Grow your Business with Multi Channel Selling

Multi-channel retailing is an eCommerce selling strategy that targets potential customers on various selling platforms beyond a company’s website. The rise in the number of online marketplaces and selling platforms boasts some major players including eBay and Amazon.

These days, online marketplaces offer a whole new world of opportunities to eCommerce brands. However, it can be difficult to identify which platforms are a good fit for your business: so lets look at several of the key marketplaces and the things to consider when choosing the right marketplaces for your business.

1. Amazon

Bookseller turned retail powerhouse, Amazon is globally one of the biggest marketplaces online for sellers worldwide! A great marketplace to list your products on, given the increasing popularity and extensive reach providing opportunity for you to generate more custom and ultimately grow your business. Amazon offers millions of products covering a wide range of product categories from electricals and clothing to food. Third party vendors simply add products, which are then included into the site’s inventory. Once a consumer decides to make a purchase, the vendor is then liable for filling the order. Fulfillment can be handled by Amazon via their successful FBA service meaning you don’t need to hold stock or fulfill orders yourself.

However given the global scale you will face huge competition from other sellers so it’s important to ensure you offer competitive prices that don’t hinder your profit margin especially if your a small business with low value products given the seller fees.

2. eBay

Boasting 167 million active buyers in 190 markets, it’s fair to say eBay is one of the pioneers in online shopping. and one of the most recognised marketplaces in the world. The global enterprise has local marketplaces in more than 30 countries complimenting its auction and retail website, in addition to their other commerce brands: eBay classified group, which helps users find necessary things within their local communities, and Stubhub, the world’s largest platform for online tickets.

Like Amazon the eBay marketplace has a worldwide presence, an immense customer base and a huge amount of tools and support to help online retailers successfully grow their business making it the ideal platform for beginner sellers.

3. Etsy

The leading website for creative-minded merchants to sell their own products to consumers around the world. With options to set up your own shop, add multiple listings and start marketing to millions of potential buyers,it provides the ideal platform for the hobbyist to make money from their craft, now boasting 1.6 million active sellers and 26.1 million active buyers. Unlike eBay being an auction website Etsy is for direct sales.

4. Bonanza

Relatively new to the eCommerce scene, Bonanza is a fast-growing online marketplace and is one of the easiest selling platforms to use. The Bonanza marketplace sells more than 22 million items, with the site having merchants and shoppers in nearly every country around the world reinforcing it’s status as a fast-growing online marketplace with more than 40,000 sellers having already created businesses here.

A seller-centric marketplace – they don’t make any money until sellers do. No listing fees, no monthly store fees, no other sneaky fees and it’s their stance on this that has made this online marketplace popularity rise amongst sellers.

In conclusion, whilst online marketplaces like those we’ve reviewed above can give you fantastic exposure to customers and are easy and quick to set up, it’s important to factor in the fees to your costings. Furthermore the high competition you’ll face in order to stand out on these websites, you’ll need to ensure you’re selling a great product and work hard to stand out with branding, photography, imagery and marketing in order to generate those all important sales.

If you’re looking to grow your business through multi channel selling or increase your online presence then we would love to hear from you.