I signed up to test Amazon’s eCommerce Software, Amazon Webstore, mostly because of these two factors:
- List Amazon.com items on your own Webstore to augment your product selection
- Take advantage of additional services such as Selling on Amazon, Fulfillment by Amazon, and Amazon Prime on Your Site to grow your business and improve customer satisfaction while reducing your Webstore fees
I liked the idea of being able to just pull in Amazon products to your store and having Amazon fulfill them for you. It all sounded so easy. It wasn’t.
Contrary to other parts of Amazon, I found the site incredibly hard to use and very slow. It takes up to 15 minutes for an item you’ve posted to appear on your site. When I went to figure out how to cancel, I couldn’t figure that out either so I did a Google search and ran across this Amazon Seller forum post, which cracked me up.
redknight781 wrote: It’s built for techies by techies and not for those that are more interested in sourcing and selling. It’s the worst sitebuilder on the internet. mpowell624 wrote: I will go farther and say that it is the very worst experience I have ever had with anything technological. I have basic knowledge of coding and I would rather try to make a website out of twigs and berries.
You used to have to call Amazon to cancel, but now to cancel your Amazon Webstore, simply make your way to your Amazon Webstore Subscription page and click, “Cancel Webstore”. You can do this as long as you don’t have any outstanding orders.
Comments
5 responses to “Amazon Webstore Review”
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Thanks, I built it myself.
I wanted to add a few comments to this post, after having attempted to run a webstore for a couple of years now.
Yes, you are right. It is arguably the worst product on the web. Amazon users who sell on Amazon should really avoid the webstore side as it will (not can, but will) destroy data on the selling on Amazon side.
The problem is data flow and integrity. There are two locations where you can create new products, either on the Selling on Amazon side, or on the Amazon Webstore. Data setup on the Selling on Amazon (SOA) side automatically flows over to the webstore, but not completely and the reverse is true. There are two different sets of operational rules about how data is created and maintained and THAT is where the headaches begin. Amazon quite simply has not developed a way to synchronize the data so that it is bullet proof. Here’s a good example:
Every product created within Amazon, on the SOA or Webstore Side causes a unique identifier to be created called an ASIN. While ASINs on the Webstore side remain static, an ASIN for a particular product on the Amazon side can change. When a change is made to a product ASIN on the SOA side, it causes a disconnect, so the products are no longer synchronized. Unfortunately, Amazon does not have a way to easily identify the problem and this scenario can cause product sales to disappear, literally overnight.
There are many other issues, all that are solvable, but only through expensive data integration companies or through the use of MWS feeds which are difficult and time consuming to maintain.
Although Webstore has been around a long time, it is completely broken in my opinion and casual users should stay far away from it.
Gerald, thanks for your detailed feedback. You’ve truly added to the discussion and for that I am thankful.
Agreed about using Amazon’s dashboards and web builders. How in the world could such a tech pioneer be still so in the dark? Slow uploads, no customer service, poor look and flow of tools. Just dated and flat out terrible! Shame on you Amazon!