, and freely available to you, regardless of whether the company goes under tomorrow, you will still be able to host it. It's when you get into things like .NET sites, and proprietary coding that things can go awry. Just ensure you own the code, site files, images, and anything that makes the site run. Sign a contract and you are legally covered.

However, on the flip side , I do take your point Jonathan.

 

[eTray Sales]

You seem to have the products that would be suitable for selling through this route, or perhaps you already do so, in which case I would be interested to know why you need Amazon necessarily.

Its is not really a case of need - its more that it is convenient at the moment. Its just another path to market and of course it doesn't stop us selling to retailers if we want to.

Whichever method we use has its costs, either in time or money, and at the moment my time is at a premium, so the Amazon webstore works for us. But next year may be different matter.

 

[antropy]

I think probably the best online ecommerce business model at the moment for most types of products is selling on:

1. Your own website
2. eBay
3. Amazon

The latest version of OpenCart allows you to do all this automatically, managing inventory and orders for you:
http://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/latest-opencart-1-5-6-connects-to-ebay-amazon-and-play/

 

[LatestUKDeals]

I'd say short term Amazon is good to use but long term set up your own site do some SEO and profit. More of a gamble though.

 

[E21MEDIA]

I agree - what you're selling matters. If you're selling products that are easy for Amazon to source at a similar price to yours, I'd be very wary of their webstore offering.

As other have mentioned, the Amazon web store gives you only limited opportunity to grow past a certain point. If you're only testing the waters / building understanding of a particular segment, it might make sense to kick-start your sales with a web-store.

In the longer term, the key to competing on anything other than cost or sourcing is to have a USP that drives traffic, preferably building loyalty too. That's a lot easier to do on your own site, where you own the customer relationship, and you can follow up with promo e-mails etc.

Hope this helps!

A good thread and some very good answers here. As Charles and others have stated above, you should really split your concerns and objectives between long and short term. I recently gave some related advice on another thread where I suggested the option of a hosted ecommerce solution such as Shopify. Like Amazon Webstore, hosted solutions are great if you need to get up and running asap. Amazon has heavy traffic, and you probably will not need to focus as much initially on SEO, but I would only consider this as part of a phased online strategy.

Later, for your own ecommerce site, focus on the site functionality that helps drive the sales process. Then feed this into your wider sales strategy, wherein your aim is to develop the customer relationship. If you can take customers with you when you switch from Amazon.

 

[DanPartridge]

I think if you have some products that you want out throw out there and get a few quick sales a amazon webstore would be worth running, however I don't think this is the best option for you if you are wanting to set up a serious long term online business, if you would like to do this get yourself a proper fully hosted stand alone site and organically build your brand.

 

[truereddevil]

Trust me i have done alot of research on this for nearly a year now, We started off with our ebay shop we have grown it and are now quite big on there if your looking at long term like we are then the best advice i can give you is

1.If you go your own cart route you will always have to pay hosting,you will have to pay a designer to design it for you unless you have the necessary skills yourself,the internet is forever changing new software and widgets constantly being brought out so you would have to pay extra to keep upgrading your website

2.A hosted version one of the best in my opinion and i have looked at them all shopify,big commerce,EKM and another 20+ at least, the one we have decided to go with is http://www.bluepark.co.uk/
I have spoken to 15/20 of there customers have checked out all there reviews and cannot find one bad thing about them

With hosted you just pay your monthly agreed package anything thats new would be added and there customer service is brilliant

This is just my two cents

 

[OliverTrent]

It's not an either/or situation, it's smart to build as many channels as you can to bring sales through your door. Ideally you want to be on your own website, on amazon, on ebay, on etsy. The more audiences you can reach, the more sales you can make.

 

[Metalfrogboss]

Trust me i have done alot of research on this for nearly a year now, We started off with our ebay shop we have grown it and are now quite big on there if your looking at long term like we are then the best advice i can give you is

1.If you go your own cart route you will always have to pay hosting,you will have to pay a designer to design it for you unless you have the necessary skills yourself,the internet is forever changing new software and widgets constantly being brought out so you would have to pay extra to keep upgrading your website

2.A hosted version one of the best in my opinion and i have looked at them all shopify,big commerce,EKM and another 20+ at least, the one we have decided to go with is http://www.bluepark.co.uk/
I have spoken to 15/20 of there customers have checked out all there reviews and cannot find one bad thing about them

With hosted you just pay your monthly agreed package anything thats new would be added and there customer service is brilliant

This is just my two cents

Funny because we have just won a new e-commerce contract today from an existing Bluepark customer, who said it was sold well, but delivered nothing and he became a 'ticket' in a queue. We spent 3 weeks analysing his website and online potential to find that this was a shocker for him. I hope you have better luck!

 

[RepricerExpress]

Couldn't agree more with ProjectOcto—well put. There are obviously advantages to selling on Amazon (large marketplace being the obvious one) but your choice is totally down to what you're selling and what control you want over your data and customer interaction. Some companies need to build their brand and develop long term customer relationships to maintain a healthy profit and added value from that relationship, others just need to 'shift the goods' based on price where customer trust in delivery and accountability is also paramount (Amazon's added value).

 

[Bluepark]

Funny because we have just won a new e-commerce contract today from an existing Bluepark customer, who said it was sold well, but delivered nothing and he became a 'ticket' in a queue. We spent 3 weeks analysing his website and online potential to find that this was a shocker for him. I hope you have better luck!

A "ticket in a queue"? We pride ourselves on the very best support in the business, bar none. Our customers don't wait for support in a queue, they get it on demand. By phone, by email, every single one of them.

I don't know who the customer was, I've never heard of your company before, but if your agenda was simply to say whatever was necessary to secure their business then you obviously succeeded. But if you want to seriously discuss the outstanding SEO potential of our software, feel free to give me a call any time.

 

[Bluepark]

Trust me i have done alot of research on this for nearly a year now, We started off with our ebay shop we have grown it and are now quite big on there if your looking at long term like we are then the best advice i can give you is

1.If you go your own cart route you will always have to pay hosting,you will have to pay a designer to design it for you unless you have the necessary skills yourself,the internet is forever changing new software and widgets constantly being brought out so you would have to pay extra to keep upgrading your website

2.A hosted version one of the best in my opinion and i have looked at them all shopify,big commerce,EKM and another 20+ at least, the one we have decided to go with is http://www.bluepark.co.uk/
I have spoken to 15/20 of there customers have checked out all there reviews and cannot find one bad thing about them

With hosted you just pay your monthly agreed package anything thats new would be added and there customer service is brilliant

This is just my two cents

Thank you, I can assure you that you'll be well looked after.

 

[RepricerExpress]

A very good starting point in ecommerce if you don't have deep pockets for creating your own webstore, but more importantly deep pockets to invest in attracting customers to your site (often overlooked in web development costs). It really does depend on your business model and the type of stock you sell. As eTray has mentioned, it was good for them because they have their own products, but much more competitive if you're selling the same wares as many other third party sellers. Perhaps comparing projected profits for each over the term of a year or two would be useful, but remember to include all outgoings, including SEO and advertising costs associated with driving traffic to your site.