The ecommerce industry has grown rapidly over the years and many have questioned what’s next? With top industry leaders such as Amazon and Ebay, what benefit do sellers and users have to stay on that platform when seller fees and privileges are being removed? The answer is companies are making the shift to running their own branded marketplace platform.

Ecommerce Giants

Traditional businesses models have dropped continuously over the years while and more people are looking to make purchases online. Take Amazon for example. They are one of the largest retail platforms with pretty much anything you can think of. With a simple search, a few clicks, and it can be delivered straight to your front door.

While it makes the consumer experience very convenient, little do we think of how the seller experience is. What goes into getting your business on amazon, how much does it cost, or what are your responsibilities? The list goes on and on. Let’s face it, you are now just a distributor with little control over your own products. As a business owner, what good is that?

“Sellers are looking to expand outside of the Amazon space, about half say there are concerned about losing seller privileges (52%) or because of high seller fees (50%).” - Bizreport.com

Related: 5 Ways to Increase Leads for Your Ecommerce Company

Marketplace Platforms

The answer and future of the ecommerce world. Why pay the big fish to sell and run your products when you can simply do it yourself? I know what you’re thinking.. I don’t have the money or coding experience to build my own marketplace. You don’t need to! If you already didn’t know, that’s what we do here at Near Me. I can go on and on why you should start building a platform with us but we can save that for another time.

A few other popular marketplace platform builders are Sharetribe, Arcadier, and Mirakl are all very capable. Understanding what functionalities and capabilities will help make your decision and find the right fit for you. While pricing of course will be a huge factor, it will be a whole lot cheaper than hiring your own development team to build a marketplace. Why waste time trying to reinvent the wheel?

Serious entrepreneurs and even enterprise companies are shifting their efforts toward marketplaces and welcoming it with open arms. The benefits of having the option to build your own community and sell your products all-in-one is huge. If you have the trust of your users, it will become a much easier sell when the time comes.

Related: What Are Keys to Creating A Successful Marketplace Platform?

So What’s Next?

Build your marketplace platform. Don’t let the giants like eBay and Amazon control your products and stay the little guy. The great thing about choosing a marketplace builder, is it allows you or your team to focus on the sales and marketing aspect to drive up your overall success. Double down on your sales and marketing teams to drive traffic up. While it will be very tough at first going up against the big companies, but with proper execution and dedication it can all pay off at the end.

If you are in the market for a platform builder or have any specific questions, feel free to fill out this form or send us a tweet @NearMeCo!