Top Multi-Channel Marketplaces for Selling Worldwide

E-commerce platforms like gives you the greatest amount of control over your online store, marketing, product positioning, and other aspects of running a business.

However, what can you do to expand your reach internationally and connect with new markets with no other means to locate your goods? That's why selling on multiple marketplaces can help increase the success of an e-commerce companyit gives the opportunity to reach more buyers from more locations who will likely never find your ecommerce store.

There are a variety of top online marketplaces that have a global reach, and depending on your business take a look at the various options before making a decision on the best one to help you achieve your business growth goals, while not compromising your freedom.

How to choose the right marketplace

The best online marketplaces for multi-channel sales are those we all know, such as Amazon and eBay. There are however many other marketplaces which have a comparable presence around the world, and are even bigger at times. They include Alibaba, Walmart Marketplace, Etsy, Rakuten, and Newegg.

This article will take a closer look into each one so you'll have a clear picture of what each marketplace can offer.

Which parts of the world engage with each online marketplace? What is the number of people who visit these platforms and how loyal are these people?

If you want to reach new markets with your products and think that online marketplaces are the best avenue for doing this, think about a few key elements:

• Highlights: how each marketplace serves sellers, protects the seller's autonomy and boosts revenue without trouble
• Pricing: how much you'll need to shell out for each marketplace online
• Audience: which kinds of customers each marketplace appeals to most
• Reach: How many potential clients from particular geographical areas that are able to access a market

Let's take a look at the seven most popular multi-channel marketplaces.

1. Amazon

Amazon has come a long way from its beginnings as an online bookseller. The company is now as close as you can get to an everything-seller. But most of what's sold on Amazon originates from different marketplace sellers, including ecommerce businesses who want to increase their reach to new audiences.

Features

Amazon has been operating this for some time and has figured out the best way to make an online store perform, and so that most ecommerce stores want to be able to use many of the same methods. By using the various extensions that are to your advantage and the ability to implement a lot of what Amazon does right with your own store.

Here are the best features that are available on Amazon Marketplace:

• Global accessibility: create an account for almost any nation located on Earth
• Telephone support is available in all countries, as well as chat and email for the rest
• Ability to determine your own price
• Platform to build your own offerings and promote these
• Simple review collection using the same system that most people are familiar with
• Ability to create your product and store it on keywords that can be found in search engines
• Metrics tracking for performance, such as order defect rate and rates of fulfillment cancellation
• Fulfillment through Amazon (FBA) This gives you access to the Prime Badge and offers better shipping options
• Layouts for product pages that are pre-set to remove the work

Fulfillment by Amazon basically means that you send your goods to Amazon which stores them in Amazon's warehouses. The service is charged a fee, but then you're able to provide free two-day shipping for Amazon Prime members, and Amazon takes care of printing labels, packaging along with all the other shipping tasks you would like to.

Shoppers can also sort their search results so that they can only view products offered through sellers that have the Prime Badge, giving the impression of high-end and exclusiveness.

Pricing

Amazon is among the largest online marketplaces. There are a variety of costs, not only one.

The first step is to choose either your Individual Plan and the Professional Plan. With the Individual Plan, you pay 99 cents per transaction that you complete. This is a better option for those who sell less online sales volumes. Professional Plan: The Professional Plan costs $39.99 per month, and gives you unlimited sales.

There's also an additional fee for referrals, which is like the commission fees for every online marketplace. The fee is calculated as a percentage of the total amount you spend, including shipping costs. Prices vary according to the type of product. Most are between 8-15 percentage, though they may go as high as 45% or as low as percentage. After that, there's an additional fee for fulfillment that is based on the size and weight of the item being delivered.

In addition, for the access to Amazon's warehouses the storage fees are determined by the size of your items. The storage fees triple in the period from October to December festive season.

Is that all? In reality, you could pay even more fees for particular situations.

Why should someone be paying all of these costs in order to make a sale on Amazon?

There are a few inherent advantages, and an enormous number of customers. It is possible to have an online store, you won't need to cover the majority of these charges. You will have control your inventory as well as your shipping.

Audience

Amazon is the biggest retailer in the United States, having achieved almost total market saturation. 150 million Americans are Prime Members -- over 70% of adults.

There are 197 million active users on their application, and Amazon accounts for 56.7 percent of online sales of retail across the U.S. If your target audience is in America, US, Amazon can reach them.

In addition to including the U.S., they have around 310 million active app users all over the world. This means you have the ability to reach people on mobile, too.

Amazon's audience covers all demographics throughout North America, and in numerous other countries. 60% of consumers who use the internet often begin their searching with Amazon.

Reach

After the acquisition of Souq in the year 2017, which was an Middle Eastern ecommerce marketplace, Amazon has become the biggest online seller worldwide. Its main markets are North America, Europe, Asia and in across the Middle East.

Amazon has shipped to more than 130 countries, and 2.7 billion shoppers have been on Amazon. The company has 2.72 billion per month in unique visitors.

So, as for dimensions, you will be able to reach the largest global audience through Amazon. But with huge size is great competition. Amazon also boasts the highest quantity of online sellers. It's therefore not always easy to get your products noticed.

2. eBay

eBay was initially created as a platform to market used goods by bidding wars. While they still offer that service, just 12percent of items offered on their website are up for bid, and 80% of products offered through eBay are brand new.

It's now an online market place with a more loyal group of customers than Amazon. A greater number of shoppers might begin their online shopping experience through Amazon However, many end up on eBay.

Features

eBay is a real marketplace. They do not offer merchandise of their own which means that your only competition comes from other sellers, not the online marketplace itself. Additional features offered by eBay are:

• Concierge services for larger ecommerce brands
• Seller Hub is the platform from which you run your ecommerce business on eBay You can make listings available and manage orders, conduct promotions and sales, etc.
• Listing customization capabilities -- greater than Amazon
• Uploading videos that are related to your product
• Coupons, discounts, and promotions, which include coupons
• It is possible to offer volume-based pricing discounts
• An option for subscribers allows you to make marketing newsletters for customers, give subscriber discounts as well as build greater customer loyalty than Amazon
• It is possible to read product reviews
• Shipping label printing
• You can promote your product through Google Ads along with other websites for shopping, as well together using eBay Ads
• Advanced analytics
• Weekly or daily pay schedules

Pricing

Pricing on eBay is less complicated than Amazon's, but the charges are comparable in some ways.

The first is the insertion fee that's 35 cents for each listing However, the first 250 listings are free. If you set up the eBay store, you get an additional list of listings that are free.

Then, you get charged a percentage of the retail price. This is 10% for most products, but it ranges from 2-12%. This includes all the costs for processing. If you are looking to reduce your insertion fees then you should consider a monthly subscription. For sellers with higher volumes, this is a smart option. They have three choices that each comes with advantages from selling through the platform. And each is less expensive if you are paying annually, as opposed to each month. The monthly costs are:

• Basic: $24.95 per month
• Premium: $74.95 per month
• Anchor: $349.95 per month

Audience

eBay appeals to hobbyists and those who call themselves "enthusiast buyers" as well as people looking for a bargain. It does really well with electronics, their number one seller at 16.4 percent of the merchandise offered via the internet platform.

eBay is also a major seller of accessories and clothing (16 percent), automotive (11%) as well as health and beauty (9 percent), and the outdoor and sports equipment. The five categories listed above account for about 60% of what sells on eBay. However, this leaves lots of opportunities for additional products.

According to Edesk 61% of eBay's audience is between 35-64 years old The majority of them are men in contrast to Amazon's close fifty-to-50 divide. Your audience also includes the Baby Boomers who are at the tail end Gen-Xers and Millennials. eBay isn't getting as much traffic from the Gen-Z.

Reach

If you're researching "reach," it is important to differentiate between buyers and site visitors. There are many sites reporting the reach of the most known marketplaces for multi-channel selling does a good job of clarifying this, which is the reason you will see vastly various numbers on different websites.

Plus, the ecommerce number of purchases changed drastically following 2020. So the data prior to that date has been deemed outdated.

eBay currently gets about 885 million users per month. Every year, approximately 135 million of these customers actually buy items from eBay.

eBay is the third most downloaded ecommerce application across the US following Walmart and Amazon, and 60% of its customers are located in the UK as well as the U.S., with Germany accounting for 15 percent. That means that about 34% of eBay's audience is within these three regions.

In terms of sellers there's a somewhat different tale. 28% of eBay sellers are located in their native U.S., and 25% are situated in the UK. 17% are from China and 16% are from Germany while 3% are from Australia. So you can sell through eBay from almost anywhere, so long as you are aware of where most of the buyers live.

3. Alibaba

Many marketers in the west do not know about this ecommerce giant that is based in China that was created by Jack Ma. However, it controls nearly 60% percent Chinese online market. This signifies that any business that is looking to expand into China and nearby Asian markets needs to consider jumping on Alibaba or one of its subsidiary platforms like AliExpress, Taobao, Lazada or Tokopedia. Each of these serves different nations in the region.

Features

Announcing the functions of Alibaba isn't easy because it is a multitude of different platforms that fall under its scope, each with distinctive features. For simplicity this article will focus only on Alibaba and AliExpress. However, if you're hoping to expand your reach into specific Asian nations, it's best take a look at the various platforms that they have, which will be discussed later.

Alibaba is one of the top B2B E-commerce marketplaces. Alibaba lets you trade wholesale items with other companies. Through Alibaba it is possible to:

• Own your customers' information and not on Amazon
• Utilize communication tools to communicate directly with buyers
• Access CRM tools and analytics
• Translate into more than 18 languages
• Make customizations using an API integration
• Coordinate international logistics for freight
• Support for onboarding is available to new sellers.
• Monitoring and inspection of access products

Alibaba utilizes an RFQ (Request for Quote) method to enable customers to submit orders due to the fact that businesses use Alibaba to buy in bulk from suppliers and manufacturers. So prices are not fixed. It depends on quantities of shipping and other factors.

Sellers also have the option of earning three different ratings: Verified, Gold along with Trade Assurance, which assure buyers they are getting products from trusted suppliers.

AliExpress
AliExpress is one of many B2C E-commerce sites that Alibaba has in its worldwide marketplace. As with Amazon sellers are able to offer items in small quantities and deliver them directly to consumers. Also, you can utilize AliExpress for dropshipping. Like Alibaba, it can be translated into 18 languages.

Some more features:

• Marketing to increase exposure for products
• Accept and convert 51 different currencies
• 38 local payment channels to enable secure transactions
• Customizable online storefronts
• AliExpress University, an onboarding service designed to assist novice sellers.
• Numerous shipping options
• Buyer protection policy for damaged, defective or undelivered products

Pricing

Alibaba deals in much higher quantity than B2C ecommerce marketplaces, so its prices are higher also. There is no commission on sales charged by the site and there is only an annual fee, the lowest of which is that of the Basic Gold Supplier, which is $1899 for the year.

AliExpress adopts a similar approach than other B2C E-commerce platforms. It charges no annual fee however, it charges between 5-8 percent commissions per purchase.

Audience

If you are looking to market online to businesses of other kinds, Alibaba is one of the top online marketplaces for you. Over 10 million buyers from more than 200 countries have purchased wholesale products via Alibaba. The company can work directly with the manufacturers and you'll also find traders, exporters, and agents. companies, and wholesalers.

The buyers may be other manufacturer and wholesalers who are making use of your products in the production of different products. They might also be sourcing agents, or B2C retailers. Alibaba can be used Alibaba to create private brand names.

 AliExpress

AliExpress is geared towards the general public and, like Amazon offers just about anything from clothes equipment to products for home improvement to electronics to beauty products.

In the countries where AliExpress or others Alibaba B2C ecommerce platforms operate, your target audience includes all those who shop online. Some buyers could also be resellers that are setting up up dropshipping businesses.

AliExpress sellers have to be within China, Russia, Spain, Italy, France, or Turkey.

Reach

Alibaba has reached dozens of countries, and more than a billion users.

AliExpress as well as the other B2C platforms connect millions of buyers from over 220 countries. They are strongest in Asian countries. In China, the platform is Taobao. Lazada is the marketplace in Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Tokopedia is the platform for Indonesia.

4. Walmart Marketplace

Walmart was initially an brick-and-mortar department store, and was not an ecommerce marketplace. In 2010, the company began selling online, and with so much capital from their stores, Walmart has been capable of rapidly expanding its selling online platform to the point that it is able to compete effectively with the biggest names, including Amazon.

But, Walmart Marketplace has fewer sellers, and at present, that means lesser competition for getting your items recognized. So you will likely receive more exposure for your products in Walmart Marketplace than Amazon.

Features

While Walmart's eCommerce platform bears numerous similarities with Amazon however, its differences are significant. The key differences are:

• A stricter qualification process for sellers -- not just anyone who wants to open the store
• The ability to offer the free shipping service for two days
• Analytics tools and Advanced Listings
• Secure payment
• Market report
• Review options for customers
• Walmart ads which provide greater brand exposure
• An existing supply chain network that is already in place
• Walmart Fulfillment Services, which will store, package and deliver your items

Walmart Fulfillment Services functions exactly like Fulfillment through Amazon. Send your items through Walmart's distribution centers. Then, when orders are placed, they pack and ship your products for you.

And that stricter qualification process can be a reason to think about Walmart. They will only consider sellers that are able to demonstrate previous ecommerce success. It is a way to ensure that all of their sellers are reputable and are selling high quality items.

Pricing

Contrary to Amazon, Walmart charges no costs for the setup, listings and subscriptions. They just charge a fee per transaction, and this as with other websites, varies by product category. The range goes from 6-20%, but the great majority or product fees can be 8% or 15 percent.

Audience

Walmart has the advantage of having an abundance of shoppers in their stores, and they can offer the online market as an alternative to all of them. Walmart has everything in-store, and their online counterpart offers more. Their audience is anyone who shops on the internet.

Reach

Walmart Marketplace gets about 410 million monthly unique visitors according to one estimate It also attracts buyers who are from Africa, Canada, Central America, Mexico, India, China, and Chile and China, the U.S. and parts of Europe.

The Walmart loyalty program has over ten million members. This means that these customers are enticed to buy with Walmart on the internet.

5. Etsy

Etsy started out as a place that allowed people to market exclusive and handmade items that were not mass-produced items. For the most part this is the same mission even today. If you are an e-commerce seller, Etsy is the place to offer unique products and special items.

If you offer a range of items and wish for people to visit your online store on Etsy you can use it to market unique items that you can then use by bringing them back to your primary store built on .

Features

Etsy includes some features that are that are similar to those of other platforms such as secured transactions, apps as well as email and phone assistance, as well as the capability to customize your Etsy shop. Additionally, Etsy includes:

• Automatic deposits straight to your account
• Options for discounted postage
• An Etsy advertisements platform that you can buy advertising to improve your visibility
• The Seller App allows direct communication with buyers via the Seller App
• Seller protections
• An affiliate program you can utilize to motivate other individuals to promote your product
• A seller newsletter and handbook
• A connection to a group of other sellers

Etsy has a bad reputation for being harder to show up when searching for particular items, which is why some make purchases from Etsy advertisements. You must be conscious when you design your webpages for products, such as your language, and the keywords that you employ to explain your products.

Pricing

Etsy has a very straightforward pricing structure. The company charges 20 cents per listing, and that listings are active for four months. For each sale, you are charged a 9.5% transaction and processing fee which covers everything.

Furthermore, Etsy runs ads for your items all over the internet. They mostly use advertisements that display photos of your products. It is not your responsibility to control this, and there is no cost for you unless your ad results in sales. If the ads do result in a sale, you'll pay an additional amount for each sale.

Audience

The audience of Etsy is different from other market places online. Shoppers on Etsy want products that they cannot find and everywhere else. They want stuff no one else will own. It's a form of treasure searching.

This is the place to sell unique items that can earn you a reputation as an innovator, artist and a creative design professional who put an effort and dedication into each product.

The majority of customers on Etsy are women, generally aged between 18 and 40.

Their most popular product categories include homes and living, jewellery, craft supplies, and tools. They sell lots of products for weddings and bridal parties.

Reach

Etsy has a narrower reach that other popular marketplaces. While they do reach over 200 countries and have an active user base of 86 million however, only about half of the sales they make online go directly to U.S., and almost every other sale goes to the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, and France.

Etsy also has a large base of loyal shoppers, with the majority of its purchases purchased by regular buyers. So if Etsy's audience aligns to your product and services, you'll be able to win the trust of regular customers much more quickly using this marketplace rather in comparison to other general ones in this list.

6. Rakuten

If you're looking to emphasize the importance of affiliate sales, Rakuten is the top market on the internet for this.

Is it unclear the meaning of affiliate selling? Instead of spending money on ads and diving deep into online marketing for your products Instead, you join forces with businesses and other individuals, and they promote and sell your product for their customers instead. You then give them a percentage of the profits. It's a way to reach greater audiences as you might otherwise. The best affiliate marketers have powerful influence over thousands, or even millions of their followers.

Features

Rakuten helps you set up affiliate deals. Some key features of their program:

• The weekly pay of merchants
• A system for customizing reports
• Modified methods for monetizing your store's e-commerce
• Dynamic coupons, as well as related tools
• Good customer support -- seller account management and partnership teams.
• The ability to set up workflows and automation
• Assistance selecting the influencers and affiliates that are most aligned with your products
• The system tracks the influencers and affiliates

Pricing

Similar to other top markets, Rakuten charges a listing fee, a monthly fee, and a commission based on product categories.
The cost is 99 cents for each listing, and $39 for a month. Their commissions range from 8-15 percent.

Audience

Men are slightly more favored, but generally broad in scope the 25-34 age group makes up Rakuten's most prolific audience. In general, however, Rakuten's audience is harder to specify since it depends upon which affiliates and influencers that you work with.

The software is intended to match you with affiliates that have audiences that align with your offerings. In theory, the target audience is the one you'd like to have the most.

Reach

Rakuten companies are located in over 30 countries, across the two Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Their affiliates and shoppers can be found in over 180 nations. Thus, this is a worldwide marketplace that uses the affiliate marketing model as its centerpiece.

7. Newegg

Newegg was initially a technology-focused eCommerce marketplace, and is still the market leader in this sector. However, it has broadened its offerings to other sectors and is now one of the top online marketplaces that allow businesses to sell their products.

Features

Newegg delivers real benefits for its best sellers -- those who pay for an annual membership. The benefits of this market are dependent on the membership you choose between their three options of professional, free or Enterprise.

Like Walmart, Newegg requires sellers to obtain approval before they can access their e-commerce marketplace. Therefore, this guarantees the quality of the items they offer. A few of the key functions include:

• An educated and targeted group of people
• The option to sell used or refurbished products
• Ability to advertise products on their site such as Sponsored Videos Ads
• Affirmed support
• API integration
• Advanced product descriptions that contain video or touchpoint images for customers to make informed decisions
• Access to Newegg Studios -- they'll make videos and photographs for your products
• Unlimited product listings with the Enterprise membership
• Automated email post-purchase with the Enterprise membership
• Discounts when you make use of Newegg Fulfillment along with the Newegg Shipping Label service
• Reward for sellers who price competitively
• A Premium Seller Program that grants you access to the largest spenders
• You can advertise through Newegg's social channels and email marketing campaigns

Similar to Amazon and Walmart, Newegg has a shipping and fulfillment service If you've got an inventory of it you can use it since it can cut expenses.

Pricing

The free version is available however the Professional version at $29.95 per month, and the Enterprise membership of $99.95 per month will give you access to the most advanced features.

Audience

The Newegg audience is primarily technologically-oriented and well-informed. You'll find more early adopters here as opposed to other stores and, in general an affluent crowd. Unlike Amazon, Walmart, and Alibaba those who buy on Newegg generally have a net income of $75k per year or more. Their customer base is 72% male, and mainly between 18-44.

Apart from a variety of electronics and accessories, Newegg also does well when it comes to home cookware and appliances, and is growing into sporting goods categories.

The Newegg customers love looking at product specs, so this is not the place for focusing on specifics. You want to include lots of details on your product pages Also, seriously think about including videos. Thirty-two percent of the customers have been returning customers.

Reach

Newegg boasts around four million users who have active accounts all over Europe, South and North America, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific.

It's therefore a less crowded market and yet one that is spending more and is looking for particular types of products. As with Etsy, you can gain an even more loyal and devoted fan base here than in the big broad marketplaces.

Why sell on as part of your global strategy

Online marketplaces can be excellent entry points into online sales. They're also a great way to meet your audience wherever they are and at the places where they're shopping.

However, when it comes down to it, the best option to increase the size of your business and maintain full control is to create your own store with . We'll look at a few reasons for this to be true.

1. Marketplaces promote competitor products

Marketplaces that are third-party want all their customers to achieve success which means that your company isn't the primary goal. Therefore, when buyers browse or search for items, they won't just see products from rivals alongside yours, but they may also get ads for those items.

Through an online marketplace, it's simpler for customers to pick an alternative business to yours. But with a tool such as, you can build an online store that allows shoppers to locate what they're searching for and make an easy purchase and without the distractions of other stores.

2. Marketplaces are a bit limited in terms of both design and functions

With online marketplaces they require you to modify your product listings to meet their requirements for layout, pictures, formatting, categorization, and description length. So, you might not be able to include all of the information you'd like.

If you're working from the template of a design, you might not be able to modify the design to fit your company's style. The items you create will appear like the other ones.

You are able to create exactly the kind of product and store listing you'd like. Include lots of images and videos, as well as dimensions charts and lists of ingredients to customize the style and appearance to suit your company's image.

3. Marketplaces take a percentage of sales

Third-party marketplaces get a percentage of your online sales to use their services. If you increase your business, this can add up more and more. However, there are no fees for selling online.

4. Marketplaces limit your control

When you sell on a third-party marketplace they'll enforce the rules and regulations of that marketplace. If they find that you're in violation of those rules and regulations, they may take down your store, sometimes without prior notice. This means you'll lose your revenue stream and, possibly, the content that you've created.

With Jetpack, you'll enjoy full control and ownership over your website. It is also possible to set up backups that save absolutely every element of your store including customer and sales information. If something goes incorrectly, you're able to swiftly recover and get your business back on track.

5. Marketplaces complicate marketing

Some third-party marketplaces have integrated marketing tools, they aren't always the best when you expand. You may not be able to integrate the tools that you're looking for in advertisements, email marketing, customer relationship management, search engine optimization and more. Additionally, it can be more difficult to gather customer data, and efficiently engage those clients.

6. Marketplaces can make it harder to change

When you begin to grow your company, you'll likely have to implement significant adjustments to make room for more sales. As an example, you may need to revise your shipping or marketing strategy, accept various currencies, or translate your website in multiple languages, or integrate the fulfillment and inventory software for managing inventory or fulfillment.

Third-party marketplaces hinder the ability to implement such adjustments. They could not work with the software you wish to make use of. They might not allow you to modify the product that you require to make in order to market globally.

Through this, you'll be able to accept many different currencies, arrange shipping in any number of ways, connect with a variety of different tools, and even customize your store any way that you'd like to as your business grows. It is also possible to pick any hosting service that is required for the tools, resources tools, and support necessary to cope with an increase in traffic.

When it comes down to it, the best way to build and grow an online business that is successful. You benefit from a system which is simple to operate (no code required! ) and has the most flexibility top-notch support, and full control.