{"id":3735,"date":"2021-04-21T08:04:23","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T08:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/?p=3735"},"modified":"2022-01-01T20:20:38","modified_gmt":"2022-01-01T20:20:38","slug":"channels-where-should-i-sell-my-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/channels-where-should-i-sell-my-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Channels: Where should I sell my products?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"289\" data-attachment-id=\"3736\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/channels-where-should-i-sell-my-products\/channels\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vendlab.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/channels.jpg?fit=1382%2C500&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1382,500\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"channels\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vendlab.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/channels.jpg?fit=300%2C109&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vendlab.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/channels.jpg?fit=800%2C289&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vendlab.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/channels.jpg?resize=800%2C289&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3736\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vendlab.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/channels.jpg?resize=1024%2C370&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vendlab.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/channels.jpg?resize=300%2C109&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vendlab.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/channels.jpg?w=1382&amp;ssl=1 1382w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure><p>Once you have identified the products you want to sell and have a brand for your business, it is time to get selling! Online merchants now have a wide range of channels for selling online, and many sellers do the bulk of their sales outside their websites. It is no longer vital for a business to have their website to sell online, and many companies will focus soles on selling through online marketplaces or social media.<\/p><p>That said, selling through third-party platforms means you are at the mercy of a small number of Silicon Valley leviathans. You have complete control over your website, enabling you to tailor your user experience and &#8216;own&#8217; any customer you acquire.<\/p><p>One strategy is to start selling on marketplaces as they are cheap and quick to get going whilst building your business and developing a transactional website.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a>Website<\/a><\/h2><p>With the advent of fully managed website services such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shopify.co.uk\/\">Shopify<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wix.com\/\">Wix<\/a>, it has never been easier to set up and run a website. These platforms are not just websites but eCommerce platforms which a whole ecosystem of apps available from 3<sup>rd<\/sup> party developers. Selling through a website has the following advantages:<\/p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Unlike marketplaces, you &#8216;own&#8217; any customers sold to via your website, enabling you to market to them in future.<\/li><li>Many online marketing techniques, e.g., Google ads, Facebook ads, require a transactional website to complete the sale.<\/li><\/ul><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a>Marketplaces<\/a><\/h2><p>Online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon provide an all-in-one solution for merchants to reach customers. Many sellers are &#8216;marketplace sellers&#8217; as they do not have a website presence. The popularity of Amazon and the convenience of their Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) service has led to many &#8216;FBA brands&#8217;, i.e., brands that primarily sell through Amazon and fulfil by FBA and do not bother with a website at all.<\/p><p>Marketplaces offer the following benefits to sellers:<\/p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Huge audience. <\/strong>Marketplaces have millions of daily users.<\/li><li><strong>Secure payments<\/strong>. Online payments are managed by the marketplace, reducing counterparty risk.<\/li><li><strong>Advertising<\/strong>. On top of natural search performance on the marketplace, merchants can buy additional advertising to boost their exposure and sales.<\/li><\/ul><p>On the negative side, the marketplace will &#8216;own&#8217; the customer and typically does not allow the merchant to market to the customer directly.<\/p><p>Marketplaces are an excellent way for sellers to get their foot in the door online and are a fast way to build sales and generate brand awareness. Many sellers start on marketplaces before graduating to selling through a website or even an offline store.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a>Social Media<\/a><\/h2><p>Some businesses sell only through their social media presence, with customers sending them payment directly using PayPal or a similar payment method. Facebook and Instagram provide a &#8216;shop&#8217; for merchants, but no checkout is available when writing and purchases are made by visiting the merchant&#8217;s website.<\/p><p>However, it is only a matter of time before these platforms will give customers the option to checkout without leaving their platform. Facebook is also trailing a solution whereby companies can list their products on the Facebook marketplace.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once you have identified the products you want to sell and have a brand for your business, it is time to get selling! Online merchants now have a wide range of channels for selling online, and many sellers do the bulk of their sales outside their websites. It is no longer vital for a business [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecommerce-guides","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7zVGJ-Yf","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3737,"href":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735\/revisions\/3737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vendlab.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}