In the hustle and bustle of online shopping, Amazon remains the eCommerce giant. The question remains for your brand, “Should we branch out onto Amazon?”. Although Amazon is great for creating an omnichannel strategy for selling, upgrading current selling tactics, and reaching a broader audience, we wanted to inform brand owners of the pros and cons of the widely-known platform before taking the big leap.
The Pros and Cons of Selling on Amazon:
PRO OF SELLING ON AMAZON: PRE-DEVELOPED PLATFORM
- The Pros and Cons of Selling on Amazon: Amazon has over 150 Million active prime members while containing another 150 Million non-prime members. In Amazon’s lifetime, over 90% of Americans have shopped at least once on the platform. Why is this beneficial for sellers? The pre-developed platform allows easy searchability for your products when utilizing keywords.
PRO OF SELLING ON AMAZON: BRAND TRUST
- Amazon has loyal customers, meaning most brand trust establishment has been paved for you. Although product trust from individual sellers is still relevant, Amazon has established a connection with its customer base on needs and services for its platform to be a preferred place for buying.
PRO OF SELLING ON AMAZON: PLUG-AND-PLAY
- No need for heavy coding when listing items, Amazon’s s platform makes listing products easy with text-fillable categories laid out and displayed. All their listings are easy to understand for any seller to fill out quickly.
CON OF SELLING ON AMAZON: OVERSATURATION
- While the platform is built with tons of traffic, meaning there is heavy competition for sellers. Oversaturation is hard to overcome for many brands in their markets when relying on search engines or platforms. But Amazon is concentrated and easy to get lost in the noise. The traffic for Amazon could be either beneficial or a setback.
CON OF SELLING ON AMAZON: LIMITATIONS
- There are strict rules and limitations when selling on Amazon that make listing certain categories complex. When listing items through the platform, your brand is also under Amazon’s mercy whether or not to keep your product listed or take your seller privileges away. Although not always the case, Amazon has been partial or unfair to sellers over consumers.
CON OF SELLING ON AMAZON: LACK OF CUSTOMER DATA
- The lack of data has long been a sore subject for Amazon sellers. For any third-party seller on Amazon, customer information is a black box. When a brand converts a sale on its own website, they have access to the demographics and email addresses of its shoppers. Yet for years, Amazon has only offered sellers a customer’s username and street address. The rest of the information that Amazon amasses, Amazon keeps to itself.
WEIGH THE PROS AND CONS OUT
Amazon is a great place to branch out your products but utilized as a multi-channel approach instead of a sole reliance. When the eCommerce industry peers pressure sellers into the Amazon way of selling, take a moment to review our pros and cons before selling on the platform. Amazon is great for businesses big and small, but what matters is Amazon great for your products?
If you are still conflicted about making the decision, Say Hello to our team today for further advice on Amazon selling.
