Selling under Own Brand vs. Online Marketplaces: What to Choose in 2021?
January 23, 2020In this digitally-driven world, businesses across different industries have caught up to the idea of having a prominent online presence. However, the term “online” is way too general for your brand to attain any kind of presence.
In recent years, there has been an influx in the number of e-commerce options for businesses. Thus, it’s no longer the question of whether or not one should sell their products online, instead it’s about exploring the vast number of options related to selling online.
This leads one to stumble across a prevalent question – whether you should sell your products in an online marketplace or start your own e-commerce website?
Ideally, you’d be more inclined towards generating more profit. However, at the same time, it wouldn’t be the wisest of options to overwhelm yourself with added loads of work by selling your product across multiple platforms. There are pros and cons associated with both the options.
With that being said, we have compiled a list of benefits for both the options to allow you to make an informed decision for your business:
Benefits of Selling on Online Marketplaces:
- Readymade Traffic
A big driving factor that inclines businesses towards choosing online marketplaces over their own website is readymade traffic. Online marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, eBay, etc. are well-established and highly trusted with a massive incoming traffic. According to Statista, more than 1.8 billion people were reported to have made an online purchase. Among which, top marketplaces like Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay accounted for more than 50% of the total sales.
It will take you months, or in many cases years, to reach anywhere close to that number. For this, you would need to spend additional money on hiring an SEO specialist or even for paid advertising. For new e-commerce websites, this additional money is a huge deal. On the contrary, listing your product in an online marketplace enhances your chances of selling your product due to the site’s readymade traffic.
- No Set up Cost
Online marketplaces are established websites with an already developed infrastructure. There is no initial cost related to web hosting, IT infrastructure, or any technical hiring, thereby making it highly cheaper and easier to manage.
Additionally, these online marketplaces have their own applications on different operating devices to cater to the modern-day smartphone users. In a report released by Ibotta, almost 50% of the consumers shop from their mobile devices. For a business that is just starting out, the financial situation might not be favourable enough to make such investments initially.
Also read: Website or Mobile Apps – What should an eCommerce business owner build first?
- No Marketing expenses
Once you upload or list your product in an online multi-vendor marketplace, you don’t need to spend loads of money to promote or market the product. Instead, the marketplace will make sure to do the same from its end to ensure that the product is sold. In addition to money, it will save you both time and effort, which you can instead utilize somewhere else.
Benefits of Selling on Personal Online Store:
- Build your own brand
When you run your own e-commerce website, you’re able to control everything on the site; what goes in and what doesn’t. From the web and mobile layouts to the designing to the content, you have complete ownership and control over them. This enables you to advertise or showcase your brand the way you want to.
Through your own e-commerce website, you are able to create a unique shopping experience for your customers and flaunt your brand’s personality to the world.
- Full Control and Flexibility
Stretching the last point even further, free e-commerce platforms, like Quick eSelling, offer you both control and flexibility over your website and brand. You have a number of pre-built templates to choose from, complete flexibility over design, mobile-optimized interface, and a much more personal connection with your customers.
- No Transaction Fee or Listing Fee Expenses
Unlike online marketplaces, you don’t need to pay any transaction or listing fees when you are using your own website. The products can be uploaded and listed as per your convenience. While the transactions can be made without any third-party fees or payments. This enables you to earn more money and grow your business at a rapid pace.
- Data of Sales and Customers
With your own online store, you can have complete access to your customer data. You can collect email addresses, which can be used further for email marketing purposes. Also, depending on your e-commerce platform, you can get access to key insights like average cart value, purchase history, geographical reach, and other information.
Try Hybrid Approach
As one might easily understand through this article, there are multiple benefits of using both the mentioned approaches. This, however, makes it highly difficult to choose one strategy. So, why not choose both?
Working on a hybrid approach allows you to garner considerable profit, all the while taking advantage of both the strategies. In this approach, you are able to have your own store, while leveraging the traffic offered by large online marketplaces.
Build an online store under your brand name and integrate it with an online marketplace to reap optimal benefits. Make sure to choose a powerful e-commerce platform like Quick eSelling as your partner. Quick eSelling enables you to lay focus on your core business, while it takes care of the technology.
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