The pros and cons of selling through your own website vs selling on eBay, Amazon or Facebook Marketplace

One of the most important decisions you have to make as an online seller is where you should do your selling. Here I explain WHY you should own and sell on your own website rather than eBay and other major selling platforms.

The number of independent sellers has ballooned since platforms like eBay, Amazon Marketplace and Facebook Marketplace came to the fore.
They’re great for first-time and casual sellers with a ready-made market of customers searching for items that they’d struggle to find in the shops.

But before you jump in, think about whether selling through your own website would be better for you.
Selling on eBay is quite tricky as there are lots of hoops to jump through including fees and competition, so it can be quite tricky for a small business selling relatively low-value items to stand out.

Similarly, Facebook is great, but it means that you have to personally interact with every customer for a sale and issue invoices through PayPal. While it is always lovely to chat to customers, that model was simply not scalable and it was very difficult to take any time off.

Also, Facebook is going through a lot of changes, which means it is harder for businesses to have their content shown to potential customers. So, having our own website is the obvious answer.
People will be able see all your items and shop with ease and confidence any time of the day or night.
You have FULL control over the Layout, Colors, Content!

Before our first site launched, I worked 27 hours without a break just to load all the products for the first launch!
Now we are more experienced, we ensure our agency does this work prior to launch. After we launched our first website, it was more popular than we could have ever imagined and we were in no way prepared.

Finding someone that is used to dealing with e-commerce is a massive advantage.

“Finding a good agency or web developer that doesn’t cost the earth is the real key”

Finding a good agency or web developer that doesn’t cost the earth is the real key. As well as ensuring you have all the product information and images, there are lots of policies and basic information that you must display for visitors to be complaint – particularly following GDPR.

What advantages does selling on your own website have over eBay and Facebook?

The main advantage is that customers can browse your products 24/7 and you don’t have to be present to answer questions and issue invoices. All of that is done automatically through the site. People are able to view all of your products and necessary information in one place and we can also link sell.

For example, if a person purchases a dress, the site also suggests suitable petticoats, shoes and other items to go with the dress.(related items OR Customers also purchased.)
You can also use your site as a platform for interacting with your followers by posting blog entries.

Further, once a person has visited our site, they will hopefully sign up for your newsletter (if you have that facility) so it’s easier to make direct contact with them in the future.
An example of one of my own small eCommerce Online Websites selling Pet Related Products can be seen here.

If you need help or advice setting up YOUR Online Shop please contact me.