To be a seller in the 21st century includes surely the use of online selling.
The marketplaces represent the evolution of the shopping malls, where a client can find in one place everything s/he needs, from the home supply to the smartphone. eBay and Amazon are the most known, but they are not alone. The choice to use a marketplace instead or together with your ecommerce website must be taken after few considerations.
Here you have a list of 10 facts (neither advices, nor opinions) concerning the pro and con of the sale on marketplaces.
5 Pros and 5 cons of the selling on marketplace
Read the PROS.
- Expense: to launch an account as a professional seller on a marketplace, the expense is really low if you compare that to the expense needed for the creation of a ecommerce website.
- Visibility: you will not need to know SEO techniques for a good position of your website or to pay for the advertisement. You cannot imagine how much clients will look at your listings every day.
- Face to face with competitors: you can rapidly confront the product sold by you and by your customers. With a simple research you will know if you have the lowest price or if other competitors offer better services.
- Trust: it is known that the users trust the seller on marketplaces. Indeed, they feel a sense of trust coming from that marketplace.
- Client's complaint: in case of complaint of every type you are not alone. The marketplace itself can support the client and serve as a vehicle.
Read the CONS.
- Competitors are close, too much close.
- Performance: the marketplace has its own reputation and impose a series of rules of behaviour about the relationship with the client and the manage of the orders.
- Shared incomes: To take advantage of the pro is good, but nothing comes without a price: part of the transactions goes into the marketplaces’ hands.
- Design of the shop: if you are inspired I think that you will not be happy with the layout… you will have a layout similar to other sellers.
“technical” dependence: If the website decides to change something in the technical aspect of the listings (e.g. eBay decided to have a universal format for the images in 2015) , you have to adapt to these changes..