In case you weren’t aware Shopify rolled out a new Amazon sales channel. This is super exciting for us and we’ve been playing around with it all week. One thing to keep in mind is the Amazon sales channel is probably the hardest sales channel to use, but also potentially the most profitable.

We want to be upfront with you, you are likely going to be frustrated at some time during this process. The Amazon selling process has a few rough edges but when you are done, you’ll have access to one of the largest marketplaces in the world all from the comfort of your Shopify dashboard, how great is that.

From our testing and talking with our customers we’ve found a workflow that works well and we wanted to share it with you.

Start on Amazon

There are basically two ways to work this integration. You can either make the products in Shopify and push them to Amazon or you can create them in Amazon and then link them to a product in your Shopify store. We recommend starting with Amazon and then linking them to an existing Shopify product.

Why?

The Amazon integration on Shopify only allows you to create new products in the Clothing & Accessory category. If you create the product on Amazon first you can put it in whatever category you want.

 

If you create the product on Amazon you’ll be able to change the production time. This is really important for teelaunch customers as Amazon assumes you are going to ship things right away unless you tell them otherwise. If you don’t want a bunch of angry customers and eventually get kicked off of Amazon for missing shipping deadlines you’ll need to make sure to add an appropriate amount of production time.

One thing to keep in mind is that it can take a while sometimes for the product you created in Amazon to show up in the Amazon Sales Channel. If you don’t see it right away, just try back later and it will be there.

UPCs?

Another wrinkle is the fact that Amazon requires UPCs for all products. This isn’t an issue if you are selling regular stuff but what about print on demand goods. Not only do you need a UPC for every product but also for every variation. So if you have a shirt in 7 sizes and 7 colors you’ll need 49 UPCs.

The official word is you can only use GS1 UPCs which are extremely expensive. I can tell you from personal experience that I bought some from company on Ebay and they worked just fine. I can’t promise UPCs bought from sources like this will always work however so don’t rely on that.

GTIN Exemption

If UPCs aren’t your thing we’ve discovered a little work around which is to apply for a GTIN exemption. If you get a GTIN exemption you’ll be able to list your items without UPCs.

As part of the process they require a letter from your provider saying we they don’t provide a GTIN. We’ve filled it out here, all you need to is add your information. DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE

You can learn more about the process here here.

Handy Links

• Amazon Sellers support: If you have any trouble with the Amazon part here is where you go for help.
• Shopify Amazon Support: Here is the documentation from Shopify.