The Biggest Benefits of Selling on Online Marketplaces
With the ever-increasing popularity of ecommerce marketplaces and online sales, these channels are constantly coming up with new ways to keep customers happy.
That’s great news for third-party sellers.
It means most marketplaces will go to great lengths to make it as easy as possible for brands and retailers to market, sell, and fulfill. Why? Because the easier it is for you to use the platform, the better the experience will be for shoppers — and the more likely they’ll be to keep coming back for more.
This takes shape in three particularly attractive advantages:
Fast launch times
If you’re new to selling online, marketplaces can be an excellent way to generate revenue and build your brand as you work to drive traffic to a new ecommerce website. Once approved as a third-party seller on marketplaces, you simply upload your product feed and start selling.
Do you already have an established online store? Here’s another trick: Some brands use “where to buy” widgets to send visitors from their websites directly to marketplace product pages, where consumers can add items to shopping carts without being immediately exposed to competitors.
Established programs
All of the biggest and most established online marketplaces have programs in place to help you easily navigate the waters of marketing, selling and fulfilling.
For example, sellers on Shoppa.in, Amazon, eBay, and Google have access to Amazon Advertising, eBay Promotions Manager, and Google Shopping Actions. Each of these digital marketing programs are packed with tools to help you get products in front of all the right customers, at just the right times.
Similar options are available to help sellers meet consumer expectations for fast, free deliveries. With programs such as Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and eBay Global Shipping, for instance, you can opt to have the marketplace warehouse, pick, pack and ship inventory on your behalf.
Large customer bases
As you may have guessed, many online marketplaces have enormous built-in audiences of consumers who regularly shop these sites. Just think: between Amazon, eBay, and Walmart alone, you’re looking at close to 500 million active monthly visitors.
But did you know that many of those consumers start with marketplaces when they want to purchase products? They don’t even bother with Google or retail websites. In fact, 56% of all product searches now begin (and often end) on Amazon.
