IDEA BUSINESS

Advantages of Amazon, eBay etc Selling on online stores like Amazon, eBay and others offers one distinct advantage. You get instant access to millions of potential customers worldwide. Even if you do not get sales, your product gets free publicity among millions of potential buyers. Amazon, eBay and others also guarantee your payment. Once a product is sold and delivered to the buyer, you need to wait a few days before receiving the money. This amount can be sent to your PayPal or bank account. Disadvantages of Amazon, eBay etc There are a few inherent disadvantages of selling through online retailers like Amazon and eBay. Prime among them ranks the ‘Returns’ policy. This means, you may have to accept a product returned by customer and refund their money. The second flipside of Amazon and eBay among others being the fee they charge for selling your stuff. This can become a considerable amount if you make brisk sales, without returns. Adding mark-up for online retailers can send cost of your product skyrocketing. This can become a major disadvantage if you are competing on prices with topmost players in the market. Invariably, their products will be cheaper or cost slightly higher than your variant. 2. Set Up Online Stores If you are still wondering how to sell online, set up your own online store using one or more of these excellent resources. 1. Shopify Shopify features over 600,000 online stores set up by individual entrepreneurs. The website is used by 10 million active users worldwide. It has generated sales worth US$82 billion since inception. You can use Shopify to sell online. It involves setting up an online store using the Shopify e-ecommerce platform. This is a very simple process. Additionally, you can customize your website and access several excellent features like third party shipping, payment to a bank or wallet of your choice and data analysis such as number of people that viewed your productsMicrosoft founder Bill Gates says: “If your business is not on the Internet, then your business will be out of business.” In these words, Bill Gates sums up the importance of any business having online presence and engaging customers through e-commerce. Indeed, large corporations like Amazon, eBay and Airbnb among others owe their astounding success to selling online. If you have something to sell and would like to get the largest possible number of buyers, sell online. It is very effective, inexpensive, safe and of course, fast. Why Sell Online? Undoubtedly, our life is very hectic. We go about our daily chores in maddening frenzy. Consequently, most of us do not have time and patience to go shopping at traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Shopping online saves us time and effort and often helps save some precious money. Now reverse this situation. If you are an online seller, people will visit your website to browse and buy products they need or want. Selling online helps you to eradicate physical boundaries such as state borders and national frontiers. This means, you can sell anywhere from anywhere. There are more compelling reasons to sell online too, if you consider facts and figures. sell online Facts & Figures European website Statista finds, over 1.66 billion people worldwide bought stuff online spending US$2.3 trillion during 2017. Shopify’s International Guide to E-commerce projects online sales to cross the US$4.5 trillion mark by 2021. During 2018, the online retail industry worldwide saw number of developments. These include use of Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence, faster check outs and quicker deliveries, among others. Given these facts, you may actively consider selling your stuff online. If you are confused how to sell things online, read this simple guide to get answers. How to Sell Online Before launching full-fledged online sales, there are some steps you might need to take. They will ease the process of selling online. Identify Niche Market The first step towards selling online is identifying a niche market for your stuff. During initial stages, it would not be possible to cater to a large clientele. It helps you know where the money is going and tapping onto that source to bag customers or increase client base. Identifying a niche market is very useful when you have limited budget. Niche marketing saves a lot of costs you would otherwise incur on advertising and promotions. It allows you to focus on a specific set of people rather than the entire global population. Hence, your items would have better visibility among the target group. Selling through other, well established online stores is a great way to target a niche market. Since these online stores have a brand following, you can get enough mileage when people search for something on their websites. 1. Sell Online on Amazon, eBay etc. If you wish to get mileage from popularity of existing online stores, sign up as seller on Amazon. It is the world’s largest online retailer with presence in many countries. Of course, you can decide where you want to sell. To sell on Amazon, you have to register as seller and create an account. Upon getting the account, you can upload pictures and brief description of the product on their online store. Similarly, you can also sell on eBay. Generally, eBay is popular among people that wish to sell used or old stuff. That is not entirely true. You can sell new products on eBay too. Register as seller on eBay, accept their terms and conditions. The next step is uploading pictures of the product, brief description and price