Building your business online is one of the best routes to take as a business owner today. The question is, where will you build your business?
The good news is you have dozens of options. The hard part is knowing where to spend your time building a site. You can always work with an e-commerce agency to guide you and support your efforts. Before you do that, consider the best platforms for selling your products online right now.
Your Brand Matters
To be successful on any platform, you need to choose one that’s designed to fit your needs. That is, the best online marketplace for your brand may not be the same as the next company’s. Each one has its own standards and requirements to follow, but also its more likely customers and costs. Navigating the process can seem a bit overwhelming, but with some basic research, you can dive into each one of these and determine which is the right choice for your unique needs.
Research is important. You don’t want to spend a lot of time or money upfront working on the wrong platform.
Which Online Marketplace Is the Best?
This is the big question, of course, but as noted, not one marketplace fits all needs. Some of the most well known are going to be where you’ll want to start such as Amazon, eBay, and Walmart. These are the brands people know and the websites they turn to in order to find everything they want and need to buy. There are many others including Alibaba.com, Etsy, and Fruugo, to name a few.
Now, you may know that, according to recent research, 81 percent of people use online platforms like this to make big purchases – that means that people are using a wide range of websites to research, gather insight, and buy.
You don’t want to try to be present on every one of those sites, though, at least not at first. Doing so will overwhelm yourself and your business, often ending up costing you more money and frustration than is necessary.
Know What You Are Looking For
When choosing the best platform for online business building, then, your first step is to know what you need. These platforms provide business owners with several key advantages:
· You want to get your business online fast. It generally doesn’t take more than a matter of days to launch a third-party seller business on one of these marketplaces. Once approved, you can upload your product and data and get your business selling.
· Most of these platforms have established programs in place. That means that you can easily navigate the marketing, selling, fulfilling processes with ease.
· They also have a large customer base already in place and waiting for you. Amazon alone has millions of daily users in most areas. Keep in mind that quality counts – with Amazon ranking #1 for many customers, that’s an important factor to consider here.
Which Platforms Are the Best Places to Be?
Considering all of that information, what’s the answer? Here are a few of the top-rated marketplace platforms for you to work on becoming a part of:
#1: Amazon
There’s no confusion here. The biggest online retailer serving the U.S. and beyond, Amazon is an important place to be as a business looking to establish an e-commerce business. The company has 105 million Prime members (people who pay extra to get specific features from sellers here). Amazon is also one of the easiest options because it gives you everything you need to set up your e-commerce business, fulfill the orders, and manage your marketing.
#2: eBay
Gone are the days of people selling used products on eBay. Today, it’s a valuable marketplace that offers some incredible advantages to buyers and that’s why you need to be here. With a bit less competition, eBay can be the place to be when you want a worldwide audience without any type of setup fee, monthly fee, or annual fee to pay (rather, you pay a fee when listing your products and later when you sell them).
#3: Walmart
It’s an excellent place to build an e-commerce business because the company has 440 million or more customers around the world. It also has a number of partners that open up access to other countries. Walmart is harder to get onto but it should be one you consider when it comes to long-term goals. That’s because the competition tends to be less and the opportunities to reach a large group are still quite numerous.
Where to Get Started
Let’s be clear. These are 3 of the options across over 100 online marketplaces available. They may not be the best location for you to get started with your e-commerce business. There are dozens of other options that may be a better fit. If you’re targeting the Asia Pacific region, AliExpress, TaoBao, and Tmall are must-consider locations. In Europe, you may want to consider Rakuten, Amazon Germany, and Otto.
The key is to know where to start and then to develop an effective strategy for getting there. Once you find the best platforms for your e-commerce business, don’t stop there. You also need to have an e-commerce agency behind you that can support your efforts and enable you to make that best splash in any marketplace you choose.
Once you have that first marketplace setup and working for you, you can confidently expand your business further, covering more opportunities across more of the world. This is a global business you’re building. Don’t do it alone. Instead, allow our team at Nuanced Media guide you every step of the way. It’s possible to create new, valuable opportunities to grow your business using our tools and e-commerce expertise.
