Now is the time to make your big dreams come true. Starting your own business has never been so easy. And with the current trends, the eCommerce industry is the “in-thing.”
With everyone moving towards being more comfortable and choosing convenience over anything else, the eCommerce market is booming like never before. And Amazon has become the holy grail of success for any upcoming or established eCommerce businesses.
Being a multi-trillion dollar market, the platform and operations’ functioning may seem to be simple and smooth sailing to the naked eyes. Still, there is a lot of research and planning that goes behind the multi-vendor marketplace business scenes.
Even to take your first step towards building your own platform, you will have to think about all the possible pros and cons of every step or decision you will undertake.
There are a few key self-analyzing questions that you need to work on to make the right decisions. And the first among them is – What do you want to sell?
This is the founding decision that will make or break your business. Your business also will be branded based on this decision.
Based on the requirement of physical storage space, need for inventory management, and transportation details, there are basically two types of products that you can sell on your multi-vendor marketplace platform –
- Physical products and
- Digital products
And per their utilization and the reach of the users, they can be further classified as –
- Commoditized products and
- Niched products
You could stick to selling one kind of product. However, it is always advised to mix things up a bit and experiment with the options of combining different types of products so that you will be able to attract a variety of consumers and increase your customer base.
The next important step and the main motto of this article are to provide you with information on selling these products over the internet.
You can choose from the below two most effective ways-
- Sell on another established and reputed e-platform
- Sell on your own multi-vendor marketplace platform.
There are no favorites in the above choices. However, since you are at a stage where you start from the very beginning, you can first try going live through another platform. And the first one that comes to any of our minds is- Amazon.
A choice that suits a person need not have to suit all, and hence before finalizing on the best choice for you, let’s look at some of the pros and cons of selling on Amazon.
Pros And Cons Of Selling On Amazon
Let’s look at the negatives first.
Restricted customer details
The rented platform has a greater advantage over you as they exercise complete control over customer resources.
You will not be provided with any of the end-user information that will actually help you contact them in the future. If you cannot control your customer data, it will be hard to gain profit over your investment.
Predefined rules
You are at no liberty to drive promotions, advertising, and sales according to your necessities. You will have to abide by all the rules and regulations you have signed-up for enunciating the online platform.
Lack of flexibility
Custom styling of fonts, headers, colors cannot be made to suit your products. There will be a universal color and font theme applied to all the platform pages, irrespective of the products, and the brands.
Flexibility in customizing codes for analytical purposes is also restricted concerning the rented platform. In addition to these, if you have chosen any fulfillment as well on your rental, they will also have complete control over the warehouses that hold your inventory, and they can also transfer your inventory without your permission.
Charges applicable
To use their platform for your sales, you will have to pay a percentage of your earnings. They are divided into upfront costs (subscription or commission per sale) and hidden costs.
Now, let’s look at the bright-side.
Ready-to-connect user base
Since you are on an established platform, they will already have a customer base of millions or even billions. This will help you gain much-needed visibility and help create your own digital presence. You can even get a global audience for your business.
Time-efficient
Since you will not start developing your own website from scratch, you will be saving a lot of time to get your brand and products up and running.
Credibility
Given the current rate of increase in cybercrimes, customers will definitely not trust any new websites.
However, the reputation of Amazon is known worldwide, and the trust it has earned is unparalleled. They always favor the customers; hence they would not think twice while ordering from your brand.
Technical Support
There will definitely be technical glitches, and it will be tough for you to manage on your own or with your tech team, given you have just started. But, given you are selling through Amazon, you need not worry anything about the technical aspects.
Brand protection
There are a lot of copyright issues and kick-off versions of your brand and products. With Amazon’s brand registry, you can get full protection against such breaches.
Community
Given the number of small and medium-sized businesses Amazon shelters, you also get to connect with them and get your doubts and questions answered. They maintain a seller forum for this very reason.
Conclusion
There are many more to add to both lists. However, reiterating that was mentioned earlier, there are no right or wrong decisions that can be made in this regard. Of course, there are pros and cons for each of the choices you might make.
But, having a contingency plan and trying to mitigate as many risks as possible is what makes your products/website a huge success. You can always find an intermediary ground that can provide you the good of both worlds. It is always ideal to have more than one option when it comes to electronic business.
So, why don’t you try having both an external platform and your very own eCommerce platform to put yourself out there and get visibility, acquire a great customer base, and become the next Amazon!
