Crafting a successful business model can take a lot of time, especially if you’re just starting out. We thought we’d give you a few little tips to show how you can maximise your profit.
If you’ve come to this article, you’re probably interested, or already invested, in the world of e-commerce. According to a techcrunch.com study, e-commerce is the most profitable start-up in the modern world. We can hardly say this is surprising, especially considering the technological advances in the last five years as well as the prevalence of social media marketing.
Despite this, according to the Telegraph, an outstanding 20% of new businesses fail to make it past the first year, and a further 60% go bust within three years.
So, how can you maximise your e-commerce profile and increase your potential profit?
For any new business, it should be a no-brainer. Utilise every market available to you to sell your products. In our opinion, the most important three, Amazon, eBay and Shopify, individually bring an incredible amount to your business. Why not use all three, then? You’re giving yourself triple the market to sell your product!
In this article, we’ll give you a quick guide to all three and tell you why you should be utilising each one.
Amazon
According to statista, there are over 280,000 Amazon marketplace sellers in the United Kingdom. Here’s a list of some reasons why sellers are drawn to Amazon’s service!
- Marketplace trust. Due to its huge share of the market, Amazon has become a trusted site for potential customers. Amazon offers a reliable service and this strikes a chord with potential customers. Utilising this trust can help give your business a kickstart to build a consumer base.
- Utilise Amazon’s ‘FBA’ programme. One reason for Amazon’s popularity amongst sellers is it’s ‘FBA’ programme offered to all Amazon sellers. FBA, or Fulfilled By Amazon, encourages sellers to utilise Amazon’s fulfilment centres (17 in the UK alone!) to store their products.
That way, when a customer orders through your Amazon shop, Amazon fulfils the order for you, rather than requiring you to go through the process of packaging and processing yourself!
- Communicative market. Not only can you reach the millions of customers using the site, but you can also benefit from their robust feedback systems.
Users can review each product they purchase extensively, as well as answering questions other users may have about the product. This helps with your site’s SEO ranking – your ad will appear higher in searches if you make use of user interaction.
Creating discussion around each product you sell helps with your transparency as a small business and can build good relationships with consumers.
These are just a few reasons you should be listing with Amazon, though there are countless more! If you need more help, check out some of our other guides on selling through Amazon!
eBay
eBay has been around since 1995 and remains at the forefront of the e-commerce market. Here are a few reasons why eBay is so popular with sellers and buyers.
- Attractive listing fees. Like Amazon, eBay has hundreds of thousands of sellers registered to utilise their site in the UK. One of the main draws for these sellers is that you can list up to 200 items, for free, every month! If your product doesn’t sell, you don’t incur a fee.
- Expansive global market. According to their site, eBay has around 183 million buyers – that’s a huge potential market for any new small business!
- Considerable SEO benefits. Again, like Amazon, eBay also has benefits when it comes to SEO rankings. If you don’t know what SEO is, check out our guide here.
Putting it simply, listing your products on Amazon and eBay means they are fairly likely to appear high in relevant Google searches for similar products. This is because both Amazon and eBay are considered trusted sites by buyers.
- Flexible reserve pricing. eBay has a great level of flexibility when it comes to setting prices for your products. If you have a large number of stock for a particular product, you can set a fixed price when you list it on the site.
Alternatively, if you’re a reseller of vintage or antique goods, you could benefit from the auction feature. Demand for this product may be high, that way you don’t have to set a price and can allow bidders to compete against one another for your product.
It’s no question why eBay has remained at the top for so long – the benefits for buyers and sellers alike are unquestionable!
Shopify
You might be less familiar with Shopify than you are with eBay and Amazon, but it’s arguably just as important in helping to get your business off the ground.
Shopify is one of the biggest e-commerce platforms on the internet. For the United Kingdom alone, there are over 50,000 live sites using Shopify. But why? Here are some reasons.
- User-friendly interface. Shopify is a brilliant website for a new small business, but it maintains this brilliance as your company grows. Pretty much everything you need to establish a site is done for you and it teaches you along the way!
Even if you run into a problem, Shopify has a 24-hour support team dedicated to helping you establish your position as a Shopify seller.
- Over 100 store templates. When you establish a site using Shopify’s system, you can choose from hundreds of free and paid templates. These help you establish an image for your store – whether that’s minimalistic or modern, Shopify really helps you craft an identity for you small business.
- Reap the benefits of a SAAS. As Shopify is an SAAS (software as a service) you don’t have to worry about all the confusing technical website management details. Shopify hosts your site for you. That way, you don’t have to worry about maintenance. Whilst Amazon and eBay embed your site within theirs, Shopify provides and hosts a website for you, giving you a specific brand identity.
Shopify does have some hosting charges if you choose to sign up for a paid service. In the long-run, however, you can get a pretty generous return on investment by using their system.
The Bottom Line
Using Amazon, eBay and Shopify to sell your products is a great way to maximise your potential income. It makes no sense to choose just one – whilst it may be more time-consuming to use all three, the sheer span of the market you open up can kickstart your business.
If you need help with your small business, take a look at how Floodmaker can help optimise your online presence!