Amazon Shopify Integration Made Easy: Synch Inventory & Streamline Listings

Shopify and Amazon are two of the biggest and most popular platforms for ecommerce today. While they could be considered competitors, the unique benefits of each mean you can definitely utilize both for your business.

There’s no need to choose just one – there are clear advantages to setting up an integration between Amazon and Shopify and operating multiple sales channels. If you’re only selling on one channel at this time, it doesn’t take too much to expand and launch on the other.

This article will look at how to expand to Amazon or Shopify, and the best ways to set up an Amazon Shopify integration.

Why Should You Start Selling on Shopify?

Selling on Amazon is great, but it’s risky. If it’s your only sales channel, you’re putting all your eggs in one basket. A basket that can easily disappear if you get suspended, new competition pops up, or for some other reason lose visibility.

As well as providing a safety net should things go wrong, adding another sales channel means more potential customers.

As of October 2019, there were more than 1 million merchants selling on Shopify. That’s because it’s the simplest way for someone to launch an online store, that they control. 

There are more ways to build an ecommerce or dropshipping site, like Magento or WooCommerce, but there’s more of a learning curve than with Shopify.

Marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and Walmart are easier to get set up and start selling. But you don’t have the same control over your store and your audience.

I wouldn’t advocate choosing Shopify instead of Amazon. Amazon’s customer base and name recognition are too valuable. But, as your business scales, it makes sense to add more sales channels and start reaping the benefits of both Amazon and Shopify.

How to Sell Your Amazon Products on Shopify

Launching on Shopify from Amazon is not too big an undertaking, thankfully. You’ve done the hard part of sourcing and getting stock you can sell for decent margins. What’s left is to set up your store, decide how you’re going to fulfill orders, and how you’re going to get more traffic.

To start with, there are a couple of options for how you can store and ship orders on your Shopify site: using Amazon’s fulfillment network or setting up your own.

Method One: Sell With Amazon FBA

If you’re already selling with Amazon FBA, the easiest way to start selling on Shopify is to fulfill orders with Amazon’s Multi-Channel Fulfillment program.

This simplifies your inventory management a lot. You don’t need to worry about how much of your sales are coming from each channel when you send in stock. If you’re starting out on your own store, you can fulfill orders without needing a lot of inventory sitting around gathering dust.

You can use Multi-Channel Fulfillment by manually creating a fulfillment order from Seller Central when you have a sale on your Shopify store. You can also automate this with an Amazon/Shopify integration app.

MCF is an efficient solution for handling inventory when you don’t expect to sell many units on Shopify. The cons are that it is quite expensive, and your off-Amazon sales will be shipped in Amazon-branded boxes. When you scale, you’ll definitely want to look towards another fulfillment solution, to cut down on costs.

Method Two: Third-Party Fulfillment

A cheaper solution, better in the long-run, is to use a 3PL (third-party logistics) company. Many companies offer fulfillment services, often significantly cheaper than Amazon FBA.

Shopify is also preparing to launch its own fulfillment network, further rivaling Amazon & Amazon FBA.

You can either use separate fulfillment channels for different sales channels (i.e one for Shopify, while keeping your Amazon stock in Amazon FBA), or manage all your stock from the third-party network and sell FBM (fulfilled by merchant) on Amazon.

The latter is efficient in terms of managing inventory, but you’ll miss out on the benefits FBA provides.

Setting Up Your Shopify Site

Here’s how to go about setting up a Shopify store.

1. Sign up for Shopify – you’ll need an account to keep your Shopify store running, which starts at $39 per month. 
2. Get a domain name – you can sell on a Shopify store without a custom domain (your store URL will be [yourstore].myshopify.com), but you want to use the opportunity to push your branding with your own branded URL. You can buy a domain through Shopify, or from sites like domain.com or GoDaddy.
3. Choose a theme – one of the big advantages of selling on Shopify is that you can make your store appear just how you want it. The Shopify theme store has a ton of free and paid themes you can use to customize the look of your store, even if you don’t have any coding skills.
4. Customize your theme – you’ll want to set up things like color schemes, fonts, logos and more to make the store your own, and push your brand’s image.

A theme shown on Shopify’s theme store

Setting Up an Amazon Shopify Integration

Syncing your two stores will save time and increase efficiency. An Amazon Shopify integration app can copy and migrate listings from Amazon to Shopify, sync your inventory, and automatically fulfill orders with Amazon MCF.

Shopify has an official Amazon-Shopify integration app in their app store. The app is free – however, it has some pretty bad reviews, and it’s only applicable for Amazon US and CA.

Step-by-Step Guide to Shopify-Amazon Integration

Once you have created your Shopify store it’s time to integrate it with Amazon seller central account to expand your reach and to efficiently manage your inventory and orders. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown:

1. Set Up an Amazon Seller Account (If you already have one skip this step)

Begin by creating an Amazon Seller Central account. Ensure all your business information, tax details, and payment methods are correctly set up.

2. Install and Configure the Shopify Amazon Integration App

In your Shopify dashboard, navigate to the “Apps” section and search for the official Amazon Integration app. Alternatively you can also use third-party apps such as Codisto or CedCommerce to link both sites (more on this option later).

3. Sync Your Products

Use the integration app to sync your Shopify products with Amazon listings. Make sure that important product details, including titles, descriptions, SKUs, prices, images, and inventory quantities are accurately mapped. Set an appropriate inventory sync frequency to prevent overselling or inventory mismatch.

5. Optimize Listings for Amazon SEO

Optimize your product titles, descriptions, and keywords specifically for Amazon’s search algorithm (A9). Ensure keywords reflect high-volume search terms relevant to your products.

3rd Party  Apps you can Use to Link Amazon and Shopify 

Rather than using the official Amazon App, you can choose from a number of third-party apps which are better reviewed, and do the same job. They’ll sync details such as inventory and pricing across your channels (most include eBay and/or Walmart as well), and allow you to quickly duplicate listings on new stores.

• Shopify Marketplace Connect (4.2 star rating)
•  PRO Importer for Amazon (4.7 star rating)
• Magnalister (4.6 star rating)
• Amazon Connectr & FBA Sync (4.3 star rating)

The best Amazon Shopify integration app is likely one of the above, rather than the official Shopify app, based on the feedback we’ve seen in the app store. You could also set up an integration with Zapier to keep some information synced between the two channels.

Detailed Comparison: Shopify Native Integration vs. Third-Party Integration Apps

Understanding whether to use Shopify’s native Amazon integration or opt for third-party apps is crucial:

Shopify Native Integration

• Pros: Easy setup, official Shopify support, seamless basic functionality.
• Cons: Limited advanced features, minimal customization.

Third-Party Integration Apps (e.g., Codisto, CedCommerce)

• Pros: Advanced inventory management, enhanced customization, robust troubleshooting.
• Cons: May incur additional subscription costs, requires a learning curve.

Choose based on your business size, complexity of inventory, and need for advanced features.

Troubleshooting Common Amazon-Shopify Integration Issues

Integrating Shopify with Amazon can encounter occasional issues. Here’s how to address common challenges:

Product Sync Errors

• Mismatched SKUs: Ensure SKUs in Shopify exactly match those listed on Amazon.
• Product Categorization: Verify products are correctly categorized according to Amazon’s strict category guidelines.

Inventory Sync Issues

• Delayed Updates: Set inventory synchronization intervals to real-time or near real-time to avoid overselling.
• Sync Failures: Regularly monitor app notifications and logs to quickly resolve sync disruptions.

Pricing Discrepancies

• Currency Differences: Ensure currency settings align correctly between Shopify and Amazon.
• Pricing Rules: Implement automated pricing adjustments using integrated tools to remain competitive.

Driving Traffic to Your Store

The biggest difference between running an Amazon store and a Shopify store is traffic.

With Amazon, it’s possible to get traffic (and as a result, sales) passively once you’re ranking high for a few keywords (How to rank for keywords on Amazon). Shopify, however, doesn’t have a marketplace and an audience as Amazon does. You’ve got to go out and get customers by yourself.

The most common way to get in front of customers for ecommerce sellers is Facebook Ads. You can also use Google Shopping ads, Google Ads, or other social media platforms (TikTok ads, for example).

It is possible to get passive traffic to your store too, through Google SEO. This is a bit more complex and competitive though. It usually takes a lot of time to build up the assets you need to rank in google.

For some niches you may be able to implement good SEO practices on your product pages and have them show up in Google SEO. For others, you may have to write long-form blog posts and build external links in order to get organic traffic.

For more on ecommerce SEO, check out these resources:

• https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-for-ecommerce-websites/
• https://ahrefs.com/blog/ecommerce-seo/
• https://backlinko.com/ecommerce-seo

Affiliate marketing is another way to get semi-passive traffic to your store. It’s one of the reasons Amazon is so big (the Amazon Associates program). Setting up an affiliate program for your store can boost your sales by letting other people do the hard promotion work for you.

See some apps available for setting up and tracking affiliates on Shopify.

Shopify to Amazon: Why Launch on Amazon?

We’ve covered the reasons for Amazon sellers to launch on Shopify, but how about the other way?

While increased control and lower fees make Shopify attractive, it makes a lot of sense for Shopify store owners to launch products on Amazon as well.

49% of consumers’ first product searches take place on Amazon. That means half the time when someone thinks about buying a product online, they look for it on Amazon first. That results in over 197 million people visiting Amazon.com every month.

If you’re not on Amazon, you’re ignoring all these potential customers.

What’s more, people on Amazon are geared up and ready to buy. Amazon products have an average conversion rate of 13% for non-Prime buyers, and 74% for Amazon Prime members.

In comparison, the average conversion rate for all ecommerce stores and platforms hovers around 3%. That just goes to show the power that the Amazon name carries today.

Finally, it’s just easier to sell on Amazon. There’s so much that they handle for you, running an Amazon store takes significantly fewer man-hours than a standalone ecommerce site. The impact that has on your business can’t be understated.

You don’t have to choose one or the other – many sellers operate on both Amazon and Shopify. But it’s smart to at least have a presence on Amazon.

Related: see how this Shopify seller launched on Amazon successfully, using LandingCube.

How to Set Up Your Amazon Store

Luckily, if you’ve got a Shopify store, you’re really well placed to launch on Amazon. If you’ve been selling for a while, you’ve probably got a product (or products) that people like and want to buy, and you’ll likely have some assets that help you get your Amazon store rolling.

There are a few things you need to get used to when selling on Amazon rather than your own store. Once you get these down, you’ll have a multi-channel ecommerce empire brewing.

Apply for Brand Registry

Amazon is moving more towards brands, rather than nameless whitelabel sellers. This means it’s definitely to your advantage to do this, and enroll your brand in Brand Registry.

There are a few really good features they offer that are only available to brand registered sellers, such as Amazon Storefronts, or A+ Content (Here are some Premium A+ Content Examples) and Sponsored Brands ads.

Brand Registry also helps you protect your products against counterfeiters. Bad actors can damage your brand name and product listings easily, if you’re not prepared. More about this topic: Amazon brand registry eligibility requirements.

Make Your Products Prime-Eligible

One of the reasons Amazon is ahead of all the other ecommerce platforms today is Amazon Prime. Shoppers love free, fast shipping, and they get it with Amazon Prime. The shiny Prime badge on your listing is a valuable piece of social proof, and pretty much guaranteed to increase conversions.

What’s more, since Amazon knows that customers are more likely to buy a product if it’s Prime-eligible, they actively rank these products higher.

If you use Amazon FBA, they’ll automatically be Prime-eligible. Otherwise, if you’d prefer to ship from a 3PL, apply to sell with Seller-Fulfilled Prime so you can get the advantages that Prime affords.

In Summary – Shopify Amazon Integration, Done Right Can Provide Sales Lift

A lot of people ask which is best – Shopify or Amazon?

The fact is, you can (and probably should) run your business on both platforms simultaneously. And to do this successfully, you’ll want to integrate your sales channels.

Luckily there are many who have come before you to do just this. It’s quite easy to set up an Amazon Shopify integration that will greatly simplify your business.

Strengthen your business with multiple sales channels, and watch it grow into an e-commerce empire.

FAQ: Shopify Amazon Integration