Online sales can be done in several ways
When you think about selling online for the first time, a dilemma always comes to mind as to which solution to choose: An E-commerce or a Marketplace is more convenient. That is, your own website where you can sell or a global sales platform for third parties? What is better?
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What’s the difference between the two when preparing for online sales?
In online selling, when thinking about how e-commerce and marketplaces differ from each other, the best way to describe it is to simply think of you going solo with your business and selling your products through your website (e-commerce) or alternatively, by joining a platform such as Etsy, Alibaba, Ebay, Amazon and any other of this type based on the country you live in (Marketplace).
e-commerce allows you to:
E-commerce is your platform, you have to advertise your products and carry out all your marketing activities to bring customers to the “virtual doors” of your store. Not only that, you also need to find and pay for your annual hosting account, set up and install an SSL certificate, sign up for a payment gateway system, link it to your bank account, perform daily or weekly backups of your site files, keep an inventory of your site stock, plan and execute the design and flow of your store and so on.
What to do with a marketplace
With the Marketplace, on the other hand, you sign up, open your store account, add your products to a pre-designed template system, customize some pages with your store’s information and logo, and the rest is taken care of by the system of the Marketplace which is the same for everyone. There is no need to create site backups, take care of the bandwidth and use of servers, of the technology installed in the server, perform updates, install plug-ins etc.
Let’s see briefly what are the pros and cons
Online sale with your own e-commerce site
Benefits
- No commissions to be paid on sales
- No restrictions and rules beyond the basic ones from your hosting account
- More choices on how to plan the flow and design your site
Disadvantages
- You are practically alone and nobody knows you
- You will need to actively market your products
- Difficult to get a good ranking in Google at the beginning
Online sale with a marketplace
Benefits
- Open your shop on an already established system that takes care of most of your needs
- Many people can potentially see your store and products
- There is no need to worry about the payment gateway or any other software
Disadvantages
- Commission payable on each sale
- Recurring annual rates to keep the store
- Marketplace could potentially close your business at any time
In conclusion
If you are trying to decide between an e-commerce business and an online marketplace, it will be difficult to choose a clear winner. This is because they both have interesting features and you have to choose the ones that are most relevant to your business. If you’re having a hard time making up your mind, look for the answers to these questions.
- What are the most important aspects for you? – Branding and personalization vs ease of use and prepackaged solutions.
- What are your advertising plans?
- Will you build your marketing strategies on the familiarity of an existing platform or on customer data and information?
- Do you intend to market things that are controversial or heavily regulated?
- Are your company’s values compatible with those of third-party suppliers?
- Are your customers already shopping on third-party websites?
You can choose the option that best suits your needs based on the answers to the following questions and comparison.
Digital Designer, blog writer and also a tech enthusiast.
He loves to write content for blogs, podcasts, design websites, logos, brochures, banners and anything that sends a message to an audience.
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