In this article we show you some examples and usages of connecting your Magento 2 webshop to Amazon Marketplace. Besides that, we introduce the word ‘headless e-commerce’. This all with the goal of making the Magento 2 platform the central point in your e-commerce infrastructure.
If you already know about selling on Amazon and are looking for a technical partner to set this up for your Magento store? Let us know, send me an e-mail or DM at @nilsschuil.
First, what is headless e-commerce?
Headless e-commerce represents a platform or solution that is independent from a front-end. A store front could be a website or a mobile app. So the front-end is decoupled from the back-end and connected through a very powerful API.
This means that the choice for a platform does not include the choice for a front-end. Headless e-commerce is a belief that multiple front-ends like a mobile app, a NodeJS front-end, a more traditional HTML front-end, an Amazon Storefront or a POS system all can work on the same platform and work and together in sharing customer data, inventory status, promotions, shipping and fulfilment.
What are the advantages of headless e-commerce?
- Serve the best user experience where needed
- Use the fastest technologies to get an almost instant loading
- Flexibility to use all technologies and devices
- Supports current and all future omnichannel ecommerce integrations
Headless e-commerce in Magento 2
Magento 2 has a new, extended and much better REST API than its predecessor, the Magento 1 API. This makes Magento 2 the perfect base for headless e-commerce.
Magento 2, Amazon, Mobile and other storefronts
In this article we will point out the possibilities for you to selll products on Amazon using your Magento 2 backend. In the coming series of articles we will also discuss other advantages and possibilities of headless e-commerce like speed optimization, integrations and mobile store fronts.
Why sell on Amazon?
Marketplaces like Amazon, Bol.com and others offer a perfect way to expand your webshop. Everyone knows how to find Amazon, and on Amazon you can find customers who are already known with the platform and who ready to buy your product. Amazon has a customer base of 300 million active customers in 180 countries around the world.(Aug. 2017)
Customers on Amazon know what they are looking for and are comparing similar products on characteristics like product quality, delivery time, price and reviews. Your product’s appearance on Amazon here can give you great revenues.
What marketplaces does Amazon have in Europe?
In Europe, Amazon has the following marketplaces, more or less targeted to language and physical location.
- Amazon.co.uk (UK, Ireland)
- Amazon.de (German)
- Amazon.fr (France)
- Amazon.es (Spanish)
- Amazon.it (Italy)
And that’s not all. Similar marketplaces are also available for North America, Mexico, China, Japan and India.
Three kinds of merchants tend to perform well on Amazon:
-
Merchants selling unique products. (e.g. companies who produce their own products, such as a company that designs its own jewelry)
-
Merchants who sell hobby or niche products. Amazon generally won't start fulfilling or carrying hobby or niche products, so there's less of a risk you'd have to compete with Amazon itself.
-
Merchants selling refurbished or used products. Amazon has a huge market for these products, as they attract shoppers whose main concern is price and don’t mind waiting on shipping. It is worth noting, however, that used products cannot win the Buy Box spot.
Why having your own Magento 2 store besides an Amazon store?
For merchants active on Amazon it’s still important to have their own branded website. Having your own shop gives you an added level of credibility and authority. To retain customers it’s important that they remember you - and with your profiule on Amazon you won’t stand out enough.
So, the combination of a Magento 2 store and Amazon allows you to achieve a fully independent store presence and branding while still being able to to use the big marketplace of Amazon.
The key to managing both these outlets successfully is automatization and integration, and of course your sales insight.
Integration possibilities of Magento 2 and Amazon
What does a connection or integration of my Magento 2 and Amazon mean?
- List your products on Amazon’s Marketplace
- Import Amazon orders into Magento to build a client base
- Fulfilment of orders (Fulfilment by Amazon, FBA)
- Amazon Pay
For all the possibilities we shortly mention the possibilities for integration. If you are interested in such an integration, please send us an email or DM.
List your products on Amazon Marketplace
Amazon Europe had an extended web service / API to talk to. This is where we can create the product listings. By making a connection between your Magento 2 backend and the Amazon Marketplace Webservice it is possible to get your products listed on Amazon’s marketplace and manage the product’s images, descriptions, etc from your Magento backend.
Import Amazon orders to your Magento 2 store
To build your client base it’s important to know who your customers are. By automatically importing your Amazon customers into your Magento store you have all orders in one place. Also, you will have the order information to automatically create an invoice for these orderd.
When you don’t make use of Amazon’s fulfilment options, you will receive all amazon orders in your Magento back-end and fulfil the orders yourself just as how you are used to.
An interesting existing extension for this is the Amazon M2 Extension, which can be found here.
Fulfilment of orders by Amazon (FBA)
Connect your Magento 2 platform to Amazon’s fulfilment and use their great, reliable and proven infrastructure for the handling of your orders. Using the infrastructure of this e-commerce giant assures you you get satisfied clients.
Amazon Pay extension for Magento 2
Amazon has developed an interesting Magento 2 plugin that enables your customers to use Amazon Pay as a payment method and as well let them login to your website using theit Amazon credentials.
Wezz.co is happy to support you with the implementation of the Amazon Pay extension for Magento 2. Just contact us.
