Insightful Comparison of Buying LED Fixtures from Amazon VS Online Store
Now more and more LED light sellers join to the cross-border trade, as a 8-year professional in the LED lighting industry, we will dig deep inside into this solid state diode business and let more people know the difference in: buy LED fixtures from Amazon VS online store.
As one of the biggest online shopping marketplace, Amazon surely has its own advantages over other online stores, we think below are the reasons that make Amazon a successful company.
- its favorable return and refund policy to the buyers attracts many fans, customer can easily return the goods if they don’t like or need.
- its prime membership keep large volume of traffic on their platform, so customers can keep spending on their platform and Amazon can earn 15% transaction fee on every processing order.
- all product listings belong to Amazon, it is not allowed to create the same listing that is identical to the product in its existing listing directory, therefore, search result page is clean and more user-friendly.
However, Amazon has its own critical disadvantages as well, though they try to avoid these problems, it cannot be eliminated at all.
1. Amazon sellers would pay to buy positive review to drive traffic in their own store.
This phenomenon exist in many B2C platforms like Amazon, eBay, Aliexpress etc. to gain good reviews, store seller will ask people to leave 5 star review in exchange to a gift, thus leading to more traffic to their own storefront.
2. Amazon seller is only operator of the store, they know the rule of the Amazon a lot, but know little about the product.
Most sellers on Amazon are amateur, they are unrelated to the LED lighting industry at all.
They just know there is profit to make and how to sell on Amazon, so they jump in, hire a photo designer team and prepare some LED lights shipping to USA warehouse.
To get a price competitiveness over other rivals, they often use inferior accessories or lower-quality components to make the product, as Amazon only has 30-day return policy.
After that, there is nowhere to submit the warranty claim for the order.
Amazon: the power supply PCB is clipped on the heatsink with some glue, no driver box, non-waterproof, and might cause electric shock.
Online store: separate driver box on top from the heatsink, very safe and waterproof tight, UL listed, safely in use for engineering project.
If you are an electrician or electrical contractor, you might see Amazon a great source to buy cheap LED lighting fixtures.
However, if you want to do time-lasting business with your own customer, it is better to find a reliable partner who can offer great product and supportive after-sale service for years to come.
We cannot dare say that all sellers in the Amazon platform are bad, you still can find some stores that are running their own brand shop outside of Amazon, you can turn to them for warranty or for technical help by visiting their brand website, much more trusted seller than others without brand website.
Therefore, how to identify it is a trusted online lighting store ?
We have been doing online store business for more than 4 years, below are the factors we think important to choose the best online store as the LED lights source.
- clear & smooth order placement steps
- show professionalism in their product description
- order tracking status update after making payment
- check on receipt with customer after delivery
- email or phone on website can be reachable and would get timely response
Running a brand online store successfully requires workforces and energy as well as capital investment, it is a bold action to build a website to let more people know their brand.
That’s to say, they have never ever thought about fleeing away even if their Amazon store is shut down, they have stronger desire to survive and thrive their business, and thus, returned customer can find them easily.
Online store owner usually have been in the LED lighting industry for many years, unlike the Amazon seller, online store seller often have rich knowledge on product usage and market segragation, most of their customers are construction installation electricians and electrical supply distributors, they can accept bank transfer or ACH payment to save customer’s transaction fee.
Besides, online store sell products that is relatively higher quality than Amazon store.
Amazon sell many non-certified LED lights for American & Canadian end-customers, we once asked several stores about the LED wall pack & LED shoebox, and none are UL DLC listed.
Wiring Connector nuts compare:
Amazon: PC caps, easily burned and easily loosen
Online store: flame retardant material and very tight.
Power supply compare:
Amazon: non-branded driver, no manufacturer’s name, low quality, no UL certifed, and many small drivers inside to power one light.
Online store: Sosen brand driver with UL certified, one pack only.
The most jaw-dropped case we’ve been heard is that:
Some sellers use low quality component to make LED lights for Amazon store and a little higher quality part for online store, but operated with two totally different brand name.
Thus they can gain price edges over other Amazon competitors, if product goes bad, these customers cannot find their online store for warranty, very tricky.
Our partner, Chiuer Lighting, they has their own Amazon store and online store, but I know their products on both sites are the same, that is why I trust them and partnered with them for many years.
However, openning an online store and turning into sale is hard, store owner need to drive traffic by their own.
We’ve seen thousands of websites shut down due to no traffic to their store, money wasted but no luck to turn into revenue.
Therefore, it is convinceable to conclude a online store can be reliable if they have been running for many years, otherwise, the store owner must shut down it.
For new customer who come across a unfamiliar LED light shop, it is better to try to search product, place a sample order and experience entire shopping process in their online store, whether it is user-friendly interface or not, you can feel by your own, we think you should have an answer.
After getting the product, you would evaluate its quality and their after-sales service, then you would have an impression on the company you are dealing with.
In all, if you are not a repeated user of the LED lights, Amazon could be your good choice because you pay higher price than normal, additional charge is transaction fee paid to Amazon, so Amazon will stand by you to get a wanted resolution, but if you are a company who buy the LED light fixtures a lot, it is better to go the seller with Amazon shop and a great successful online LED lighting website.
