Top Multi-Channel Marketplaces for Selling Internationally

E-commerce platforms such as Amazon gives you the most level of control on your store's online presence, advertising, positioning of your product, as well as other aspects of managing your business.

What can you do to broaden your reach and connect with new markets with no other way to find your products? That's why selling on multiple marketplaces can help expand an online businessThey give you access to more customers in more places who would probably never come across your shop.

There are several leading online marketplaces with an international reach. dependent on the needs of your company, you should consider each one before you decide which one will best serve the goals of your business, but without jeopardizing your independence.

What is the best way to select the most suitable market

The best online marketplaces for multi-channel sales are those everyone knows, like Amazon as well as eBay. There are however many other marketplaces which have a comparable presence all over the globe as well as being larger in some instances. They include Alibaba, Walmart Marketplace, Etsy, Rakuten, and Newegg.

This article will take a closer look at all of them to give you a clear picture of what each marketplace offers.

Which parts of the world use each of the online marketplaces? What is the number of people who use these sites, and how loyal are they?

If you are looking to expand your reach into new markets through your product and think that online marketplaces are the best avenue for doing this, take into consideration a number of key aspects:

• The way each marketplace serves sellers, protects autonomy, and increases the revenue of sellers without any hassle
• Cost: the amount you'll need to shell out to utilize each online marketplace
• Audience: which kinds of people each online marketplace is most appealing to?
• Reach: How many potential customers from specific geographic regions that access each marketplace?

Let's look over each of these top seven multi-channel marketplaces.

1. Amazon

Amazon has come a long way from its beginnings as a book seller online. It's about as close as you can get to an everything-seller. The majority of the merchandise on Amazon is from other online sellers, such as ecommerce businesses who want to expand their reach to different audiences.

Features

Amazon has been operating this for quite a long time, and they've figured out how to make an ecommerce site perform, and so that e-commerce businesses want to be able utilize many of the same methods. Thanks to the numerous extensions available at your disposal, you can do most of the things Amazon is doing with your own store.

These are the top features from Amazon Marketplace:

• Global availability: set up an account for almost any nation located on Earth
• Support for phones in the majority of countries, as well as chat and emails in other countries.
• You can set your own prices
• A platform to create your own offers and advertise these
• Review collection is simple, and easy to use an approach that people are comfortable with
• Ability to create your product and store it on keywords that can be found in search engines
• Performance metric tracking like order defect rates and cancellation rates for fulfillment
• Fulfillment through Amazon (FBA) This allows you to access the Prime Badge and better shipping options
• The pre-set layouts of product pages eliminate the task of figuring out the layout

Fulfillment through Amazon essentially means you ship your goods to Amazon as well as they store the items in Amazon's warehouses. This does come with cost, however you are able to offer two-day free shipping for Amazon Prime members, and Amazon takes care of printing labels, packaging as well as all other tasks associated with shipping that you'd think of.

The shoppers are able to narrow their search so that they will only find products through sellers that have the Prime Badge, giving you an air of quality and exclusivity.

Pricing

Amazon is one of the largest online marketplaces. There are a variety of fees, not just one.

The first step is to choose between your Individual Plan and the Professional Plan. In the Individual Plan, you pay 99 cents per transaction that you sell. This method is ideal for sellers who have lower online sales volumes. This Professional Plan costs $39.99 per month and provides an unlimited number of sales.

Then, you'll have a referral fee, which is like the commission fees that every online marketplace charges. It is a percent of your total transaction that includes shipping costs. Prices vary according to product category. The majority are 8 to 15 percent, however they can be from 45% to as high as or as low as percent. Then, you'll have an additional fee for fulfillment that is based on the weight and size of the product being shipped.

In addition, for the using Amazon's warehouses the storage fees are determined by the size of the items you're selling. Storage costs triple during the October to December holiday season.

Are you sure? In reality, you could pay higher fees in specific instances.

What is the reason someone would be paying all of these costs for the sole purpose of selling on Amazon?

There are a few inherent advantages, and an enormous market. But, it's also possible to have an eCommerce website, you do not have to pay most of these fees. You will have to manage your inventory and the shipping.

Audience

Amazon is biggest in the United States, having achieved nearly total market saturation. 150 million Americans own Prime Memberships which is more than 70% of adults.

There are 197 million monthly active users on their application, and Amazon makes up 56.7 percent of online sales of retail across the U.S. If your target audience is in the US, Amazon can reach them.

With the exception of the U.S., they have approximately 310 million active application users across the globe. This means you have the ability to reach your mobile users, too.

Amazon's customers are from all walks of life across North America, and in several other countries. 60% of consumers who use the internet usually begin their searches through Amazon.

Reach

After the acquisition of Souq in the year 2017 which was a Middle Eastern ecommerce marketplace, Amazon became the largest online retailer in the world. The majority of them are located in North America, Europe, Asia, and Asia and the Middle East.

Amazon ships to more than 130 countries in over 130 countries, and 2.7 billion shoppers have been on Amazon. Amazon has 2.72 billion per month in unique visitors.

As for the dimensions, you will be able to reach the most global market with Amazon. But with huge size comes competition. Amazon also has the largest amount of sellers on the internet. Therefore, it's not easy to get your products seen.

2. eBay

eBay was initially created as a platform to offer used goods for sale through bidding wars. Even though they offer that service, only 12percent of products offered on their website are up for bid, and the majority of items sold on eBay are new.

Thus, it's evolved into an online market place with an even more committed group of customers than Amazon. More shoppers may begin their online shopping experience with Amazon However, many will end their shopping with eBay.

Features

eBay is a true marketplace. They do not offer products of their own, therefore your competition is from sellers who are rather than the online marketplace itself. Other features of eBay are:

• Concierge services for larger ecommerce brands
• Seller Hub, the dashboard that you use to manage your business's e-commerce on eBay, where you can make listings available and manage orders, run promotions and sales, etc.
• Listing customization capabilities -- higher than Amazon
• The ability to upload videos related to your products
• Coupons, discounts and promotion capabilities, including coupons
• The option to do discount pricing based on volume
• A subscriber option allows you to send out marketing emails to your customers, give subscriber discounts as well as build greater customer loyalty than with Amazon
• It is possible to read review of products.
• Shipping label printing
• You can promote your products via Google Ads as well as other shopping sites, as well in conjunction using eBay Ads
• Advanced analytics
• Weekly or daily pay schedules

Pricing

The pricing system of eBay is more straightforward than Amazon's but the fees are similar in some ways.

First, there's an insertion cost that's 35 cents for each listing, but the first 250 listings are completely free. When you open the eBay store, you get additional listings for free.

In the end, you are paid a portion of the sales price, which is usually 10% for the majority of types of products. However, it ranges from 2-12%. This includes all the processing fees. If you're looking to cut down on your fees for insertions it is possible to purchase an annual subscription. If you are a seller with a higher volume it is an excellent choice. There are three options available, each of which come with advantages of selling on the platform, and each of which costs less if you make payments annually instead of monthly. The monthly costs are:

• Basic: $24.95 per month
• Premium: $74.95 per month
• Anchor: $349.95 per month

Audience

eBay attracts hobbyists and people who are "enthusiast buyers" in addition to people who are looking to get a great deal. The site is particularly successful with electronics, their number one seller at 16.4 percent of the merchandise that are sold through the website.

eBay is also a major seller of clothes and accessories (16 percent), automotive (11%), health and beauty (9%), and outdoors and sports equipment. These five categories account for approximately 60% of all the merchandise that sells on eBay. However, this leaves plenty of space to sell other items.

According to edesk the 61% of eBay's customer base are aged 35 to 64 60 percent of them are male, unlike Amazon's near 50/50 split. So your audience includes baby boomers at the tail end of their lives Gen-Xers and Generation Y. eBay does not get the same customers from the Gen-Z.

Reach

If you're researching "reach," it's important to distinguish between visitors to the site and buyers. Not every site reporting on the reach of the most established marketplaces for multi-channel selling can do an excellent job clarifying this, which is why you'll see wildly different numbers in different places.

Furthermore, the sales numbers have drastically changed after 2020, so all data that was available prior to 2020 is very outdated.

eBay currently gets about 885 million unique monthly visitors. Each year, around 135 million of these customers actually buy items through eBay.

eBay is the third most popular eCommerce application across the US, behind Walmart and Amazon 60 percent of the buyers on eBay are from the UK as well as the U.S., with Germany being the largest contributor with 15%. That means that about 34% of its users are from these three countries.

For sellers the situation is somewhat different tale. 28% of eBay sellers reside in The U.S., and 25 percent are located from the UK. 17% are from China, 16% from Germany while 3% are from Australia. Therefore, you are able to sell your products on eBay from almost anywhere, as long as you pay attention to where most of the buyers are located.

3. Alibaba

Most marketers in western countries do not know about this ecommerce bigwig from China, founded by Jack Ma. But it owns more than 60% of Chinese ecommerce market, which signifies that any business looking to expand into China as well as the nearby Asian markets must look into joining Alibaba or one of its subsidiary platforms such as AliExpress, Taobao, Lazada or Tokopedia. Each of these serves different regions in the region.

Features

The presentation of the capabilities of Alibaba is a challenge because Alibaba has so many different platforms that fall under its scope, each with distinctive features. For simplicity this article will focus specifically on Alibaba as well as AliExpress. If you're trying to broaden your reach into certain Asian nations, it's best to explore the various platforms that they have, which we'll discuss in a moment.

Alibaba is one of the best B2B E-commerce marketplaces. It enables you to trade wholesale items for other companies and from them. With Alibaba it is possible to:

• Own your customers' information, unlike on Amazon
• Utilize communication tools to communicate with your buyers directly
• Access CRM tools and analytics
• Translate in more than 18 languages
• Customize your application using an API integration
• Coordinate international logistics for freight
• Receive onboarding support for the first time sellers.
• Inspection and monitoring of the product access

Alibaba utilizes an request for quotation (Request for Quote) method to enable customers to submit orders due to the fact that businesses make use of Alibaba to buy in bulk from manufacturers and suppliers. So prices are not fixed. The amount depends on the quantity as well as shipping costs and other variables.

Sellers can also earn three distinct ratings: Gold, Verified, and Trade Assurance, which assure customers that they're buying from reputable vendors.

AliExpress
AliExpress is one of the B2C e-commerce platforms that are part of Alibaba's worldwide marketplace. As with Amazon sellers are able to offer individual products and ship directly to the consumers. It is also possible to use AliExpress to dropship. Similar to Alibaba the service can also be translated into 18 languages.

Other features include:

• Marketing to increase exposure for products
• Rectify and convert 51 various currencies
• 38 local payment channels will allow secure transactions
• Storefronts that can be customized online
• AliExpress University, an onboarding service designed to assist novice sellers.
• Numerous shipping choices
• The buyer's protection policy covers damaged, defective, or undeliverable items

Pricing

Alibaba offers a greater volumes as compared to B2C ecommerce marketplaces, so their prices are higher also. No sales commissions are charged by the site -just a monthly cost, the cheapest one being the Gold Supplier Basic, with a price of $1899 per year.

AliExpress adopts a similar approach to the other B2C E-commerce platforms. It charges no annual fee however, it charges between 5-8% commissions for each purchase.

Audience

If you are looking to market online in volume to businesses of other kinds, Alibaba is one of the most popular online marketplaces available to your needs. There are more than 10 million customers from over 180 countries buy wholesale goods via Alibaba. It is possible to deal directly with the manufacturers and it also has exporters, agents, trading companies, and wholesalers.

The buyers may be other manufacturer and wholesalers who are who use your product to create other products. They could also be sourcing agents, or B2C retailers. Alibaba can be used Alibaba to create private labels.

 AliExpress

AliExpress is geared towards the general public as does Amazon offers just about everything from clothes to appliances to tools and electronics, to beauty items to.

In the countries in which AliExpress or others Alibaba B2C ecommerce platforms operate Your target customers include almost everyone who buys online. A few buyers might also be re-sellers who are setting dropping-shipping business.

AliExpress sellers are required to be in China, Russia, Spain, Italy, France, or Turkey.

Reach

Alibaba is used by a variety of countries as well as more than a billion users.

AliExpress as well as others B2C platforms engage millions of customers from more than 220 countries. They are strongest in Asian nations. In China there is a platform called Taobao. Lazada is the marketplace that operates in Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Tokopedia will be the main platform for Indonesia.

4. Walmart Marketplace

Walmart began as a brick and mortar department store, not an online shopping platform. However, in 2010, they began selling online and because they have so much money from their stores, Walmart is able to quickly ramp up its selling online platform to the point that it can compete with the biggest names, including Amazon.

But, Walmart Marketplace has fewer sellers and for now this means that there is lesser competition for getting your items recognized. So you will likely receive more exposure for your products in Walmart Marketplace than Amazon.

Features

While Walmart's ecommerce platform has many similarities to Amazon However, the differences between them are significant. These are the most important features:

• The stricter requirements for sellers. Not just anyone who wants to open the store
• A chance to provide the free shipping service for two days
• Advanced listing and analytics tools
• Secure payment
• Market report
• Customer review options
• Walmart ads that provide more visibility for the product
• A current supply chain infrastructure is operating
• Walmart Fulfillment Services, which will store, package and then ship your goods

Walmart Fulfillment Services works very much like Fulfillment by Amazon. Your products are sent into Walmart's stores. After orders have been made, they will pack and deliver your items for you.

The stricter process for obtaining qualifications can be a reason to consider Walmart. They only accept sellers who are able to demonstrate past success with ecommerce. This ensures that all their sellers are reputable and sell quality products.

Pricing

Unlike Amazon, Walmart charges no fees for setup, listings and subscriptions. They just charge a fee per sale, which as with other websites, varies by product category. The range goes from 6-20%, but the great most of their fees can be 8% or 15 percent.

Audience

Walmart is a great retailer because they have thousands of customers in the store as well as the ability to offer the online market as an alternative to every one of them. Walmart has everything at their store, but their online counterpart offers more. The target market is anybody who shops on the internet.

Reach

Walmart Marketplace gets about 410 million monthly unique visitors according an estimate, and it engages shoppers who are from Africa, Canada, Central America, Mexico, India, China, and Chile in addition to China, the U.S. and parts of Europe.

Walmart's loyalty program currently has more than 10 million members. So these are people who get a special incentive to shop at Walmart on the internet.

5. Etsy

Etsy started out as a place for people to sell original and unique items that were hand-crafted and not products made by mass production. In the majority of cases the company continues to fulfill that goal still today. For ecommerce sellers, Etsy is the place to sell one-of-a-kind items and specialized merchandise.

If you are selling a collection of products and want for people to visit your ecommerce store using Etsy you can use it to sell unique items followed by a follow-up with a follow-up to bring them to your primary store founded on .

Features

Etsy has some features that are similar to those of other platforms including secured transactions, apps, email and some phone assistance, as well as the capability to customize the appearance of your Etsy shop. Furthermore, Etsy includes:

• Automatic deposits straight to your account
• Postage discounts are available.
• A Etsy advertising platform on which you can pay to boost the visibility of your ads.
• Direct communication with buyers through the Seller App
• Seller protections
• An affiliate program you can utilize to motivate other individuals to market your products
• The newsletter for sellers and the handbook
• The ability to join a network of sellers

Etsy is known for its reputation for being harder to show up on searches of specific products, and this motivates some to buy Etsy advertisements. You have to be very conscious when you design your product pages, including your language, and the keywords you use to describe your products.

Pricing

Etsy is a basic pricing system. It charges 20 cents for each post, and each listings are active for four months. Then, for each sale, you are charged a 9.5 percentage transaction and processing fee which covers everything.

Furthermore, Etsy runs ads for your products all over the internet. They mostly use display ads featuring pictures of your goods. It is not your responsibility to control this and it costs nothing to you, unless the advertisement produces a sale. In the event that ads do produce a sale there will be an additional amount per sale.

Audience

The audience of Etsy is distinct from the other top marketplaces online. Shoppers on Etsy want things they won't get else. They are looking for items that no one else will own. It's a form of treasure hunter.

This is the place to make unique and exclusive items that earn you a reputation as a creator, an artist, or a brilliant creator of products who invests an effort and dedication into each piece.

The majority of customers on Etsy are women, generally aged between 18 and 40.

The top categories of their products are the categories of home and living, jewelry crafting supplies, as well as tools. They sell lots of products to help you plan your wedding and bridal party.

Reach

Etsy is a smaller market than other top marketplaces. While they do reach over 200 countries and have 86 million active users approximately half of their online sales go to the U.S., and almost all of the remainder go to UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, and France.

Etsy also has a base of regular buyers, which is 81% of purchases made by repeat buyers. So if Etsy's audience aligns with your products it is possible to gain the trust of customers faster using this marketplace rather in comparison to other more generic ones on this list.

6. Rakuten

If you're interested in emphasizing affiliate selling, Rakuten is the top online marketplace for this purpose.

Are you unsure of the meaning of affiliate selling? Instead of buying advertisements or tripping over online marketing for your products rather, you partner with other businesses and individuals to market and sell your products for their customers instead. As a result, you offer them a share of profit. This is a method of reaching more people that you would otherwise be able to. The best affiliate marketers have powerful influence over hundreds, or perhaps millions, of followers.

Features

Rakuten helps you set up affiliate deals. Some key features of the program are:

• The weekly pay of retailers
• A custom reporting system
• The most appropriate methods to monetize your ecommerce store
• Dynamic coupons and related tools
• Great customer support Seller account management as well as partnership teams
• It is possible to establish processes and automate
• Help in selecting influencers and affiliates who are best aligned with your products
• A tracking system of the influencers and affiliates

Pricing

As with other major market places, Rakuten charges a listing fee, a monthly fee, and a commission that is based on the product category.
The cost is 99 cents for each listing, and $39 for a month. Their commissions range from 8-15%.

Audience

Men are slightly more favored, but generally very broad the 25-34 age group makes up Rakuten's most prolific audience. But in general, Rakuten's audience is harder to specify since it depends upon the influencers and affiliates you end up working with.

Their system is meant to help you connect with affiliates who have audiences that are compatible with your offerings. Therefore, in theory, your target audience is the one that you'd want to be the largest.

Reach

Rakuten business operations have been located in over 30 countries, across both Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The company's affiliates and customers are found in more than 180 nations. This is therefore a global marketplace that uses the affiliate marketing model to form its basis.

7. Newegg

Newegg began as a tech-focused ecommerce marketplace, and it remains the leader in that sector. But, it has also extended to other areas and has become one of the most popular marketplaces for ecommerce businesses to sell their products.

Features

Newegg delivers real benefits for its best sellers -users who subscribe to a monthly membership. The features for this marketplace depend on the membership you select from their three choices of free, Professional, or Enterprise.

Like Walmart, Newegg requires sellers to obtain approval before they can use their ecommerce marketplace. This ensures the quality of their products. Some of their key features are as follows:

• A well-informed and focused audience
• It is possible to sell secondhand or refurbished products
• The ability to promote items on their websites, including Sponsored Video Ads
• Support that is devoted
• API integration
• Advanced product listings that can contain video or touchpoint images for customers to make informed decisions
• Access to Newegg Studios -- they'll actually produce videos and photos to promote your product
• Unlimited product listings when you join the Enterprise membership
• Post-purchase email automation with the Enterprise membership
• Discounts when you make use of Newegg Fulfillment as well as Newegg Shipping Label. Newegg Shipping Label service
• Benefits for sellers who set prices in a way that is competitive
• The Premier Seller Program which gives you access to some of the largest consumers
• The option to advertise on Newegg's social accounts and email marketing campaigns

Similar to Amazon and Walmart, Newegg has a fulfillment and shipping label service, and if you have enough inventory you can use it as it reduces your expenses.

Pricing

The free version is available however the Professional version at $29.95 per month and the Enterprise membership at $99.95 per month provide you with access to the most advanced features.

Audience

Newegg's audience remains heavily focused on technology and is knowledgeable. You'll find the most early adopters on Newegg than other sites as well as, generally speaking it's a more affluent audience. Unlike Amazon, Walmart, and Alibaba, people who shop at Newegg typically have a salary at least $75k or more. And their audience is about 72% men and is mostly aged between 18 and 44.

Other than a wealth of electronic and other accessories, Newegg also does well in the kitchen and home appliances, and is growing into sporting goods categories.

Customers on NewEgg love looking at the specifications of products, and it isn't the best place to go light on the specifics. It is important to provide plenty of detail on your product pages, and seriously consider including videos. Three-quarters of customers are repeat customers.

Reach

Newegg boasts around 4 million customers who are active all over Europe, South and North America as well as the Middle East, and Asia Pacific.

So it's a smaller audience and yet one that is spending more, and are looking for particular types of products. Similar to Etsy, you can gain a stronger and more devoted audience here than you can on large marketplaces.

Why sell on as part of your strategy for the whole world?

Online marketplaces can be excellent entry points into online sales. They're also a great method to reach your customers where they are, on the same places that they're currently shopping.

But when it comes down to the matter, it's clear that the ideal option to increase the size of your company and keep full control is to create your own store with . We'll look at a few reasons why this is true:

1. Marketplaces promote competitor products

Third-party marketplaces wish for all their users to find success Your business doesn't come in their top priorities. Therefore, when buyers browse or search for items, they won't only see items from competitors alongside yours, but they may also get ads for those items.

Through a marketplace, it's much more convenient for consumers to select an alternative business to yours. However, with tools like , you can create websites that help shoppers locate what they're searching for and seamlessly make a purchase, without distractions from other stores.

2. Marketplaces are a bit limited in terms of design and functionality

On marketplaces that are online, you have to adapt the product descriptions to fit the requirements of designs, layouts, photos as well as categorization and the length of descriptions. So, you might not be able to include all of the information you'd like to include.

If you're working from an established design template it's possible that you won't have the ability to alter it to match your brand. The items you create will appear similar to everyone else's.

With , however, you can create the exact sort of listing for your store or product that you'd like. You can add lots of pictures and videos, include dimensions charts and lists of ingredients, and customize the entire look and feel to fit the brand you're trying to promote.

3. Marketplaces take a percentage of the sales

Third-party marketplaces take a cut of the sales made online in exchange for using their platform. If you increase your business, this can add up more and more. The website doesn't charge costs for selling your products online.

4. Marketplaces limit your control

If you're selling your products on a third-party marketplace you're subject to the rules and regulations of that marketplace. If they find that you're violating their rules and regulations, they may take down your store, sometimes without notice. It means you'll stop earning revenue as well as the content you've made.

With Jetpack, you'll enjoy complete control and responsibility over your site. Additionally, you can create backups that will protect all of the information on your site, including sales and customer details. In the event that something does go wrong, you can quickly get back up and running.

5. Markets can make marketing more difficult

Some third-party marketplaces have integrated marketing tools, they can become limiting when you increase. There may be no way to incorporate the tools you're seeking for advertisements, email marketing and customer relationship management SEO for search engines, and many more. Additionally, it can be more difficult to collect customer information and to effectively interact with clients.

6. Marketplaces can make it harder to adjust

As you grow your business and expand your business, you'll have to implement significant adjustments to make room for more sales. As an example, you may want to update your shipping or marketing plan, allow various currencies, change your content into several languages, or incorporate it the fulfillment and inventory management software.

Third-party marketplaces can hinder the ability to implement such changes. They could not work with the platforms you'd like to make use of. They might not allow users to change the settings necessary to be able to sell internationally.

Through this, you'll be able to accept many different currencies, arrange shipping in a variety of ways, connect with a variety of tools, and customize your store any way that you'd like over time as you expand. Additionally, you can pick any hosting service that is required to provide the resources, instruments, and help necessary to cope with an increase of traffic.

In the end, it, this is the most effective option to create and expand a successful online store. You benefit from a system which is simple to utilize (no code required! ) and has the most flexibility excellent support, and total control.