Ecommerce Sales Channels integrated with physical business have recorded an exponential increase in sales and revenues. Online sales channels bring massive exposure and efficiency in business activities.
The ecommerce market is ultra-competitive. Businesses are coming up with more strategic approaches to marketing their offerings and generating leads. One such marketing strategy is to use various online shop sales channels that expose the products and services to a wider audience, enabling them to cope with the changing eCommerce trends.
In this article, we'll walk you through the top ecommerce sales channels that will instantly fuel your business development in the easiest way possible. Let's start with the benefits.
Advantages of Multiple eCommerce Sales Channels
Incorporating multiple eCommerce sales channels into your online shop brings a lot more than just a few customers. It offers immeasurable benefits in the long run that overall contribute to adding value to customer experience and business's financial situation.
- Improve Customer-Base
Displaying your products on different platforms increases their chances of getting more target audience as people use various eCommerce stores based on their availability, ease, experience, preferences, and other such deciding factors. You may find your first customer from one platform and the second from another.
Some sales channels also face regional restrictions imposed by either the channel or the region. Thus, they have to use other trading platforms. If your product isn't available on other platforms, you might lose some potential customers. Hence, you should keep your products as accessible as possible.
- Improves Revenue Generation
Increasing the customer base and potential market ultimately improves the ROI. If you have products from different categories to sell, you can use different platforms for marketing them according to the audience's preferences. It allows you to test various approaches on each platform to find the most suitable ones.
- Easier To Run And Manage
Managing online stores is quite convenient and affordable than a physical shop, which has a high running cost. The owners have to bear tons of expenses, including salaries, bills and supplies, and much more. These expenditures take in a substantial portion of the revenue, leaving little to no profit. Especially expanding a physical store might burden the owner with a hefty debt.
However, with online store sales channels, you can smoothly run a business without bearing all those expenses, which leaves a considerable profit margin for you to invest in further development.
- Testing Facility
Some online marketplaces like eBay allow business owners to test their products. It saves them from going through the whole production process only to end up with a useless inventory that only adds to their expenses. Through these tests, the sellers can have a clear idea of market response and areas of improvement in the product and service.
Keeping these benefits in mind, let's move on to finding more about the types of eCommerce sales channels available and which one does your business need.
Major Ecommerce Sales Channels
- General Marketplaces
According to research, around 47% of online product searches initiate from credible marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, while 35% of users start with Google search.
Before getting deeper into different marketplaces, let's first discern a general definition of a marketplace. The primary multichannel eCommerce website that facilitates the purchase and sale of products and services by various third-party suppliers is an online marketplace.
Online marketplaces are excellent for reaching out to a mass audience. Since these platforms are open to a wide range of products and services, they appeal to a greater audience with the least boundary restrictions. These marketplaces charge mere fees compared to the expenses of a physical store. However, to ensure a smooth and legitimate service, online marketplaces prohibit the sale of certain products like alcoholic beverages, certificates, damaged items, etc.
Today sellers can benefit from several big and small marketplaces like:
- Amazon
- eBay
- Etsy
Amazon
Amazon is the biggest and most credible eCommerce sales channels. It's probably the first name that comes to mind when thinking about online shopping. Amazon, with its efficient performance, has built customer trust and loyalty over time, which has granted it the greatest customer-base. As per a recent study, about 55% of Americans use Amazon to search for products online.
It is a convenient platform for sellers with a minimum fee, which depends upon the number of items on the selling list. It's the only marketplace that has recorded 109 million new monthly viewers. Most of its audience is millennials, known to spend more than $200 billion on online shopping yearly.
eBay
With more than 170 million active users, eBay is another major online marketplace. eBay is the top choice among vintage sellers offering antique and rare products for its auction-based selling method. The great thing about eBay is - it's free unless you exceed your 50 free listings monthly.
Etsy
Etsy is a dedicated online retail platform for antique and handmade products. It does not have an excessively wide audience like Amazon, but it has grown considerably over recent years. It gives crafters a chance to expand their viewer-base in the most personalized manner.
Sellers can customize their stores according to their brand appearance to promote their specific business – a luxury amazon sellers are deprived of. Etsy charges small transaction and listing fees per item.
Social Media as an Ecommerce Sales Channel
The audience's size and the time each user spends on social media is only increasing over time. On average, an adult spends about 3 hours on social media in 2020.
This forms a great opportunity for sellers to generate leads and increase conversions. When products and services become available at the most preferred and convenient places and the users do not have to search other websites, the chances of successful transactions increase. Some of the most famous social media channels are:
Facebook has over 2.23 billion monthly users. Hence, putting up your products on Facebook can expose them to nearly a quarter of the total world population. Considering its role as a sales channel, Facebook has introduced "Facebook Marketplace" where sellers can easily upload their products and services for the audience to check out. It is further working on the development of Facebook Shop, where sellers will be able to customize their storefront and sell products directly to customers without having to redirect them to their website. However, the channel has set a fee for the service.
Instagram is another famous social media, sales channel, especially known to derive millennial buyers. It's growing at a similar rate as any other social media channel. The secret to better sales on Instagram is quality pictures and timely response. The better your pictures the more people will be attracted to it. You can use Instagram to drive traffic. Although Instagram is limited to its functionality, you can save a chunk of money with zero transaction and listing fees.
Twitter is also a trending platform, especially among people willing to share their opinions with the world. It forms a great sales channel for sellers to spread the word about their products and services. The primary ingredient for success on twitter is the right use of hashtags. Since the platform is free, you do not have to pay a single penny for any of your sales through it.
Sellers can apply different strategies to display their products and services on these platforms. Various engagement activities help sellers in expanding their reach and increasing sales. One of the benefits social media sales channels present is their zero-fee functionality.
It takes minutes to form a Facebook page and put your products on display for free. It does not even require any prior knowledge or expertise. Moreover, they have exceptionally improved the communication level between the buyers and the sellers, allowing them to reach out to each other whenever needed.
Website as an Ecommerce Sales Channel
The sales channels listed above are convenient, free, or wide-reaching, but the most reliable selling platform is a professional website explicitly designed for your brand. Hence, despite using any other digital marketing sales channels, your personal ecommerce website is a must-have.
Establishing your site can save you from marketplace rules and regulations, transaction and listing fees, commissions, etc. All you need is to choose a professional well experienced ecommerce website development company to create and design your website according to your brand's requirements, personality, and culture. It serves to be the perfect medium to deliver your brand's message to gain loyal customers.
After officially launching your online store, you need to market your products and seek the target consumers. And this is where ecommerce sales channels come in handy. They allow you to tap into millions of potential clients in online platforms.
By integrating your online shop with marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, and Shopify, you can make more sales. Or perhaps integrate it with sales channels like social media to market your products and still sell your products, generating more income for your business.
An ecommerce website can be more than just an online store with items to sell. It plays an essential role in any business's growth, and it's the reason you may need one. Plus, integrating sales channels to your website will make it a one-stop-shop for your business operations that will save you time and effort.
What can be improved by developing an ecommerce website:
- Integration of any sales channel (social or marketplaces);
- Flexible operation of your business - you are free to run your business anywhere as long as there is a stable internet connection;
- Scalability;
- Measurable results all in one dashboard - do you want to know whether your business is growing, stagnant, downscaling? Integrate analytical tools to measure your results;
- Broader reach to new potential clients - use online marketing techniques;
- Serve a particular audience. Get to Google's top using SEO techniques;
- Great medium to maintain long-term customer relationships with notifications, coupons, emails and other tools.
How to Choose the Right Ecommerce Sales Channel for your Business?
There are limitless options for online sales channels, from marketplaces to owning a basic website, developing a custom ecommerce solution with integrations, and more. There are hundreds of possibilities in each case, which makes settling on one sales channel super-challenging. Here's how to choose an online sales channel to lead you out of this dilemma.
Set your Objectives
Now you exactly know about the difference between ecommerce sales channels and how they can be beneficial for you.
For instance, if you want a sales channel that allows you to market your products without giving up on your brand's identity, you might set up a simple website with basic ecommerce functionality.
However, for someone solely aiming to increase sales, integrating marketplaces and social media to their website can be the perfect option.
Characteristics of Ecommerce Sales Channels
Once you have your objective, you need to decide the features you want to avail of. Consider how you want to control your listings, finance, and customers whether you want all your transaction and customer details in one place or do you want to maintain a separate database for both.
Check the Restrictions
Sales channels come with certain restrictions. Etsy, for example, restricts you from selling antique items that are at least 20 years old. Anything younger than that cannot be sold as antique. Similarly, Amazon prohibits the sale of alcoholic beverages. Hence, make sure you choose the right platform for your products.
Research Pricing Options
Estimate your budget before you jump to this step. It will help you decide which platform meets your financial requirements. If you're not ready to spend a big budget on a one-stop-shop website, then you might want to start off with Instagram or Facebook as they are free. Some platforms also offer premium features with higher listing and transaction fees, but good traffic.
Deciding an eCommerce sales channel should be entirely according to your business and what kind of exposure you want for it. The most favorable approach is to use multiple sales channels and integrate them into your website.
For those already trying to tap into autonomous business operations and to have everything in one place, considering an ecommerce integration solution might be a good idea.
Our team of ecommerce experts can help identify problems with your ecommerce website - chat with us to find more information.