You can sell your products online through a marketplace or your website
Running a profitable business is not an easy task. Once your products are ready to hit the market, there comes a big question- where to sell it? With the rise of e-commerce, this question can be rather challenging. To sell the product online one has to choose an online marketplace or an eCommerce website, and this choice depends on the requirements and budget factors.
What Is The Marketplace?
An online marketplace is a virtual platform where buyers and sellers can exchange goods and services. The marketplace reaches out to several shoppers, and your product will be sold on a third party site. Trust in famous brands such as Amazon, Etsy, eBay, etc. is what drives the marketplaces’ popularity. Here customers do not search for products based on the brand, instead, they buy them based on other factors such as reviews, price, etc.
Pros Of Selling Products On A Marketplace
- Amazing Residual Traffic – The marketplace has a wide range of traffic as there are millions of customers purchasing products every day. Your products can be viewed easily by various customers who visit the site to purchase a related product. It also helps in the low-cost promotion of your product.
- Low Investment – Setting up your website needs more money when compared to selling your products on a marketplace. You must hire your own IT team to build and maintain your website. This cost is lowered when you choose to sell your product in the marketplace.
- Well Set SEO Options – The SEO and SERP options for product category are well-organized in the marketplace. These options help showcase your products easily to the customers.
- Selling Becomes Easier – Selling products on the marketplace becomes easier when all policies are taken care of. The marketplace owners have their pre-defined policies for each step of shopping. It makes you sell products without any tension.
Drawbacks Of The Marketplace
- Cannot Create Branding – Selling products in the marketplace stops you from branding your company, and you cannot take ownership of your customers by sending them promotional emails or messages.
- Competition – On one hand, the marketplace provides convenience, and on the other, there is immense competition involved. Your potential buyers can also view related products from other sellers, which can slow the sales rate.
What Is Website Selling?
Selling products on your eCommerce website is very simple and involves less competition. Your website will showcase the products of your brand. You can control the website completely, and it attracts customers through your ads and online promotional techniques.
Pros Of Selling Goods On An eCommerce Website
- Ownership – The eCommerce website is controlled by you completely, you have the freedom to apply changes, according to your business needs. You can add your promotional codes, offers, or discounts that best suit your business to increase customer satisfaction.
- Exposure To Business Analytics – Owning a website showcases the pattern of purchase history, which allows you to analyze the sales pattern. This data allows you to modify your business strategy for profitable sales in the future.
- The Profit Is All Yours – When selling a product on your website, the profits from the product sold are owned by you completely. Whereas, in the marketplace, you need to share a stipulated amount of profits.
Using Shopify As A eCommerce Platform
Shopify is a platform that lets you build an online store for your business
Shopify is one of the best e-commerce website building platforms available. If you are concerned about your budget, they offer choices of plans ranging from $29 to $299 per month. Shopify allows you to select from its wide range of themes and lets you design your own. It lets you add product images, descriptions, prices, and offers, manage your inventory, create blogs and web-pages, and much more. You can try out the 14-day free trial before deciding to purchase a plan.
Cons Of Website Selling
- Setting Up Payment Gateways – It is important to set up a trustworthy payment gateway to complete the order process. It needs to be secure and must offer customers multiple payment options. But, this is not a concern while selling the products in the marketplace, as it is taken care of already.
- Requires A Heavy Initial investment – To set up an own eCommerce website, you need to invest a heavy amount on a team to build your website. This cost involves developers and other resources that keep your website running fulltime.
- Requires a lot of Time – It takes time to get profitable sales and heavy traffic. You need to invest a lot of time analyzing each task to find promotional methods and keyword researches to attract more customers.
Which Is More Beneficial?
The best thing businesses can do is sell products on both platforms simultaneously. However, if you are restricted to choose just one option, you need to check budget, business strategies, and other priorities. Take a look at the pros and cons of each category to make a wise decision.