Codisto LINQ is a WooCommerce plugin that extends your inventory into Amazon in a matter of minutes.

Something to consider as the e-commerce stars align: Christmas is fast approaching, Amazon has launched in Australia and people are about to open their wallets wider than ever.

According to the Commonwealth Bank’s 2017 Consumer Spending Survey, the average Australian will splurge about $593 during the festive season. And the number of online shoppers has increased from one million to 13.3 million across all demographics.

As an e-commerce merchant, do you know what this means to the bottom line? This year, though, Amazon is in the picture, and that’s a big competitor to contend with.

Earlier this month, Amazon officially launched its Australian arm. The US retail giant is offering products across 23 categories including computers, consumer electronics, clothing, accessories, home appliances, clothing, accessories, and pet supplies. Leading up to Christmas, it even offers free delivery on orders above $49 with a 24-hour turnaround time in selected areas.

No doubt, Amazon’s presence fuels a huge competition between the retailer and local merchants, including established players like Harvey Norman, David Jones, Myers, and JB Hi-Fi.

For smaller outfits running WooCommerce, Codisto may well be the best present to give their businesses.

Amazon is a treat NOT a threat

Amazon should be seen as a new channel to sell online and not as a competitor per se.

Take the success story of Renae Bunster from Perth as an example. She is the creator of Sh*t the Bed Hot Sauce, one of the top-selling hot sauces online right beside Sriracha and Tabasco.

“It’s in the top products on Amazon, we’ve just exported 40,000 bottles. Every year our turnover has tripled,” 39-year-old Bunster told news.com.au in November.

Bunster said she will “absolutely” enlist her products on Amazon [Australia] and she hopes to hit $1 million in revenue.

“We’re already in lots of stores here and people are just used to going to the shops rather than shopping online — but we’ll be there,” she stated.

If you’re running a WooCommerce store the same opportunity is there for the taking.

WooCommerce, meet Codisto. Codisto, meet WooCommerce

Where there’s opportunity, there are usually challenges as well. If you’re selling through your own website with a platform like WooCommerce, integrating with Amazon is quite a challenge – especially for merchants with thousands of products.

So how can it make things a little easier?

Codisto converts your WooCommerce store into a fully integrated Amazon store in just a couple of minutes. It synchronizes your products real-time, as well as the inventory and orders between your own website and Amazon. Furthermore, it has custom attribute mapping, advanced freight functionality, and multi-account support.

Codisto’s integration is fast and easy. By utilizing their Software as a Service (SaaS) plugin, merchants no longer have to use additional platforms to manage marketplaces. Say goodbye to the time-consuming process of setting up your online store.

“It’s a very deep, quality plugin offering full SaaS integration with a real-time performance that’s very fast to set up and simple to use. We have enjoyed fantastic success since we launched our eBay integration in 2015. Adding Amazon integration was a natural extension for Codisto, and we expect to quickly see merchants from all over the world take advantage of the solution,” Codisto CEO Jonathan Pollard stated.

Since Amazon Australia also caters Asia-Pacific region such as Japan, your sales will steadily increase as you gain access to the millions of consumers. Plus, you will get to do this while keeping your existing business processes and platforms untouched.

Integration is pretty straightforward:

• Step 1 – Apply as Amazon seller through their Au Seller Program.
• Step 2 – Install and configure the Codisto Plugin. It has a 30-day trial and no registration required. After the trial period, you can choose one of their flexible plans to see which is well-suited for your e-commerce. Unlimited Listings Plans can cost from $29 to $999 per month while Unlimited Orders Plan can be paid monthly ($29 to $399) or yearly ($24 to $399).
• Step 3 – After downloading Codisto, commence inventory synchronization between your current e-store platform and your new Amazon shop.

Voila! You’re done.

But don’t stop here either. Codisto LINQ offers an integration with eBay, too.

Moreover, Codisto is an Australian company which means better customer support is right around the corner.

Codisto LINQ in action

A few considerations about hosting

To conclude, WooCommerce can be heavy on resources, particularly if you have an extended inventory. Codisto LINQ requires some additional resources on top of that, but the bulk of the processing power is handled by their own server.

If you’re running on a shared host, your customer may experience slower page load time, which may impact your conversion rate. Managing a larger inventory will impact productivity, too. Instead, a VPS can easily be able to handle a busy online store.

We’ve covered the pros and cons in a separate post – Shared vs VPS hosting and when to upgrade – which is worth a read. Feel free to get in touch if you have any question about performance and optimising one’s WooCommerce shop.