Shopify: Amazon’s Ecommerce Platform for Sellers
Following the announcement to close the Amazon Webstore program earlier this year, Amazon has officially named Shopify as their new ecommerce platform.
According to Shopify’s blog post, “As Amazon’s preferred migration partner, we’ve worked closely with the Webstore team to make moving to Shopify simple. In a few steps, merchants can transfer their customer and product data – with zero downtime or service interruptions – and begin taking advantage of an extended 30-day free trial.”
Sellers Transition to Shopify
“Some companies might be panicking and for the most part transferring an ecommerce store over is a pain because there are so many pieces involved,” Tien Nguyen Director of Technology at CPC Strategy said.
“I’m sure there will be some issues, but both Amazon and Shopify are very advanced technologically, so they already have this figured out. Nothing is ever 100 percent, but the transition should be pretty seamless.”
It’s safe to say that Amazon Webstores, the ecommerce solution for small to medium size businesses wasn’t profiting as much as Amazon had hoped.
As seen in the notification email below, the program will officially be terminated on July, 1, 2016.
As for companies anticipating the transition, Nguyen recommends waiting until the beginning of Q1 to switch over to avoid any technical mishaps during the Q4 season.
“Shopify is definitely in the top three alongside ecommerce platform giants like Magento and Volusion. Additionally, Shopify is continuing to advance their services by taking on all the major social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram.”
According to the announcement, not only will sellers be able to easily migrate their customer and product data to Shopify, but they will also be able to utilize the following Amazon Services including:
Login and Pay with Amazon
Shopify merchants can now enable Login and Pay with Amazon, Amazon’s payment gateway in the US. By enabling Login and Pay with Amazon, Shopify store owners can simplify their checkout process for hundreds of millions of online shoppers.
Instead of manually entering their payment and shipping information (which can be a real pain on mobile), customers can now quickly checkout using the existing details in their Amazon account. Enable Login and Pay with Amazon from the payment settings in your Shopify admin.
Fulfillment by Amazon [FBA]
Shopify merchants can take advantage of Amazon’s fulfillment centres in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan to make it faster, easier and cheaper to ship their products around the world.
After receiving an order, Amazon will pick, pack, ship, and provide customer service for each delivery. Products stored in Amazon’s fulfillment centres also benefit from Amazon-exclusive perks like 1 or 2-day shipping for Prime members.
Shopify & Amazon to help sell on Amazon
The Amazon Sales Channel will soon be available to Shopify merchants. Once installed, merchants will be able to list and sell their products on Amazon directly from Shopify, opening the door to a bigger audience, and more sales, than ever before.
Just like other sales channels, any product, customer, and order data from Amazon will be synchronized with Shopify. We’ll have more news to share about the Amazon Sales Channel as we get closer to release.
To learn more about these new integration process or be among the first to try the Amazon Sales Channel, visit shopify.com/amazon or email [email protected]