Shopify vs. Amazon: Why DTC is Usually Best
Most companies have multiple ways to sell their products online. For many businesses, getting their products and brands on Amazon is seen as the holy grail due to the huge audience of buyers Amazon commands. But in terms of building followers and the reputation of your company, brands, and products, it may be better to take a different route and build a direct-to-consumer (DTC) website for selling using Shopify, for the reasons we’ll explore below.
Building a Brand
One of the advantages of building your own DTC site with Shopify is that you can easily create an email list of your customers — and even your non-customers (people who visit your site but don’t immediately buy anything). Having this data is invaluable because you’ll be able to launch email campaigns in the future and send your messages and offers directly to the inboxes of people who have already bought your products, or those who have indicated interest in them. In essence, you “own” these customers and prospects, whereas with Amazon, Amazon owns them.
Another ability you have with your own DTC Shopify website is to add social media followers. These people will follow your company or brands on social media, allowing you to connect with and update them on a daily basis. It’s a breeze to add social media links to your DTC Shopify site and/or company or brand site, whereas with Amazon, you’re unable to do so.
If people are searching for your products, brands, or company using a search engine like Google, do you want them to find and be taken to Amazon pages? If the end result allows Amazon to then “own” that customer and their sales (with your company possibly receiving a smaller profit margin) instead of your company being able to sell directly to them itself, the answer is likely no. Thus, if you have a DTC Shopify website, it’s important to make sure it ranks highly — preferably above Amazon — for organic keywords that are associated with your company, brands, and products.
Simply stated, it’s much easier to build your brand using a DTC Shopify website, for several reasons. First, you have complete control over your content; there are no constraints like those imposed by Amazon on content length, style, or format. You can present and promote your brand in any way that you desire; your Shopify site can have as many or as few pages as you like. You can have pages that are purely informational rather than pages that only sell. You can have multiple or full-screen videos. But best of all, your Shopify site won’t contain pages selling or promoting the products and brands of your competitors.
As opposed to your own DTC Shopify website, Amazon has complete control over your company’s presence on its site. It can delete your products and pages from its website at any time, for any reason. If, for instance, you have products that you don’t manufacture yourself or control the distribution of, and they happen to be extremely popular and profitable on Amazon, there’s nothing to stop Amazon from selling them (or selling competing products) itself. Remember that sales numbers on Amazon automatically influence how and how often different items are promoted on its site. At the end of the day, this is likely to be the single most important reason to prioritize selling via a DTC website versus on Amazon.
As you can see, there’s a host of reasons why you should value selling on a DTC Shopify website over Amazon, even if Amazon does have a massive customer base.
Renaissance Digital Marketing can help you build a Shopify website to sell your products directly to consumers, promote your company and brand, and build invaluable email lists and social media followings. Get in touch with Renaissance today to talk about the services we can offer you.