Best Multi-Channel Marketplaces for Selling Internationally

Aug 30, 2023

Selling through an online platform that offers you the highest level of control on the online store's positioning your products, marketing and other aspects of running your business.

However, what can you do to broaden your reach and connect with new markets who wouldn't have any other way to find your products? That's why selling through multiple platforms can increase the success of an e-commerce companyThey give you access to more customers from more locations who will likely never find your ecommerce shop.

There are numerous best online marketplaces, with the potential to be globally renowned, and according to your specific business needs it is important to consider the various options before making a decision on which ones can best advance the goals of your business, while not compromising your freedom.

How to choose the right market

The best online marketplaces for multi-channel selling include the ones we all know, such as Amazon as well as eBay. However, there are many others that actually have comparable reach across the globe, and are even bigger at times. These include Alibaba, Walmart Marketplace, Etsy, Rakuten, and Newegg.

This article will take a closer look at each of these to give you a clear picture of the features each one can offer.

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

If you are looking to expand your reach into new markets by selling your goods and believe online marketplaces offer the ideal way for this, it is important to consider several key factors:

  • Highlights: how each marketplace serves sellers, protects their autonomy, and generates more revenues without a hassle
  • Price: what you'll need to shell out to utilize each online marketplace
  • Audience: which kinds of people each online marketplace attracts the most
  • Reach: What volume of potential clients from particular geographic regions that access each market

Let's look over each of these top seven multi-channel marketplaces.

Amazon homepage

1. Amazon

Amazon has evolved a lot since its beginnings as an online bookseller. It's about the closest you could get to an everything-seller. However, the majority of merchandise sold through Amazon originates from different online sellers, such as ecommerce businesses who want to expand their reach to new customers.

Features

Amazon is doing this for quite a long time, and has figured out the best way to make an ecommerce site function, to the point that most ecommerce stores wish utilize many of the same methods. By using the various extensions that are at your disposal, you can do most of the things Amazon can do in your online store.

The best Amazon Marketplace features are listed below: of Amazon Marketplace:

  • Global access: open an account in almost every country on Earth
  • Phone support in most countries, as well as chat and emails in other countries.
  • You can set your own price
  • A platform to create your own offerings and promote them
  • Review collection is simple, and easy to use a system people are familiar with
  • The ability to build your products and store around keywords to be found on search engines.
  • Performance metric tracking including order defect rate and fulfillment cancel rates
  • Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a program that gives you access to the Prime Badge as well as better shipping options
  • The pre-set layouts of product pages eliminate the task of figuring out the layout

Fulfillment through Amazon is basically the process of shipping your products to Amazon, and they store your products in Amazon's warehouses. It is a fee, but then you're able to provide free two-day shipping to Amazon Prime members, and Amazon takes care of printing labels, packaging, along with all the other shipping tasks you would think of.

Amazon FBA landing page

And shoppers can filter their searches so they will only find products by sellers who have the Prime Badge and give buyers a sense of exclusivity and exclusivity.

Pricing

Amazon is one of the largest online marketplaces. There are a variety of fees, not just one.

In the beginning, you have to select either two plans: the Individual Plan and the Professional Plan. If you choose the Individual Plan, you pay 99 cents per transaction that you complete. This approach is better for businesses with lower numbers of online sales. The Professional Plan costs $39.99 per month, and gives you unlimited sales.

Then, you'll have a referral fee, which is like the commission fees for every online marketplace. This is an amount of your total transaction which includes shipping charges. The fees vary based on product category. Most are between 8-15 percent, however they can be up to 45% and can be as low as%. Then, you'll have an additional fee for fulfillment that is based on the weight and size of the item being delivered.

And, for using Amazon's warehouses you'll be charged a storage charge dependent on the dimensions of your items. Storage costs triple from October through December during the holiday season.

Is that all? There could be additional charges for particular instances.

Why should someone pay all these fees just to sell on Amazon?

Because there are some inherent advantages, and an enormous number of customers. However, it is also the case that when you have your own eCommerce website, you do not need to cover the majority of these fees. But, then you have to manage your inventory and your shipping.

Audience

Amazon is biggest company in United States, having achieved the goal of achieving complete market saturation. 150 million Americans are Prime Members which is more than 70% of adults.

There are 197 million user of their app as of the time of this writing. Amazon makes up 56.7 percent of the total retail ecommerce sales across the U.S. If your target audience is in America, US, Amazon can reach these people.

Including including the U.S., they have approximately 310 million active application users all over the world. You can also reach out to your mobile users, too.

Amazon's customer base is diverse across North America, and in several other countries. 66% of online shoppers typically begin their search with Amazon.

Reach

Following the acquisition of Souq in 2017, which was a Middle Eastern ecommerce marketplace, Amazon has become the biggest online seller in the world. The majority of them are located in North America, Europe, Asia, and Asia and the Middle East.

Amazon delivers to over 130 countries in over 130 countries, and 2.7 billion shoppers have been through Amazon. Amazon has 2.72 billion unique monthly visitors.

So, as for scale, you'll be able to connect with the biggest global audience with Amazon. But with huge size comes competition. Amazon also has the largest amount of sellers on the internet. So it's not necessarily straightforward to get your items recognized.

eBay homepage

2. eBay

eBay started out as a site to sell used items through bidding wars. Even though they offer that service, just 12% of the products offered on their website are up for bid, and 80percent of the items offered on eBay are brand new.

Thus, it's evolved into an online marketplace that has the most loyal customers than Amazon. Many shoppers begin their online shopping experience through Amazon However, many will end their shopping with eBay.

Features

eBay is a true marketplace. It does not sell any merchandise of their own therefore your competition is from sellers who are rather than the online marketplace itself. Additional features offered by eBay are:

  • Concierge services for larger ecommerce brands
  • Seller Hub is the platform that you use to manage your ecommerce business on eBay It is where you are able to make listings available and manage orders, manage sales and promotions, etc
  • Customization of listings -- higher than Amazon
  • You can upload videos that are related to your product
  • Coupons, discounts, and promotions, which include coupons
  • It is possible to offer discount pricing based on volume
  • Subscriber options lets you send out marketing emails to your customers, give subscriber discounts and increase customer loyalty than Amazon
  • Ability to access review of products.
  • Shipping label printing
  • You can promote your business via Google Ads as well as other shopping sites, as well in conjunction through eBay Ads
  • Advanced analytics
  • Daily or weekly pay schedules

Pricing

eBay's pricing model is simpler than Amazon's, however the fees are similar in some ways.

First, there's an insertion fee that's 35 cents for each listing The first 250 listings are free. If you create the eBay store, you'll get an additional list of listings that are free.

In the end, you are charged a percentage of the retail price. This is usually 10% for the majority of products, but it can range from 2-12%. This includes all the costs for processing. If you want to lower your insertion fees it is possible to purchase the monthly service. For higher volume sellers that are looking to increase their sales, this is the best choice. You have three options that each comes with advantages of selling on the platform. Each is less expensive if you are paying annually, as opposed to the monthly. The monthly costs are:

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

Audience

eBay attracts hobbyists and those who call themselves "enthusiast buyers," and also to those seeking a good deal. The site is particularly successful with electronics, their number one seller at 16.4% of merchandise offered via the internet platform.

eBay is also a major seller of accessories and clothing (16 percent) as well as automobiles (11 percent) in addition to health and beauty (9%) along with outdoors and sports equipment. These categories comprise about 60% of what sells on eBay. But, that still leaves lots of opportunities for other products.

According to edesk the 61% of the audience on eBay are aged 35 to 64 60 percent of them are men contrary to Amazon's nearly 50/50 divide. This means that your target audience is comprised of baby boomers at the tail end of their lives Gen-Xers, as well as Millennials. eBay isn't getting as much traffic from Gen-Z.

Reach

When researching 'reach,' it's crucial to distinguish between visitors to the site and buyers. The majority of sites that report on the reach of top known marketplaces for multi-channel selling can do an excellent job clarifying this. This is why you see vastly diverse numbers across different sites.

Furthermore, the number of purchases changed drastically in the years after 2020. Therefore, any data before that is very outdated.

eBay is currently receiving around 885 million people who visit the site each month. Per year, about 135 million of these buyers actually purchase something from eBay.

eBay has the third most downloaded ecommerce application across the US, behind Walmart and Amazon 60 percent of the buyers on eBay are from the UK as well as the U.S., with Germany being the largest contributor with 15 percent. So, about three fourths of its users are from these three countries.


For sellers, it's a slightly different story. The majority of eBay sellers are in the U.S., and 25 percent are located from the UK. 17% come from China and 16% are from Germany as well as 3% from Australia. Therefore, you are able to sell your products through eBay nearly anywhere provided you pay attention to which countries the largest buyers live.

Alibaba homepage

3. Alibaba

Most marketers in western countries are unfamiliar with this ecommerce giant of China that was created by Jack Ma. But it owns nearly 60% percent Chinese online market. This means that any ecommerce company that is looking to expand into China and nearby Asian markets should consider jumping on Alibaba or one of its other platforms such as AliExpress, Taobao, Lazada, or Tokopedia. All of them serve various countries in the region.

Features

Presenting the features of Alibaba is difficult because it offers a variety of platforms under its overall framework, each having distinctive features. To simplify things this article will focus specifically on Alibaba and AliExpress. However, if you're hoping to expand your reach into certain Asian countries, you'll want to explore the other platforms they offer, and we'll discuss in a moment.

Alibaba is one of the most popular B2B E-commerce marketplaces. It enables you to trade wholesale items with other companies. Alibaba lets you: Alibaba it is possible to:

  • Protect your customer's information in a different way than Amazon
  • Utilize communication tools to communicate directly with buyers
  • Use CRM tools to access analytics and data
  • Translate to over 18 languages
  • Create customisations with an API integration
  • International freight logistics coordination
  • Get onboarding assistance for brand new sellers.
  • Access product inspection and monitoring

Alibaba makes use of an RFP (Request for Quotation) process for customers to submit orders due to the fact that companies utilize Alibaba to purchase bulk quantities from suppliers and manufacturers. Therefore, prices cannot be fixed. The amount depends on the quantity, shipping, and various other elements.

Sellers are also able to earn three ratings, including Verified, Gold and Trade Assurance, which assure customers that they're buying from reliable sellers.

AliExpress homepage

AliExpress
AliExpress is one of many B2C ecommerce platforms under Alibaba's worldwide marketplace. As with Amazon, sellers can sell specific products and then ship directly to the consumers. Also, you can utilize AliExpress for dropshipping. And like Alibaba, it can be translated into 18 languages.

Additional features:

  • Promotion to boost exposure of products
  • Rectify and convert 51 various currencies
  • 38 local payment channels will enable secure transactions
  • Online storefronts with custom-designed online stores
  • AliExpress University, an onboarding service designed to assist novice sellers.
  • Numerous shipping options for shipping
  • Buyer protection policy for damaged, defective or non-delivery of items

Pricing

Alibaba deals in much higher quantity as compared to B2C ecommerce marketplaces, so the prices for its products are more expensive also. There are no sales commissions charged by the site -- just an annual fee, the lowest that is charged is The Gold Supplier Basic, at $1899 per year.

AliExpress adopts a similar approach than other B2C ecommerce platforms. It charges no annual fee and instead, charges 5-8% commissions on each transaction.

Audience

If you are looking to market online in volume to other businesses, Alibaba is one of the top online marketplaces for those who want to sell online in bulk. More than 10 million buyers from more than 180 countries buy wholesale goods from businesses on Alibaba. The company can work directly with manufacturers, and there are also trader agents, agents, exporters businesses, and wholesalers.

The buyers may be other wholesalers and manufacturers making use of your products in the production of various other products. They could also be sourcing agents or B2C retailers. Alibaba can be used Alibaba to create private labels.

 AliExpress

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

Within the nations where AliExpress and other Alibaba B2C ecommerce platforms operate the target market is all those who shop on the internet. Some buyers could also be resellers that are setting up Dropshipping companies.

AliExpress sellers must be located within China, Russia, Spain, Italy, France, or Turkey.

Reach

Alibaba has reached dozens of countries as well as nearly a billion people.

AliExpress as well as others B2C platforms are used by millions of consumers from 220 nations. They're the most popular in Asian nations. In China there is a platform called Taobao. Lazada operates in Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Tokopedia serves as the online platform used in Indonesia.

Walmart Marketplace landing page

4. Walmart Marketplace

Walmart started out as the brick and mortar department store and not as an online shopping platform. But around 2010, they began selling online, with the help of massive cash from their stores Walmart is able to quickly ramp up its selling platforms online so that it competes well against major brands, like Amazon.

But, Walmart Marketplace has fewer vendors and, for the moment this means that there is less competition to get your product noticed. So you will likely receive more visibility for your product through Walmart Marketplace than Amazon.

Features

While Walmart's ecommerce platform has several similarities with Amazon however, its differences are significant. Here are the key features:

  • A stricter qualification process for sellers -- not just anyone who wants to open the store
  • The ability to offer free two-day shipping
  • Analytics and advanced listing tools
  • Secure checkout
  • Market reports
  • Review options for customers
  • Walmart advertisements that give more visibility for the product
  • An existing supply chain network is in place
  • Walmart Fulfillment Services, which can help you store, wrap and deliver your items

Walmart Fulfillment Services works very exactly like Fulfillment through Amazon. Send your items to Walmart's warehouses. After orders have been received, they package and ship your products for you.

Walmart fulfillment services

And that stricter qualification process is a good reason to consider Walmart. They will only consider sellers that are able to demonstrate previous ecommerce success. It is a way to ensure that all of the sellers they accept are reputable and sell quality products.

Pricing

Unlike Amazon, Walmart charges no charges for setting up, listing or subscriptions. The only cost is per sale. This, is similar to other online stores and differs by category. It ranges from 6 to%. However, the most of their fees can be 8% or 15 percent.

Audience

Walmart benefits from having thousands of customers in the store as well as the ability to offer their marketplace online as an alternative to every one of them. Walmart sells just about everything in-store, and their ecommerce counterpart does even more. Their audience is anyone shopping on the internet.

Reach

Walmart Marketplace gets about 410 million unique monthly visitors, according an estimate that it attracts customers of Africa, Canada, Central America, Mexico, India, China, and Chile and 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 online at Walmart online.

Etsy homepage

5. Etsy

Etsy was founded as a marketplace for people to sell exclusive and handmade items and not products made by mass production. For the most part, it retains that mission still today. If you are an e-commerce seller, Etsy is the place to offer unique products and special products.

If you offer a range of goods and you want to draw people to your online store on Etsy, use it to sell unique items, and then follow up with a follow-up to bring them to your primary store built on .

Features

Etsy includes some features that are that are similar to those of other platforms like secure transactions, apps as well as email and phone service, in addition to the possibility to modify the appearance of your Etsy shop. Additionally, Etsy includes:

  • Automated deposits directly to your account
  • Discounted postage options
  • A Etsy advertisements platform that you can purchase ads to increase the visibility of your ads.
  • Direct communication with buyers through the Seller App
  • Seller protections
  • You can use an affiliate program to utilize to motivate other individuals to market your products
  • An email newsletter to sellers as well as a handbook
  • Access to a community of sellers

Etsy does have a reputation of being a bit less prominent when searching for particular items, which is why some make purchases from Etsy advertisements. You must be deliberate in how you create product pages, including your language, and the keywords that you employ to explain your products.

Pricing

Etsy offers a basic pricing system. The company charges 20 cents per listing, and that is active for 4 months. After that, for every purchase, you'll pay 9.5% transaction and processing fee that includes all costs.

Furthermore, Etsy runs ads for your products all over the web, usually using advertisements that display images of your items. You don't have control over this, and there is no cost to you, unless the advertisement result in sales. For any ads that result in a sale produce a sale and you're charged an additional fee per sale.

Audience

Etsy's customers are different from other marketplaces on the internet. Etsy shoppers are looking for things they won't get other than Etsy. They're looking for things that nobody would ever own. It's like treasure searching.

This is the place to offer unique products that will be a source of fame as a creator, an artist and a creative product designer who puts the time and effort into every item.

grid of product types that do well on Etsy

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

Their top-selling product categories are home and living, jewelry crafting supplies, as well as tools. They offer a variety of items for weddings and bridal parties.

Reach

Etsy has a lower reach as compared to other marketplaces. Though they have a presence in over 200 countries, with 86 million active users however, only about half of their sales online are shipped to the U.S., and almost all the rest go to the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, and France.

Etsy is also home to a number of loyal shoppers, with the majority of its purchases that are made by customers who have been buying from them repeatedly. Therefore, if the Etsy audience is in alignment to your product, you can win the trust of customers faster using this marketplace rather in comparison to other general ones in this list.

Rakuten homepage

6. Rakuten

If you're keen on focusing your attention on the importance of affiliate sales, Rakuten is the top market on the internet for this.

Are you unsure of what affiliate selling is? Rather than buying ads or tripping over online marketing for your products rather, you partner with businesses and other individuals to promote and sell your product for their customers instead. In exchange, you give them a percentage of the profits. This is a method of reaching more people than you otherwise could. The best affiliate marketers have a strong influence over hundreds, or perhaps millions of their followers.

Features

Rakuten helps you set up affiliate deals. Some key features that they offer:

  • Pay for the week of retailers
  • A system for customizing reports
  • Customized methods of monetizing your store's e-commerce
  • Dynamic coupons and other tools
  • Good customer support -- Seller account management as well as partnership teams.
  • Ability to create automated workflows as well as automate
  • Assistance selecting the influencers and affiliates that are most aligned to your brand
  • The system tracks the influencers and affiliates

Pricing

As with other major markets, Rakuten charges a listing cost, a monthly charge along with a fee according to product categories.
The cost is 99 cents for each listing, and $39 for a month. Their commissions range from 8-15 in %.

Audience

Men are slightly more favored, but typically very wide young people between 25 and 34 years old make the most active segment of users. However, the Rakuten audience is harder to specify because it really depends on what influencers and affiliates you choose to work with.

The software is intended to connect you with affiliates that have audiences that align to your product. So in theory, your customers will be those you'd like to have the most.

Reach

Rakuten businesses are located in over 30 countries, across both Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Their affiliates and shoppers are found in more than 190 nations. This is therefore a global market that has the affiliate marketing model to form its basis.

Newegg homepage

7. Newegg

Newegg began as a tech-focused online marketplace and is still the market leader in this category. However, it has extended to other areas and has become one of the most popular online marketplaces that allow businesses to offer their merchandise.

Features

Newegg offers real advantages to its best sellers -users who subscribe to a monthly membership. The benefits of this market depend on the membership you pick between the three membership options: Free, Professional or Enterprise.

Like Walmart, Newegg requires sellers to be approved prior to when they are allowed to use their online marketplace, so this ensures an excellent quality level for their products. The main features are:

  • A well-informed and targeted group of people
  • It is possible to sell secondhand and refurbished goods
  • Ability to advertise items on their websites, including Sponsored Video Ads
  • Dedicated support
  • API integration
  • Advanced product descriptions that include video and touchpoint imagery for customers to make informed choices
  • Access to Newegg Studios -- they'll make videos and photographs for your items
  • Unlimited product listings with the Enterprise membership
  • Automation of purchase emails for the Enterprise membership
  • Discounts if you use Newegg Fulfillment as well as using the Newegg Shipping Label service
  • Reward for sellers who price in a way that is competitive
  • A Premier Seller Program that gives you access to the largest buyers
  • You can advertise on the Newegg social media accounts as well as promotional emails

Like Amazon as well as Walmart, Newegg has a fulfillment and shipping label service If you've got enough inventory you can use it as it reduces your costs.

Newegg shipping service

Pricing

The free version is available and a paid version, however the Professional version, priced at $29.95 per month, and the Enterprise membership of $99.95 per month give you access to all the features you want.

Audience

Newegg's customers are mainly tech-focused and knowledgeable. There are more early adopters here than most other places and generally, a wealthier audience. Contrary to Amazon, Walmart, and Alibaba the people who shop on Newegg generally have a net income at least $75k or higher. Their customer base is 72% men and is mostly aged between 18 and 44.

Apart from a variety of electronic and other accessories, Newegg also does well in the kitchen and home appliances, and is growing to include sporting goods.

Newegg shoppers love to look at the specifications of products, and it isn't the best place for focusing on details. You want to include lots of detail on your product pages here, and seriously consider including videos. Three-quarters of the customers have been returning customers.

Reach

Newegg has about four million users who have active accounts across Europe, South and North America, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific.

It's therefore a less crowded market, but one that spends more and is looking for particular types of products. Like Etsy there is a chance to build a stronger and more devoted following here than on the big broad marketplaces.

What are the benefits of selling on as a an integral part of your overall strategy

Online marketplaces can be excellent entry points into selling online. They're also an excellent way to meet your audience where they are, in places they're already shopping.

But when it comes down to it, the ideal way to grow your online business while maintaining complete control is to create an online store that you own . Let's take a look at a few reasons why this is true:

1. Marketplaces promote competitor products

Third-party marketplaces want all of their users to be successful which means that your company isn't the primary goal. So when potential buyers browse or search for items, they won't only find items of competitors in the same category as yours. They might also see ads for these items.

Through a marketplace, it's much simpler for customers to pick one of your competitors over the other. But with a tool like , you could create a website that helps shoppers find what they're looking for and then make purchases seamlessly with no distractions from the other shops.

2. Marketplaces provide limited options for the design and function

On marketplaces that are online need to be able to alter the product descriptions to fit their requirements for designs, layouts, photos classification, the length of descriptions. That means that you may not be able to provide all of the information you'd like.

If you're working from the template of a design, you may not be able to modify it to reflect your branding. Your products will appear identical to the rest of your competitors.

DVO suspension product page
Custom product page from https://dvosuspension.com/


With , however, you are able to create exactly the kind of product and store listing you'd prefer. You can add lots of pictures and videos, as well as size charts and ingredient lists, and customize the entire style and appearance to suit your company's image.

3. Marketplaces make up a portion of the sales

Third-party marketplaces receive a portion of the sales made online as a reward for their platform. As you grow, this can add up increasing. However, there are no fees for selling online.

father's day card listing on the Offerman Woodshop website
Product page from https://offermanwoodshop.com/

4. Marketplaces limit your control

When you sell on a third-party marketplace you're bound by their rules and regulations. If they decide that your store is not complying with their regulations then they're able to shut off your shop, often without notice. It means you'll lose your revenue stream and possibly the content you've made.

With Jetpack, you'll enjoy complete control and responsibility over your site. Additionally, you can set up backups that save absolutely every element of your store such as sales and customer data. In the event that something does go incorrectly, you're able to swiftly get back up and running.

5. Markets can make marketing more difficult

Although some marketplaces offer an integrated marketing tool, these can become limiting when you increase. You may not be able to connect the programs you're seeking for advertising, marketing via email as well as customer relationship management search engine optimization, and much more. Also, it could be difficult to gather customer data, and to effectively interact with customers.

 extensions

6. The marketplaces may make it more difficult to adjust

As you grow your business and expand your business, you'll need to make important adjustments to make room for more sales. As an example, you may be required to change your delivery or marketing strategy, accept a variety of currencies, change your content to multiple languages, or integrate with fulfillment or inventory management software.

Marketplaces that are third party can hinder the ability to implement the necessary changes. They could not work with the platforms you'd like to make use of. Perhaps they don't permit 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 many ways, integrate with lots of tools, and customize your shop in any manner you'd like to as your business grows. You can also select any host you like for the tools, resources equipment, and assistance necessary to cope with the increase in customers.

If you're looking at it, the best method to start and build an online business that is successful. It's a platform that's easy to use (no code required! ) with the ultimate flexibility, top-notch support, and full control.

Amazon FBA extension