We can never say that something is impossible until we have explored all avenues, right? The same thing is for eCommerce platforms – you can never say that you’ve failed until you explored all marketplaces and all online platforms! You can always sell your products on online marketplaces, but you don’t want to showcase your products on the wrong and fruitless platforms, where you should spend more money than earn it! That’s why we are always looking for the best online marketplace around the world, and only then start sourcing products, listing them and so forth….
Something About Top Online Marketplaces
But luckily, we are here, and we are ready to help you find the platform of your heart! Believe it or not, eCommerce platforms offer a great opportunity practically to anyone who wants to earn a fortune! So it would be silly to miss this chance, and do something else instead, don’t you agree?
What is an Online Marketplace?
Online marketplace is a site where thousands of sellers showcase their products, fulfill orders, provide customer service, and of course, earn money. For working on an online platform, you first of all need to open up an account with them. There are marketplaces that require fees, and there are those who don’t. In other words, everything depends on the online marketplace you choose.
In our reality, there are many online marketplaces, and some do enjoy their place under the sun! To the list of eCommerce marketplaces belong platforms like:
- Amazon
- eBay
- Walmart
- Etsy
- Alibaba
- and others….
Why eCommerce Platform?
As we said, eCommerce websites are more popular than they were a few years ago. What’s more interesting, eCommerce platforms already won the battle against brick and mortar stores, which means that working as a seller on online marketplaces is what the doctor ordered!
Apart from that, starting an eCommerce business is always faster! All you do is create an account, source products and start selling them online! People are obsessed with online shopping, why shouldn’t you use that fact? Huh?
Another important thing that you need to consider: having your own small online business or starting a brick and mortar store is not a good idea when we think of customers. Customer base is as important as your products or money, and if you’re not sure that you can provide a good customer base for your business, you should definitely start from online marketplaces!
And yes, one more thing. Some platforms create special programs for their sellers who need help, or simply don’t have time to fully operate their business. Let’s take for example, Amazon FBA – Fulfillment by Amazon, with the help of which sellers practically earn money by doing nothing! It’s like killing two birds with one stone!
Everything about Platforms
Amazon
This is undoubtedly one of the most popular online marketplaces across the world. Here thousands of sellers realize their dreams into reality, fight tooth and nail to win the Buy Box, and finally, where they earn money!
What You Should Do
According to the platform, you should, first of all, choose your selling plan. There are two main options – individual and professional plans. If you choose the first one, you’ll pay $0.99 every time you sell an item. However, there’s also another option – the professional plan. It costs $39.99 per month, no matter how many items you sell. However, Amazon will always collect referral fee on each sale you make, regardless of which option you choose.
Amazon and Its Products
Even though it’s quite easy to open up an Amazon account, you should know that Amazon pays attention to the products you list. In general, Amazon allows its sellers to sell whatever they want, but there’s also one more thing. Everything depends on the product, product category and the brand whose products you want to sell. Some categories are available for all Amazon sellers, which means that listing them without approval won’t cause problems for you and your business. However, there are also certain categories that need special approval from the platform, or require a professional seller account: in both cases, listing products without proper documents will lead sellers to harsh consequences. Sometimes there are products that can’t be sold by third-party sellers…. In any case, you should always check everything with the platform and its policies!
Top online marketplaces always hide something! For example, seemingly perfect Amazon constantly suspends its sellers, and doesn’t care about their efforts, reputation and image. Another huge minus of this platform is that the competition is extremely high. Sellers can do the impossible to win the Amazon Buy Box and win the race against others. They can steal your listings, write negative feedback, order tons of products from different product categories and suddenly cancel them, and all that stuff… What can we say? People choose online marketplaces to sell their products, but that’s not for free!
eBay
eBay is one of those marketplaces that have a great customer base but are always in the shade of someone bigger. Yes, Amazon and eBay are always competing, however, both of them are good! The platform itself says that signing up for an eBay account requires only your email address. Once your account is set up, you can buy, sell, and enjoy all the benefits of being an eBay member!
What Makes eBay Special
eBay is not only an online marketplace where sellers list their ready-to-be-sold products, but it also offers live auctions! In fact, eBay became famous because of them! Even though the platform started offering the “buy it now” technique, it doesn’t forget about its roots! Now, one of the biggest online marketplaces offers not only the features we all know about but also auctions that are fun, risky, and adventurous. However, we should accept the fact that these auctions mainly work for limited, collectible products that are worth the price!
What concerns fees, eBay always charges selling fees. On eBay exist two main types of seller fees: an insertion fee when you create a listing, and a final value fee when your item sells. So, if you start selling on eBay, make sure you know who you’re dealing with!
Cons of Selling on eBay
As you can see, there are certain cons of selling on Amazon: high and unstable seller fees, lack of control over your listings and business, and so forth. Apart from that, eBay is famous for changes! This platform always improves, develops its interface, adds new tools and so on… This is at the same time extremely uncomfortable for the sellers, who get used to one change, when the other one suddenly occurs!
Walmart
Let’s agree that we always associate online marketplaces solely with Amazon: why? Good marketing, that’s the answer! And it’s hardly surprising that platforms like Walmart or eBay are in the shade of Amazon, even if they are also one of the bests! However, we want to fix the current situation and take advantage of the alleged situation of Walmart, and show you its pluses.
Why Walmart
First of all, the competition is relatively low there! Why? Because everyone is blindly running after Amazon, and only the witty ones understand that they can find a fortune somewhere else! What’s more interesting, unlike Amazon or eBay, Walmart offers no setup and no monthly fees! Of course, there’s still a referral fee that you need to pay, which is automatically deducted from your prompt payment for sold items.
Why Not Walmart
However, there are also factors that dissatisfy Walmart sellers that sell their products online. More specifically, Walmart often removes your listings for various reasons. For example, if you list a product on Walmart that can cost lower on other online marketplaces, Walmart will get crazy and remove everything that you listed! As they say, nothing personal, just business! What seems more frightening, Walmart doesn’t offer any services that will make its sellers life easier! Unlike Amazon, Walmart wants its sellers to deal with their own warehouses, storage, delivery and return system! As you can see, online sales on Walmart won’t be conducted through FBA!
Conclusion
If you’re looking for a good eCommerce site where there are million active customers who are ready to spend as much as they can, then you should observe all the “yes” and “nos” that exist for every single platform. One of them may require listing fees, another one will want you to pay a monthly fee, always check the product categories you’re selling, follow all their policies and guidelines, and so forth. It doesn’t really matter, you should choose the one that matches you, your business type and the goals that you want to sooner or later achieve.
There is no such a thing as the best platform of the world, but there is certainly the one that will offer you its advantages, and won’t get on your nerves every time you log in to your account. Sell products on the platform that you like, and not on the ones people tell you to do!
If you decided to operate a wholesale business on platforms like Amazon or eBay, contact specialists at Jerome Basilio. Together with us, you will have a perfectly created strategy, reliable suppliers and high-quality products to get started with!
