Introduction 

When I started my first business, I created an online store but also listed my products on Amazon. As a new entrepreneur with little experience, I was expecting to get a few more sales from Amazon than my own website. It turns out that for each order I received on my website, I got almost ten orders from Amazon. There are many great things about selling on popular marketplaces, the most important being piggybacking the marketplace customer base and the built-in trust with customers. 

Yet, there are a lot of issues with online marketplaces that are not obvious before you start selling on one of these channels. It took me years before I started to fully understand the challenges and issues that came with online marketplaces. I do not blame the marketplace operators for all these issues, but I want to discuss the dark side of these important online channels so you are better prepared for the day you join one of them, if you have not already.