Ecommerce marketplaces and hosted ecommerce platforms provide a platform where shoppers can shop online and sellers can sell their products. The following are some of the best ecommerce marketplaces and hosted ecommerce solutions.
latforms to host your own shop and places to sell your own goods without own shop
Amazon
Amazon is the most famous ecommerce store and marketplace in the world. It is best suited for medium to large sellers that are looking for exposure. It has a large customer base around the world and mainly across the United States. Amazon also happens to have the highest number of merchants and vendors.
Amazon has very strict product listing guidelines. You can list your products on Amazon and they will receive the same prestige as those of Amazon products. Amazon has Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and an affiliate program that sellers can enjoy. Through Fulfillment by Amazon, Amazon can pack and ship products you are selling. This saves you the cost of storing inventory.
Amazon affiliate program helps influencers to promote Amazon products and Amazon has high commission rates.
Jingdong
Jingdong is an eCommerce store operating in China. It started operations in 2004 and is a rival to Alibaba. The company mainly sells electronic devices like drones, Artificial Intelligence gadgets and robots. Jingdong has developed drones and robots that can make deliveries to rural areas.
Walmart
Walmart is one of the best ecommerce stores and marketplaces in the world. It was launched in 2000 and has a large customer base. It is ideal for medium and large sellers. To become a seller, you need to make an application and you will need to wait to get approved. Once you are approved, you need to create your profile and verify your bank account and then you can launch your account. with that, products in your account will go live after 24 hours. At Walmart, you can either sell as a drop-ship vendor or a seller, but you can’t do both.
Walmart is a big brand and if you are a seller, you can take advantage of this. Your products will get the same recognition as those of Walmart. You can set your own prices and use Walmart’s return policy to boost your sales volume. Walmart does not charge sellers fees. Instead, they only charge a referral fee which depends on the product category.
Etsy
Etsy is also a great ecommerce store and marketplace that sells unique products. It is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses that specialize in handmade and vintage products. Etsy sells products independently of its brand. This means that you can preserve your brand identity.
If you are new to ecommerce, you can set up ads using tools like Google Shopping and Promoted Listings to sell your products. You can also create special offers and email them to your customers. You will pay a fee of $0.20 for product listing and then also a processing fee for each sale.
Alibaba.com
Alibaba is a Chinese giant eCommerce site. It is one of the largest B2B marketplaces. Alibaba is available in over 200 countries worldwide. Alibaba offers many products and services around the world. It was founded by Jack Ma and owns other sites like Taobao and Tmall. Alibaba is a leading B2B eCommerce platform. This means that Alibaba mainly sells products to other businesses in wholesale unlike most eCommerce stores that sell products to customers in retail.
AliExpress
AliExpress is one of the leading ecommerce stores and marketplaces in the world. AliExpress is a subsidiary of Alibaba Group and is a B2C platform. It supports multiple languages and is mainly targeting customers outside China. AliExpress offers ships products to different countries around the world. AliExpress’s website gets over 200 million visits per month and has over 600 million downloads. It is available in 18 languages and is available in 230 countries. To start selling on AliExpress, you just need to create an account and submit an application. After that, you can personalize your store and start selling.
Rakuten
Rakuten is an ecommerce store in Japan. It has marketplaces in other countries like the UK, France, US, and Germany. In 2021, Rakuten’s had a customer base of around 1.5 billion. It also has a wide variety of products ranging from electronics to fashion and pets.
Rakuten gives sellers more control over their brand by allowing them to brands and remove any counterfeits. If you are located in Japan, you can use Shopify’s Rakuten Ichiba app to sell on Rakuten.
eBay
eBay is among the oldest ecommerce platforms where you can host your online store. It started in 2000. eBay mainly focuses on customers more than it does with sellers. If you are a seller, you can sell your products on eBay. eBay is ideal for small businesses unlike for big brands.
You can start selling on eBay in four steps. You can create a “My eBay” page and you can get business consultation for free. It also helps sellers by providing them with Development Resources that help merchants to successfully sell their products. Sellers are charged two prices, insertion fee, which is when you make a listing and final value fee which is when you sell items.
Best Hosted Ecommerce Platforms
If you want to launch an online store, you can host your ecommerce store on these platforms. A good hosting platform for an ecommerce store should be secure, high performance and speed and have excellent uptime.
Shopify
Shopify is one of the leading eCommerce platforms to set up your online store and sell a wide variety of products. It has a friendly user interface and you can easily navigate. You can customize your design, create product listing and set prices. You can also add extensions like payment methods and tax payments. Through dropshipping, you can sell almost any product while you can easily ship products to your customer. You can avoid transactions fees if you use Shopify Payments, Shopify’s payment processing module.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is also an excellent eCommerce platform to host your online store. It is even more interesting if you love WordPress and you don’t want to keep adding more tools to your site. You can sell a wide variety of physical and digital products. Digital products can be easily downloaded. Also, if you are an influencer, you can make money promoting products on WooCommerce. You can install plugins and extensions on the WooCommerce platform to help you manage your online store. You can easily set up a WordPress website and start selling products and services online. The setup process is quick and easy and WooCommerce can work with any design or theme.
Magento
Magento is an excellent eCommerce platform to host your online store. You can add a wide variety of features on the Magento store to allow you to manage your online business. It is an easy eCommerce platform to use even if you don’t have programming experience. You can integrate Magento with a huge number of payment gateways. It is a great platform for people who are willing to learn.
Magento has three features:
- Magento Open Source. It is free to use, but you must host the eCommerce site yourself.
- Magento Commerce. It comes with features like a drag and drop page builder. You must also choose a hosting provider, but you can access professional support.
- Magento Commerce Cloud. It uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure to improve site performance.
Summary of the Best Ecommerce Stores and Marketplaces
If you are looking to shop online or to sell products through online marketplaces, above are some of the platforms you can consider. These platforms accommodate sellers and buyers. If you are an influencer or a blogger, you can also earn some income through affiliate marketing by promoting products on these ecommerce stores and marketplaces.
