Every business owner is now aware that to compete in the modern world, you need to be selling your products online. However, as a small business owner, knowing the best places to start trying can be challenging. This article will highlight some of the better options for small businesses, so you can decide which is right for your company.

Online Marketplaces

When you think of an online marketplace, you probably automatically think of Amazon. The idea of these sites is that they can be a one-stop shop for customers to get pretty much everything they might ever need. They are large enough to have a vast audience of ready-made customers, but if you join, you will be competing against many other companies potentially offering very similar products. Yours will need to be unique in some way to gain attention, or you will need to pay to be pushed ahead of the pack.

Although you might think of the biggest online marketplaces first, you should look into marketplaces for your specific niche. There are likely to be a few large ones for your industry that will be worth signing up with. For instance, if you sell food products, it might be worth signing up to Catering Wholesale Suppliers. By doing so, you will benefit from their existing customer base while building up your business. It would also be a good way of seeing which products do well on an online forum.

Your Own Website

Building your own website is going to be necessary whether you sell your products through it or not. Your customers might not have come across you before, and one of the first things they will do is check your website to see if you are a legitimate company. However, you could also investigate using an e-commerce platform builder. These builders have easy-to-use templates and a number of features to help you create your own online shop. Some of the big names are Shopify and WooCommerce. The benefit of this route is that you have full control over your products and can ensure that your brand continuity stays strong – always helpful for a small business. However, populating an entire website and generating a constant stream of fresh content so that it stays relevant is a significant undertaking.

If you decide an e-commerce platform builder is the way to go, research the best one for your particular industry. They all have pros and cons, so take the time to choose the right one. Don’t forget to consider scalability options too.

Social Commerce Platforms

You might already be familiar with using social media for your business. Getting the word out locally about what you do and the products or services you sell can be particularly useful. However, you should also consider directly selling on these platforms. Facebook Marketplace is the largest and most commonly used platform and is often used by businesses as well as private individuals. The benefit of using this method to sell your products is that engaging with your customers and building a solid loyal following is much easier. You can get free advertising by encouraging discussion on what they like about a product, how they use it, and even what products they would like to see you produce.

On the downside, it is not a space you can entirely control, and you will have to have someone dedicated to working on social media to push your products and interact with customers, including managing any complaints or problems.