E-commerce Marketplaces – What are they and how to

Have you heard about the new trend in the world of e-commerce? Marketplaces are not only an opportunity for giants of the sector such as Amazon and Alibaba. Marketing and advertising lessons from Amazon There is little content in Spanish on the topic of E-commerce Marketplaces. It is a global trend that is also reaching Spain. At Quondos we are taking advantage of it despite not being anywhere near the same level as the empires that lead this market. Before going into details, let’s see what they are and what they consist of. What is an E-commerce Marketplace? The pioneers of marketplaces in the e-commerce sector have been Ebay, followed by Amazon. One of the largest today is Alibaba and its subsidiary Aliexpress. I have not researched the subject in depth so there may have been other pioneers before them. The companies mentioned are those that have succeeded with this model. It basically consists of creating a market where you invite both buyers and sellers and you participate through a “small” commission. In the case of Amazon, it varies depending on the type of product with a maximum of 15% of the sale price, including the shipping cost. Sellers compete with Amazon’s offer, or so you might think. If you read the book “The Everything Store” which talks about Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, you will understand in detail the strategy behind giving access to third parties. The e-commerce giant analyses, above all, categories that it does not yet offer directly , how third-party sellers sell, prices, most popular products, etc. in order to then forcefully enter a new market. It is a form of legal espionage. In reality, it is not that others are competing with Amazon, but rather the opposite. You make all the data available so that later they can take part of your business away. How to take advantage of marketplaces to launch your business It is clearly surreal to think that we will be able to compete with Amazon or Alibaba. To begin with, it is not a game of equals. Even if we are the most brilliant minds in the world, they beat us in resources and people (who are not usually too stupid either). The good news is that there is a way to take advantage of the marketplace format . Consider the following type of business. Niche market with demand but little supply : no, this is not an illusion. They still exist. It is a matter of starting to look. At Quondos we have launched one with monthly searches of 30,000. We have had practically no competition and now we are in 99% of the words in number 1. Wide variety of sellers with poor online presence : look for a market where you have a wide variety of businesses that are not yet well positioned online or that in some cases do not even have an online presence. Close exclusive deals if you can : My brother implemented this idea over 10 years ago with his market research sales platform. There were (and still are) a wide variety of sellers with whom he was able to close exclusive deals for a while. Over the years, well-funded startups came in and took away much of his market share. His mistake was never growing fast enough. Stay away from the typical way of thinking about niches. If there is an affiliate program for this, it is no longer an opportunity for this type of business. With a little time researching you can discover real gems. If you also master other languages, you can expand in a second step into new markets. We are working on it. I will keep you posted.