Ecommerce has it's headaches too - selling on marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Walmart

DALLAS - Feb. 26, 2018 - PRLog -- BloggerKhan.com, the blog site for small business ecommerce came out with it's new report on the headaches that ecommerce merchants face, especially those selling on marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, Walmart etc. and how to overcome them.

According to N.K. Babar, a spokesperson for BloggerKhan "Every article you read and every TV news channel you watch is talking about the growth in ecommerce, not just in the USA but all over the world. Traditional malls and standalone stores are feeling the pressure and they should as a good portion of sales has moved online. The smart ones leveraged technology to have a strong online presence and have integrated their physical stores with their ecommerce website in such a way that they complement each other instead of cannibalizing each other" .

Babar further adds, "Traditional malls and standalone stores are feeling the pressure and they should as a good portion of sales has moved online. The smart ones leveraged technology to have a strong online presence and have integrated their physical stores with their ecommerce website in such a way that they complement each other instead of cannibalizing each other."

He further elaborates, "'Online only' merchants do not have the luxury of such complementing physical stores to draw crowds from. That is a real problem. Savvy merchants know that the more people see their products, the better their chances of making a sale. The online versions of physical / traditional malls are called online marketplaces and the big ones are eBay, Amazon, Walmart and to a lesser extent Etsy. Merchants sell on their own ecommerce websites but also upload their products to these marketplaces. "

"People who prefer to shop on eBay go to eBay, Amazon loyalists go to Amazon and so on. There they see the merchant's products and order via the marketplace. The merchant makes a sale, the marketplace a commission. "

"Why would merchants want to sell on marketplaces when they know the marketplace is going to charge a hefty commission? Because they get a customer that they wouldn't otherwise. And now that they have made a customer, they can entice him to buy directly from their website in the future and save them marketplace commissions.

This establishes the benefits of selling on marketplaces. Now lets look at the challenges of selling on marketplaces.

1.          Labor intensive: To keep your own website updated and have accurate product information is quite challenging. To do so on multiple marketplaces in addition is a 5 Advil headache.

2.          GTIN / UPC codes: Amazon and Walmart insists on all products to have UPC codes. If you make your own products or source from smaller manufacturers, you don't have UPC codes. You have to buy them, add them to your product descriptions and only then you can upload. That is labor intensive and it costs money.

3.          Synchronizing inventory: This is probably the biggest headache of selling products on 3^rd party marketplaces. Every time somebody buys off of your website or on eBay or Amazon or any other marketplace, you have to update stock on all of them. If you don't, then you may be sold out on an item but somebody may buy the same on one or more of the other marketplaces. Now what do you do? You have no stock. You cancel the orders and refund but that results in negative feedback and the marketplace lowers your ratings. Do it often and your account will get suspended. Marketplaces compete with each other and they are all trying to make the customer experience a pleasant one. If you are standing in the way, they will swat you like a fly.

Human beings are always looking at solving problems though and a SaaS product called UMP ( short for UploadMyProducts.com ) now solves the inventory problem. What UMP does is, it Pulls the product data from your website / ecommerce site to it's own database and then Pushes it to all marketplaces several times a day. This keeps stock levels updated on all platforms and minimizes the changes of you selling something that you don't have stock on.

Mr. Babar concludes, "ecommerce, like any other business platform, has it's headaches and it's challenges. That does not mean you give up. Look around and find solutions. Talk to companies that specialize in ecommerce and let them help you out. Ecommerce indeed is booming. Go get your share!"

To read more on this subject and ecommerce opportunities, visit their website at http://bloggerkhan.com/ecommerce-has-its-headaches-too-se...