Why You Should Sell from Your Own E-Commerce Site
It’s very tempting to sell your amazing products on third party sites such as Amazon, Ebay and Etsy.
They’re all established marketplaces which can expose your goods to a huge audience.
What if, though, you decided to take full control over your sales tactics?
Would there be any benefits? Well… YES! YES THERE WOULD!
I’m going to tell you why you should sell from your own e-commerce site may be the smartest move you ever make!
You Get ALL the Revenue!
There’s nothing like the buzz you get when you make a sale!
Seeing that sweet, sweet money roll into your account is incredibly satisfying!
However, if you’re using a third party site then they’re taking the position between merchant and buyer.
It would be lovely to think that this service is being offered free of charge, but… it’s not!
Third party sites are taking up the middle man position to generate huge profits. Just take a look at Ebay, between March – June 2014 they made an enormous profit of $676 million.
Now, it’s unlikely that you’re going to make even a small percentage of those profits, but selling from your own site will save you a percentage on every single sale. In the UK, Ebay take 10% of the final transaction fee.
Who in their right minds wouldn’t turn down a 10% increase on their profits?!
Sell What You Want!
All third party sites have a strict list of prohibited items.
There’s many reasons why they may be prohibited e.g. age restrictions, content ratings, specialist licenses required etc, but this is incredibly limiting to what you can sell.
Owning your own e-commerce site, of course, means that you can just about sell what you want. As long as it’s legal…
No Fear of Suspension
My Amazon seller’s account was once suspended for two weeks due to a buyer’s complaint.
It was a completely unfounded complaint, but unfortunately Amazon took the side of the buyer.
And that’s one of the major bugbears of selling on a third party site. You’re at the absolute mercy of others.
Thankfully, my issue was eventually resolved, but it caused a lot of stress. Not just mental stress either, we’re talking cold, hard financial stress.
Now, ask yourself this: Would you ever suspend your selling activity on your own site?
Short of suffering a mental breakdown that scenario is never going to happen!
Build a Better Brand Name!
A strong brand name is essential to elevate yourself above your competitors and prove you’re worth that purchase.
It’s not as easy to build this brand on third party sites due to a number of reasons.
Say you own a jewellery business and you start selling on Etsy as Sally’s Trinkets, do you think there’s going to be a lot of competition?
Well, a quick search on Etsy for ‘jewellery’ brings up nearly 8 million search results – making Sally’s Trinkets stand out on here is going to be very tough!
It’s tough to build a brand amongst 8 million products.
With your own site, though, you’re numero uno. It’s a domain where your rivals have absolutely no chance of catching your customers’ eyes and, more importantly, their dollars!
Creative Design!
No one ever made a mint by following the lead of someone else.
You need an original sales approach to stand out; the design of your store needs to be unique.
Third party sites, though, make looking different very difficult.
Sure, some have plenty of templates, but just think of the millions of merchants using them – things are going to get repetitive very quickly.
Amazon are perhaps the worst example as their marketplace shops are all 99.9% identical with only the brand name and logo being any different.
This makes it very difficult for your store to stand out and sales become harder to win.
With your own site, though, you can really let your creative juices flow and build a truly unique site.
Customers will become more engaged with your fresh take on the marketplace and more likely to pick something up.
Improved Marketing
You don’t see many banner ads for specific sellers on Ebay, do you?
That’s because Ebay want to give customers the widest range of options when it comes to buying something. That’s why they make such huge profits!
That’s great for the consumer, but it’s limiting for the merchants as, again, you’re finding yourself trapped in a crowded marketplace.
With your own site, however, you can quickly design a banner ad and submit it to ad networks. You aren’t going to pull this advert due to any “violations of terms and conditions”, so you’re going to improve your prospective audience.
Go Forth and Build!
Building your own e-commerce site isn’t, of course, a straightforward task. There’s a hell of a lot of prep work and, once launched, maintenance work to keep it ticking over.
It may seem easier to just settle for selling on a third party site, but I think I’ve shown you just how many benefits there are to running your own store.
The key word here is “control”. Your own site means that you’re in charge of everything and there’s no restrictions.
You need to seriously consider the move to a self made e-commerce site if you feel you’ve outgrown third party platforms.
