Amazon Dropshipping vs Shopify Dropshipping: Which One is Better?

When it comes to selling products online, there are countless options available. You may choose to build your own elaborate online store, complete with a payment processor and subscription or membership options. Alternatively, you may decide to sell your own products through an existing marketplace or implement a dropshipping model to make things easier. Whatever the case, in today’s world of online shopping, two names stand out above all the rest: Amazon and Shopify, both of which offer excellent opportunities for creating a dropshipping online store.

At Doba, we are dedicated to providing high-quality dropshipping suppliers and products to help you build a successful online business. In this article, we are going to take a look at whether you should choose Amazon or Shopify for your dropshipping store.

What is Dropshipping?

Before diving into the intricacies of dropshipping with Amazon or Shopify, let’s take a step back and review what dropshipping is. In this retail fulfillment method, merchants forego inventory warehousing and instead purchase products from third-party suppliers as customers place orders. Then, these products are shipped directly to the customer, and the retailer doesn’t have to deal with the shipping and packaging hassles himself.

This way, the merchant doesn’t have to handle the products directly, creating an efficient hands-off process. Just imagine: you don’t have to order inventory in bulk, stock products, or physically fulfill the orders in any way. And, with a reliable dropship website like Doba, you can add dropshipping products directly to your store and sync orders to the suppliers to fulfill even more efficiently.

Dropshipping with Amazon vs. Shopify: Full Comparison

If you decide to try out the dropshipping model, you may be faced with a difficult decision of which platform to choose for dropshipping: Amazon or Shopify. The main challenge for any dropshipping business is to get great visibility of the products, and these two eCommerce giants offer fundamentally different strategies for doing so.

Using Amazon for eCommerce Dropshipping

Amazon presents one of the biggest eCommerce websites in existence today. The platform has grown in popularity largely because it allows merchants to sell their products directly on the existing marketplace and use Amazon as an additional sales channel to their own online stores. To start selling on Amazon, all you need to do is register a seller account, get it approved, and list your products. Just remember that not all products and brands get approved.

How to Start Dropshipping on Amazon?

If you decide to dropship on Amazon, you can do it through their FBA, or Fulfilled by Amazon, program. With this program, you will be able to ship your products to Amazon’s warehouse, where they carry the inventory and ship the products right to your customers when the order is placed. One of the major benefits of this program is the fact that Amazon has some of the fastest shipping times on the market, so your customers will receive their products even sooner.

Benefits of Dropshipping with Amazon

Without a doubt, Amazon offers a convenient way to quickly start an eCommerce business. If you aren’t sure whether to do dropshipping with Amazon or Shopify, consider these benefits of using Amazon for the task:

1. Zero Warehouse Cost

One of the main benefits of running an Amazon dropshipping business is the fact that you don’t need to pay warehouse costs. If you choose to participate in the FBA program, you can ship your products to Amazon, and the company will send these products out for you at no additional cost.

2. Large Audience

As of 2021, Amazon has 300 million active users. This means that using Amazon as a sales channel for your products has the potential to bring huge revenue to your business. All you need to do is sell the right products at the right price, and you will surely lure in new customers.

One great way to find high-quality products to dropship with Amazon is Doba. As such, you will be able to find the products you need at competitive prices and low ship costs to sync your inventory and orders directly with the Amazon store.

3. Multiple Categories to Target

Amazon breaks down its products into over 30 categories that you can choose to target. For example, you may decide to sell in two, five, ten, or as many niches as you wish. With high-quality products and trustworthy suppliers, there is no limit to the number of niches and categories you can cater to.

4. Amazon Suppliers

Amazon purchases products in bulk from numerous suppliers and then holds them in their warehouses, ready to be shipped to customers. The company also handles returns and offers customer service in a variety of languages for all Amazon suppliers.

As such, with the help of Amazon, even small suppliers can expand quickly and operate globally. In addition, Amazon suppliers get support from account managers who help to strategically guide their business to grow profits in the long-run.

Important Considerations

While Amazon does have an excellent reputation and a large devoted audience, it is already a highly-saturated platform. This means that you would have to deal with significant competition and undercutting by the competing merchants. In addition, you would have to pay a commission on every sale you make, and these costs could eat into your profits quite dramatically.

Using Shopify for eCommerce Dropshipping

Shopify is another leading eCommerce platform that allows entrepreneurs to open their online store without advanced technical expertise. Because of its user-friendliness, simplicity, and an array of attractive design features, Shopify presents an excellent way to build a premium webstore for those looking to launch an online business with very little technical skill.

How to Start Dropshipping on Shopify?

To dropship with Shopify, you need to start by building and launching your eCommerce website, which will allow you to manage products and process payments. Luckily, Shopify offers all the necessary tools, ranging from logo design to domain name suggestions, that will allow you to customize the look and feel of your store.

Then, you can use a dedicated website like Doba to find trusted dropshipping suppliers and products and easily upload or sync products with your new website. When making a purchase, your customers will receive products directly from the supplier, so you won’t have to deal with warehousing or shipping.

Benefits of Dropshipping with Shopify

Shopify offers an easy solution for those looking to build their own, independent online store, with all the necessary functionality already in place:

1. No Technical Skills Required

Shopify presents a SaaS, or Software as a Service, solution that is hosted in the cloud and maintained by Shopify's own software development team. This means that you don’t need to constantly watch out for updates and can focus on the store itself, - all you need to do is pay a regular monthly subscription fee.

Shopify is ideal for individual entrepreneurs and small companies who want to start their dropshipping business quickly, without having to develop an eCommerce website from scratch.

2. Excellent SEO Capabilities

What’s the point of building an online store if nobody can find it on the Internet? Luckily, Shopify does an excellent job at optimizing for search engine visibility. The platform offers an array of useful SEO functions like keywords, customizable titles, meta-tags, alt text, and much more.

In addition, Shopify allows for integration with the most popular media channels like Facebook. With all these SEO tricks, you have all the chances of getting your dropshipping store highly visible on Google.

3. Numerous Payment Options to Choose From

When it comes to payment gateways, Shopify is the real champion, offering over 100 options to choose from! As such, customers have options to pay with numerous third-party providers, like Skrill or Amazon Pay, or can even use Shopify Payments, the company’s own gateway. In addition, you can sell your goods in different currencies, depending on the customer’s geographic location.

4. Easy Shipping Options Adjustment

One of the most important aspects of a successful dropshipping store is the ability to set different shipping rates, depending on the value and weight of goods, delivery time, and customers’ locations. Luckily, Shopify offers easy ways to adjust for different shipping options and even supports world’s leading shipping companies like UPS and DHL. So, if you want to order products from a manufacturer but want to choose your own courier service, you can do that with Shopify!

Important Considerations

While Shopify, undoubtedly, offers an easy way to create your own online store, keep in mind that there is still a lot of marketing work involved once the store is live. Your Shopify store won’t instantly have the reputation that Amazon has, so you would need to put significant efforts to promote your brand and start making sales.

Should You Dropship with Amazon or Shopify: The Final Word

Without a doubt, dropshipping with either Amazon or Shopify presents an effective business model with a high potential for success. While Amazon offers a quick way to get started and leverage the company’s great reputation and already large audience, Shopify enables you to create a customized independent eCommerce store and build your own unique brand.

The good news is that you don’t have to choose one over the other. Both Amazon and Shopify offer certain things which the other does not, so you can take advantage of the two platforms by integrating Amazon into your Shopify store.

To complete the success formula, sync your store directly with Doba to list and sell products without ever having to buy inventory upfront or deal with packaging and shipping. Start a free trial today.