How to Expand Online Markets as a Small Business Owner

Starting an online store is a great way to increase revenue and reach more customers… But why stop there? Expanding into online marketplaces can give you access to more potential customers and increase sales.

In this podcast, we’ll explore tips from Ben Jones from Codisto on how to maximize success when scaling services like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart. If you want to increase your income, this podcast will help you make the most of the opportunities that online markets have to offer.

Why should you go all channel?

If you’ve operated an online store but primarily sold on your website and social media while marketing Facebook and Google ads, you know that these channels eventually start to fade. You see a plateau in website traffic and orders. So what’s the next step? You need to find new customers and get more traffic.

Expanding markets becomes the next logical step in your growth journey.

If you really want to increase sales, you need to go omnichannel. It means being present to your customers, no matter where they choose to shop. Some people only shop at Amazon, while other customers like to shop directly with the brand because they prefer that experience. Some people will shop on eBay because they want to find a good deal.

No matter what strategies you may activate, you need to sell your products wherever your customers choose to shop.

Increase your brand visibility through marketplaces

Increasing product discovery is a good reason to work with marketplaces. It costs a lot of money to advertise on Google and Facebook to reach new customers. The market has a different model. They have advertising options if you want to boost your listings with some paid promotion. But your brand will also be discovered organically by people who choose to shop at marketplaces buyers only that you wouldn’t normally get.

Which market should you choose?

Amazon, eBay, and Walmart are some of the most popular online marketplaces. When choosing a marketplace to sell your products, keep their specific guidelines in mind.

Amazon is undoubtedly the most popular online marketplace in the US. 61% of US consumers start their product search on Amazon. That’s more searches than a search engine like Google.

eBay is primarily about selling used goods, vintage and collectibles.

As for Walmart, it has a similar value proposition to Amazon. However, it is a younger online marketplace, so it is much less competitive than Amazon.

Although these markets are different, Ben Jones sees value for every business in every market and encourages you to sell everywhere.

For example, you can use eBay as a clearance channel to sell merchandise at a sale price. In the meantime, you can sell your bestsellers on Amazon and test the waters in the less competitive Walmart market.

Sell ​​on marketplaces with Codisto

In this episode, Ben Jones provides an overview of Codisto, a service that allows you to go omnichannel and sync your Ecwid store with marketplaces to sell on multiple platforms at once.

Your product details, prices and inventory are synced real time between your Ecwid store and connected marketplaces. So you don’t have to worry about manually selling or changing product details across all platforms. You can also set different prices in different markets, which is useful to cover specific fees for certain platforms.

Visit our Help Center to find out how to connect your Ecwid store to marketplaces.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about getting started on marketplaces and making sure you’re seeing results immediately after launching your product on new platforms.