Many sellers start selling online with Amazon as a single distribution channel. As Amazon is making it easier for entrepreneurs to start an e-commerce business. Amazon is the place where most buyers prefer to start their shopping. If you are only selling a product, just selling it on Amazon is perfectly fine. However, if you are building a brand, you need to consider having your own e-commerce store.
Launching your own e-commerce store can benefit you in the following ways:
1. You can build your brand equity:
People who shop on Amazon think that they are buying from Amazon even though it’s your products that they are buying. Means the only brand they are seeing is Amazon.
This implies Amazon is getting all of the credit for your sales. Like this you will never be able to build your own brand. Mostly the customers are looking for products they want to purchase rather than the brand they are buying from. This way you can never build your own brand on Amazon. That’s why having your own e-commerce store is important to build your brand image.
2. You Can Build An Email List And A Solid Customer Base
One big disadvantage of selling on Amazon is that you can never have access to your customer base. You can’t target them for your sales. You must know that getting a repeat customer is very budget friendly and easier than getting a new customer.
If you are having your own online store, you have customer’s data (name, phone no. and email address). Now you can send personalized emails to your customers to give offers and generate an instant sale.
But on Amazon, you don’t have access to such information. With your own branded site, you have a complete database of every single person who has ever purchased from you. You can also understand customer’s behavior like what they prefer to buy, how much they can spend, their shopping patterns and their contact information.
With this information, you can create a special promotion for all customers who purchased a specific product, you can alert customers of an upcoming sale or you can build trust by sending your customers useful content.
3. You Can Advertise And Increase Your Reach
Amazon definitely has the majority of the e-commerce market. However, when you own your own website, you can create your own advertising campaigns, drive traffic directly to your own website and keep 100% of the profits.
By having your own website, you can take advantage of the customer acquisition platforms while simultaneously building up your brand equity.
4. You Can Generate B2B Sales
A large part of our online store sales also come from our business customers. These customers would never buy their goods from Amazon because they need consistent quality and a little extra hand-holding. B2B customers are the most valuable customers that your business can have. So to acquire this type of business customers you must have your own e-commerce store.
5. You Have Much More Product Flexibility and have your own rules
If you sell on Amazon you may have noticed many limitations with Amazon’s selling platform. Selling customized and personalized goods is not entirely possible on Amazon.
Amazon has its own set of rules and procedures that every seller must follow to sell their product. Moreover, if your product is unique and you need different customization options that can help customers to choose from. You can’t do that on Amazon.
But when you have your own shop, you have the ability to do whatever you want. You can sell products how you want to sell them. You can add graphics content other than images like short product videos and GIFs.
Basically, you have a certain degree of control of how you want things to be done and how you want to sell them.
Starting your own website is a longer-term project than selling on Amazon but the rewards are far greater. Building your own website will help in the long run. You will have your own brand image and also a loyal customer base.
