Is Selling on Amazon Worth It? Everything You Need to Know
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2024 7:03 am
There is a small second-hand and antique bookshop in Scotland with the unimaginative name of uk phone number list The Book Shop . No one outside of his local area would frequent it if the owner, Shaun Bythell, hadn’t decided to take the plunge into Amazon (and then write a book). He didn’t make a change or open offshore accounts, but today he reaches customers all over Europe and beyond, thanks in part to Amazon, something he couldn’t have done from his small village in the south of Scotland.
Shaun took advantage of Amazon’s greatest advantage: the ability to quickly gain exposure and increase sales, even outside the narrow confines of a small, local business.
In fact, being one of the most visited and used e-commerce sites in the world, Amazon, if used wisely, can become one of the best strategies for positioning yourself on the market and creating healthy competition within your sector. But to understand if it is really worth selling on Amazon - and to whom - it is necessary to understand how it works.
Why Sell on Amazon
Let's dispel a myth right away: Amazon is not as bad and evil as many people make it out to be and it is not the cause of the failure of small local businesses. In many cases, Amazon is an important partner for large and small businesses, important brands and small shops . On the other hand, the numbers speak for themselves:
200 million Prime users worldwide;
$14 billion in profits and nearly $150 billion in revenue despite 2022 being a difficult year for Bezos too;
Amazon is the second most used search engine in the world after Google shopping;
47% of all users who buy online do so on Amazon;
Amazon is a marketplace that people who shop online trust and provides exclusive services such as Prime (one-day shipping), Free Returns, 24/7 Customer Service
It is highly likely that your typical customer knows and buys on the platform. Are these sufficient reasons to decide to open a virtual store on Amazon ?
FIND OUT IF OPENING A STORE ON AMAZON IS ALSO BENEFICIAL FOR YOUR BUSINESS. ASK US FOR A CONSULTATION!
The Benefits of Opening a Store on Amazon
Using Amazon as an intermediary between seller and buyer represents an interesting opportunity to support or expand your business. The advantages of being able to insert your products in the largest and undoubtedly most used marketplace in the world are quickly said:
you have low costs compared to opening a proprietary e-commerce. You do not have to sustain costs for creating the site and directing traffic to it instead of competitors;
you can be found by millions of people who visit Amazon and therefore you are visible to millions of potential customers every day;
you can easily expand your business abroad with a single account;
you can choose to rely on Amazon logistics for the shipment of your products.
The Disadvantages of Opening and Running a Store on Amazon
Obviously you have to take into account some important aspects, weighing the pros and cons.
You have costs, although lower than creating and managing a proprietary site. Remember that to be more visible than your other competitors you also need to think about a sponsorship strategy;
It's not your home and you have limited freedom: you have to respect Amazon's rules and internal dynamics. If you don't respect the marketplace rules you could be penalized - and your competitors could gain visibility;
You risk being a fish like many others in a sea crowded with fish that are all the same. If you know the platform, you know that the seller is not given much importance as the product. This leads people to buy not based on their values or preference for a brand, but because they know they have a lot of choice.
Sponsorship activities you can do on social media or through a landing page will drive traffic to Amazon and not to your site.
You will need to have an order management and synchronization system in place to avoid errors.
Shaun took advantage of Amazon’s greatest advantage: the ability to quickly gain exposure and increase sales, even outside the narrow confines of a small, local business.
In fact, being one of the most visited and used e-commerce sites in the world, Amazon, if used wisely, can become one of the best strategies for positioning yourself on the market and creating healthy competition within your sector. But to understand if it is really worth selling on Amazon - and to whom - it is necessary to understand how it works.
Why Sell on Amazon
Let's dispel a myth right away: Amazon is not as bad and evil as many people make it out to be and it is not the cause of the failure of small local businesses. In many cases, Amazon is an important partner for large and small businesses, important brands and small shops . On the other hand, the numbers speak for themselves:
200 million Prime users worldwide;
$14 billion in profits and nearly $150 billion in revenue despite 2022 being a difficult year for Bezos too;
Amazon is the second most used search engine in the world after Google shopping;
47% of all users who buy online do so on Amazon;
Amazon is a marketplace that people who shop online trust and provides exclusive services such as Prime (one-day shipping), Free Returns, 24/7 Customer Service
It is highly likely that your typical customer knows and buys on the platform. Are these sufficient reasons to decide to open a virtual store on Amazon ?
FIND OUT IF OPENING A STORE ON AMAZON IS ALSO BENEFICIAL FOR YOUR BUSINESS. ASK US FOR A CONSULTATION!
The Benefits of Opening a Store on Amazon
Using Amazon as an intermediary between seller and buyer represents an interesting opportunity to support or expand your business. The advantages of being able to insert your products in the largest and undoubtedly most used marketplace in the world are quickly said:
you have low costs compared to opening a proprietary e-commerce. You do not have to sustain costs for creating the site and directing traffic to it instead of competitors;
you can be found by millions of people who visit Amazon and therefore you are visible to millions of potential customers every day;
you can easily expand your business abroad with a single account;
you can choose to rely on Amazon logistics for the shipment of your products.
The Disadvantages of Opening and Running a Store on Amazon
Obviously you have to take into account some important aspects, weighing the pros and cons.
You have costs, although lower than creating and managing a proprietary site. Remember that to be more visible than your other competitors you also need to think about a sponsorship strategy;
It's not your home and you have limited freedom: you have to respect Amazon's rules and internal dynamics. If you don't respect the marketplace rules you could be penalized - and your competitors could gain visibility;
You risk being a fish like many others in a sea crowded with fish that are all the same. If you know the platform, you know that the seller is not given much importance as the product. This leads people to buy not based on their values or preference for a brand, but because they know they have a lot of choice.
Sponsorship activities you can do on social media or through a landing page will drive traffic to Amazon and not to your site.
You will need to have an order management and synchronization system in place to avoid errors.