Finding the Right Marketplace For Your Business
So, you’re looking for a marketplace to sell your products online, and you’re confused about how you should figure out the one platform that best fits your business.
The world of online business, especially marketplaces, is as vast as River Thames, if not the Pacific Ocean. A marketplace is a multi-vendor platform where merchants can enrol and sell their products in one place to a curated customer base.
It may sound like marketplaces are complex to understand, but it has a lean and scalable structure for new businesses and those existing since ages.
Some of these platforms require a monthly or yearly subscription, and some work on the commission model.
The top two online marketplaces that most people in the UK prefer to shop from are Amazon and eBay, with 407.0 M and 297.9 M UK visits/month.
Read on as this article will help you decide on the right marketplace for your business.
But before we begin, let’s look at some marketplaces that make thousands and thousands of online sales every month.
Table of Contents
Some popular marketplaces
Amazon
Amazon is the largest and most popular marketplace in the UK, with 407 M visits per month.
The product listings on Amazon cover an extensive range, which is also its USP because people visit this online marketplace for literally anything and find them as well.
eBay
eBay is the second most popular online marketplace in the UK, with 297.9 M visits per month. To sell on eBay, you need to create a free account that will instantly give access to millions of consumers to buy your products.
Although eBay has been operational since 1995, it has over 183 million active buyers.
eBay is straightforward to use and browse, making it simple to sell your products on the site.
Etsy
Etsy is a hugely successful online marketplace with 2.5 million vendors and 50 million customers. It is the third most popular online marketplace in the UK, with 36.0 M visits per month.
The UK drives 9% of the global traffic, being the second-largest country for Etsy. Hand-made and artistic goods are the product category of Etsy, which is advantageous as the marketplace already has a dedicated niche.
Shopify
Although this is not a product listing marketplace and is a brand-building tool, Shopify is a great e-commerce platform for your business.
Shopify provides several services to online businesses, including tools for marketing, shipping, customer engagement, etcetera.
As of May 2021, the firm announced that its platform has over 1,700,000 enterprises onboard in around 175 countries.
Social Media
In today’s world, social media holds lots of influence and power over the mass. As consumers spend much time on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, they have become great tools for business owners to convert into marketplaces.
Both Facebook and Instagram have now developed dedicated guidelines for conducting business on their platforms. Your business can be utterly social media-based, or it can act like a great customer acquisition technique for your business.
For more information on the Facebook business, click here.
Wish
Wish is an online e-commerce platform for vendors and customers. Rather than depending just on a search bar format, the platform graphically personalises each customer’s buying experience.
It enables salespersons to advertise their items on Wish and sell to clients directly. Wish does not stock merchandise or manage returns; instead, it works with merchant service providers to process payments.
How to use top online marketplaces?
Use it in collaboration with your eCommerce site
Online marketplaces can be used in combination with your eCommerce website. Creating an online eCommerce business means having your online store that helps in brand development and awareness.
Use it according to your budget for selling online
While listing your products on a platform, looking at the pricing and matching it according to your budget is a crucial step.
Look out for things like monthly fees, listing fees, transaction fees, etcetera, and decide which marketplace(s) to choose according to your budget. You can find the charges and services on the marketplaces’ website itself!
Use multiple listings to cover a wide range
Taking a multi-channel approach can broaden your customer base and provide you with choices if one platform fails. It allows you to cover a broad spectrum of customers while ensuring that your product does not vanish altogether if one of your sites goes down.
Consider listing on many sites if you have a massive stock of each item. You could, for example, sell the item on Amazon for a certain amount and then auction it off on eBay. If you have a limited supply of each item, it’s best to sell on one site; otherwise, you’ll waste your time opening and cancelling listings.
A zero-investment option for an online store
Instagram sees 500 million active users daily. Just open an account, post about your products, and take orders via DMs and comments. Voila! No fees ever! There will be shipping costs which you can always incur or charge from the customer separately.
How to determine which online marketplaces are the right fit for your business?
Decide if you want to run a B2B or B2C business model
A B2B business caters to other companies, and a B2C business directly caters to consumers.
Nowadays, there are dedicated marketplaces for each of these categories. Deciding what kind of business you want to run is the first step to starting a profitable business, as different companies flourish with varying business models.
Adequate research is needed to figure out where your business lies. Click here to get started on it immediately.
Research your target online shoppers
Research what the buyers of products similar to yours want and need — read reviews, understand what buyers search for, and knit your marketing strategy.
For example, you’re a herbal shampoo seller, and you find in your research that most of these types of products have a short shelf-life but excessive quantity and costs, which leads to wastage.
To solve this problem, you can alter the quantity, reduce costs, and make it a marketing strategy for your product.
Research your competition well
Look for items similar to the ones you sell. Is there any competition? Where are they selling their goods? How much will it cost?
Make sure to concentrate on the overall product category rather than specific rivals. Once you’ve figured out where your competitors are selling, that’s generally a brilliant location for you to be.
Of course, choosing completely other marketplaces with less competition gives you the benefit of “owning” that product sector. But, ensure that the market you are choosing for your business targets the demographic you’re looking for.
Test the eCommerce marketplace
Try a few different eCommerce marketplaces to see what works best for you.
Offer incentives like free delivery or free post return to your customers and see how the sale price changes. You may adjust the markets you sell in and other parameters based on the primary data.
Conclusion
With an average of £866 spent online per person, British online shoppers lead European countries and are among the top nations worldwide to shop and sell on marketplaces.
There is a wide scope for your business to flourish on such a platform.
Remember, you don’t have to launch your business on all of these channels simultaneously; take your time!
FAQs
How to start a business for free?
By opening an Instagram page for your business, you can start a business for free. Just post about your products, use good captions and hashtags and take orders! You can cover your shipping costs by either paying for it or acquiring it from the customer.
How to start a business on Instagram for free?
You can start a business for free on Instagram by creating an Instagram page for your products and taking orders via DMs.
How to increase my business sales?
You can drive organic sales by using content marketing strategies like posting high-quality, well-lit product content on social media with actionable captions and hashtags. Using SEO for blogs, etcetera, also helps acquire traffic.
