E-Commerce: Selling on Amazon vs. Your Site
Amazon is a vast global marketplace that attracts millions and millions of buyers every day, so much so, that buyers often start and end their search on Amazon. When all you want to do is make sales, Amazon makes the most sense. However, when you’re trying to create a brand identity and a brand voice, Amazon may not be able to help you do that.
Here are some of the key items you should consider when deciding on the best e-commerce marketplace for your brand:
Sales
When you list your products on Amazon and spend some $$ on SEO, you will more than likely make some sales and increase your revenue. On the other hand, selling through your website may delay the revenue coming in as Amazon does offer many benefits such as a flexible “no questions asked” return policy and fast shipping among other things. These benefits are hard to compete with.
Reach
Amazon is available worldwide, which gives your brand a chance to be globally available and extend your target audience to other geographical locations. This may be hard for a smaller business to achieve with an independent e-comm website.
Customer Acquisition
Most customers will search for products on Amazon, rather than a specific brand, which is an advantage to a brand that is still establishing its business. When customers find your product through Amazon, they’ll end up “discovering” a new brand that is also available on their favourite e-comm marketplace. However, to find your website on a search engine will take a good SEO strategy and investment, and even then—there’s no guarantee that unaware customers will click on your website.
Support
As a small business owner, it is hard to focus on marketing, selling and a million other things and oftentimes, it will be harder to focus on providing the best after-sales support to your customers to keep them coming back. Amazon has a strong team working for them to take care of any order-related issues, which is one of the biggest advantages for a seller on Amazon.
Brand Voice
It is imperative for new and small businesses to create a brand identity and brand voice, and to do that on Amazon is almost impossible. You can easily create your content and design on your website which communicates what your brand is to your consumers.
Brand Loyalty
It is harder to achieve brand loyalty via Amazon listings vs your website since Amazon stands for its best deals and fast shipping, so even if your customer were to buy your brand from Amazon, it is less likely that they will make a repeat purchase as Amazon can sway the customer away with other better value deals when they’re in the conversion stage. While your product is the only product on your website, it is unlikely for them to choose a competitor’s products. A customer is also more likely to refer your product bought from your website rather than buying it from Amazon.
In Conclusion
Amazon offers many advantages for e-commerce sellers, but it comes at a cost. Both avenues have their pros and cons, therefore, consider using both marketplaces together to establish different business objectives while your business is scaling.
