Your Shopify store is doing fine, and someone keeps telling you to “get on Amazon.” Maybe a competitor already is, or a customer asked if they could buy you there.
It’s a fair question, but it’s not a yes for every brand. Amazon can open up a lot of new customers. It can also eat your margin and pull attention away from the store you’ve built.
This post helps you decide, and if the answer is yes, how to launch without the usual regrets.
What changes when you sell on a marketplace
On Shopify, you own the customer. You get their email, you control the page, and you decide how the brand looks.
On Amazon, you’re a guest in someone else’s shop. Amazon owns the customer relationship, sets most of the rules, and shows your competitors right next to your listing.
In return, you get access to people who are already searching with their wallet out. Plenty of people skip Google and go straight to Amazon when they’re ready to buy.
So the trade is simple to describe. Reach in exchange for control and margin. Whether it’s worth it depends on your product.
Check whether your product fits
Some products do well on marketplaces. Others struggle. Ask yourself these questions:
- Do people search for it by name or type? “Bamboo cutting board” gets searched. A product nobody knows they need yet is harder to sell on Amazon.
- Can it survive the fees? After referral fees, fulfilment, advertising and returns, is there still a profit? Do the maths before anything else.
- Is it easy to ship? Heavy or fragile products cost more to store and send.
- Can you stand out? If ten other sellers offer a near-identical product at a lower price, you’ll be competing on price alone.
- Can you keep it in stock? Running out of stock on Amazon can hurt your ranking, and climbing back takes time.
If you answer no to two or more of these, it might be better to grow your own store first.
Work out the real costs
Founders usually underestimate this part. Here’s what to include in your sums:
- Referral fees. Amazon takes a percentage of each sale, and the rate depends on the category. Check the current fee table for yours.
- Fulfilment. If you use Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA), you pay to pick, pack and ship each order, plus monthly storage.
- Advertising. Most new listings need sponsored ads to get seen at first. Budget for it from day one.
- Returns. Return rates on marketplaces can be higher than on your own store, depending on the category.
- Your time. Someone has to look after listings and account health every week.
Put all of this into a simple spreadsheet per product. If the margin left over is too thin, either the price needs to go up or the product isn’t a good fit for Amazon.
Build listings that actually sell
A marketplace listing is closer to a search result than a product page. People compare quickly and move on.
What makes a strong listing:
- A clear title. Brand, product type, key feature, size or quantity. Write it for a person first, then check it includes the words people search for.
- Images that answer questions. Main image on white, as Amazon requires. Then lifestyle shots, size comparisons, close-ups and an image that explains what’s in the box.
- Bullet points that sell benefits. Lead each one with what it does for the customer, then back it up with the feature.
- Brand content. If you’re enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, you can add richer content and a brand store. Worth doing.
- Reviews, earned the right way. Amazon has strict rules about reviews. Never offer anything in exchange for one.
Think beyond Amazon
Amazon gets the attention, but it isn’t the only option. Each marketplace has its own audience:
- Walmart Marketplace reaches a large US audience and can be less crowded in some categories.
- eBay still works well for certain products, including refurbished and collectible items.
- Etsy suits handmade, vintage and personalised products.
- TikTok Shop lets people buy straight from videos, which works for products that look good on camera.
You don’t need to be everywhere. Pick the one or two that match your product and customer, get them working, then decide on the next.
Common mistakes
- Listing the whole catalogue at once. Start with your best sellers. Learn how the platform works with a few products before adding more.
- Different prices everywhere. Pricing much lower on Amazon than on your own site trains customers to skip your store. Keep pricing consistent where you can.
- No ad budget. A new listing with no reviews and no ads can sit unseen for months.
- Ignoring account health. Late shipments, cancellations and policy warnings can get a listing suppressed. Check your account health page often.
- Treating it as a side project. A marketplace needs regular attention. If nobody owns it, it slowly stops working.
- Copying your Shopify page word for word. Marketplace shoppers scan differently. Rewrite for the platform.
How Kreso handles marketplaces
Marketplaces is one of our revenue-share services. We work on Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Etsy and TikTok Shop, covering listings, optimisation, ads and account management.
Because we’re paid from the growth we create, we don’t push you onto every platform for the sake of it. If a marketplace won’t make you money after fees, we’d rather tell you that early.
We also look at how marketplace sales affect the rest of the business. Marketplace ads sit close to your wider paid advertising, and the search work that helps a listing rank has a lot in common with SEO for your own store.
Decide with numbers, not pressure
Selling on Amazon isn’t automatically the next step. It’s a channel with its own costs and rules, and it suits some products far better than others.
Start by checking fit and doing the maths for your top three products. If the numbers work, launch with one or two of them, give the listings proper images and some ad budget, and learn before you expand.
If you’d like a second opinion on whether your products would work on a marketplace, we’re happy to look. Book a free strategy call and we’ll talk it through.
