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July 06, 2021

Why You Should Run Your Own Online Store Rather than Sell on Amazon



Amazon is an international online marketplace visited by thousands of digital consumers every day. It is happy to extend its offerings through third-party sellers. With the potential to reach so many consumers, you may wonder if there is any reason to run your own online store. Here are five reasons why you may find it a better option.



You can build your own brand

When you sell on Amazon, shoppers associate the purchase with Amazon so you have less opportunity to build your own brand. You don’t have a way to stand out like you do when you have full control over your branding, your website design, your hosting, and your customer service.

Your website can become a hub of information about your company and you can add informative product pages, helpful content and a blog. You have the potential to build a memorable brand when you have control. For fast WooCommerce hosting, Cloudways offers a fast, secure and scalable platform.

You can build your own customer database

Amazon does not give you access to your prior customers – they are technically its customers. Each sale is seen as a one-time transaction and you, therefore, can’t remarket to customers who have bought from you before.

If you use the right e-commerce software, you will have a database of every customer, sale and interaction. As you have a way to keep in contact with customers, this opens up the opportunity to market to them again and again. Customer retention is very important because it costs more to gain new customers than retain existing ones.

Having customer email addresses gives you the option of sending them newsletters. You have control over what happens before and after a sale. For example, you can send ‘thank you for your order’ emails and suggest related items customers may be interested in. You can also send emails to remind a customer with items in a cart to return and finish a purchase.

You can run your store as you please

Amazon focuses on the products, not the sellers, and when you sell your products on Amazon, you have to abide by the rules. They make the rules and they decide if you’ve broken them. They may suspend your site without warning or freeze your funds.

When you have your own online store, you can run it exactly as you please and decide on your own terms and conditions. As long as what you do is legal, you’ll be fine. You can moderate reviews and remove any spam and fake reviews. You can provide tutorials, one-on-one support and social proof that buyers will trust.

You can sell business-to-business (B2B)

The Amazon marketplace is a business-to-customer (B2C) marketplace. If you have your own online store, you can sell to B2B buyers. These buyers often have high standards and usually purchase similar products repeatedly. If you can prove you are trustworthy and reliable, you may gain customers you will retain for years.

B2B buyers would rather shop at an online business where they can build a relationship with the owner and have a better customer experience. They are not only looking for speed and convenience but good relationships and real value for money.

You can keep more money with each sale

If you sell on Amazon, you have to pay a referral fee on every sale and you don’t know what it is unless you calculate it for each sale. They may also announce fee increases at any point and you have no control over this.



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