How To Choose The Right Marketplace?

To make the right decision, analyze your situation and business model. “Try on” critical criteria before entering the site and choose what best suits your ideas about a profitable business:

• The demand for your product on the site. It would be best to analyze different areas using analytical services to understand where your product is in the more significant order. Other sites have their priority niches. Choose the marketplace where your product’s interest is high.
• Commissions and fees. Each marketplace has different commissions and fees. At the same time, they are not the same in categories: for WB, it can be 5%, and for Ozone – 12%. It would help if you considered this, compared indicators and chose the option that increases the profitability of your business.
• Allowed categories of sellers. For example, the self-employed cannot trade on Lamoda. This means that to enter this site; you must open an individual entrepreneur or register a legal entity.
• Terms of use. The offeror agreement with the marketplace specifies the sellers’ main rules and restrictions. It is necessary to study them to avoid violating them in the future, not pay fines and work effectively on the site.
• The level of competition. Competition in specific niches is critically high on some sites, especially in popular and sought-after categories. This is an important criterion when choosing a location.
• Participation in promotions. Some marketplaces force their sellers to participate in promotions and provide discounts. These are losses if the seller did not foresee the possibility of an advertisement in advance and did not add value to the cost.
• Proximity to warehouses and distribution points. The closer they are, the easier and cheaper for the seller to deliver goods there.
• Level of seller support. On some sites, the administration quickly responds to questions and requests from sellers; there is training and recommendations for promotion; on others – this is not the case; you have to experiment and try to solve problems independently.

Study the marketplaces of interest on these points and compare the results, making it easier to decide. In addition, you need to identify the pros and cons of each site.

Wildberries

This is the most popular platform in Russia among both sellers and buyers.

Pros:

• The marketplace is universal. You can go there with almost any product and find your buyers.
• The site rarely asks sellers for documents for goods: trademark certificates, certificates and declarations. You can register without them.
• Three cooperation options: FBO, FBS, and DBS. You can choose what is convenient.
• Acceptable payment schedule – every week. This reduces the likelihood of a cash gap.

Minuses:

• Periodic technical failures.
• Long wait for a response from the support team.
• The goods are lost. Parcels are often found, but during the search, the sellers manage to get quite nervous.
• Non-refundable registration fee – 30,000 rubles.
• Frequent increase in the number of commissions and fees.
• The site actively fines and blocks even minor errors in the work.

Newbies are more likely to choose this particular marketplace to start their business.

Also Read: How To Launch A New Sales Channel In A Month: The Magnit Case