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Marketplace or E-Commerce – Where Should I Establish an Online Business?

Posted by RJ Martin in Articles
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There are many different benefits to selling products online, which is why more and more people are turning to this as a valuable way to earn consistent money. But in making that initial decision about where to list your products, it can be difficult to decide what’s truly in your best interests.

Deciding the Right Route for Your Business

One of the first decisions you’ll have to make is about whether or not to use a marketplace or to sell over e-commerce. The term online selling is a very general one. New sites for selling by e-commerce seemingly pop-up every single day and selecting the right place to list your products for sale can seem daunting.

Some merchants might choose to build their own website or to establish credibility by working with a marketplace that already has the traffic. Your own website would include installing on an e-commerce platform such as Magento, Shopify or Woo Commerce.

A marketplace, however, is a third party site that uses product listings from numerous sellers across product categories. Some of the most common examples of these third party sites include Walmart, Etsy, eBay, and Amazon.

Is There A Real Difference Between E-Commerce and Marketplace Sites?

The primary differences between choosing to sell an e-commerce site versus a marketplace are relatively simple.

One of the biggest reasons why people select marketplaces is because millions of visitors are instantly available to you. However, because of this great possibility to be visible, you will also be fighting with thousands of different sellers in order to be seen.

An e-commerce business is one way to differentiate yourself, but you have to put in significant effort in order to drive sales and send regular traffic to your site.

What Are Marketplace Benefits?

There are numerous different benefits to selling on a third party marketplace. First of all, it’s simple and convenient to get started as well as to maintain a presence here. The payment and transactions are often handled by the marketplace itself, which means that your primary job is in adding and modifying product listings so that they are as compelling as possible. There are many different visitors who probably already made purchases on these third party websites. They are highly trusted and very well trafficked places to visit. Since many of these marketplaces are household names, they have plenty of different shoppers who are looking for products just like yours. This means that although you have enhanced competition to get your products in front of your ideal customers, you will still not have to put forward as much effort as if you were having to drive traffic to your own website. There are, of course, downsides to selling on a marketplace like an Amazon FBA. First of all;

  • There are many different competing brands on the same site.
  • People who buy your products might never realize that you or your brand exists.
  • You aren’t capturing customer detail information so that you can build a customer list and market to it in the future. This can be a major downside if you ultimately decided to move off of the platform.

No matter how you choose to build your e-commerce business, such as using Amazon FBA or other tools, it’s a good idea to have a consultation with an experienced website broker like those working at Website Closers when it comes time to sell your business.

 

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