Should I Start Selling Online in A Marketplace or E-Commerce?

Are you thinking about launching an online business, but are curious about the various factors to consider? There are numerous benefits to selling products online. First of all, you will be able to reach many more customers than a traditional brick and mortar retail store and you don’t have to put together a physical storefront. Furthermore, selling online enables you to sell at all times of the day to people all over the world. But the concept of selling online is a very general one.

There are numerous different e-commerce options available to you and new sites are popping up every day. This means that while it’s easier than ever to launch a business like this, you’ll also need to consider how to remain competitive. There are two primary ways that you can begin selling products in the e-commerce base. The first is using a marketplace, such as Amazon FBA.

A marketplace is a third party site that includes product listings from numerous sellers across various product categories. Outside of Amazon FBA, other examples of marketplace selling include Walmart, eBay, and Etsy. The second option available to you when launching an online business is through your own website. This is an independent e-commerce site that you run as the sellers. Buyers then purchase goods directly from the site belonging to the business. You can use e-commerce platforms like Magento, Shopify, Big Commerce, and Woo Commerce to accomplish this goal.

Is There Really A Difference Between E-Commerce Sites and Marketplaces?

The primary difference between e-commerce sites and marketplaces will depend on what you are selling and who you are. Marketplaces can make millions of visitors available to you instantly. However, you’ll also have to be competitive because you’ll be fighting with thousands of other sellers who have gone the same route to launch their own business. Putting together your own e-commerce website is one way to differentiate yourself, but you’ll have to have a method to drive sales and pour traffic into your website.

Benefits of Selling on A Marketplace

There are numerous different advantages to selling on a marketplace, which is why so many people turn to the concept of selling on Amazon FBA when first getting started. It eliminates many of the common challenges in building your own website and driving traffic to it.

First of all, it is convenient to get started and to maintain an online marketplace. This can simplify your e-commerce needs especially if you are a new seller. Since the infrastructure is already established, you eliminate all of the hassle and time linked to building your website from scratch.

Since no individual seller owns online marketplaces, the payment and transactions are handled by the marketplace itself, which means that your experience as the seller only involves a few different steps to add and modify your product listings. Another factor to consider when using an e-commerce site is that there are many visitors who are already making purchases there and they have already developed a trusting relationship with the owners of the site. Marketplaces are highly trusted and well established because people already make purchases on them and are more comfortable going there to spend their money than to look elsewhere to find new products.

There are millions of shoppers who could potentially be searching for products much like yours, which means that using an e-commerce site means that there is not a lot of work to get your products immediately in front of prospective customers. There are some disadvantages to using a third party site. One of the leading reasons why people are turning to these options today is because they can benefit from directly tapping into an established marketplace. The process that you select will have implications for how to choose to sell your company in the future.