The best online mar­ket­place sites

The world of e-commerce grows year after year. In 2016, more than 322 billion dollars were generated in online sales in the US. If you want to sell a product these days, you can’t do without the pos­si­bil­i­ty of selling it online. There are currently numerous online mar­ket­places competing on the internet on which small and medium-sized busi­ness­es can also offer their goods. But which portal should you place yourself on to generate the highest sales for your company? This guide presents the different e-commerce mar­ket­places available on the internet and discusses their ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages.

If you would like to dis­trib­ute your offers online, your first thought may be to create your own online shop – and this idea isn’t entirely wrong. If you set up your own online business, you have complete control over its design. You can com­plete­ly customize your online store to fit your own needs. But like a retail store, guiding buyers into the shop and building up a loyal customer base is a big task. You also have to take care of all technical com­po­nents yourself or hire IT experts. Therefore, it can make sense to offer your products instead on an already existing site, where users have already come to shop: an online mar­ket­place.

Online mar­ket­places function just like tra­di­tion­al mar­ket­places: Sellers assemble in a location to offer their wares. And as with offline selling, it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly the market par­tic­i­pant who provides the best offer that gets the most business – it’s also who can shout the loudest. It’s not enough anymore to simply make your product available on Amazon, eBay, or others and then hope for an increase in sales figures. The com­pe­ti­tion is fierce on the various platforms, which is why you should make an effort when posting your goods (or services). With most online mar­ket­places, you have several options for strength­en­ing your product placement:

• Article title: Many customers on online mar­ket­places find offers using the search function. The title of the product page is the first thing that potential buyers see. It plays a big role in the decision: Click or not? So select a mean­ing­ful and appealing headline.
  
  
• Product de­scrip­tion: Describe your offer exactly – and be creative with it. Es­pe­cial­ly in the B2C sector, clear facts are not enough to persuade customers to make a purchase decision. A product text should invoke emotions that suit the offer
  
  
• Photos: When it comes to content on the internet, text and images always go hand in hand – this goes for e-commerce as well. Pay par­tic­u­lar attention that your product photos make a pro­fes­sion­al im­pres­sion. Poor lighting, a cluttered back­ground, or poor image quality will deter users im­me­di­ate­ly. Mean­ing­ful, pro­fes­sion­al photos, on the other hand, will spark interest and bring about a positive first im­pres­sion.
  
  
• Facts: Most online mar­ket­places offer the pos­si­bil­i­ty to present facts on the offered product in the form of keywords. This gives users the chance to quickly recognize whether the product matches their per­cep­tion. You can com­pen­sate for a dis­ad­van­tage of online retail by spec­i­fy­ing sizes, weight, or materials used, for example: In contrast to physical sales, a customer in an online mar­ket­place can’t hold the product in their hand before pur­chas­ing. Detailed in­for­ma­tion gives a better im­pres­sion so they don’t have to make blind bargain.
  
  
• SEO: E-commerce mar­ket­places function in the exact same way as the internet in general: Search engines show users the way to the offers. That’s why it’s a good idea to pay attention to search engine op­ti­miza­tion criteria when setting up the article. After all, you want to appear at the top of the search results, otherwise users may choose one of your com­peti­tors before they’ve even seen your listing.

Even though Amazon enjoyed a market share of 43% in the US for 2016, the online giant is not nec­es­sar­i­ly the best choice for your company. Depending on what and to what extent you want to sell, it’s worth taking a look at other online retailers. For offers that address a specific customer group, niche mar­ket­places can be in­ter­est­ing. Pay attention to the following points when deciding on an online mar­ket­place:

• Com­mis­sion: Sales platforms see them­selves as in­ter­me­di­aries between customers and providers. Un­der­stand­ably, they also want to be paid for this. This is usually done through com­mis­sions. Depending on the revenue that you earn from a suc­cess­ful sale, the mar­ket­places charge a fee. When selecting a platform, pay attention to whether or not these costs are rea­son­able for you.

• Range: Different online mar­ket­places reach different numbers of people. But that doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that the highest range is best for your business. A platform with a focused range of offers, for example, could help you avoid scat­ter­ing losses.

• Sales model: Not all e-commerce platforms function according to the principle of fixed prices. Auctions, like on eBay, pit buyers against one another: The highest offer wins the bid. In a reverse auction – also known as a Dutch auction – the bid price decreases con­tin­u­ous­ly during the bidding period. If bidders wait too long, the offer could go to another in­ter­est­ed party.

• Focus: Some mar­ket­places have a very par­tic­u­lar target group, or only offer a par­tic­u­lar product range. On DaWanda, for example, users will mainly find handmade products and pieces of art.

• Usability: For companies, how easy the e-commerce platform is to operate is also a decisive factor. The ad­just­ment of products as well as the purchase trans­ac­tion should be as simple and easy to handle as possible. The freedom of design on the article pages is also important when making a decision.

• Com­pe­ti­tion: How is the com­pe­ti­tion po­si­tioned on the mar­ket­place in question? Maybe it makes more sense for you to select another platform where you won’t get lost in the com­pe­ti­tion for customers.

• Interface: Es­pe­cial­ly when you run your own online store, it’s helpful if the mar­ket­place offers cor­re­spond­ing in­ter­faces. Com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with existing en­ter­prise resource planning (ERP) systems can also sig­nif­i­cant­ly simplify your workload. This means that you won’t have to manually add stock.

In the US, e-commerce is dominated by the two online giants Amazon and eBay, with the relative newcomer Etsy providing fierce com­pe­ti­tion as well. These two e-commerce platforms are used by almost everyone who wants to shop online. Nev­er­the­less, as a seller (and as a buyer) you should take a look at the other available online mar­ket­places, because there are some very in­ter­est­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for small and medium-sized busi­ness­es.

The online giant Amazon started in 1994 as an online book­seller. Now, the US group has grown into one of the largest logistics companies with a wide range of its own products, and offers virtual services as well as gives en­tre­pre­neurs an op­por­tu­ni­ty to sell their goods via the Amazon Mar­ket­place. Amazon is clearly at the forefront of the online mar­ket­places available in the US: The retailing giant receives around 183 million unique visits each month. It’s one of the world’s most valuable brands (at appx. 139 billion US dollars) – overtaken only by Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

On Amazon, you can un­doubt­ed­ly reach the most potential buyers. But at what price? If you want to sell more than 40 products a month, Amazon will charge you a monthly fee of 40 dollars. In addition, there are sales fees that depend on the category in which your products fit. For each sold product, you will have to fork over between 7 and 15 percent. It becomes a bit more expensive still if you want to ship your products using Amazon as well: You can store them in an Amazon logistics center. The online mar­ket­place will then au­to­mat­i­cal­ly take over the entire shipment for you. However, there are ad­di­tion­al shipping and storage costs incurred.

Another dis­ad­van­tage, apart from the high price: The enor­mous­ly large customer group is also faced with a large number of sellers offering com­pa­ra­ble products. On Amazon, the product is in the fore­ground – a rel­a­tive­ly end-user-oriented setup. So, if multiple sellers are offering the same product, there’s still only one product page created. Then, it’s possible for the user to select al­ter­na­tive sellers. But if you don’t offer the cheapest price, there’s no reason for the customer to buy your offer. This can lead to enormous price pressure on Amazon, which is likely to be par­tic­u­lar­ly prob­lem­at­ic for small retailers. To act as a suggested retailer for the product in question, or to be the standard selected retailer, the lowest price as well as other factors such as customer sat­is­fac­tion are decisive.

In­te­gra­tion of the product range on Amazon is possible rel­a­tive­ly easily through Seller Central. If the product is already listed on Amazon, you can find it via EAN or ISBN, for example, or using the Amazon Standard Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Number (ASIN) so you don’t have to enter your own product in­for­ma­tion (or can choose not to). If the product isn’t rep­re­sent­ed in the online mar­ket­place yet, a new product page is easily created. Amazon will guide you through the creation process via several input masks. Entirely creating your own layout isn’t possible, though. As a seller, you can only get creative with the product de­scrip­tion. Using several in­ter­faces, you connect Amazon to a pre­vi­ous­ly existing mer­chan­dise man­age­ment system.

The flea market of online mar­ket­places: The popular e-commerce platform eBay was orig­i­nal­ly founded in 1995 as an auction house for second-hand items from consumer to consumer (C2C). eBay is primarily popular with col­lec­tors and bargain hunters. Users can still buy second-hand items on the platform today as well. But now, the majority of offers (now goods, in most cases) are placed by com­mer­cial sellers or man­u­fac­tur­ers. In the US alone, eBay receives around 96 million unique visitors each month.

The original sale principle on eBay is the auction: Sellers place items on the mar­ket­place for a specified time, and the user who has placed the highest bid at the end of the time limit wins the bid. For pro­fes­sion­al sellers, though, the fixed price offer is more enticing. This is where the seller sets the price for the offered product. Just like with Amazon, the product range is in­cred­i­bly large: From toilet paper to delivery trucks, you can acquire almost every­thing on eBay. Certain offers are banned on eBay, though, including animals, weapons, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, se­cu­ri­ties, and human body parts.

The costs accrued for sellers on eBay depend on whether it’s a private or com­mer­cial account. As a private seller, you have to pay a selling com­mis­sion of 10%. eBay doesn’t charge in­di­vid­u­als any fees for the creation of an offer (if you sell fewer than 300 things per month). Some ad­di­tion­al options, such as extended photo galleries or captions, cost extra.

The costs are of interest to SMEs, though, who fall under the category of com­mer­cial use: eBay provides various sub­scrip­tions for eBay shops. Depending on how many fixed-price offers you want to create per month, the price could be anywhere from $39.99 to $4999.99 monthly. If you decide against a shop, and so therefore don’t get a sub­scrip­tion, a fee of $0.35 per item will be charged after 40 listings. Even as a seller with a basic shop, you get 400 offers for free and then only pay $0.10 per offer. A sales com­mis­sion of between 4.5 and 10 percent is charged, depending on the type of product.

An eBay shop has other ad­van­tages. What Amazon looks to minimize can be enforced on eBay through its own ap­pear­ance on the sales platform: the presence as a seller. With your own layout, you can better present yourself as your own brand and build up a solid customer base. On their own shop pages, sellers can present their entire product range and inform buyers on their other offers. To create more security (for sellers as well), mutual eval­u­a­tions are an integral part of the system. Sellers can therefore make con­vinc­ing arguments for them­selves in spite of whether or not their price is favorable.

Not only your own shop, but also in­di­vid­ual product pages can be designed with eBay rel­a­tive­ly freely. You can customize the layout with your own graphic elements based on HTML to fit your marketing strategy. External providers have also es­tab­lished them­selves for the design of premade or in­di­vid­ual templates. In this way, less internet savvy retailers can also create con­vinc­ing and pro­fes­sion­al product pages. Just like its com­peti­tor, Amazon, eBay offers various in­ter­faces that enable use with other software.

The Chinese Alibaba Group is rep­re­sent­ed online with several mar­ket­places: In addition to Alibaba.com (a B2B platform) and Taobao (a sales platform like eBay), the company also has an online mar­ket­place for B2C, called AliEx­press. On AliEx­press, customers can shop globally, but the sellers them­selves are all Chinese. Other online merchants are not allowed to sell their goods on the sales platform.

Alibaba’s range is diverse – from baby dolls to insulated steel bowls to forklifts, every­thing can be found on the platform. As a seller you have a lot of leeway in the design of the article page. While the header of the page is always in the same design, the article text can be enriched with numerous pictures, videos and other design elements. Since the offer is aimed at major customers, some details are more promi­nent­ly placed here than are known from other online sales platforms. For example, the order quantity plays a major role. As a retailer, you can therefore point out quantity discounts or minimum order quan­ti­ties directly in the header of the page.

The ordering process is also different from that of Amazon, for example. As a buyer, it is possible to submit an offer for the item you want to buy –kind of like a bid, but more like an offer in a haggling process. You can also order a sample or special cus­tomiza­tions. Sellers from specific nations can also be displayed col­lec­tive­ly. If you want sellers just from the US, for example, you can filter this.

As a seller a mem­ber­ship with Alibaba.com is basically free. In the free version, however, only 50 products can be placed on the platform. Gold Supplier Mem­ber­ships are due between $1,399 and $5,999 per year, depending on the package selected. All Gold Member Packages allow sellers to offer an unlimited number of products on Alibaba.com. Vendors also get more storage space for photos in the paid packages and can use Showcase: As a result, the online mar­ket­place places the selected product more in the fore­ground and thus actively promotes it. The packages differ mainly in the number of possible showcases and the size of the online storage for photos.

Alibaba.com states that merchants outside China, Taiwan and Hong Kong cannot settle payments through the online sales platform. Instead, sellers must contact buyers directly to make the payment arrange­ments. In return, Alibiba.com ap­par­ent­ly does not charge any com­mis­sion for the sale.

The number 1 online mar­ket­place in Japan, Rakuten is also a top platform in the US. In its structure, the e-commerce platform from Tokyo resembles offers on Amazon. Here, visitors can also find every­thing that they could need in numerous cat­e­gories. Much like Amazon: With the purchase of Viber, the company got its own app for IT phone service, and also has a streaming service with Rakuten TV, where block­busters, classics, and current TV series can be watched. Customers are also tied to the platform through its own bonus program, called Super Points: For every dollar spent on Rakuten, customers receive a Super Point. These cor­re­spond to credit that can be cashed in with future purchases.

The fee structure is also based on the big com­peti­tor, with a basic fee of $33 per month and ad­di­tion­al com­mis­sion fees based on category. By par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Super Points system (which only applies to goods that aren’t price-bound), Rakuten adds another per­cent­age point. This means that the total per­cent­age of turnover to the online mar­ket­place will be a bit higher. If your products should be sold over an affiliate link, a further one percent will be added to the fees.

To stand out from the com­pe­ti­tion, Rakuten tries to strength­en the seller’s position. Under the keyword em­pow­er­ment, the mar­ket­place offers its partners multiple pos­si­bil­i­ties for po­si­tion­ing them­selves better as a brand. The most important way that they differ from Amazon is that each seller appears sep­a­rate­ly with their product in the search results. In this way, sellers can equip their own store pages with in­di­vid­ual designs, like with eBay. To further support the sellers, Rakuten also offers webinars, tutorials, marketing pro­mo­tions, and personal advice.

Po­si­tion­ing a product functions just as easily as with other online mar­ket­places. Using a simple and easy-to-un­der­stand mask, sellers can enter products and their variants. Rakuten also offers in­ter­faces that can link the e-commerce platform with external software and services.

What started as an e-commerce platform for handmade arts and crafts has grown into one of the biggest com­peti­tors when it comes to buying and selling online. Etsy still spe­cial­izes in unique items, and allows sellers to list handmade goods, vintage pieces, or craft supplies. While not offering the same range as the market giants Amazon or eBay, Etsy is the go-to online mar­ket­place for handmade wares and draws a com­pet­i­tive number of active buyers.

To encourage sellers of all sizes, Etsy boasts a very trans­par­ent fee system. Listing on the platform costs only 20 cents, and listings stay active for four months at a time. There is no monthly fee for sellers. Suc­cess­ful trans­ac­tions are simply charged a 3.5% trans­ac­tion fee as well as a small payment pro­cess­ing fee. Etsy also offers a second market, Etsy Studio, which is linked to a seller’s main Etsy shop but provides a second mar­ket­place even more specif­i­cal­ly tailored to the sale of craft supplies. In this way, sellers who already have their supplies listed on Etsy can also be listed on a second mar­ket­place and boost their sales with no extra effort.

To help sellers build their brand, Etsy makes it easy to customize shop pages. Their external service, Pattern by Etsy, allows for the creation of custom domains and ex­ter­nal­ly designed shops that are linked to an Etsy shop account. Both Etsy and Pattern can be managed si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly from the shop manager, and listings are synced to appear on both. Pattern also allows sellers to list items that don’t fit the permitted product range of Etsy. As opposed to listing normally on Etsy, using Pattern does cost a monthly fee. Cus­tomiza­tion on Pattern can be done with the use of templates, but ex­pe­ri­enced users are also able to customize their shop more ex­ten­sive­ly to fit their brand.

Etsy offers extensive support services, from a monthly seller newslet­ter, to a seller handbook, forums, and support staff. Man­age­ment tools can be accessed online or through an app, and are con­sol­i­dat­ed to make the selling process as simple as possible. Sellers also receive detailed sta­tis­tics about their shop’s per­for­mance.

A self-pro­claimed seller-centric online mar­ket­place, Bonanza places a heavy emphasis on meeting the needs of its sellers and making their selling ex­pe­ri­ence as simple and stream­lined as possible. To keep the base fee as low as possible, Bonanza charges nothing to list or advertise items – in fact, the service is com­plete­ly free until you make a sale. The base fee of 3.5% com­mis­sion is only charged once an item has suc­cess­ful­ly sold. Bonanza also takes care of all ad­ver­tis­ing costs for items until their purchase. The com­mis­sion rate for ad­ver­tis­ing varies based on the ad­ver­tis­ing plan that you opt in to. The higher the rate, the more exposure and buyer visits your products receive. Any sales made from direct referral links cost you nothing.

As the first mar­ket­place to heavily invest with Google Shopping, items listed on Bonanza enjoy well-placed Google Shopping ads based on a pre­dic­tive bidding algorithm. Bonanza also au­to­mat­i­cal­ly publishes listed items on other major third-party channels, so that sellers get maximum exposure to potential buyers. All listings are synced and can be managed at the same time through Bonanza, to save the effort of keeping track of all the places where you sell.

Bonanza is both a mar­ket­place and webstore, which allows for a higher level of cus­tomiza­tion and brand building. Webstores are linked to a seller’s Bonanza account, and can be cus­tomized without any required pro­gram­ming knowledge. Running a webstore through Bonanza costs a monthly fee. All Bonanza sellers can set up customer marketing campaigns to help with customer service and the creation of customer loyalty programs. The campaign setup is a simple seven-step process, which can be previewed, edited, or published at any time.

An online mar­ket­place specif­i­cal­ly geared toward the sale of handmade products, Zibbet makes it easy for sellers to set up their own shop without requiring specific business or pro­gram­ming expertise. The e-commerce platform em­pha­sizes the cre­ativ­i­ty and in­de­pen­dence of sellers – all of whom are artists, crafters, or col­lec­tors. Because Zibbet marketing is about sup­port­ing in­di­vid­ual sellers, the platform also keeps the fees in­cred­i­bly low: sales made on Zibbet charge no listing or com­mis­sion fees. Sellers instead simply have to choose one of the three available pricing packages. The Starter package, available for as low as $4 a month, allows for limited cus­tomiza­tion and caps the number of permitted listings per month at 50. The Pro or Unlimited packages, however, permit an unlimited number of listings and greater cus­tomiza­tion.

When you set up a shop with Zibbet, you au­to­mat­i­cal­ly get access not only to their mar­ket­place, but to your own cus­tomiz­able website – even at the Starter level. These are in­te­grat­ed into a single store manager. The platform also allows for sellers who are already listed on Etsy to simply copy their items over to Zibbet, instead of having to list every­thing again.

To help boost the success of your online shop, Zibbet offers analysis and op­ti­miza­tion services such as SEO and pro­mo­tion­al tools. The online mar­ket­place is con­fig­ured to be com­pat­i­ble across the globe, and accepts multiple forms of payment as well as payment in multiple cur­ren­cies. It also keeps track of any necessary ac­count­ing data for you, so that reporting your earnings is as easy as printing off your records.

Re­gard­less of how or what you sell, you can host your online shop using Shopify. The online mar­ket­place is less focused on pre­sent­ing your products to customers, and instead more focused on allowing you to tailor your own pre­sen­ta­tion and easily manage your online business. Using a unified platform, Shopify sim­pli­fies the listing process by allowing you to list your products on multiple channels – including Amazon, eBay, Pinterest, and others – using a single interface.

Rates are based on one of three Shopify fee plans: Basic Shopify, Shopify, or Advanced Shopify. The monthly fee-based plans cover every­thing from the man­age­ment of your own Shopify store to the pro­cess­ing of payments made by your buyers. Cus­tomiza­tion of your Shopify website is done primarily through HTML and CSS coding, though there is also a large selection of pro­fes­sion­al themes available in the Shopify Theme Store. Shops are fully cus­tomiz­able to help you build your own brand and make your platform appear exactly how you want it to.

Shopify helps ease the business side of selling online by offering inventory man­age­ment, product or­ga­ni­za­tion, and SEO services for your shop. The e-commerce platform’s in-house shipping service makes it easy to get your products delivered to your buyers, and it also works with ful­fill­ment centers and drop shipping providers. A range of analytics tools are also available to help you optimize your business, with sta­tis­tics available on a cen­tral­ized dashboard.