Top Multi-Channel Marketplaces for Selling Internationally

E-commerce platforms that offers you the highest amount of control over the online store's marketing, product positioning, along with other facets of running your business.

But can you do more to increase your global reach and engage with new markets with no other means to locate your goods? This is how selling on multiple marketplaces can help increase the success of an e-commerce company- they give an opportunity for you to connect with customers in more places who would likely never find your ecommerce shop.

There are a variety of leading online marketplaces with a global reach, and according to your specific business needs take a look at them all before deciding which one will best serve the goals of your business, while not compromising your freedom.

What is the best way to select the most suitable marketplace

The top online marketplaces that support multi-channel sales include those that everyone is familiar with, such as Amazon as well as eBay. There are however many other marketplaces which have a comparable presence across the globe, and are even bigger in some instances. This includes Alibaba, Walmart Marketplace, Etsy, Rakuten, and Newegg.

In this article, we'll look in depth at all of them to give you a complete picture of the features each one offers.

What regions of the globe engage with each online marketplace? What is the number of people who use these sites and how loyal are these people?

If you want to reach new markets with your products and are convinced that marketplaces on the internet provide the most effective way to do this, it is important to think about a few key elements:

• Highlights: how each marketplace serves sellers, protects autonomy, and increases revenues without a trouble
• Cost: the amount you'll need to shell out for access to each online marketplace
• Audience: which kinds of individuals each market appeals to most
• Reach: How many potential customers from specific geographical areas that are able to access a market

Let's look over the seven most popular multi-channel markets.

1. Amazon

Amazon has evolved a lot since its early days as an online book retailer. It's about what you would become an all-in-one retailer. The majority of the merchandise on Amazon originates from different online sellers, such as online retailers who wish to expand their reach to new customers.

Features

Amazon has been operating this for quite a long time, and they've come up with a way to make an eCommerce site function, to the point that e-commerce businesses want to be able to use many of the same methods. Thanks to the numerous extensions available that are available, you can do most of the things Amazon does right in your online store.

These are the top features of Amazon Marketplace:

• Global access: open an account from just about any nation on Earth
• Phone support in most nations, chat support and email in the rest
• The ability to set the price you want to set
• Platform to build your own offerings and promote these
• Simple review collection using the same system that most people are familiar with
• The ability to build your product and store it on keywords that can be found by search engines
• Performance metric tracking such as order defect rate and rates of fulfillment cancellation
• Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a program that lets you access the Prime Badge as well as better delivery options
• Pre-set product page layouts that eliminate the guesswork

Fulfillment through Amazon is basically the process of shipping your goods to Amazon, and they store your products in their warehouses. The service is charged a fee, but then you're able to provide free two-day shipping for Amazon Prime members, and Amazon will print labels, packaging, as well as all other shipping tasks you would think of.

And shoppers can sort their search results so that they only see products sold by sellers who have the Prime Badge which gives you an air of quality and exclusiveness.

Pricing

Amazon is one of the more expensive online marketplaces. There are a variety of charges, not just one.

In the beginning, you have to select either the Individual Plan and the Professional Plan. If you choose the Individual Plan, you pay 99 cents per transaction you make. This is a better option for sellers who have lower numbers of online sales. Professional Plan: The Professional Plan costs $39.99 per month and provides the ability to sell unlimited quantities.

Next, there's the referral fee. It is similar to commissions that every online marketplace charges. This is an amount of the total amount you spend which includes shipping charges. Prices vary according to product category. They typically range from 8-15%, but they range as high as 45% and can be as low as percentage. Then, you'll have the fulfillment cost, which is calculated upon the dimensions and weight of the merchandise being sent.

In addition, for the access to Amazon's warehouses there's a storage fee determined by the size of your products. The storage fees triple in the period from October to December Christmas season.

Are you sure? In reality, you could pay higher fees in certain situations.

What is the reason someone would pay all these fees for the sole purpose of selling on Amazon?

Because there are some benefits built in and have a large number of customers. However, it is also true that with your own ecommerce website, you don't need to cover the majority of these charges. But, then you have control your inventory as well as your shipping.

Audience

Amazon is biggest company in United States, having achieved the goal of achieving complete market saturation. 15 million Americans own Prime Memberships -- over 70% of adults.

There are 197 million monthly active users of their app as of the time of this writing. Amazon accounts for 56.7 percent of online sales of retail across the U.S. If your target audience is located in the US, Amazon can reach these people.

Including the U.S., they have approximately 310 million active application users all over the world. You can also reach out to the mobile audience, too.

Amazon's audience covers all demographics throughout North America, and in many other countries, and 66% of shoppers who shop online often begin their searching on Amazon.

Reach

After the acquisition of Souq in the year 2017, which was a Middle Eastern ecommerce marketplace, Amazon became the largest online seller in the world. They are concentrated in North America, Europe, Asia as well as the Middle East.

Amazon ships to over 130 countries, and 2.7 billion people have shopped on Amazon. The company has 2.72 billion unique monthly customers.

In terms of dimensions, you will be able to reach the most global market with Amazon. However, with great size comes competition. Amazon also boasts the highest number of online sellers. So it's not necessarily straightforward to get your items noticed.

2. eBay

eBay began as a place to offer used goods for sale by bidding wars. Although they continue to offer this service, only about 12% of products that are sold through their site are available for auction, and the majority of items offered on eBay are new.

Thus, it's evolved into an online marketplace with the most loyal buyers than something like Amazon. A greater number of shoppers might begin their online shopping experience through Amazon However, many will end their shopping their shopping on eBay.

Features

eBay is a real marketplace. They do not offer merchandise of their own which means that your only competition comes from sellers who are not the online marketplace itself. Other features of eBay include:

• Concierge services for larger ecommerce brands
• Seller Hub is the hub from which you run your ecommerce business on eBay You can make listings available and manage orders, run sales and promotions, etc
• The ability to customize listings is greater than Amazon
• Uploading videos that are related to your product
• Coupons, discounts and promotional capabilities, such as coupon codes
• The option to do discount pricing based on volume
• A subscriber option allows you to send out marketing emails to your customers, give subscriber discounts and increase customer loyalty than Amazon
• Ability to access reviews of the product
• Shipping label printing
• The option to promote your products via Google Ads as well as other websites for shopping, as well as through eBay Ads
• Advanced analytics
• Pay schedules for weekly or daily pay

Pricing

The pricing system of eBay is more straightforward than Amazon's, but the charges are comparable in some respects.

The first is the insertion fee that's 35 cents for each listing The first 250 listings are completely free. If you set up an eBay store, you'll receive additional listings for free.

Then, you get charged a percentage of the retail price. This is usually 10% for the majority of products, but the range is between 2-12%. It includes all costs for processing. If you are looking to reduce the cost of insertion it is possible to purchase an annual subscription. If you are a seller with a higher volume it is an excellent alternative. They have three choices with each one of them coming with the added benefits of selling on the platform. Each is less expensive if you make payments annually instead of the monthly. Monthly costs include:

• Basic: $24.95 per month
• Premium: $74.95 per month
• Anchor: $349.95 per month

Audience

eBay appeals to hobbyists and what some call "enthusiast buyers," and also to those who are looking to get a great deal. The site is particularly successful with electronics, their number one retailer with 16.4 percent of the merchandise sold via the internet platform.

eBay also offers a wide range of clothing and accessories (16 percent) and automotive (11%) as well as the beauty and wellness (9 percent) as well as the outdoor and sports equipment. These categories comprise around 60% of the items that sells on eBay. However, this leaves a lot of room for additional products.

According to edesk the 61% of eBay's audience are aged 35 to 64, and 60% of them are men in contrast to Amazon's close fifty-to-50 proportion. This means that your target audience is comprised of tail end Baby Boomers, Gen-Xers, and some Gen-Xers and Millennials. eBay isn't getting as much customers from Gen-Z.

Reach

If you're researching "reach," it's crucial to distinguish between buyers and site visitors. There are many sites reporting the reach of the most well-established marketplaces for multi-channel sales does a good job of clarifying this. This is the reason you will see vastly different numbers in different places.

Additionally, the online number of purchases changed drastically in the years after 2020. Therefore, any data before that is very outdated.

eBay currently gets about 885 million people who visit the site each month. Every year, approximately 135 million buyers actually purchase something on eBay.

eBay is third most popular online shopping app in the US following Walmart and Amazon 60 percent of its customers are located in the UK and U.S., with Germany making up 15%. Thus, around three-fourths of its users are within these three regions.

For sellers there's a slightly different story. 28% of eBay sellers reside in The U.S., and 25 percent are located from the UK. 17% of them are from China, 16% from Germany as well as 3% from Australia. Therefore, you are able to sell your products through eBay nearly anywhere as long as you keep an eye on where most of the buyers are located.

3. Alibaba

Many marketers in the west do not know about this ecommerce bigwig of China which was founded by Jack Ma. It owns nearly 60 percent of the Chinese online market. This means that any ecommerce company seeking to expand its business into China as well as the nearby Asian markets needs to look into joining Alibaba or one of its other platforms such as AliExpress, Taobao, Lazada, or Tokopedia. All of them serve various regions in the region.

Features

The presentation of the capabilities of Alibaba is difficult because it offers a variety of platforms that fall under its framework, each having its own unique aspects. To simplify things this article will focus on Alibaba and AliExpress. But if you're looking to broaden your reach into certain Asian nations, it's best to look into the other platforms they offer, and will be discussed shortly.

Alibaba is among the best B2B ecommerce marketplaces. Alibaba lets you trade wholesale items with other companies. With Alibaba it is possible to:

• Protect your customer's information and not on Amazon
• Make use of communication tools in order to connect directly with buyers
• Access CRM tools and analytics
• Translate in more than 18 languages
• Create customisations with an API integration
• International freight logistics coordination
• Get onboarding assistance for brand new sellers
• Access product inspection and monitoring

Alibaba utilizes an request for quotation (Request for Quote) procedure to allow customers to place orders, because companies make use of Alibaba for bulk purchases from manufacturers and suppliers. Therefore, prices cannot be fixed. They are based on quantity as well as shipping costs and other variables.

Sellers are also able to earn three different ratings: Verified, Gold, as well as Trade Assurance, which assure consumers that they're purchasing products from trusted vendors.

AliExpress
AliExpress is one of many B2C ecommerce platforms under Alibaba's global marketplace. Like Amazon, sellers can sell specific products and then ship them directly to consumers. It is also possible to utilize AliExpress to dropship. Like Alibaba, it can be translated into 18 languages.

Some more features:

• Promotion to boost exposure of products
• Convert and accept 51 of the currencies
• 38 local payment channels will enable secure transactions
• Storefronts that can be customized online
• AliExpress University, an onboarding service designed to assist new sellers
• Numerous shipping choices
• The buyer's protection policy covers defective, damaged, or non-delivery of products

Pricing

Alibaba is a marketplace that operates in a higher volumes than B2C online marketplaces, which means the prices for its products are more expensive also. No sales commissions are paid by the website and there is only an annual cost, the cheapest one being The Gold Supplier Basic, which is $1899 for the year.

AliExpress takes the approach closer than other B2C eCommerce platforms. There is no annual cost however, it charges between 5-8 percent commissions per sale.

Audience

If you are looking to market online in volume to other businesses, Alibaba is one of the top online marketplaces for your needs. More than 10 million buyers from over 200 countries have purchased wholesale products via Alibaba. You can deal directly with manufacturers, and it also has trader agents, agents, exporters businesses, and wholesalers.

These buyers could include other manufacturer and wholesalers who are who use your product to create various other products. They could also be sourcing agents or B2C retailers. You can use Alibaba to create private brand names.

 AliExpress

AliExpress targets the general public and, like Amazon offers just about anything, from clothing to tools to home improvement products and electronics, to beauty items to.

In countries that AliExpress as well as the other Alibaba B2C ecommerce platforms operate Your target customers include almost everyone who buys on the internet. There are buyers who could be re-sellers who are setting Dropshipping companies.

AliExpress sellers have to be in China, Russia, Spain, Italy, France, or Turkey.

Reach

Alibaba is used by a variety of countries, and almost a billion users.

AliExpress along with the other B2C platforms are used by millions of buyers from over 220 countries. They're the most popular in Asian countries. In China there is a platform called Taobao. Lazada is the platform in Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Tokopedia serves as the online platform used in Indonesia.

4. Walmart Marketplace

Walmart was initially a brick and mortar department store and not as an online shopping platform. In 2010, the company began selling online, and because they have so much capital from their stores, Walmart is successful in rapidly increasing its selling platforms online so that it is able to compete effectively with the most prominent brands like Amazon.

But, Walmart Marketplace has fewer sellers, and at present, that means less competition to get your products noticed. So you are likely to get better exposure for your products on Walmart Marketplace than Amazon.

Features

While Walmart's ecommerce platform has several similarities with Amazon however, its differences can be significant. The key differences are:

• A stricter qualification process for sellers, not only anyone who wants to open a store
• The ability to offer the free shipping service for two days
• Analytics tools and Advanced Listings
• Secure checkout
• Market research
• Options for customer reviews
• Walmart advertisements that give more product exposure
• A current supply chain infrastructure already established
• Walmart Fulfillment Services, which can help you store, wrap and then ship your goods

Walmart Fulfillment Services functions much like Fulfillment from Amazon. Your products are sent to Walmart's warehouses. Then, when orders are placed, they pack and ship your products for the benefit of.

A more rigorous qualification procedure can be a reason to consider Walmart. They only accept sellers who have previous ecommerce success. It is a way to ensure that all of their sellers are reputable and sell quality products.

Pricing

In contrast to Amazon, Walmart charges no costs for the setup, listings or subscriptions. The only cost is per sale. This, is similar to other online stores and is different by product. It ranges from 6 to%. However, the majority of the fees for products can be 8% or 15 percent.

Audience

Walmart is a great retailer because they have an abundance of shoppers in their stores, and they can offer their marketplace online as an alternative to all of them. Walmart sells just about everything at their store, but their e-commerce competitor does more. The target market is anybody shopping on the internet.

Reach

Walmart Marketplace gets about 410 million unique monthly visitors, according to one estimate that it attracts shoppers from Africa, Canada, Central America, Mexico, India, China, and Chile and China, the U.S. and parts of Europe.

The Walmart loyalty program has over ten million members. So these are people who get a special incentive to shop at Walmart on the internet.

5. Etsy

Etsy began as a platform for individuals to sell their own original and unique items that were hand-crafted, not mass-produced products. And for the most part this is the same mission to this day. for sellers selling on the internet, Etsy is the place to sell one-of-a-kind items and specialized products.

If you sell a set of goods and you want to attract customers to your ecommerce store using Etsy make use of the platform to offer unique products followed by a follow-up with a follow-up to bring them to your primary store founded on .

Features

Etsy has some features similar to other platforms, such as secured transactions, apps, email and some phone support, and the ability to personalize the appearance of your Etsy shop. Additionally, Etsy includes:

• Automatic deposits straight to your account
• Discounted postage options
• An Etsy advertising platform on which you can buy advertising to improve visibility
• The Seller App allows direct communication with buyers via the Seller App
• Seller protections
• An affiliate program you can make use of to convince other people to market your products
• An email newsletter to sellers as well as a handbook
• Access to a community of other sellers

Etsy is known for its reputation of being a bit harder to show up in search for specific items that is the reason why some buy Etsy advertisements. You have to be very deliberate in how you create webpages for products, such as the language and keywords that you employ to explain your items.

Pricing

Etsy is a basic pricing system. The company charges 20 cents per listing, and that is active for 4 months. For each sale, you are charged a 9.5% transaction and processing fee, which includes everything.

And, Etsy runs ads for your items all over the web, usually using displays that feature pictures of your goods. It is not your responsibility to control this and it costs nothing for you unless your ad result in the sale. For any ads that result in a sale bring in sales, you'll pay an additional fee per sale.

Audience

Etsy's audience is very different from other marketplaces online. Shoppers on Etsy want items they can't find anywhere other than Etsy. They're looking for things that nobody else will own. This is a type of treasure hunter.

It is the best place to make unique and exclusive items that make you known as an innovator, artist and a creative creator of products who invests the time and effort into every item.

The vast majority of shoppers on Etsy are women, generally between the ages of 18-40.

Their most popular product categories include home and living, jewelry crafts, crafting materials, and tools. They have a wide selection of merchandise to help you plan your wedding and bridal party.

Reach

Etsy is a smaller market than other top marketplaces. Although they are able to reach more than 200 countries and have 86 million active users approximately half of their sales online are shipped directly to U.S., and almost every other sale goes to the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, and France.

Etsy also has a large base of customers who are loyal, and with the majority of its purchases that are made by customers who have been buying from them repeatedly. Therefore, if the Etsy audience is in alignment with your products and services, you'll be able to win the trust of loyal customers more easily using this marketplace rather in comparison to other less generic options on this list.

6. Rakuten

If you're keen on focusing your attention on affiliate selling, Rakuten is the top online marketplace for this purpose.

Not sure the meaning of affiliate selling? Instead of spending money on ads and diving deep into the digital world of marketing your product Instead, you join forces with other people and businesses who promote and sell your product to their audience. In exchange, you give them a percentage of the profits. This is a method of reaching larger target audiences that you would otherwise be able to. Affiliate marketers with the best reputations have an enormous influence on thousands or millions of their followers.

Features

Rakuten helps you set up affiliate deals. A few of the key benefits of the program are:

• Pay for the week of retailers
• Custom reporting systems
• Customized methods of monetizing your store's e-commerce
• Dynamic coupons, as well as related tools
• Good customer support -- the management of seller accounts and partnerships teams
• Ability to create workflows and automation
• Assistance selecting the influencers and affiliates that align with your products
• A tracking system of Affiliates and influencers

Pricing

Like other market places, Rakuten charges a listing cost, a monthly charge as well as a percentage of commissions that is based on the product category.
They charge 99 cents per listing, and $39 for a month. The commissions vary from 8 to 15 in %.

Audience

Men are slightly more favored, but generally very broad young people between 25 and 34 years old make the largest portion of Rakuten's segment of users. But in general, Rakuten's target audience is difficult to define because it really depends on what influencers and affiliates you choose to work with.

The software is intended to match you with affiliates whose audiences align to your product. Therefore, in theory, your customers will be those you'd like to have the most.

Reach

Rakuten business operations are based in 30 countries in the two Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. And their shoppers and affiliates are located in over 190 nations. This is therefore a global marketplace which uses affiliate marketing model to form its basis.

7. Newegg

Newegg began as a tech-focused ecommerce marketplace, and it is still the market leader in this segment. However, it has expanded to several other categories and has become one of the top platforms for businesses using e-commerce to sell their products.

Features

Newegg offers real advantages to its most popular sellers- those who pay for an annual membership. The benefits of this market depend on the membership you choose between their three membership options: professional, free or Enterprise.

Similar to Walmart, Newegg requires sellers to be approved prior to when they are allowed to use their online marketplace. This ensures the quality of the products they sell. A few of the key functions are:

• A knowledgeable and focused audience
• It is possible to sell secondhand and refurbished goods
• It is possible to market items on their websites, including Sponsored Video Ads
• Affirmed support
• API integration
• Advanced product descriptions that be accompanied by video and images of touchpoints to help customers make good decision
• The ability to access Newegg Studios -- they'll make videos and photographs for your items
• Product listings are unlimited with the Enterprise membership
• Automation of purchase emails for the Enterprise membership
• Discounts when you make use of Newegg Fulfillment along with the Newegg Shipping Label service
• Rewards for sellers who price competitively
• The Premier Seller Program that gives you access to some of the largest buyers
• The option to advertise on the Newegg social media accounts as well as the option to send out promotional emails

Similar to Amazon and Walmart, Newegg has a fulfillment and shipping label service If you've got enough inventory this is a great option as it reduces your expenses.

Pricing

There's a free version and a paid version, however the Professional version at $29.95 per month and Enterprise membership of $99.95 per month will give you access to the best features.

Audience

Newegg's audience remains heavily tech-focused and knowledgeable. It has many early adopters than most other places as well as, generally speaking, a wealthier audience. Unlike Amazon, Walmart, and Alibaba those who buy on Newegg typically have a salary in the range of $75k or higher. And their audience is about 72% male, and mainly between 18-44.

Apart from a variety of electronics and accessories, Newegg also does well with home cooking and appliances, and is growing into categories for sporting goods.

The Newegg customers love looking at product specs, so it isn't the best place to go light on the details. You want to include lots of information on your product pages Also, seriously think about including videos. 32 percent of their shoppers are repeat customers.

Reach

Newegg has about four million users who have active accounts all over Europe, South and North America and Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific.

It's therefore a less crowded market and yet one that is spending more, and are looking for particular types of products. Like Etsy, you can gain a larger and more committed following here than on the vast marketplaces.

Why should you sell it as an integral part of your overall strategy

Online marketplaces can be excellent entry points into online selling. They're also an excellent method to reach your customers at the exact location they're in, and also on the same places that they're currently buying.

But when it comes down to it, the most effective option to increase the size of your business while maintaining complete control is to start your own online store . Let's take a look at some of the reasons to support this:

1. Marketplaces promote competitor products

Marketplaces that are third-party want all their users to find success, and your business simply isn't the primary goal. So when potential buyers browse or search for goods, they will not just see products from rivals in the same category as yours. They might also see ads for those items.

Through an online marketplace, it's more convenient for consumers to select one of your competitors over the other. However, with tools such as, you can build an online store that allows shoppers to locate what they're searching for and then make purchases seamlessly and without the distractions of the other shops.

2. Marketplaces are a bit limited in terms of design and functionality

When you sell your products on marketplaces online they require you to modify your listings for products to satisfy their specifications for designs, layouts, photos as well as categorization and the length of descriptions. This means you might not be able to provide every detail you'd like.

If you're working from an established design template it's possible that you won't have the ability to alter it to reflect your branding. The items you create will appear like the other ones.

You can design the type of product and store listing you'd prefer. Include lots of images and videos, include size charts and ingredient lists to customize the appearance and design to match your brand

3. Marketplaces are able to take a share of revenue

Third-party marketplaces get a percentage of your online sales in exchange for using their platforms. If you increase your business the amount of money you earn increasing. But doesn't charge any fees for selling online.

4. Marketplaces limit your control

When you sell on a third-party marketplace they'll enforce their rules and regulations. If they determine that you're in violation of those rules, they can take down your store, sometimes without notice. That means that you'll suddenly be unable to earn a profit and, possibly, the content that you've made.

However, with Jetpack you'll have complete control and responsibility over your website. Additionally, you can make backups that will protect all of the information on your site including customer and sales data. So if something ever goes incorrectly, you're able to swiftly restore your store.

5. Markets can make marketing more difficult

Although some marketplaces offer built-in marketing tools, these can become limiting when you increase. It is possible that you won't be able to incorporate the tools that you're looking for in advertising, marketing via email as well as customer relationship management search engine optimization, and many more. It may also be trickier to collect customer information and effectively engage with those customers.

6. Marketplaces can make it harder to adapt

When you begin to grow your company it is likely that you will have to implement significant adjustments to make room for more sales. In particular, you could need to revise your shipping or marketing strategy, accept various currencies, translate your content in multiple languages, or integrate your inventory or fulfillment software for managing inventory or fulfillment.

Marketplaces that are third party can hinder the ability to implement these sorts of changes. They could not work with the software you wish to make use of. They might not allow you to modify the product necessary to be able to sell internationally.

With , you can accept many different currencies, arrange shipping in any number of ways, integrate with lots of tools, and customize your shop in any manner you'd like over time as you expand. Additionally, you can pick any hosting service that is required for the tools, resources tools, and support needed to accommodate the increase in traffic.

In the end, it, the best option to create and expand a successful online store. The benefits include a system that's easy to operate (no codes required! ) and has the most flexibility top-notch support, and full control.