Top Multi-Channel Marketplaces for Selling Internationally

Selling through an online platform that offers you the highest amount of control over the online store's advertising, positioning of your product, as well as other aspects of running an enterprise.

But can you do more to expand your reach internationally and connect with new markets with no other method to access your product? This is how selling through multiple platforms can increase the success of an e-commerce companyit gives the opportunity to reach more buyers in more places who would likely never find your ecommerce store.

There are a variety of best online marketplaces, with an international reach. according to your specific business needs take a look at the various options before making a decision on which one will best serve your business growth goals, but without jeopardizing your independence.

Which is the best marketplace

The best online marketplaces for multi-channel sales are those everyone knows, like Amazon and eBay. But there are several others which have a comparable presence around the world, as well as being larger at times. They include Alibaba, Walmart Marketplace, Etsy, Rakuten, and Newegg.

This article will take a closer look into each one in order to provide you with a complete picture of what each online marketplace has to offer.

Which parts of the world use each of the online marketplaces? How many users use these sites, and how loyal are they?

If you're looking to tap new markets through your product and think that online marketplaces provide the most effective way to do this, you need to think about a few key elements:

• The way each marketplace supports sellers, safeguards their autonomy, and generates more revenue without trouble
• Price: what you'll need to shell out for each marketplace online
• Audience: which kinds of people each online marketplace attracts the most
• Reach: How many prospective customers could be from certain geographic regions that access each marketplace

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

1. Amazon

Amazon has come a long way from its early days as an online bookseller. It's now about what you would get to an everything-seller. However, the majority of merchandise sold through Amazon comes from other market sellers, which includes ecommerce businesses who want to reach new customers.

Features

Amazon has been operating this for a while, and has figured out the best way to make an ecommerce site work, so much so that the majority of e-commerce sites want to be able to utilize similar strategies. Thanks to the numerous extensions available at your disposal and the ability to implement a lot of what Amazon does right with your own store.

These are the top features of Amazon Marketplace:

• Global access: open an account in almost every country located on Earth
• Phone support in most countries, chat and email in the rest
• Ability to determine your own price
• An online platform that lets you create your own offerings and promote them
• Simple review collection using the same system that most people are familiar with
• It is possible to design your own products, and then store them on keywords that can be found in search engines
• Metrics tracking for performance, like order defect rates and cancellation rates for fulfillment
• Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a program that allows you to access the Prime Badge and offers better delivery choices
• Layouts for product pages that are pre-set to remove the guesswork

Fulfillment with Amazon basically means that you send your goods to Amazon, and they store the items in Amazon's warehouses. This does come with a fee, but then you are able to offer two-day free shipping for Amazon Prime members, and Amazon will print labels, packaging and all the other shipping tasks you would think of.

Shoppers can also narrow their search so that they will only find products through sellers that have the Prime Badge which gives you an air of quality and exclusivity.

Pricing

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

In the beginning, you have to select between two plans: the Individual Plan and the Professional Plan. With the Individual Plan, you pay 99 cents per transaction that you complete. This approach is better for those who sell less online sales volumes. The Professional Plan costs $39.99 per month, and gives you unlimited sales.

Then, you'll have the referral fee. It is similar to commissions which every marketplace online charges. It is a percent of the total amount you spend, including shipping costs. The fees vary based on the type of product. The majority are 8 to 15 percentage, though they may go from 45% to as high as or as low as percentage. Following that, there's a fulfillment fee that's based on the size and weight of the item being delivered.

In addition, for the using Amazon's warehouses you'll be charged a storage charge determined by the size of your items. Storage costs triple in the period from October to December Christmas season.

Are you sure? There could be additional charges for certain instances.

Why would someone want to pay all these fees in order to make a sale on Amazon?

Because there are some benefits built in and have a large number of customers. It is the case that when you have your own eCommerce website, you do not be required to spend a lot of these charges. But, then you have to control the inventory you have and the shipping.

Audience

Amazon is the largest company in United States, having achieved nearly total market saturation. 150 million Americans are Prime Members -- over 70% of the population.

The number of monthly active users on their application, and Amazon is responsible for 56.7% of all retail ecommerce sales in the U.S. If your target audience is in America, US, Amazon can reach them.

In addition to those in the U.S., they have approximately 310 million active application users all over the world. You can also reach out to people on mobile, too.

Amazon's customers are from all walks of life across North America, and in many other countries, and 66% of shoppers who shop online typically begin their search on Amazon.

Reach

After the acquisition of Souq in 2017, which was an Middle Eastern ecommerce marketplace, Amazon has become the biggest online retailer in the world. The majority of them are located in North America, Europe, Asia as well as Asia and the Middle East.

Amazon delivers to more than 130 countries in over 130 countries, and 2.7 billion people have shopped through Amazon. The company has 2.72 billion unique monthly visitors.

In terms of size, you can reach the biggest global audience with Amazon. With great scale comes great competition, and Amazon also has the largest quantity of online sellers. So it's not necessarily straightforward to get your items seen.

2. eBay

eBay began as a place to market used goods through bidding wars. Although they continue to offer this service, only about 12% of merchandise offered on their website are available for auction, and 80percent of the items that are sold through eBay are new.

It's now an online marketplace with an even more committed group of consumers than Amazon. Many shoppers begin their online shopping experience with Amazon, but many will end their shopping on eBay.

Features

eBay is a true marketplace. It does not sell any items of their own, so your only competition comes from other sellers, rather than the online marketplace itself. Additional features offered by eBay are:

• Concierge services for larger ecommerce brands
• Seller Hub is the platform where you manage your business's e-commerce on eBay You can create and manage listings, orders, manage sales and promotions, etc
• Listing customization capabilities -- greater than Amazon
• The ability to upload videos related to your products
• Coupons, discounts, and promotions, which include coupon codes
• It is possible to offer volume-based pricing discounts
• An option for subscribers lets you make marketing newsletters for subscribers, offer discounts to customers who subscribe as well as build greater loyal customers than Amazon
• It is possible to read reviews of the product
• Shipping label printing
• The option to promote your product through Google Ads along with other stores, as in conjunction through eBay Ads
• Advanced analytics
• Pay schedules for weekly or daily pay

Pricing

Pricing on eBay is less complicated than Amazon's but they are alike in some respects.

The first is an insertion fee at 35 cents per item However, the first 250 listings are completely free. If you create the eBay store, you get additional listings for free.

You are then paid a portion of the cost of sales, which is usually 10% for the majority of types of products. However, the range is between 2-12%. That includes processing fees. If you're looking to cut down on your insertion fees it is possible to purchase the monthly service. For higher volume sellers, this is a smart alternative. They have three choices, each of which come with advantages that selling through the platform. And each of which costs less if you make payments annually instead of each month. Monthly costs include:

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

Audience

eBay attracts hobbyists and what some call "enthusiast buyers" in addition to people looking for a bargain. eBay is a great choice for electronic items, which is their top retailer with 16.4% of products offered on the online platform.

eBay is also a major seller of clothing and accessories (16%) and automotive (11%) as well as Beauty and health (9 percent), and the outdoor and sports equipment. The five categories listed above account for about 60% of what sells on eBay. However, this leaves plenty of space to sell other items.

According to Edesk the 61% of eBay's audience are aged 35 to 64, and 60% of them are male, contrary to Amazon's nearly fifty-to-50 divide. Your audience also includes tail end Baby Boomers Gen-Xers and Gen-Xers and Millennials. eBay isn't getting as much traffic from the Gen-Z.

Reach

In researching the term "reach," it's important to distinguish between site visitors and buyers. The majority of sites that report on the reach of the top known marketplaces for multi-channel selling is able to do a great job clarifying this. This is why you'll see wildly diverse numbers across different sites.

Additionally, the online sales numbers have drastically changed in the years after 2020. Therefore, the data prior to that date has been deemed outdated.

eBay currently gets about 885 million unique monthly visitors. Per year, about 135 million people actually buy something through eBay.

eBay is the third most downloaded ecommerce app across the US following Walmart and Amazon 60 percent of its customers are located in the UK as well as the U.S., with Germany making up 15 percent. Thus, around three-fourths of its users are within these three regions.

For sellers, it's a somewhat different tale. The majority of eBay sellers are in their native U.S., and 25% are situated in the UK. 17% come from China, 16% from Germany as well as 3% from Australia. Therefore, you are able to sell your products via eBay from almost anywhere, as long as you are aware of where the majority of buyers reside.

3. Alibaba

Many marketers in the west aren't familiar with this e-commerce company of China which was founded by Jack Ma. However, it controls over 60 of the market share of Chinese ecommerce market, which means that any ecommerce company that is looking to expand into China or the adjacent Asian markets should look into joining Alibaba or any of its subsidiaries platforms like AliExpress, Taobao, Lazada and Tokopedia. Each of these serves different nations in the region.

Features

Announcing the functions of Alibaba is difficult because it is a multitude of different platforms within its broad scope, each with distinctive features. In order to simplify our focus will be on Alibaba and AliExpress. However, if you're hoping to expand your reach into specific Asian nations, it's best to look into the various platforms that they have, which will be discussed later.

Alibaba is one of the best B2B ecommerce marketplaces. It enables you to buy and sell wholesale products for other companies and from them. With Alibaba it is possible to:

• Own your customers' information in a different way than Amazon
• Utilize communication tools to communicate with your buyers directly
• Use CRM tools to access analytics and data
• Translate into more than 18 languages
• Make customizations using an API integration
• International freight logistics coordination
• Receive onboarding support for new sellers.
• Inspection and monitoring of the product access

Alibaba makes use of an RFQ (Request for Quote) process for customers to submit orders due to the fact that firms utilize Alibaba to buy in bulk from both suppliers and manufacturers. Thus, prices do not have a fixed price. It depends on quantities as well as shipping costs and other variables.

Sellers can also earn three ratings, including Gold, Verified, along with Trade Assurance, which assure buyers they are getting products from trusted vendors.

AliExpress
AliExpress is among the many B2C ecommerce platforms under Alibaba's worldwide marketplace. Similar to Amazon sellers are able to offer specific products and then ship direct to customers. It is also possible to utilize AliExpress to dropship. Like Alibaba the service can also be translated into more than 18 languages.

Additional features:

• Promotion to boost exposure of products
• Convert and accept 51 of the currencies
• 38 local payment channels to allow secure transactions
• Storefronts that can be customized online
• AliExpress University, an onboarding service that assists novice sellers.
• Many shipping options
• Buyer protection policy for defective, damaged, or undeliverable items

Pricing

Alibaba offers a greater volumes than B2C ecommerce marketplaces, so the prices for its products are more expensive too. There are no sales commissions charged by the site and there is only an annual fee, the lowest of which is The Gold Supplier Basic, with a price of $1899 per year.

AliExpress is a step closer to other B2C ecommerce platforms. The company does not charge a fee per year, but instead charges 5-8% commissions for each transaction.

Audience

If you are looking to market on the internet in bulk to businesses of other kinds, Alibaba is one of the top online marketplaces for those who want to sell online in bulk. There are more than 10 million buyers from over 190 countries purchase wholesale from other businesses through Alibaba. It is possible to deal directly with producers, but there are also traders, exporters, and agents. businesses, and wholesalers.

The buyers may be other manufacturer and wholesalers who are using your products to make various other products. They may include sourcing agents as well as B2C retailers. Alibaba can be used Alibaba to build private label brands.

 AliExpress

AliExpress is geared towards the general public and, just like Amazon, sells just about anything from clothes tools to home improvement products to electronics to beauty products.

In the countries in which AliExpress as well as other Alibaba B2C ecommerce platforms operate, your target audience includes all those who shop on the internet. Some buyers could also be re-sellers who are setting Dropshipping companies.

AliExpress sellers must be located within China, Russia, Spain, Italy, France, or Turkey.

Reach

Alibaba has reached dozens of countries and more than a billion users.

AliExpress along with others B2C platforms connect millions of buyers from over 220 nations. They are strongest in Asian nations. In China the marketplace is Taobao. Lazada operates for Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Tokopedia will be the main platform that covers Indonesia.

4. Walmart Marketplace

Walmart started out as a brick and mortar department store, not an online shopping platform. In 2010, the company began selling online and because they have so much money from their stores, Walmart has been able to quickly ramp up its online selling platform so that it competes well against major brands, like Amazon.

However, Walmart Marketplace has fewer vendors and, for the moment, that means lower competition in order to get your items noticed. So you are likely to get better exposure for your products in Walmart Marketplace than Amazon.

Features

While Walmart's eCommerce platform bears several similarities with Amazon However, the differences between them are substantial. The key differences are:

• A stricter qualification process for sellers. Not just anyone who wants to open the store
• Ability to offer free two-day shipping
• Advanced listing and analytics tools
• Secure payment
• Market research
• Customer review options
• Walmart advertisements that give more product exposure
• A supply chain system is in place
• Walmart Fulfillment Services, which will store, package and deliver your items

Walmart Fulfillment Services functions much like Fulfillment from Amazon. Your products are sent into Walmart's stores. When orders are placed, they pack and then ship the items to the benefit of.

A more rigorous qualification procedure provides a compelling reason to consider Walmart. The company only allows sellers who have a record of previous ecommerce success. It is a way to ensure that all of their sellers are trustworthy and offer high-quality products.

Pricing

In contrast to Amazon, Walmart charges no fees for setup, listings or subscriptions. There is a charge per sale, which is similar to other online stores and varies by product category. The range goes from 6-20%, but the great most of their fees are either 8% or 15 percent.

Audience

Walmart is a great retailer because they have thousands of customers in the store They also have their online marketplace as an alternative to every one of them. Walmart sells just about everything in-store, and their online counterpart offers more. The target market is anybody who shops on the internet.

Reach

Walmart Marketplace gets about 410 million unique monthly visitors, according to one estimation It also attracts buyers from Africa, Canada, Central America, Mexico, India, China, and Chile, as well as parts of the U.S. and parts of Europe.

The loyalty program at Walmart currently has more than 10 million members. This means that these customers have extra incentive to shop with Walmart on the internet.

5. Etsy

Etsy was founded as a marketplace that allowed people to market exclusive and handmade items that were not mass-produced items. For the most part, it retains that mission still today. for sellers selling on the internet, Etsy is the place to offer unique products and specialized products.

If you sell a set of items and wish to draw people to your online store on Etsy, use it to sell unique items, and then follow up later to draw them to your primary store that is built upon .

Features

Etsy offers some functions that are similar to those of other platforms like secured transactions, apps as well as email and phone support, and the ability to personalize your Etsy shop. Additionally, Etsy includes:

• Automatic deposits straight to your account
• Options for discounted postage
• A Etsy advertisements platform that you can purchase ads to increase your visibility
• The Seller App allows direct communication with buyers via the Seller App
• Seller protections
• An affiliate program you can make use of to convince other people to sell your stuff
• A seller newsletter and handbook
• The ability to join a network of other sellers

Etsy does have a reputation for being harder to show up on searches of specific products, and this motivates some to purchase Etsy advertisements. It is essential to be conscious when you design your page for your products, which includes your language, and the keywords that you employ to explain your items.

Pricing

Etsy offers a simple pricing system. The company charges 20 cents per listing and the listings are active for four months. Then, for each purchase, you'll pay 9.5 percentage transaction and processing fee which covers everything.

Furthermore, Etsy runs ads for your goods all over web, usually using display ads featuring pictures of your goods. It is not your responsibility to control the ads and they cost nothing for you unless your ad results in a sale. In the event that ads do result in a sale, you'll pay an additional charge for each sale.

Audience

The audience of Etsy is different from other marketplaces online. Customers on Etsy are searching for products that they cannot find other than Etsy. They are looking for items that no one else will own. It's a form of treasure hunting.

This is the place to offer unique products that will 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 between the ages of 18-40.

Their top-selling product categories are home and living, jewelry crafting supplies, as well as tools. They have a wide selection of merchandise that are suitable for bridal and wedding ceremonies.

Reach

Etsy has a narrower reach than other top marketplaces. While they do reach over 200 countries, with 86 million active users, about half the sales they make online go directly to U.S., and almost all the rest go to the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, and France.

Etsy also has a large 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 through this online marketplace than some of the other less generic options on this list.

6. Rakuten

If you're interested in emphasizing the importance of affiliate sales, Rakuten is the top online marketplace to do this.

Are you unsure of the meaning of affiliate selling? Instead of spending money on ads and delve into the complexities of the digital world of marketing your product rather, you partner with other businesses and individuals who promote and sell your product to their audience. As a result, you offer them a percentage of the profit. It's a way to reach more people that you would otherwise be able to. The best affiliate marketers have an enormous influence on hundreds, or perhaps millions of people.

Features

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

• Pay for the week of retailers
• A system for customizing reports
• Customized methods of monetizing your online store
• Dynamic coupons and related tools
• Great customer support the management of seller accounts and partnerships teams.
• Ability to create automated workflows as well as automate
• Assistance in identifying the influencers or affiliates who are best aligned with your product
• A tracking system of Affiliates and influencers

Pricing

Similar to other top markets, Rakuten charges a listing fee, a monthly fee, and a commission that is based on the product category.
They charge 99 cents per listing and $39 per month. Their commissions range from 8-15 percent.

Audience

Slightly favored by men but typically very wide the 25-34 age group makes the most active age group. However, the Rakuten audience is harder to specify due to the fact that it is contingent on which affiliates and influencers you end up working with.

The software is intended to help you connect with affiliates whose audiences align with your offerings. In theory, the audience will be the one that you'd want to be the largest.

Reach

Rakuten business operations have been situated in thirty countries in both Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Their affiliates and shoppers can be found in over 190 countries. So this is a global market that has the affiliate marketing model to form its basis.

7. Newegg

Newegg began as a tech-focused ecommerce marketplace, and it is still the market leader in this segment. It has extended to other areas and has grown to become one of the best platforms for businesses using e-commerce to offer their merchandise.

Features

Newegg offers real advantages to its most popular sellersusers who subscribe to an annual membership. The advantages of the marketplace depend very much on which membership you pick between the three choices of free, Professional, or Enterprise.

Similar to Walmart, Newegg requires sellers to be approved prior to when they are allowed to use their online marketplace. This ensures a level of quality for the products they sell. The main features are:

• A knowledgeable and focused public
• Possibility to sell previously used and refurbished goods
• The ability to promote items on their websites such as Sponsored Videos Ads
• Affirmed support
• API integration
• Advanced product listing that could contain video or touchpoint images to help customers make good decision
• Access to Newegg Studios -- they'll create videos and images 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 along with using the Newegg Shipping Label service
• Benefits for sellers who set prices at a competitive price
• A Premier Seller Program that gives you access to the biggest spenders
• The option to advertise through Newegg's social channels and promotional emails

As with Amazon and Walmart, Newegg has a fulfillment and shipping label services as well, and if you've enough inventory, that's a good option because it will cut your costs.

Pricing

There's a free version however the Professional version priced at $29.95 per month and the Enterprise membership of $99.95 per month provide you with access to the best features.

Audience

Newegg's audience remains heavily tech-focused and knowledgeable. There are more early adopters here than other sites as well as, generally speaking, a wealthier audience. In contrast to Amazon, Walmart, and Alibaba those who buy at Newegg tend to have incomes in the range of $75k or more. The customer base of Newegg is 72% men and is mostly between the ages of 18-44.

In addition to a wide array of electronic and other accessories, Newegg also does well with home cooking and appliances, and is growing to include sporting goods.

Newegg shoppers love to look at the specifications of products, and it isn't the best place for focusing on details. You want to include lots of information on your product pages, and seriously consider including videos. 32 percent of the customers are repeat customers.

Reach

Newegg has about four million active customers all over Europe, South and North America as well as in the Middle East, and Asia Pacific.

So it's a smaller audience and yet one that is spending more and is looking for specific types of goods. Like Etsy there is a chance to build a stronger and more devoted fan base here than in the big broad marketplaces.

What are the benefits of selling on as a part of your global strategy

Marketplaces online can provide excellent ways to get into online selling. They also provide a fantastic opportunity to connect with your customer wherever they are and in places they're already buying.

However, when it comes down to it, the ideal option to increase the size of your business and maintain full control is to begin your own store with . Let's take a review of a few arguments for this to be true.

1. Marketplaces promote competitor products

Marketplaces that are third-party want all their users to be successful Your business isn't the primary goal. Therefore, when buyers browse or search for goods, they will not only find items of competitors in the same category as yours. They could also be exposed to ads related to those items.

Through a marketplace, it's much simpler for customers to pick an alternative business to yours. With a program like , you could create a website that helps shoppers locate what they're searching for and make an easy purchase, without distractions from the other shops.

2. Marketplaces offer a limited selection of design and functionality

With online marketplaces need to be able to alter the product descriptions to fit the requirements of designs, layouts, photos classification, the length of descriptions. So, you might not be able include every detail you'd like.

Since you're working with a set design template, you may not have the ability to alter it to reflect your branding. The items you create will appear similar to everyone else's.

With , however, you are able to create exactly the kind of listing for your store or product you'd prefer. Add lots of photos and videos, include sizes charts and ingredient lists as well as customize the overall style and appearance to suit the brand you're trying to promote.

3. Marketplaces make up a portion of sales

Third-party marketplaces get a percentage of the sales made online as a reward for their platform. As you grow, this can add up more and more. But doesn't charge any costs for selling your products online.

4. Marketplaces limit your control

When you sell on a third-party marketplace you're subject to their regulations and rules. If they decide that your store is not complying with their regulations then they're able to shut the store down, at times without notice. That means that you'll suddenly lose your revenue stream as well as the content you've put up.

However, with Jetpack you'll have full control and ownership over your website. You can also create backups which will save everything on your website, including sales and customer information. So if something ever goes wrong, you can quickly get back up and running.

5. Marketplaces complicate marketing

While some third-party marketplaces provide integrated marketing tools, they may become more limited when you increase. It is possible that you won't be able to connect the programs that you're looking for in advertising, email marketing, customer relationship management, search engine optimization, and many more. It may also be trickier to collect customer information and to effectively interact with clients.

6. The marketplaces may make it more difficult to adapt

As you grow your business, you'll likely require major changes to accommodate more sales. In particular, you could be required to change your delivery or marketing strategy, accept various currencies, change your content to multiple languages, or integrate the fulfillment and inventory software for managing inventory or fulfillment.

Third-party marketplaces make it difficult to make these sorts of changes. They might not be compatible with the software you wish to utilize. They might not allow you to modify the product necessary to be able to sell internationally.

You can take many currencies, arrange shipping in many methods, incorporate with plenty of tools, and customize your shop in any manner you'd like to as your business grows. You can also select any host you like for the tools, resources equipment, and assistance required to handle the increase of traffic.

In the end, it, is the best method to start and build an online store that's successful. You benefit from a system that's easy to use (no code required! ) with the ultimate flexibility, excellent support, and total control.