Although eCommerce as an industry is associated with having an online store, there is in reality more to the story. From one viewpoint, there are sellers that create their online stores hosted on their websites. However, there is dependably a choice of using online marketplaces for selling items. Truth be told, some sellers choose to pursue sales success on marketplaces exclusively.

Regardless if you choose an online shop or online marketplaces, knowing the benefits and possibilities online marketplaces provide is certainly helpful.

Online Marketplace

An online marketplace, or just a marketplace, is a type of eCommerce website specialized in the sales of item or services provided by the multiple outsiders. In this case, there is no single seller behind the marketplaces, but instead, the marketplace merely becomes a stage that is supposed to unite multiple sellers and buyers, normally on the global level. As it were, the marketplace is an intermediary between sellers and buyers.

Online Marketplace vs. eCommerce Website

Even however an online marketplace is a type of eCommerce, there are still differences between this sort of business model and an eCommerce site.

Competition

Another significant refinement between using an online marketplace as opposed to an eCommerce website is direct competition. You generally have competitors in the eCommerce business, but when selling on an online marketplace, your competitors are selling on the same stage. You use the same item page design available on the marketplace, and you are normally part of the same payment system.

It may become harder to differentiate yourself from the competitors this way, but regardless you have to try to do as such. For starters, follow the best practices for improving an item page. Even however it isn’t your website, item page guidelines are as yet legitimate. So consider keyword usage, elaborate description, competing images, etc. Make your item pages distinguished and recognizable using optimization methods and branding.

Hosting

The primary distinction is the hosting of online marketplaces. With an online marketplace, you simply register an account on the platform, and you can start selling online. You will for the most part have to experience a specific process to verify your account, integrate a credit card, or provide other details about your business, but once that is all over, you can start creating item pages.

After that, the pages will soon be published, and the items will be available to the customers. There is no process of buying an area, a facilitating plan, designing a website or integrating payments. Also, there are no expenses associated with these, so site maintenance costs are non-existent when it comes to the online marketplaces, as opposed to an eCommerce website.

Payment

Despite the way that there are no facilitating costs, online marketplaces still have to earn their income to be able to provide this platform, and they do this through fees. Each online marketplace has its very own payment system, which collects some sort of fee for using the service. This fee can either be paid in advance, or presenting fees for different services which include some of these:

• Return fee
• Technology support
• Buyer fee
• Seller fee
• Return fee

The marketplace charges its usage through these payments. The fees and other rates are generally available online, so you can see the exact terms before you join a marketplace.

Customer

Regarding customers, there are additionally differences. An online marketplace as a rule has its base of clients. A marketplace is generally famous among online users and subsequently draws in them with its reputation. This means once you start selling through a marketplace, you already have a certain base of online customers you will reach. They use the website’s search engine to search for items and browse based on different criteria using available filters.

This is an entirely better approach for reaching customers because with an online store you try to reach consumers through a search engine. It is more difficult to manufacture trust, especially having in mind that the customers are supposed to provide you with sensitive details, for example, credit card information. When they purchase through a marketplace, they as a rule already have an account. They have trust into the whole payment system due to the reputation of the online marketplaces.

Selling on Amazon

One of the most popular marketplaces is Amazon. It offers two types of plans. The Individual plan comes with no month to month fees, but instead, the platform collects $0.99 per each item sold, in addition to referral and variable shutting fees. The plan is perfect for the users selling fewer than 40 items per month.

Then again, there is a Professional plan for those selling more items per month. The Professional plan includes a month to month membership fee, currently priced at $39.99, in addition to referral and variable shutting fees.

How to start

Visit the Amazon homepage and locate the “Sign in” button. The drop down menu will also have an option to click on if you are a new customer, which will take you to the page where you will create your very own Amazon account.

You will need:

• Name
• Email
• Password

Once you are registered, the time has come to list the products. There are two different ways to do as such:

• List products that are already on Amazon – In this case, the description is already available, so you can just specify what number of products you have to sell
• List products that are not yet on Amazon – You should list all product attributes

When you wrap up the listing, your products become visible to the Amazon customers. One approach to make sure you increase the visibility of your products is to provide:

• Top notch images
• Complete and detailed description
• Accurate description and product details

What to sell

Before you decide to start selling on Amazon, you should decide what you are selling. Products on Amazon are divided into two categories. Open categories include the products that can be listed with no permission from Amazon. The products inside this category can be used, but some categories inside this group just permit new products. Closed categories on Amazon require approval.

When a category requires approval, it means that the product can be listed just with the permission from Amazon and this permission can be requested just by sellers with a Professional selling plan. The reason why there are the confinements here is the way that Amazon needs to make sure that the products meet the norms. Some categories have special requirements, and some are not even accepting new sellers at all.

Shopping and getting paid

When a customer places an order, Amazon notifies you. There are two ways to handle shipping.

Fulfillment

The second option is using Amazon’s service which is trusted by the customers and offers perks, for example, free two-day transportation, free delivering or other benefits. Amazon has fulfillment centers where your inventory is stored and managed online.

Products that are a piece of FBA program have the Prime logo next to it. This service does increase your month to month budget for selling on Amazon because you should pay for the storage space and the orders Amazon satisfies for you.

Ship yourself

In this case, you will be taking care of delivery yourself. There will be shipping costs involved, which are typically added to the product price so the customers will be charged more.

Selling on Ebay

eBay is another popular marketplace with a huge base of online shoppers you can reach when your product is listed on the website. You start by joining the platform using the option “Register”. You should provide your name, email address, and a secret word. Besides creating an account, you should meet these requirements to start selling on eBay:

• Create a seller account
• Provide information on how you will pay seller fees
• Select the payment methods you will accept
• Make your Feedback profile open
• Affirm your phone number to verify your identity
• Provide a valid credit card, debit card, or financial balance

Start Selling

Determine which the products you might want to sell and make sure those are legal to sell on eBay. You will then choose the selling design. Select a category, transfer the listing and determine the price.

There are a couple of ways you can improve your chances of selling through eBay:

• Communicate with the buyers
• Leave the buyer feedback
• Have a clear returns strategy and issue refunds quickly
• Provide superb images of the product
• Use listing upgrades to customize the appearance of your listing
• Set up your Q&A
• Use selling tools to save time and automate seller tasks
• Maintain buyer satisfaction to get great feedback

When you sell an item through the platform, you pay 10% of the final exchange value, including postage, but this final value will never be over £250. There are optional listing upgrades which require an extra fee.

When it comes to an eBay store, the basic shop membership starts at £19.99 per month, with 100 listings available and 8% final value fee.

An eBay store

An eBay store is a perfect solution if you need to use this marketplace as your go-to ecommerce solution. Unlike regular seller’s account, the store offers marketing and merchandising tools, customization features and branding options to maximize the success of your business.

Store sellers can even create customized headers below the standard eBay store headers and completely customize the store home page using HTML. A “Visit store” tag next to a seller’s user information indicates that the seller has an eBay Store.

The requirements you should meet for opening an eBay store are the following:

• Having an eBay seller’s account
• Using a verified PayPal account

If you satisfy these conditions and need to set up an eBay store, you can do as such using “Memberships” option in your Account tab. You will then click on the option “Manage My Store” to start designing the store and listing items.

eBay stores have different levels which affect membership price and other fees. To calculate the monthly membership value, you can provide more information about your average monthly sales and system will demonstrate estimates for the store membership.

Other Market places

These two platforms are considered the leaders in the online marketplace industry, mostly due to their immense popularity worldwide and an impressive number of buyers. However, the possibilities for using marketplaces for an eCommerce business don’t end here because there are a lot more marketplaces you can explore.

Flipkart– This eCommerce platform is India’s biggest online store selling a great variety of products, for example, fashion, books, sports equipment, home decor, furniture, etc.

Alibaba– As a top marketplace in China, Alibaba represents in the Asia market, what Amazon is really going after US.

Bonanza– A marketplace offering a variety of products from women’s fashion to collectibles and art.

CrateJoy– If you sell membership boxes, this is the perfect website for you.

Vide Dressing – This platform is specialized in selling top of the line fashion.

Most importantly marketplaces offer a great deal of possibilities, especially when it comes to opportunities to reach customers. Once you join a platform, your products are in a flash available to a huge network of buyers, while your own eCommerce website needs more time to get guests and really convert them.

Aside from fierce competition, there are those extra membership costs and other fees you should pay to be able to offer your product on a marketplace. However, this can become quite a practical solution for you because in reality, running your own eCommerce website isn’t free either.

One way to decide if you need to deal with marketplaces, and which one to choose is to consider your own business and product you have to offer. Analyze the two advantages and disadvantages and how those would reflect your business.