5 Best Places to Sell Online in 2021

I am a marketer by trade and I just launched my first startup to help people find their perfect job.

What if you have the best goods and prices but no one can find your store? The answer is not always obvious, so take a look at these tips for success in ecommerce.

We’re here to show you the best online marketplaces, but first let’s compare them. This is just a quick chart of pros and cons for each one.

• Highest traffic in ecommerce
• FBA capabilities
• Most competition
• Strict rules
• Wide range of products
• Great for reselling and vintage products
• Hidden fees
• Bad reputation among sellers
• High traffic
• No regular fees
• Sellers must be approved
• Products removed if too pricey
• High traffic
• Built-in audience looking for homemade and custom goods
• Recurring listing fees
• Only recommended for homemade and vintage goods
• Customizable
• Set your own policies with no restrictions
• You’re in charge of generating all your traffic

Amazon

One of the most popular online stores, Amazon has gained a lot of popularity from buyers. But what about sellers?

The power of Amazon is that it has the most customers on its site, which means more people will see your store even if you are just starting out. However, this also makes for a lot of competition among sellers.

Competitive pricing and the ability to advertise on Amazon will help you sell more products.

One of the best things about Amazon is that they offer their own logistics service, Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA). With this you get to store and ship your goods for free. But with all the fees, it can be hard to tell if using FBA would really save money.

Amazon is very strict about their branding and display rules. They want to make sure that all of the pages are uniform, which can be difficult for any company trying to stand out.

eBay

Lots of sellers think that eBay has lost its value because it is not as popular, but the original ecommerce marketplace still gets enough traffic to stay relevant.

Ebay is a huge place for people to sell their old goods. Think of it as an online antique market or garage sale, but with more variety and high-tech features.

You can find an audience for your rare and uncommon items on eBay because many shoppers come to the site expecting just that. This makes it easier than trying to sell these same types of products in other channels.

The major downside to eBay is that the company has a reputation for hiding fees and charging sellers unjust amounts. Before you sign up, make sure you read through all of their terms.

Walmart

With Amazon continuing to dominate the ecommerce market, Walmart has spent years developing its own online marketplace. Judging by how popular it is, there’s a good chance that they’ll be able to unseat them.

The benefits of selling on Walmart are that there is no regular fee for sellers, but they only pay when the product sells. This differs from Amazon because it has a monthly seller’s subscription where sellers have to make sales in order to avoid being charged.

It’s hard to find any downsides for this company, but it is committed wholeheartedly to its low-price guarantee and will remove your products if they’re priced too high.

On top of that, you need to apply and be accepted before you can sell on Walmart. If this happens, then congratulations! You’ll have the opportunity to make a lot more sales without having as much competition.

Etsy

Etsy is the odd one out in this list. Unlike other marketplaces, Etsy offers mostly handmade products.

As one of the best places to sell handmade items online, Etsy has a large community that is always looking for unique and sometimes quirky artisan goods. This built-in customer base can save crafters time in marketing because they are selling their products alongside other craftspeople.

Sellers have to pay for traffic with listing fees, which is a fair trade-off. But not everyone will be able to do this because it costs money and time that some sellers just don’t want or need.

In addition, if you’re not selling homemade goods on Etsy, they can’t help you.

Your Own Website

You can also start your own online store, but it will take more work. This is the approach taken by hands-on retailers who are willing to put in a little extra effort for better results.

If you want to get started with your own website, it can be as simple or involved as you like. For a quick and easy option, just open up Shopify in the span of minutes.

But if you want to take advantage of these outside-the-box sales tactics, like UX design and branding, then it’s time for a hiring strategy change. You’ll have to invest more money in designers or hire someone else who has experience with this.

As a retailer, you have complete control over your store policies and site design. The downside is that it’s up to you to attract customers. Marketplaces like Amazon and eBay already have shoppers for you.

Running your own website means you’ll have to do all the work of attracting customers, not just by advertising but also through digital marketing and social media.

Hedge Your Bets with a Multichannel Solution

It is not necessary to only sell on one channel. With so many different types of customers, it’s important to be able to connect with them all and increase your customer base by selling in multiple places.

When you start out, it can be a bit difficult to keep up with all the different channels that you sell on. The best way to deal with this is by using inventory management software like Ecomdash which helps automate your work and collect information from across multiple channels into one central dashboard.

Ecomdash automatically updates stock levels on all your channels every time you make a sale and lets you bulk-edit product information so that if sales increase, then the process of updating inventory becomes much easier. This is perfect for store owners who want to expand their business by selling in multiple locations.

Test out a free trial of our service today to see how it improves your business.

Hello! This blog post was originally published in August 2016, but we updated it with some new information to make sure that you get the best and most accurate info.

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