The Best Ecommerce Marketplaces To Help You Diversify Your Sales

Great user experience makes shopping exponentially easier for online shoppers. This is handled internally by the platform itself, so solid management and maintenance are important to keep sellers listing items and maintain consumer traffic. The online marketplaces do a lot of work on the frontend and backend to ensure a smooth experience throughout the platform. The aim is to create potential value to be captured by all parties involved and ultimately keep customers happy.

If shoppers have to choose between walking into a brick-and-mortar store and heading online to buy something, chances are they’re going to choose online shopping.

In particular, shoppers are turning to marketplaces to browse, compare prices, and buy products for the convenience of shopping in one place and while Amazon can be a great way to cross paths with millions of buyers, it may not be right for everyone

To help you in your search, we bring you a list with the best ecommerce marketplaces available. They’re each unique in their own way, so based on the features you need, your budget, and your overall ecommerce goals, use this guide to figure out which marketplace will help you stand out and earn your share of the substantial revenue available.

Walmart

Like Amazon, Walmart is a retailer, so if you are accepted to sell on their marketplace, they may also be competing against you. This doesn’t stop people selling on Amazon though, and shouldn’t stop you from applying to sell on Walmart either.

Walmart doesn’t charge listing fees but does charge a category-specific referral fee of between 6% and 20% when an item sells.

Walmart’s marketplace was rebooted recently and still not much is known about what it’s like to sell there.

Visit Walmart’s seller portal

Google Shopping

Unless there’s a niche marketplace that’s perfect for reaching your target demographic—perhaps it’s one of the three we’ll discuss later in this post—Google Shopping is the alternative to Amazon we most strongly recommend to e-commerce businesses.

Google Shopping doesn’t require you to pay for listings—no matter how many products you want to advertise. As is the case when you’re running standard search ads, you’re only charged when someone clicks on your ad. (Bing Shopping offers this same key perk. And if you’re advertising on Google, don’t forget to advertise for e-commerce on Bing, too.)

Newegg

This is one marketplace you will surely love if you sell electronic goods like desktop computers, laptops, and gaming equipment, among others.

Shipped by Newegg (SBN) is the company’s answer to Amazon’s FBA. Sellers who sell with SBN can get their products to participate in Newegg’s campaigns and enjoy more visibility.

This marketplace doesn’t charge listing fees but takes a sales commission between 8% and 14% depending on the category that you’re selling in.

To apply as a seller on this platform, visit the Newegg site.

eBay

Since eBay first launched all the way back in 1995, it’s evolved from a site that only sold used goods to become one of the largest e-commerce retailers in the world. This marketplace is suited for sellers that sell new and used items and are open to auctioning their products for a higher price.

What’s great about eBay is even if you’re starting out and don’t have a website yet, the eBay Seller Hub is designed to help you run your business as smoothly as possible. For example, you can run promotions on eBay and print shipping labels on your own.

You even have insight into product trends to see which of your products are bestsellers, which promotions shoppers use the most, how long it takes you to pick and ship products, and much more.

Jet.com

While Walmart.com acquired Jet.com in 2016, the latter continues to operate as its own retailer. But one big thing they share in common is offering the lowest price to buyers, although Jet.com increases discounts based on customer actions, like adding more items to your cart, using their email address, forgoing free returns, and more.

It’s fairly simple and straightforward to sell on Jet.com. If you’re a U.S.-based business, all you have to do is apply and you’ll most likely be accepted. If you are, note that you’ll need to integrate with its API, which means investing in an inventory management system. Once you’re all set up, you’ll find a fairly simplified approach, with most categories (but not all) requiring a 15% commission.

Bonanza

Bonanza is a pay-per-sale system, so you’re only charged when a customer places an order for your product. The amount of money you pay depends on the final offer value (FOV) of whatever you sold. FOV is the price of the product plus any shipping costs over $10. If you make a sale with FOV under $500, Bonanza takes 3.5%. If it’s over $500, they take 3.5% plus 1.5% of the amount over $500.

Bonanza, boasting over 300,000 organic monthly visitors, is built around the idea that marketplaces should help sellers build relationships with loyal customers—rather than render sellers virtually anonymous while simply helping customers find the lowest prices possible.

Rakuten

Rakuten is the fourth largest e-commerce site in the world. It’s a global marketplace based in Japan with the potential to expose sellers to a considerably large audience. Rakuten is a good fit for medium to large sellers that want the option to ship beyond North America and grow their business internationally.

With Rakuten, once your application to become a seller is approved, you get a storefront you can customize so that shoppers can easily identify your brand. You also set up your own privacy and return policies.

Fruugo

Fruugo is an interesting marketplace, combining features of both Amazon and eBay. Each seller submits their own listing with a title, description, and images.

A big advantage to Fruugo is that it offers easy international expansion. You just need to upload your products, and set the price in your own currency. Fruugo will then translate the listing and make your product available on all 23 of its global marketplaces. They will also handle customer service, but you are responsible for shipping the product overseas.

Fruugo doesn’t charge sellers to list products. Instead, they take a commission of 15% of the sales price excluding VAT.

Visit Fruugo’s seller portal

Use Social Media

Social media is often pegged as a great way to promote your brand, and it’s now well-equipped to do a lot more than that.

It’s easy to sell via both Facebook and Instagram at the same time and as with the marketplaces, you can easily sync these up with an e-commerce store if you have one – just add the relevant app, and away you go.

 

As you can see there are plenty of options to explore, so do your homework and reap the fruits that will follow.

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