Shopify vs Amazon - Which E-commerce Platform is Best?

If you’re looking to get started with e-commerce, you’re probably wondering which ecommerce platform is the best for your business. This is no easy choice with so many options to consider.

Shopify and Amazon are both excellent ecommerce platforms but cater to different types of ecommerce tools and businesses while having fundamental differences.

Shopify is all about D2C marketing and creating a unique store that can sell on multiple channels. In contrast, Amazon is a giant marketplace that’s full of visitors and competitors where you are one of many.

Amazon allows you to be more hands-off by streamlining the marketing and promotion of your brand on its platform for a fee.

Whereas Shopify allows you to optimize every step of the buyer’s journey for maximum conversions. However, you are responsible for driving traffic on your own.

In this article, we’ll compare the two based on how easy they are to use, how much they cost, how much you can customize them, and more. So let’s dive in.

In this section, we’ll compare Shopify and Amazon directly, so online merchants can understand each platform’s advantages and disadvantages.

The big differences between Amazon and Shopify mean that certain brands are better suited for each platform.

Examples include fashion brands, skincare brands, luxury and boutique brands, as well as dropshipping businesses looking to build and promote their own ecommerce business.

Online sellers, including businesses that sell basic commodities like accessories, consumer electronics, cleaning supplies, and more, find Amazon to be an ideal platform.

However, Amazon is a bit easier to start selling with, as you don’t need to set up a store. Instead, you just set up an account, upload your products, sell them, ship them, and get paid.

However, some products are gated and require special approval to sell.

Moreover, if you use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), they’ll also take care of your order fulfillment and shipment, albeit for a serious extra cost.

Yet, Amazon can feel limiting, since it takes control of how you present your listings, which makes it harder to attract customers.

While Shopify is a bit more complicated, it brings a lot more options to the table.

By creating a store and customizing how it looks, feels, and interacts with your customers, you can take total control of the shopping experience and maximize your conversions.

Shopify’s features also support your e-commerce operations and like Amazon, can be outsourced and automated, thanks to its network of fulfillment and shipping partners and integrations.

Amazon and Shopify both offer flexible pricing plans and their Starter plans are very affordable. Shopify’s more advanced plans have a higher monthly subscription cost, but Amazon is costlier per order, especially if you use Amazon’s FBA.

A big caveat for Amazon pricing is whether you use their service Fulfillment by Amazon, which takes care of inventory storage, fulfillment, and shipment for a cost.

There are also other fees on Amazon for rentals, refunds, and high-volume listings, so you can check out Amazon’s pricing page.

Apart from that, Amazon has two selling plans, the Individual and the Professional.

The individual plan allows you to get started with zero upfront costs. You only pay $0.99 per item as you sell it, which means that you pay as you earn.

The individual plan is great for testing Amazon out and if you’re expecting less than 40 sales per month.

The Professional plan comes at a higher price point but doesn’t have a per-item sales fee, which is great if you want to push a high volume of orders.

Moreover, the Professional plan comes packed with exclusive features that make your life as a merchant easier.

However, there is an extra transaction fee when you aren’t using Shopify Payments but a third-party payment processor instead.

All of the percentages are based on the total value of your order.

Here are Shopify’s paid plans at a glance:

If you aren’t sure whether Shopify is right for you, you can take advantage of its free three-day trial and then pay just $1 for your first three months.

Keep in mind that the Shopify Starter plan is rather limited in its functionalities and you’ll need at least the Basic Shopify plan if you want to set up a fully functional store.

Another caveat you need to know about Shopify’s costs is its transaction fees.

Transaction fee when using Shopify Payments

Each sale you make on your store will be subject to a card processing fee, which varies with your Shopify plan. Keep in mind that card processing fees are the norm in commerce worldwide, but are seldom mentioned.

Another cost you might face is Shopify’s extra transaction fee if you use a different payment provider other than its in-house solution Shopify Payments.

Read more about Shopify Pricing and Fees in 2024.

Overall, Shopify’s monthly plans are somewhat pricier than Amazon’s but pack much more tools and features.

Moreover, it’s unclear whether you’ll pay more to Shopify per transaction or to Amazon if you use its FBA.

Read more about Shopify product pages here.

With Shopify, you get an arsenal of tools to customize how your store looks and feels, and how your products are presented in a way that maximizes your conversions.

In Shopify, you get over 140 themes to choose from that come with their own colors, fonts, functionalities, and design options.

Moreover, you have the ability to create your own custom theme and tailor it to your business goals and brand identity.

Amazon retains control of how your products are presented, which is the same as everyone else’s.

All Amazon pages share the same layout and push Amazon’s branding instead of your own.

It’s important to know that with Amazon, you can build a brand storefront, which won’t be a standalone online store, but limited by Amazon’s templates.

However, you can extend your content’s functionalities by using A + content by Amazon.

Amazon’s A+ Content feature allows sellers to enrich their product detail pages with rich text, imagery, HD videos, and other engaging elements that enhance the customer experience.

Additionally, A+ Content includes a dedicated Brand Story section, allowing sellers to share their stories and foster customer loyalty and trust.

However, in order to build a storefront in Amazon and use Amazon A+ Content you must be a registered seller in its brand registry.

Shopify has a definite edge over Amazon when it comes to sales and marketing features.

It gives you all the tools you need to manage and customize your sales and marketing processes.

Moreover, these functionalities can be further extended by leveraging Shopify’s ecosystem of over 8,000 free and paid apps.

Amazon also gives you a variety of ways to list and sell your products.

Through Amazon’s Seller Central App, all Amazon sellers can enhance their product images, create coupons and promos, receive product reviews, and more.

These apps help you add custom functionalities to your website, like checkout experiences, dynamic promos for cross-sells and upsells, gift cards, and almost anything else you can think of that aids e-commerce business.

In comparison, Amazon does not integrate any third-party apps or add-ons that its sellers can use.

The functionalities that you get out of the box are always the same as those of everyone else unless you use A+ content or A+ content premium.

Moreover, they have an in-house payment processor solution called Shopify Payments, which is free of transaction fees.

However, if you use a different payment processor, you’ll have to pay between 2% and 0.5%, depending on your Shopify Plan.

As mentioned above, all transactions on Shopify are also subject to a card-processing fee which is different in person and online and becomes more favorable, the more advanced your plan is.

These card-processing fees are also featured on Amazon.

‘Professional Sellers’ on Amazon have to pay a monthly subscription and selling fees on top of it.

These vary by product category and consist of referral fees and shipping fees.

If you use FBA there is also a fulfillment fee per unit sold, as well as a storage fee.

These prices are dependent on size, weight, volume, type of product, and even seasonality.

For more accurate info, check out Amazon’s pricing page.

However, Amazon’s FBA is definitely the more comfortable solution as it takes care of storage, packing, shipping, customer service, and returns for sellers.

It’s an all-in-one solution that saves you all the hassle and enables you to sell internationally.

Moreover, if you use FBA, your products will be eligible for Amazon Prime, which comes with free priority shipping.

Shopify allows you to integrate a range of shipping carriers into your store. Moreover, some of them have discounted rates for Shopify users. You also get more flexibility for packaging, branding, and shipping with Shopify. 

You can further extend your store’s functionality with third-party Apps for shipping and logistics, giving you total control over your fulfillment and shipments. 

However, if you wish to delegate shipping and fulfillment, Shopify also offers a complete solution where they take care of everything after you make the sale. For more information, check out the Shopify Fulfillment Network.

Amazon and Shopify both offer different marketing options. While Amazon takes care of most of the branding and promotion of your products, you can still do paid ads (PPC). However, you owe bigger fees for your orders because of Amazon’s added utility.

Moreover, Shopify has built-in various features for tracking user behavior and campaign results.

Although it might be more difficult to configure at the start, marketing on Shopify is more rewarding, because you own every aspect of it.

Shopify and Amazon present different SEO opportunities.

A huge amount of product searches is done through Amazon.

As such, queries on Amazon are much more transactional and commercially oriented than on Google, which is a great advantage.

While Amazon is more limited with regards to customizing your SEO elements, it still makes your products visible to a huge audience.

In Shopify, you can tweak your e-commerce website to follow best SEO practices with few limitations, but getting the same amount of eyeballs will be harder.

Amazon’s seller support is rather hands-off and prefers that you solve your problems through forums and video tutorials, but you can also request a call from them.

Customer support has never been something that Amazon has promoted in its value proposition.

By contrast, stellar customer support is one of Shopify’s cornerstones.

The platforms of Amazon and Shopify are vastly different in their purpose, the former being a global online marketplace itself, while the latter is a specialized e-commerce solution for integrating online and offline sales across all channels.

While they can go toe-to-toe in a variety of aspects, there’s no reason why you should limit yourself to just one of them.

Moreover, you can check one of our case studies to see what can Amazon and Shopify do combined for you.

You can stick to either Shopify or Amazon when starting out, but with the right strategy, you can leverage both.

Generally, Shopify is better for brands that rely on differentiation, while Amazon is better for practical brands that don’t require advanced marketing.

If you have to choose one, you should decide whether you value the flexibility and customizability of Shopify, or do you want a more robust ‘set it and forget it’ solution such as Amazon?

If you're wondering if you can migrate to Shopify for a more flexible e-commerce experience, read more about our Migration to Shopify process.

See also: Best 5 Shopify Loyalty & Rewards Apps and Shopify vs. Magento comparison