How to Choose an online marketplace to sell your products?

July 12, 2018

A data from Entrepreneur-the elite magazine says In 2017, the eCommerce market generated a revenue of $1.2 billion in the Indonesia. The credit for such a revolution goes to the technological growth of smartphones and 4G. From buying needles to sanitary wares, people from all around the world are using eCommerce platforms for every need. Keeping this in mind, you just have to select a niche and stick to it. The next most important thing to decide is to whether you want to sell online all by yourself, or on marketplaces such as Lazada, Zalora or Shopee.

Being a manufacturer if you want to establish your brand in the market, you can have your own website or eCommerce store. However, if you are willing to sell third party products, a private store would not be a great idea. Also, if you are just a startup, selling through your own online store will require a lot of investment to be used for promotion and advertisements. Now, if you are going to go ahead with selling on online marketplace, here are some tips on how you can choose one to sell your products.

• Analyze, and understand which online marketplace is going to give you the maximum exposure. If you are thinking of selling departmental goods, as a whole, Lazada is the best place to do that. However, if you want to sell retail clothes, Zalora will give your product a boom. Similarly, you need to understand which is the best marketplace for your product.

• The popularity and reputation of the online marketplace are as important as the brand you want to sell, as we are in a new era of word of mouth. Hence, it is important to know the ratio of people who trust a particular marketplace and how likely it is that your product will be bought by the consumers through that marketplace. If any online marketplace provides poor customer service, it is going to harm your brand or product reputation as well. For example, you order a shirt for a special occasion and the online marketplace gives you a delivery date, which is 2-3 days before the date of the occasion. This gives you the surety that you are all ready to attend your special day. But what if the product either arrives a week after the delivery date or it arrives in a weary condition? Certainly, you will have terrible life experience and will never buy anything from there. So, it is essential to have an understanding of the reputation of the online marketplace as well. To be precise, it is always better to sell your product through a marketplace that has good customer base and reputation.

• Logistics support is something which you should not miss out. Make sure the online marketplace has a suitable arrangement of pick and drop facility to your warehouse.

• Subscription cost should be compared as well. It is better to pay more and get all the facilities than to pay less and again spend more on the others essential things like logistics. However, you must be aware of what are you getting charged for.

Revenue matters a lot for any business. Hence, listing your product in an online marketplace which weak customer base may end you up with no returns. So, always choose wisely before investing.