Amazon vs. Best Buy: A Guide to Selling on Both

If you’re running ecommerce operations in Canada, you’ve probably already figured out that Amazon and Best Buy aren’t interchangeable sales channels. They look similar from a distance. Both let you list products, take orders, and reach Canadian shoppers. But the operational reality of selling on each platform is completely different.

This guide breaks down those differences from an operator’s perspective. Not buyer reviews. Not “which is better for consumers.” This is about inventory allocation, fulfillment economics, carrier control, and the data gaps that force most sellers into spreadsheet hell.

Seller access: open marketplace vs. curated partnership

Amazon Canada

Getting onto Amazon Canada is straightforward. You sign up on Seller Central, pay $29.99 CAD monthly for a Professional account, and start listing. The North America Unified Account covers Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, and Amazon.com.mx under a single registration.

Approval is largely automated. If your documentation is clean, you can be live in hours.

The tradeoff? Low barriers mean intense competition. There are roughly 80,000 active sellers on Amazon.ca fighting for visibility.

Best Buy Canada

Best Buy operates a curated marketplace built on the Mirakl platform. You apply, a team reviews your business, and approval takes up to five business days.

They’re selective. You need to meet quality thresholds, provide a Canadian return address, and demonstrate the ability to fulfill orders independently. Selling into Quebec? Product descriptions must be available in French.

Once approved, you get a dedicated Seller Success Manager and a 90-day growth program. The relationship is more hands-on than Amazon’s ticket-based support model.

What this means for operations

Factor	Amazon Canada	Best Buy Canada
Signup process	Self-service, automated	Application reviewed bythe team
Time to go live	Hours	Up to 5 business days
Monthly fee	$29.99 CAD	$29.99 CAD
Account support	Ticket-based	Dedicated account manager
Commission rates	Published by category	Disclosed after approval

The bottom line: Amazon gives you speed and autonomy. Best Buy provides relationship-building and curation. Your forecasting and planning processes need to account for these differences. On Amazon, you control the tempo. On Best Buy, the platform has greater control over what stays visible.

Inventory ownership: who holds what, and what it costs you

Amazon Canada (FBA model)

When you use Fulfillment by Amazon, your inventory sits in Amazon’s fulfillment centers. You still own it, but Amazon has physical custody.

That custody comes with strings attached:

Storage fees (standard-size products):

• January to September: $40 CAD per cubic meter
• October to December: $77 CAD per cubic meter

Aged inventory surcharges (tightened in 2025):

• 181 to 210 days: $24 CAD per cubic meter
• 211 to 270 days: $48 to $72 CAD per cubic meter
• 271 to 365 days: $156 to $189 CAD per cubic meter
• 365+ days: $330 CAD per cubic meter or $0.15 per unit (whichever is greater)

The threshold dropped from 271 days to 181 days. That’s a meaningful acceleration. A product that has been sitting for six months now incurs additional costs each month.

Your Inventory Performance Index (IPI) score determines how much capacity Amazon allocates to you. Drop below 400, and you will incur storage restrictions and utilization surcharges. The score factors in excess inventory, sell-through rate, stranded inventory, and in-stock rate. It’s checked weekly.

Best Buy Canada

There is no “Fulfilled by Best Buy” option. Period.

You own your inventory. You store it. You ship it. Best Buy never takes custody.

This means your inventory stays liquid. It’s not locked in someone else’s warehouse. You can use it to fulfill orders from any channel.

But you’re also responsible for warehousing, picking, packing, and carrier management on every order. If you’re using a 3PL in the Greater Toronto Area, you’re paying their rates. If you’re running your own warehouse, it’s your lease and your labor.

What this means for cash flow

Factor	Amazon Canada (FBA)	Best Buy Canada
Inventory custody	Amazon holds	Seller holds
Storage costs	Amazon’s fee schedule	Your 3PL or warehouse costs
Aged inventory penalty	Surcharges starting at 181 days	None (but you’re paying storage)
Inventory flexibility	Locked to Amazon orders (mostly)	Available for any channel
Capital tied up	In Amazon’s network	In your own operation

The allocation puzzle: Amazon Canada sees roughly nine times the traffic of Best Buy Canada. Products that turn in weeks on Amazon might take months on Best Buy. You can’t split inventory 50/50 and expect good results. You need real velocity data by channel to make smart allocation decisions.

Fulfillment costs: the fees that actually matter

Amazon FBA fees

Beyond storage, every unit you sell through FBA incurs fulfillment fees:

Standard-size items:

• Under 100g: $5.92 CAD
• 100 to 350g: $6.73 CAD
• Add roughly $0.40 more during October to January

Oversized items:

• First 500g: starts at $15.43 CAD
• Scales up quickly from there

Additional costs:

• 2% Digital Services Fee on all referral and closing fees (introduced late 2024)
• Inbound placement fees if you ship to one fulfillment center and let Amazon redistribute
• No Amazon-partnered carriers for inbound shipping in Canada (unlike the US)

For context, Canadian FBA fees run higher than US equivalents. That same 350g item costs about USD $4.55 in the US versus CAD $6.73 in Canada. Factor this into cross-border margin calculations.

Best Buy fulfillment costs

Your costs depend entirely on your own setup:

• 3PL pick, pack, and ship rates
• Your own warehouse labor and materials
• Carrier rates you’ve negotiated

The advantage is transparency. You know your costs because they’re your contracts.

The disadvantage is that you’re building and managing that infrastructure yourself.

Returns: a hidden cost driver

Factor	Amazon Canada (FBA)	Best Buy Canada
Returns processing	Amazon handles end-to-end	Seller handles directly
Return location	Amazon fulfillment center	Your Canadian return address
Processing deadline	Amazon’s timeline	1 business day after receipt
Auto-refund risk	None	Yes, after 4 business days
Commission on auto-refunds	N/A	Best Buy keeps the commission

Best Buy marketplace returns cannot go to stores. Customers ship directly to you. If you don’t process within four business days, Best Buy will automatically issue a refund and debit your account. You lose the sale and the commission.

Shipping and carrier control: who makes the delivery promise

Amazon Canada

FBA orders: Amazon picks the carrier, route, and delivery window. You have zero say. Prime orders receive one- to two-day delivery in major metros.

FBM orders: You choose your carrier and handling time. Options include Canada Post, UPS Canada, and FedEx. Purolator tracking integration has reportedly been broken since April 2024.

Performance requirements for FBM sellers:

• Valid tracking rate: above 95%
• On-time delivery rate: above 90%
• Late shipment rate: below 4%

Miss these in Q4, and you risk automatic suspension.

Best Buy Canada

You choose carriers, set shipping rates, and define delivery promises. Many sellers offer free shipping to stay competitive.

Requirements:

• Ship within 2 business days (maximum 3)
• Valid tracking on every shipment
• False tracking numbers result in immediate termination

There’s no Prime equivalent. The platform does not set baseline customer expectations. But there’s also no safety net. Your carrier relationships and warehouse throughput get tested directly during peak season.

Peak season stress

Factor	Amazon Canada (FBA)	Best Buy Canada
Who handles the shipping surge	Amazon	You
Your job during peak	Have inventory in place before October	Scale your warehouse and carriers
Delivery risk	On Amazon	On you

Canadian geography adds complexity: 90% of Canadians live within 150 miles of the US border, but they are spread across a massive east-west corridor. Single-warehouse operations result in long transit times across much of the country. Winter delays are unpredictable. Best Buy sellers feel this pain more directly since they bear delivery risk.

Data and reporting: what you can see (and what you can’t)

Amazon Seller Central

Amazon provides deep reporting:

• Hourly sales updates (final numbers lag 1 to 3 days)
• SKU-level traffic and conversion data
• Inventory health dashboards
• Advertising campaign analytics
• Settlement reports with transaction-level fee breakdowns

Brand Registry unlocks more: search term reports, market basket analysis, customer demographics.

The gaps:

• No built-in demand forecasting
• Historical ad data only goes back three months
• Reports from different sections don’t always reconcile
• No automated alerts for sales drops or inventory anomalies
• Only shows Amazon data (nothing about your other channels)

Best Buy Seller Hub

You get:

• Sales insights and trending category data
• KPI monitoring
• Listing management
• Access to your Seller Success Manager for business insights

The gaps:

• No equivalent to Brand Analytics
• No search query performance data
• No automated competitive benchmarking
• Thinner self-service tooling overall

The account manager relationship partially compensates. They can share category trends and promotional opportunities that Amazon’s system doesn’t surface.

The spreadsheet problem

Both platforms leave sellers with a gap between what dashboards show and what they need to make decisions.

Amazon tells you your IPI is 480 and that sell-through is declining. It doesn’t tell you whether to markdown, remove, or reallocate that inventory to Best Buy, where it might sell faster.

Best Buy tells you what’s selling this week. It doesn’t connect that to your Amazon velocity or your 3PL inventory levels.

Industry surveys suggest 27% of sellers still rely on spreadsheets for multi-channel inventory management. That works until around 50 SKUs or when you add a third channel. Then it breaks.

This is where a platform like Willow Commerce fits. It pulls inventory, orders, and fulfillment data from Amazon, Best Buy, and your warehouse into one view. Allocation decisions get smarter. The forecasting becomes channel-aware.

Scaling beyond one channel: where operations break

Why sellers end up on both platforms

Amazon gives you volume and velocity. Best Buy gives you credibility in electronics and adjacent categories, less price-race competition, and higher-intent shoppers.

The platforms attract different buyers in different purchase contexts. Operating on both captures demand you’d miss on either alone.

Where it breaks down

Overselling: A product sells on both channels simultaneously. Inventory count hasn’t synced. One order gets cancelled. On Amazon, that hits your pre-fulfillment cancel rate (must stay below 2.5%). At Best Buy, it erodes your standing with a team that actively monitors performance.

Returns chaos: Amazon returns go to Amazon’s warehouse. Best Buy returns come to your Canadian return address. Now you’re reconciling returned inventory across two locations, deciding what’s resellable, and updating counts in multiple systems.

Forecasting blind spots: Amazon’s restock recommendations only consider Amazon demand. Your Best Buy account manager shares trends, but there’s no integrated signal across channels. You end up building forecast models in spreadsheets that become increasingly fragile each month.

What holds it together

The sellers who scale multi-channel operations don’t do it with heroic manual effort. They invest in systems that connect the dots.

Willow Commerce exists for exactly this problem. When inventory, orders, and fulfillment data from Amazon, Best Buy, and your 3PL are integrated into a single operational layer, allocation decisions become smarter. Overselling disappears. Forecasting becomes channel-aware.

Summary: the operational reality

Dimension	Amazon Canada	Best Buy Canada
Access	Open, fast, competitive	Curated, slower, relationship-driven
Fulfillment	FBA available (fees apply)	Seller-fulfilled only
Inventory risk	Aged inventory surcharges	Your storage costs
Carrier control	None (FBA) or limited (FBM)	Full control
Returns burden	Amazon handles	You handle
Data depth	Deep but fragmented	Basic, supplemented by an account manager
Peak season	Amazon absorbs the surge	You absorb the surge

The right answer is almost never just one platform. Amazon offers scale and Prime-powered fulfillment. Best Buy offers curation and dedicated support.

The real competitive advantage isn’t which channel you pick. It’s whether your operations can support both without cracking. That means inventory visibility across every warehouse. Order routing that accounts for FBA capacity limits and Best Buy’s two-day shipping requirement simultaneously. Financial reporting that shows true margin per SKU per channel.

The channel strategy is the easy part. The underlying infrastructure determines whether you scale or stall.

» Ready to ship smarter? Let Willow Commerce simplify your inventory and shipping management today.