Selling online is the new Covid19 friendly way to sell! It allows you to sell to an area further than just in your local area around where your shop is. And to sell on Takealot can help you grow your business even further. But Takealot is not the only place to sell and is not the best for every business.
So in this article, I want to go over the 3 main types of online selling platforms apart from your own website.
Major Online Retailers
Major online retailers would be classified as large retailers who offer a wide array of products countrywide. Examples would be Takealot, Loot, Makro, etc.
The benefit of these platforms is their reach. They often have countrywide reach in terms of warehousing and distribution. Making it easy for you to grow your customer base.
The downside is they are often fairly pricey and require good cash flow and stock volume.
Specialist Online Retailers
Specialist online retailers would be retailers that only sell 1 type of product/s such as Superbalist, Faithful to nature, and net florist. They have very specific offerings and target markets.
Plus side is they can offer a more direct selling with less chance of being lost by large amounts of products.
The downside is they are very specialist and your products will need to reach their requirements.
Online Marketplaces
Online marketplaces allow anyone to sell just about anything. The onus of delivery is often on the seller and very little input is put in from the platform. Examples would be Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace, and Bid or Buy.
The upside of these platforms is there are little to no costs and restrictions allowing you to quickly get your products out.
The downside is it can be hard to scale like this and keep up constant sales.
There are many benefits to each platform, and what works for one product or business won’t work for another. The best advice we can give is to have clearly defined goals and diversify to reach as many customers as possible.
