TWENTY CONVENIENT PLACES TO SELL ONLINE
Everyone wanting to sell online may not have the expertise or the resource to set up a successful ecommerce website. Many dream of selling on eBay or Amazon while others struggle to go about getting their own website in place. However, many other solutions exist, some of which are discussed below.
HOSTED STOREFRONTS
Hosted storefronts are suitable for individual sellers with small businesses. Storefronts are managed services that simplify the process of creating and managing a store without needing any special programming or HTML skills for making it specific to the products being sold. Some of the best known hosted storefronts include:
BigCommerce– BigCommerce is a simple storefront alternative that facilitates the creation of a Web shop of your own with additional features like mobile commerce, multi-channel retailing, SEO, simple up-selling and others. It also allows sellers to sell on eBay and Facebook.
GoEmerchant– This is useful for building your own ecommerce store if you do not already have one, and those having their own site can only purchase the Buy-me button and add payment options.
E-Junkie– E-junkie is a shopping cart and a digital system of delivery for publishers wanting to add a Buy-now button to their websites where they sell digital products. Files can be stored easily on the E-junkie servers and buyers get instructions through email on how to download the products they have purchased.
Mercantec E-Commerce Express– This is a useful entry level shopping cart and store front that allows sale of goods on your own site and on eBay.
Payvment– This shopping cart system is available on Facebook to manage storefronts, sales and inventory. It allows users to customize the Facebook shopping tab for a Facebook business page.
Miva Merchant– this is a complete solution to ecommerce hosting, since it comes as a full package with everything possibly needed to start an online store business. As the business grows the accounts can be upgraded.
ProStores– For those wanting a storefront that can be completely integrated with eBay, this is the ideal online ecommerce platform.
Volusion– Another complete online solution for ecommerce that provides assistance to design and manage storefronts, while also providing tools for merchandizing, marketing and CRM.
Shopify is a hosting service that helps sellers accept credit cards for payments while using their own name. They also get to design their own store front and offers built-in analytics to assist in the sales tracking process.
GENERAL MARKET PLACES AND ONLINE AUCTION SITES
eBay– This is the world’s biggest online market place selling thousands of products online through direct sale or through auctions. Businesses can also manage their own eBay hosted storefront.
Atomic Mall– This is an online market place that sells goods at fixed prices, has web store listing and also features make-an-offer sales.
Etsy– This offers web shops as an online market place that is ideal for hand made products, vintage pieces and hand crafted items.
Bonanza– This allows sellers to create web shops in the form of online booths and list their products for sale at fixed prices. Buyers can however, make their own price offers for products.
FREE ONLINE ADVERTISING SITES
Online sellers can also place free online advertisements for products they wish to sell. While general categories are free of charge specialized categories come for a fee, and they do not participate in the transactions which the buyer and seller can complete themselves. Some of the best free-to-list classified ad sites include the following:
Craigslist– This offers ad sites in many countries and cities and most ads are free of charge except for a few specific ones like rental ads, jobs and adult services.
Backpage– Offers listing in more than 400 cities in the US, Canada and Mexico. Most ads are free except for adult entertainment and personal ads.
eBay Classifieds and Kijiji- this network of classified sites is known as eBay classified in the US and Kijiji in Canada. Owned by eBay, it operates in many countries.
Oodle– This extracts thousands of listings from all over the web, and consumers are not charged for placing an Oodle, which can be done by simply opening an account. Posting to Oodle makes your ad get placed on hundreds of other sites.
OLX is a well established online site that is available in most of the popularly used languages in most countries. Ads are placed free of charge but the order of search results can be changed by paying a fee.
Hoobly–This offers a national market place which carries local classified ads. Consumers look for very general ads and have the option of selecting locations. General ads are free but premium ads have to be paid for.