When a business starts selling its products online, it opens up a potential global market for their eCommerce business, and there are numerous opportunities to be had. In order to have the largest reach for your eCommerce business there are a wide range of marketplaces and platforms which your business can utilise in order to get your products in front of as many customers as possible and ultimately maximise your sales of your products. The eCommerce market is worth trillions and is only ever increasing, with many opportunities for growth still available. An online marketplace is a website that brings sellers and buyers together, whilst the website host manages the transactions such as Ebay or Shopify etc. Many ecommerce businesses utilise marketplaces to reach the largest target audience possible. Whilst all the marketplaces may seem like they offer similar services, in fact they are all quite different once you dig further into them. When deciding which marketplace, you would like to use, it’s worth weighing up the positives and negatives of each platform for your ecommerce business. There are a large array of marketplaces and platforms to sell and showcase your products to potential customers, and here is a list of the top 5.
1. eBay As I’m sure you all know, eBay is one of the main originating online marketplaces, allowing anyone with internet access to sell products, be the product new or used, and the types of sellers range from individuals to power sellers to drop shippers. With eBay having over 24 billion global visitors per annum, it is a great and easy way to get your products in front of your potential customers.
Benefits:
Opportunities to increase your ecommerce business’s sales as well as customer reach and base
Potential to expand internationally
Sell anything used or new which is great for niche sellers
Cheaper alternative to Amazon
Negatives:
Rules in place on customer service, refunds, returns and a number of other factors which means sellers have less control over how they operate.
The number of people on eBay obviously means there is a large amount of competition in most markets.
eBay has fees which obviously can affect your business’s product margins, especially when trying to remain competitive.
2. Shopify
Unlike a marketplace, Shopify is an eCommerce website hosting platform, in which you can create your own website for your brand and business within Shopify allowing your business to have its own brands distinctiveness on the website.
Positives:
Allows you to build your own distinctive website for your brand.
Variety of designs and themes to aid you in designing your website
Extremely user friendly and easy to set up
A vast array of third-party integrations you can utilise to make business more automated, marketable or even additional applications to assist your business with deliveries and fulfilment
Numerous components to assist and support your business with its SEO and marketing needs to help your website rank better as well as increasing your sales.
Negatives:
Limited number of options and templates to create websites
Creates high reliance on third-party apps to make sure your website operates effectively
High transaction fees when using other transaction company than Shopify Payments
Costly monthly fees for additional apps
3. Onbuy A more recent platform Onbuy, has 120 million annual visits, but is significantly smaller than the other mainstream eCommerce platforms, but it still has its advantages.
Positives:
Very competitive fees
Active in over 100 countries
No marketing costs
Low selling fees (5%-8%)
Shopping cart integration
Partnered with PayPal
Negatives:
More difficult to convey your own brand
High competition from all sellers
4.Not on the High Street Another fairly recent platform, Not on the High Street, used to be the only alternative to the 2 main giants Amazon and Ebay. Their platform set out to help small businesses sell their products online, and now has 60 million annual visitors and is a main player in the eCommerce platform market.
Positives:
Great for small businesses, along with more crafted products
Allows your brand to have a branded platform
Order management system
Marketing and business development guides
Negatives:
25% commission fee on sales & one-off fee for setup
Long process to create an account, and must apply through a detailed application form describing your products and business.
5. WooCommerce: This is a plugin that can turn your WordPress website into an eCommerce store, which in considered one of the best free eCommerce platforms.
Positives:
It is the go-to platform for building and managing a customisable eCommerce store.
The platform is free, but also are some costs associated with it depending on the way your business utilises it.
Is a flexible platform and easy to use, along with having powerful plugins and integrations that are easy to use.
Negatives:
No access to customer support
Additional Costs; domains, hosting and plugins
To conclude there are a number of marketplaces and platforms to choose from for your eCommerce business, each with its own positives and negatives. The right choice for your brand depends on your business model, but in order to maximise sales it may be worth selling your products not only on your own website but also harnessing the large marketplaces out there, like Ebay, Etsy and even Amazon to get your products in front of as many eyes as possible.
If your eCommerce business or brand is just starting out and you are deciding which platform is the correct choice, or more established and you are reviewing which platforms and marketplaces you use, and are looking for fulfilment services that will be able to integrate with whichever platforms or marketplaces you choose then please get in touch with UK Fulfilment here, who integrates seamlessly with all the major platforms and marketplaces. Allowing your ecommerce business to view your product’s orders and inventory all in one dashboard, whilst your orders and quickly and accurately processed by UK Fulfilment.
