Set up Guide
One of the first things a newbie might want to know is “What makes an eCommerce store successful?”
“Now, there isn’t a simple answer, because you might have a great-looking, professional website and great ads to bring people to your store, but we know that people don’t like to wait. So, even if they find your products VERY interesting, the long time it takes to ship them could be a big turnoff that makes them decide not to buy from your store and look elsewhere instead.
Like Amazon, for example.
If you own an online store, you already know that Amazon’s one-day delivery times are almost impossible to beat, even if you had a warehouse in the same country where you trade. But what if I told you you don’t have to fight Amazon?
“If you can’t beat them, join them,” says an old proverb.
You may have heard about the buzz in the eCommerce world since the Shopify Amazon Integration went live.
So, how does this integration work, and how can a Shopify seller take advantage of all the good things about both Amazon and Shopify?
Find out by reading on!
Why Choose Amazon FBA fulfillment
If you choose the right eCommerce fulfillment, your Shopify store can have an edge over those of your competitors. Think about it this way: if two stores sell the same item, have the same pictures, and charge the same amount, which one is more likely to get a customer? Simple: the one that can ship things faster.
As we’ve already said, clients want their goods as soon as possible.
If you use Amazon FBA to ship your products, your customers will get their packages the next day. Not a bad deal, huh?
We’ll tell you more: if you use Amazon FBA, your products will be stored in their warehouses across the country of delivery to make shipping easier and faster.
You wouldn’t have to worry about storage, renting a warehouse, or using a fulfillment center run by a third party.
As soon as an order is placed, Amazon’s staff will pick it up, pack it up, and ship it directly to the customer. This means you wouldn’t have to worry about things like packaging, bubble wrap, or getting the wrong variants shipped.
Amazon lets you grow your market quickly and you won’t have to pay any extra fees every month besides storage fees and a fulfillment fee when you get an order.
Pros of Shopify Amazon Integration
What are some of the benefits you can get from connecting your store to the eCommerce giant?
Global Exposure: Even if people don’t know about your business, they can still find it on Amazon Marketplace and buy from you.
Storage Space: Amazon will store your items, so you don’t have to worry about renting a warehouse or another third-party fulfillment center.
Monthly Fees that keep coming back, you only pay for storage:
Jan.–Sept.: $0.75 per standard cubic foot and $0.48 per standard cubic foot (Oversize)
From October to December, the standard price is $2.40 per cubic foot and the low price is $1.20 per cubic foot (Oversize)
All of the packaging will be done by Amazon’s staff;
Order Processing: Amazon will handle all the logistics of picking, packing, and shipping.
Fast Shipping: Your items will be kept in different Amazon warehouses so that your customers can get them quickly.
Rates for shipping that are cheap: in the US, for example, they are cheaper than most fulfillment centers.
Only $12.80 is charged for next-day delivery of a package up to 16 ounces.
Only $5.69 will get you a 10-ounce package delivered quickly.
Multi-Channel Fulfillment: lets you put your attention on marketing and grow quickly;
Cons of Shopify Amazon Integration
Now that we’ve talked about all the good things about the Shopify Amazon Integration, let’s look at the bad things:
Amazon Seller Central Account: To use the multi-channel fulfillment service, you must open an account, which costs about $39.99 a month plus selling fees;
Customer Service: If there are problems with your items, you are still in charge of customer service. Amazon only ships the orders; you are responsible for everything else.
Packaging: If your customers buy from your store, they might be confused if their orders come in Amazon-branded packaging;
PRO TIP: Tell your customers that this is a service that Amazon offers to businesses, like server space, cloud space, and other B2B services.
No Fulfillment of International Orders: The Shopify Amazon Integration’s multi-channel fulfillment won’t cover orders from other countries.
Monthly Storage Fees: If your products don’t sell well, you might have to pay more for storage;
PRO TIP: Try to keep only your best-selling items and items you know will sell.
How to integrate Shopify with Amazon
At the moment, the integration is only available to Amazon sellers with Amazon Marketplace accounts for Canada or the US, depending on the store’s currency.
If you want Amazon to fulfill your orders, the first thing you need to do is set up an Amazon Seller Central account.
Once you have your Seller Account, you can connect it to your Shopify account by going to this link and logging in.
After you agree to all the terms and conditions, Shopify will take you to the Shipping setting.
For the system to work, the shipping settings on Shopify must match the shipping settings on Amazon. If you don’t pay attention to this passage, your orders won’t be shipped.
First, you have to decide which of the following Amazon shipping rates you like best:
Shipping as usual
Two-Day Shipping
One-Day Shipping
Then, go to Shopify > Manage rates and make the same shipping rate for Amazon. Visit Amazon’s Fulfillment fees page to find out how much it costs to ship something from Amazon.
Now that we set up the shipping rates you must select which products will be fulfilled by Amazon.
If you already have products in your store, choose one and go to the shipping section on the page for that product.
First, make sure that the weight and SKU you saved are the same as the ones in your Seller Central account.
Then, under Inventory Policy, choose Amazon Marketplace Web tracks this variant’s inventory and choose Amazon Marketplace web from the Fulfillment service menu.
On the other hand, if you want to link your Amazon FBA inventory to a new product page on Shopify, you need to create a new product page and choose Amazon Marketplace Web under the inventory section.
Then, go to your Amazon Seller account and click on Manage Inventory on the Inventory page. You can see what products you have in stock and copy the Amazon SKU from that page.
Paste your number on your Shopify product page, and then have them go back to their Amazon Seller account to copy and paste the weight of the products.
Visit the Amazon Seller account and go to the Inventory page to find out the correct weight. Click on “Manage Inventory” and then go to the “Estimated Fee per Unit Sold” column. Under the “Menu” heading, you’ll find a link that says “Go to Revenue Calculator.” Last but not least, don’t forget to check the box Track quantity to keep your store’s inventory always up to date.
How to calculate Amazon FBA Costs
As you might expect, if you use Amazon to ship your packages, you have to pay a monthly storage fee, a pick-up and packing fee, and a shipping fee for each of your packages.
To figure out how much your shipping will cost, you need to think about the shipping rate you’re using and the size tier your item falls into. For example, if you choose “Priority next-day shipping” and “Small standard: 16 oz or less” for the package size, you will pay $12.80. Find all the prices for shipping here.
How to fulfill your Shopify orders with Amazon FBA
After you’ve done everything in the above sections, Amazon will automatically sync your orders with Shopify. However, you’ll still need to manually fulfill the order in Shopify.
To do this, go to the Orders tab on your Shopify Dashboard. Click on Start fulfilling and then choose the order you want to fill. Click on Mark as Fulfilled, then click on Fulfill items. As soon as Amazon accepts the order, the status will change from “Pending Fulfillment” to “Fulfilled.”
Obviously, if you have a lot of orders to take care of, manual fulfillment is not the best way to do things. In this case, you might want to use an extra Shopify app to automate this process.
If you go to the App Store and search for “fulfillment with Amazon,” you will find a few that let you try them out for free.
How to Ship Products to Amazon FBA
Now that you’ve linked Amazon to Shopify, you’ve set up everything you need to do to fulfill orders. However, you still need to ship your products to Amazon FBA before you can start selling.
You can probably guess that this isn’t a very easy process: you have to find your products, negotiate with your supplier, and ask him for all the information you need to finish the Amazon FBA listing.
You should:
Send Amazon information about your shipping, like the size of the carton, how much it weighs, how many pieces there are, and so on.
You can use these details to get the address for your warehouse from Amazon.
You can download the labels for the packages, send them to the supplier with the shipping address, and trust that the supplier will pack your item according to Amazon FBA guidelines.
Also, if you’ve been in the eCommerce business for a while, you may have noticed that many online sellers get their products from Chinese suppliers. This means that you need to:
Find suppliers you can trust; check the quality of the products before buying 100s of them in bulk;
Deal with a language barrier, since not all suppliers speak English well;
Describe exactly how to ship your products in a way that Amazon will accept;
To avoid all this trouble, you can just work with a reliable partner like. With us, it’s easy.
Find quality products in China, get a sample of a product to test in China before placing a big order, and get packages that are 100% in line with Amazon FBA rules.
Get a price that includes everything.
Price of items, cost of shipping, and cost of customs clearance;
With us, you can even have your own logo put on the products and packaging through a simple online process, and we can help you get through customs.