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Online business is becoming a trend in society. Apart from the large number of devotees, online businesses also offer shopping in a simple way. Buyers can view and checkout goods without having to come directly to the store.
When starting an online business, you must determine what platform you will use to sell products. Many people choose the marketplace as a platform for doing business because of the convenience it offers. On the other hand, not a few also advise business people to have an online sales website to show professionalism.
Reviewing online business, there are two options available, namely the website or the marketplace. Both of them load online stores and their products. So which one is better for an online business, an online store website or a marketplace?
The following are the advantages and disadvantages of each platform that you can take into consideration before making a decision.
What is the difference between marketplace and website?
Before discussing more about websites and marketplaces, you must first know the differences between the two. Both websites and marketplaces have their own characteristics and advantages. Not a few business people suggest buying goods via the web because it's easier to find, but there are also those who buy through online stores to make it more random.
Website is defined as a page (page) that contains some of the information needed. For business people, the web is filled with the products they sell. While the marketplace is a special application for selling online. Where there are many online stores that offer goods and services.
What are Advantages of Online Store Websites?
1. Full Control
By having an online store website, you have full control over the platform, starting from design, navigation, catalog display, to the consumer shopping experience. You can periodically update your business website according to the campaign or promo that you are running. This allows you to design a shopping experience as well as a more personalized approach for consumers.
2. Freer to Do Branding
On an online shop website, you can build a brand freely. You can customize the appearance of your website, starting from the colors, text, and so on that match the image or persona you want to display for your business. For example, if you sell women's fashion products, you can design the appearance of your website's front page with feminine colors.
By having strong branding, it will be easier for target consumers to remember your business. Especially now that there are many ecommerce website creation services that offer flexible designs with basic templates that can be personalized and integrated with other channels. You will also find it easier to build awareness.
3. Can Access Consumer Information
If on the marketplace you can't retrieve data about consumer behavior and shopping habits, on the online store website you can access that information. From these data, you can analyze which strategies are successful and which are not, which products consumers like the most and which ones they don't like.
So you can develop your business based on valid data and plan the right marketing strategy for the future.
4. Not Relying on Other Parties
By having your own online selling website, you don't depend on other platforms. Not only for sales, but also for your entire business. If you only sell on a marketplace, for example, when the marketplace is experiencing disruptions, your sales will certainly be affected.
What's more, the business payment method on the marketplace depends on the method provided by the marketplace. Meanwhile on your own website, you can determine according to your needs and consumer behavior. Therefore, an online store website plays an important role for the long term of your business.
Whare are Disadvantages of Online Store Websites?
1. Requires Capital
One of the reasons many businesses start from the marketplace is because it takes quite a bit of capital to make a web selling online, especially when compared to selling on a marketplace which can be started without the need for capital.
To create a website, you need to buy a domain name and pay a design fee. Then when the business grows, you will also need to upgrade your web sales.
2. Good Management Required
Just like having a physical store, having your own online selling platform means you also have to be able to manage it properly, starting from servers, payment systems, speed and other technical matters. You must be able to ensure that every page on your online store website can be accessed.
When you release a new product, for example, you must be able to organize the product catalog properly so that consumers can browse comfortably. To make sure everything is running smoothly, you should take the time to periodically check your sales website.
3. Strategies Required to Reach Consumers
Unlike the marketplace where the market has been formed, you need to implement a number of strategies to be able to reach consumers. You can't just ignore your selling website because it will be difficult for you to get traffic.
To increase traffic, ranking, and ultimately sales, you need to develop a strategy and allocate a budget, for example implementing an SEO Strategy and creating content. When you already have high enough traffic, you need to provide fast customer service such as chatbots to serve questions from visitors.
What are Advantages of Marketplaces?
1. Easier to Get Started with
In the marketplace, you don't need to start everything from scratch like on an online store website because all the systems and templates are available. You as a businessman only need to register and start selling.
How to register is relatively easy. Most marketplaces only ask you to fill in your name, email and mobile number to register. In just a few minutes, you can create your own online store.
2. Does Not Require Large Capital
Besides being easy, starting to sell on the marketplace also doesn't require large capital. In fact, you can get started for free. If you want to upgrade your stall, usually the marketplace charges a service fee.
Tokopedia, for example, charges a 1% service fee for each product sold. The average marketplace also offers a variety of advertising prices so you can adjust it to your budget.
3. There's a Market
Marketplace is a trusted sales platform. This means that there are already thousands of consumers who are comfortable and accustomed to shopping through this platform. So, you don't need to bother implementing various strategies so that your store is known because basically it's the marketplace name that buyers will remember.
This will certainly help those of you who are just starting a business. Therefore, choose a marketplace that is credible and trusted.
5. Many Choice of Programs and Features
Marketplace has regular programs that you can take part in, such as free shipping promos, and many more. Apart from that, the marketplace also has features that can help increase your sales, such as Star Sellers on Shopee or Power Merchants on Tokopedia, feeds, ads features, and many more.
They also certainly implement various strategies to continue to increase the number of people shopping through their site or application so that you can only take advantage of the features that have been provided optimally.
Why do marketplaces fail?
1. High Competition Level
One of the biggest challenges of selling on the marketplace is the high level of competition. There will be many other shops selling similar products to what you are selling. In the midst of so many online stores, it will be more difficult for your product to stand out.
What's more, on the marketplace visitors will only see photos and prices of your products. Unless they click on the image, they won't know the details of the product or who sold it. This means that your sales depend heavily on the quality of your photos and price competition.
2. Low Awareness Level
Another drawback of the marketplace is that you will find it difficult to build awareness of your brand. Again, since visitors can't view your store profile unless they click on an image or visit your store in person, it's more difficult for you to stand out your brand.
Moreover, the space for personalizing stalls in the marketplace is also limited. You can only do branding through your store profile such as banners, descriptions, and feeds while the main marketplace display will always be the same for all visitors.
Even people who buy your product may not necessarily know the existence of your brand because basically buyers are more focused on the product they are buying and not who the seller is. This can be a challenge for you to build customer loyalty.
Conclusion
Because visitor and buyer data are fully owned by the marketplace, you don't have complete access to consumer shopping patterns. As a result, you don't have a customer list so you can't analyze consumer behavior in detail.
Whereas from there you can find the right strategy to develop your product and business. Both marketplaces and online shop websites have their own advantages and disadvantages, it all comes back to your business needs.
In fact, you can integrate the two so that sales are maximized. For example, you can put a link to an online selling website on your stall profile in the marketplace. Vice versa, you can connect your stall to your selling website.
In managing these various sales channels, you can use Connexi which allows you to integrate all sales channels on one platform. So you can monitor and access all your sales data, from stock to logistics efficiently.