Chapter 9 Multiple Channels
If you go into the sale of physical goods through e-commerce then it makes sense to opt for a platform that can mesh with third party sales platforms like eBay and amazon. This allows your new business venture to get exposure and start making sales from day one. Even if your main site is new and not ranking yet, you can make sales easily and make people aware of your new venture.
The power of amazon and eBay are profound but they come at a cost, they both take a hefty percentage of the sale and do so net of VAT. So make sure when pricing things that you are still making a margin or it is all somewhat pointless!
It is very quick and easy to list products and you can even float a higher price on these channels as their popularity and level of trust with consumers allows for that. It is also a great way to test the appeal of new products with minimal effort.
eBay also tells you what is trending if you need a few ideas.
If you give the same name to your eBay or amazon store as your business it can strengthen your brand but be aware, competition can be really stiff here with directly comparable alternatives being suggested by the platform itself. On the plus side if you build up a catalogue of great reviews on a product that really helps your reputation and I can say from experience that people are really keen to share both the good and the bad news on something!
A good e-commerce platform will have the ability to feed images and descriptions directly to third party websites like eBay. This will produce a professional looking product page and generate invoices and accounting information in your back office system. E-commerce is competitive, with time meaning money and the ability to compete when margins get tight, make sure all your systems are as streamlined and easy as possible.
You can subcontract the design of your eBay store on a freelancing site to get a professional look there too. Good design and presentation is a classic upfront investment, the payoff comes later and is of course very hard to measure but if you make the effort your future customers will appreciate it by giving you business.
Poor presentation and low quality text are something that I continually see, it always turns me off. If you want your business to grow, invest in all aspects of it. Get slack or lazy and someone will be waiting to take your place.
A slight concern with multi channel sales is data sharing, when you use another website you can bet they are gathering data on your activities and finding out what is working well for you. This can leave you vulnerable to more competition from the platform itself as well as other sellers. Stay nimble and keep a close eye on sales data as well as new opportunities to stay ahead of the game.
Some channels offer to run your fulfilment for you too, this means putting your stock in their hands which I find quite alarming as it is then very simple to trace the supply chain back and source the product.
There are separate professional fulfilment warehouses you can use when you start up that will store your stock, then pick, pack and despatch orders for you for reasonable fee. This is a great tool for the e-commerce start up as storage costs are flexible and there are no nasty long leases to sign into. If you sign a three year lease on a commercial property you can bet within a year or so it will be either too big or too small as the speed of change drives your needs.