How to Start a Shopify Store as an Amazon Seller

Amazon and Shopify recently announced a new feature. Shopify’s stores will have a “Buy with Prime” option for customers. This would allow sellers who use Amazon’s FBA program to offer Prime shipping to Shopify customers.

Customers shopping on Shopify’s platforms will be able to buy with Prime. Sellers will be able to offer a more convenient shipping option and easily integrate their Amazon and Shopify operations.

Amazon FBA sellers should absolutely be taking advantage of this. With this new integration, it’s likely that many sellers are going to want to start Shopify stores. If that sounds like you, then read on.

1. Organize Your Information

Most Shopify sellers will state that organizing and creating all the necessary information was the hardest part about opening their store. Thankfully, as an Amazon seller, you don’t need to do a lot of that.

You already have a UPC, model numbers, a business license, the products themselves, product specs, listing images, and so much more. You’re halfway done with the work and you haven’t even created an account yet.

Before you create an account, it’s a good idea to organize your information. Create a spreadsheet with all of the products that you plan to list on Shopify. This spreadsheet should include your product’s ASIN, GTIN, model number, specs, and images.

Now you’re ready to actually create an account.

2. Create a Shopify Store

Create an account via Shopify’s website. Pick the right plan for you and fill in your information. Consider connecting your Shopify website to a custom URL.

Now you can start designing your store. Shopify makes it really easy for you with their themes. Themes are templates that you can plug your products into. They’re customizable, so you can highlight specific products and cater your Shopify store to your needs.

3. Import Your Products

Remember that spreadsheet from earlier? Now’s the time to use it.

Go to your Admin page. Click on the Products tab on the left. You should see this on top of your screen:

Click the “Import” button towards the upper-right.

You’re going to click on “sample CSV template” highlighted in blue. This will download a spreadsheet. You can plug your information into this spreadsheet and upload it to quickly get all of your products on Shopify.

Fill in as much information as possible. You’re going to have some blank columns, which is perfectly fine.

4. Fill in Some Columns

After you’ve plugged in as much information as possible, you can fill in some other ones. You don’t need to fill in each and every column to successfully upload your products.

However, there are some that are required. Let’s go over them.

Column A, or “Handle” is going to be that product page’s URL. Instead of spaces, use the - character. Make it short, sweet, and to the point. This is going to affect your shop’s SEO so it’s best to use a keyword or two.

You have a bit more freedom with Column B, your title. Again though, this will affect your shop’s SEO so it’s best to use a few keywords.

Column E, Product Category, is a bit unclear. You have to pick the right category that your product fits under. Go to Shopify’s Admin page and visit the Products section. Click on “Add Product” and scroll down to Product Category. You should see it on the right. 

Look up a product category until you find something that fits. Type that into the spreadsheet.

If we’re selling Dog Food, then we would have found Dog Food and typed that into the spreadsheet. However, Shopify requires a bit more than that. It would look something like this:

Animals & Pet Supplies > Pet Supplies > Dog Supplies > Dog Food

This is because we would find Dog Food under Dog Supplies, which is under Pet Supplies, which is under Animals & Pet Supplies. You would have to put it in the spreadsheet exactly like how it’s written above.

Columns I through M are for variations. Option Name is how you want to separate the variations and Option Value is the value you want to assign to that variation. So if we sold colored blankets, Option Name could just be “Color” and Option Value could be “Pink”, “Red”, “Black”, etc.

Fill in the Google shopping columns whenever you can. They’re not necessary, but they are required for Google to list them on their Shopping tab, which can significantly boost your shop’s traffic.

For column AY, set it all to “Active” if you want to start selling right away. Set it to “Draft” if you want to edit it later without it going live on-site.

5. Transferring Content

You could list multiple images and even a video on Shopify product listings. You could just use the images you use on your Amazon product listings. Go to the Products tab and edit each product listing to your liking. You should write alt text for each image so that customers with accessibility issues can easily use your site.

You are still missing a description, however. It’s a good idea to use your Amazon description and bullet points as inspiration, but to not directly copy and paste them into Shopify. This could hurt your Shopify shop’s performance on Google search. Duplicate content is discouraged for SEO. Remix your Amazon bullets and description to fit your needs on Shopify.

6. Edit Your Theme

You can plug different products into your shop by clicking on “Online Store”. Click “Customize” and start messing around with the options. Familiarize yourself with what you can do.

You can highlight specific products, show off certain product lines, or talk about your brand with images and copy. You can even create different pages.

You can click on the Navigation tab under the Online Store section to change your site’s header menu and footer menu. This allows you to make pages easier to access for customers.

7. Drive Traffic to Your Site

There are many different strategies that can help drive traffic to your site. Consider implementing different marketing tactics like creating content on social media, buying ad space, or investing in SEO.

The best thing you can do for your site is to continuously optimize it. There’s always something to improve!

Conclusion

Selling on Shopify is another way to strengthen your business. Operating your business on Amazon and Shopify only broadens your reach.

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