Maximize Your Shopify Operations: How to Integrate Amazon With Your Shopify Store

Successful eCommerce operations require an omnichannel approach. Rather than simply offering products on your own website, you can benefit from reaching your customers where they are—which, almost by necessity, includes selling on Amazon. A quick look at the statistics shows just why combining Shopify and Amazon makes so much sense. While the former owns more than a quarter of the eCommerce market within the United States, U.S.-based sellers sold more than 4.1 billion products through the latter in 2022. Even (or especially) if you are already running a successful Shopify operation, understanding how to integrate Amazon can take your business to the next level.

But there’s a catch. Amazon and Shopify are natural competitors, which is why Shopify removed its Amazon integration in 2021. That has made selling on Amazon more difficult for Shopify operators. But “difficult” is far from “impossible,” and combining Shopify and Amazon is still possible. Here’s what you need to know.

The Benefits of Integration for Your Amazon and Shopify Stores

Make no mistake: Amazon is a valuable supplement to any Shopify store. The clearest benefits of the right approach to integration include:

• Meeting your customers where they are. Amazon is the largest online marketplace in the world, and second place isn’t even close. Expanding your offering there helps to meet your customers where they tend to start looking for products.
• Leveraging increased data for optimization. Amazon’s extensive product and brand analytics provide deep insights into your customers that help you optimize your eCommerce operations.
• Building a more consistent eCommerce experience. Integrating Shopify and Amazon creates a better experience for customers who might toggle between your direct store and Amazon products.
• Decreasing inventory costs. The right app enables you to dynamically manage your stock and inventory between both sales channels, creating efficiencies in your inventory that result in reduced costs.

Add it all up, and combining your Amazon and Shopify efforts has the potential to drastically impact your sales. Increased exposure, advanced data, and decreased costs all make a strong case that integrating Amazon into your Shopify operations should be a priority.

Potential Drawbacks When Considering How to Integrate Amazon

Of course, simply knowing how to integrate Amazon with your Shopify store is not a magical solution that automatically leads to business growth. It does come with some drawbacks that are important to consider as you look to build your omnichannel eCommerce presence:

• Lower net revenue per item. Amazon charges platform fees for any products listed on its marketplace, which will eat into your revenue.
• Some tracking blind spots. Because your user journey to buying the product is no longer linear, and not all of it happens on your website, you may no longer be able to track conversions from individual marketing channels as cleanly.
• More complex catalog management. Products have to live on both Amazon and Shopify, making your catalog more difficult to manage should elements like price or product description change.

None of these should automatically result in shying away from your Shopify and Amazon integration. However, they point to the fact that finding the right way to build that integration is just as important as simply knowing how to integrate Amazon into your operations.

How to Integrate Amazon Links on Your Shopify Website

The simplest way to integrate Amazon with your Shopify store is to align your website for customers who prefer to buy a product they’re researching online. The potential reasons for that choice are plentiful, from Amazon’s free shipping options to increased payment options and simple familiarity with the marketplace.

You can start by adding a “Buy on Amazon” button to your website. This will push traffic directly to your Amazon store. Ideally, that button will live directly on the product page and link directly to the same product on Amazon.

Of course, you can also build more general promotions for your Amazon store on Shopify. Site billboards, homepage heroes, navigational items, and footer listings are all opportunities for selling on Amazon directly from your Shopify site. It’s important to note, though, that building these website connections is just the start.

The Next Level: Advanced Amazon Integrations With Your Shopify Store

Ideally, integrating Amazon and Shopify is about more than just interlinking your two stores. Instead, you need to build consistency in your product catalog and use a system that streamlines the entire process on the backend. Despite Shopify shutting down that direct integration in 2021, this level of integration is still possible.

First, and especially if you don’t already successfully sell products on Amazon, you’ll need to meet a few criteria:

• A Shopify store that is registered in the United States
• A Professional Seller account on Amazon
• Product and category approvals for any product you want to sell on Amazon
• Matching currencies on your Amazon and Shopify stores

Consider the Right Apps

Next, look in the Shopify App Store for apps that dynamically build an Amazon integration for your online store. Some of the most popular options include:

• Amazon Integration Plus, which allows you to import products from your Shopify catalog to Amazon. You can also map SKUs and even create a professional seller account on Amazon if you don’t have one already.
• CedCommerce Amazon Channel, which helps you manage, sync, and inventory your products in a single place. It also integrates with Amazon’s marketing services and includes an AI tool to generate product descriptions for both platforms.
• M2E Cloud Sales Channels, which adds not just Amazon but also other popular online marketplaces like Walmart and eBay to your Shopify product catalog management.

In addition to these more comprehensive tools, you can also find other Shopify apps that integrate individual Amazon features. For example, Buy With Prime adds a one-click Amazon buy button to any website. Also, Reputon Amazon Reviews allows you to show Amazon reviews on your Shopify pages. For more efficient operations, Amazon Importer makes it easy to create a new Shopify catalog if you’re already selling products on Amazon.

Ultimately, knowing how to integrate Amazon into your eCommerce mix can be a massive game changer. But you only get those benefits when you know how to implement it the right way. That’s where we come in, with the advanced expertise you need to maximize your online store revenue. Start a conversation about how we can work together to bring your business forward.