Chances are, you’ve heard about Amazon’s Big Deal Days, that magical event that makes our wallets lighter. But do you know about Walmart’s Holiday Kickoff sale? Planned from October 9th to 12th, this event will overlap with Amazon’s own sale on October 10th and 11th. Walmart has big plans to increase its ecommerce presence and also said it generated over $80 billion from ecommerce in 2022, which is a 9% growth. That is better than Amazon’s overall ecommerce revenue growth of less than 6%.
Continue readingTag: marketplaces (Page 2 of 2)
I am fascinated by the increasing competition between social media platforms and online marketplaces. In a recent piece, I wrote about the concept of omnichannel e-commerce and how the distinction between sales channels is blurring. However, it seems that figuring out who is engaged in ecommerce and who is doing social media is becoming increasingly difficult.
Continue readingI just saw today that Amazon removed the total number of reviews from the search results (except for some sponsored ads) and replaced it with the rating + the percentage of 5-star reviews. They also display the number of units sold in the past month for some listings.
I believe this change will:
Continue readingIf I had a dollar for every “Get rich with Amazon FBA” course out there, I could quit working and retire early. Whether these courses are useful or not is irrelevant. The sheer number of gurus selling these methods shows how much attention Amazon has been getting for the past decade. Their net revenue went from $61B in 2022 to over $513B in 2022. However, Amazon is not the only marketplace out there. Everyone knows eBay—I remember waking up early to bid on video games and pairs of rollerblades when I was still in middle school. There is also Walmart Marketplace, which is gaining more and more traction, or Etsy for those who like shopping for handmade goods.
Because of the millions of customers these platforms attract, it can be a tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurs. While selling on marketplaces has its risks and issues, they can still be very profitable sales channels. After writing about the dark side of marketplaces, I’d like to talk about the flip side and go over the main reasons why some companies would consider joining one of these platforms.
Continue readingIntroduction
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.
Continue readingThe article below is an extract from my book Ecommerce 101. As the title implies, this is a book for people with no prior experience and knowledge of Ecommerce. This sections goes through the very basics of what online marketplaces are, how they work, and the pros/cons of selling on these platforms.
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