What eCommerce Business Should You Start?
What eCommerce Business Should You Start?
You finally decided to start an eCommerce business. Now you are riddled with which eCommerce platform you should start with or what's best suited for you. We absolutely love Amazon as the first place to start with your eCommerce business. With Amazon you can quickly scale your business. Shopify is great but it takes a little bit more time. eBay is another platform but you won't be able to scale as much as Amazon. Let me break it down to you about each platform.
With Amazon as your go to eCommerce business, there's a monthly cost of $40 for a professional account. You can list as many items as you want with no listing fee. There's a charge of 8-15% seller fees for most categories. You can already sell on pre-existing products (also known as piggybacking) and can scale your business quickly. The best part of piggybacking is you do not need to spend money on ads since it is already selling. This business model is very attractive and lucrative for inexperienced entrepreneurs looking to generate income in the first 30 days of a new venture. With Amazon build a brand and have brand recognition. Building a brand becomes a long term sustainable business where you can scale your business huge in the long run.
If you want Shopify as your go to eCommerce platform it's great for those who have a creative streak. You create your own store to your liking (but also keep in mind of your potential customers and your niche). You create your own listings whether it's a niche store or you sell everything and anything. With Shopify you have 100% full control of your business and you can create your own brand. You create your own listings whether it's a niche store or you sell everything and anything. Shopify has low fees (under 3%) and you would need to do your own marketing and advertisements to scale your business.
With eBay, it's a platform that you can create your own listings and as of 2019, can technically appear on the same listing as another - similar to amazon. Downside is, every time you create a listing it'll be 10-30 cents for each listing you put up. There are seller fees of between 11-15% depending on the category you are listing in. There is no brand recognition even if you are building a brand, until a lot of time has passed and you’ve exhausted a lot of efforts into building a brand on eBay. eBay allows you to sell as an individual or as a store. It's a great platform to start with, but over the years we have noticed that eBay has become a lot more strict and a lot more hoops to jump through. It is a slower pace to scale compare to Amazon.
These are just some of the breakdowns for each platform, and we encourage you to do some research. However, we recommend starting with Amazon, it is the most lucrative platform to be selling on period. There are some learning curves but with the right coach and mentor, you will breeze through them with no problem. All these tidbits of information is to help you decided what eCommerce business should you start. Whichever path you decide to take, we will be here to help and guide you.
WRITTEN BY: Leslie Lazaro
