COVID-19 forced many store owners to pay attention to the online world, and marketplaces became the face of eCommerce. According to Tom McFayden, McFayden Digital CEO, marketplaces account for more than 50% of global online sales. This growth was in large part due to the pandemic. Today, we live in a world where if we want something, we grab our computer or smartphone and look on Amazon, eBay, or Alibaba for the product we want. In a matter of days, we have it in front of our door and ready to use.   

Whether you are a distributor or a seller, having your products exhibited on online marketplaces gives you plenty of advantages that we are explaining in the following lines. 

1- Reach more customers and more visibility     

These marketplaces have a lot more users than your online store. Amazon, for example, has more than 200 million Prime users around the world. These members have exclusive deals every day. eBay has 187 million buyers online. If you want your online store to reach these types of numbers, it takes a lot of time and money devoted to marketing campaigns and advertising.   

On top of that, choose a marketplace that has good positioning on search engines. This way, it will be easier for your products to appear on the first pages of Google due to your keywords. For instance, eBay reported in its First Quarter Report for 2021 that the sneaker category “saw almost double the amount of traffic and close to triple the amount of new buyers coming to eBay through SEO.”     

2- Target your preferred audience     

In general, when we think of online marketplaces, we think of Amazon and eBay. While this is correct, there are different marketplaces specialized in specific markets. That allows us to reach our desired target audience. For example, some marketplaces focus on offering only lawyers, freelance services, medical services, e-learning, etc.       

3- Reductions in costs       

You don’t have to worry about buying a content management system (CMS) or creating a website from scratch. Doing this costs money and takes time to accomplish. On the other hand, if you sell directly through marketplaces, the only thing you have to do is meet their requirements and pay a monthly fee or commission when you make a sale.          

To illustrate, Amazon has a program called Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). With this plan, you can store your products in their centers, and they are in charge of shipping, customer service, and any returns. On top of that, you get a series of benefits such as items eligible for free shipping for Prime customers.    

4- Easy to sell and worldwide shopping    

This point complements #3. Since you don’t have to create a webpage, selling is much easier. You only have to choose which marketplace or marketplaces you want to sell, follow their guidelines, and immediately place your items for sale.        

Furthermore, selling on marketplaces offers your business new opportunities and the potential to reach new clients abroad. In the past, this goal was for big corporations. Now marketplaces made this objective more reachable for small and medium-sized companies.    

Conclusion

To sum up, online marketplaces offer your business a great kickstart to sell your products. They have millions of users, which increases the chances of your products being bought locally and even worldwide. By paying a monthly fee, these marketplaces offer you the possibility of storing and dispatching your products to buyers. PriceTweakers offers your company MAP monitoring. Whether you are a retailer or distributor, this is the best tool to track and check the prices your customers pay on the internet for their products. By doing this, you can prevent minimum advertised price (MAP) violations caused by your sellers. Any infringement made will immediately be seen in the dashboard or on the special MAP reports, and you can contact them right away to fix the price. Also, if you need to connect your store to any marketplace you desire, PriceTweakers has integration. Contact us for more information.       

If you are a Bol seller, use our Bol Repricer to increase sales and profits. We are the only Bol Repricer to be featured on the Bol Partner Platform.

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