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With the changes of the times, the rapid development of the Internet has made breakthroughs in the store model. The outbreak of Covid-19 has caused a severe blow to the traditional trading industry, but e-commerce has succeeded. The following compares the pros and cons of multiple popular e-commerce platforms to help you solve your doubts on the road!
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Amazon

Amazon is the largest e-commerce platform in the U.S. and European markets. Its business model for selling goods is a mixture of B2C self-operated, C2C individual sellers, and B2B2C vendors.

Pros

• Wide coverage: In the United States, there are more than 200 million monthly visitors and more than 110 million Amazon Prime subscribers, and 20% of them shop on the platform every week
• Nearly half of product searches in the United States will start on Amazon (even more than Google), which means that there is a good chance that customers will be exposed to products listed on Amazon first
• Amazon Marketplace is relatively easy to set up, users can also handle inventory and international shipping through Fulfillment By Amazon

Cons

• Fierce competition: In the United States, more than 300,000 SMEs sell goods through Amazon Marketplace. Amazon also has many products of its own. Is the selling point of your product unique enough (USP) / is the price attractive enough?
• If your product is in a category with lower profits, Amazon’s relatively high referral fee (about 15% on average) may annoy you a lot!

Shopify

Shopify is most famous for its e-commerce tool suite, which can help companies easily create their own online stores. At the beginning of 2020, Shopify launched “Shop”, the APP integrates all sellers into a market for customers to browse, to improve the shopping process and methods, just like the Amazon website. Customers can purchase products and track orders directly on the APP.

Pros

• Customers can follow their favorite Shopify stores on the APP and will see the product recommendations of these brands first. So that your products can easily reach existing/potential customers
• The APP uses Shopify Pay for checkout, so as to provide your customers with a fast and convenient payment process
• Shopify recently increased its focus on local stores, providing personalized recommendations and helping people discover local businesses. In terms of expanding the local market, this feature is very useful

Cons

• Customers can only view products from one store at a time, and cannot compare the differences between multiple stores. This may not be conducive to the user experience, but it may be beneficial for the merchant
• Shopify Shop is currently limited to iOS and Android versions and does not support the web version

eBay

eBay started as a C2C auction for individual sellers (second-hand or new products). eBay mainly sells products for individuals and professional sellers, and the sellers will arrange the shipments themselves.

Pros

• With eBay’s global influence, products sold on this platform will have higher customer trust than independent online platforms
• On average, eBay sellers’ profits are 5.13% higher than those sold on Amazon
• eBay uses PayPal, sellers can receive payment in real-time. Financial security is higher
• If the product is selling through auction, the final sale price may increase

Cons

• eBay prioritizes sellers who can ship within 24 working hours or less. If not, the visibility of business information in search results will be reduced
• In the US, if a seller’s eBay account doesn’t meet or exceed the minimum performance standards, the platform charges them additional fees when an item is sold

Etsy

A more specialized platform, Etsy is the leading marketplace for selling handmade and vintage items. As with many e-commerce businesses, during the pandemic, it saw increased activity, fueled particularly by sales of homemade face masks (which generated $133 million in gross merchandise sales during the last quarter). Masks aside, if you want to start making money from your hobby, selling on Etsy is a great place to start.

Pros

• A targeted customer base: Etsy is the go-to website for customers searching for unique and personalized gifts.
• Setting up a store is easy, and there are dedicated seller handbooks and community forums for extra support.
• The site has a marketing tool, Etsy Ads, to help sellers run advertising campaigns, with useful analytics and SEO support to attract more customers.
• The mobile app makes it easy to communicate with customers and answer their questions on the go.

Cons

• Due to its popularity, the marketplace is pretty saturated. Even if you think you’re selling something unique, chances are there will be many similar products for sale. You’ll have to be creative to stand out!
• Not necessarily a negative, but be aware that Etsy is heavily skewed towards women and millennials – 81% of their customer base is female25. Obviously, this can also be a pro depending on your target consumer!

Online shop customers can come from all over the world. Although international buyers know that goods cannot be delivered overnight, they also hope that they can get the goods asap. If there are i.e. delay, missing goods in international logistics, it is very likely that the customer will not purchase again.

How to deliver products to customers at the best price? More and more overseas orders are coming, how can we increase logistics efficiency? As a one-stop supply chain finance platform, FreightAmigo is definitely your best partner for developing global e-commerce.

From shipping documents, parcels to LCL, on the FreightAmigo platform, you can compare door-to-door air, sea, rail, and courier quotations anytime, anywhere. Use online cargo tracking, real-time status updates, and automatic notification push functions to get the latest shipping status. Cooperate with us to improve e-Commerce customer satisfaction!
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