You’ve done all the hard work of creating the perfect product, but where are you going to sell it? Even if you have a great marketing team, selling on your own website doesn’t always create the type of high sell-through/ numbers that you want (Everlane is a rare exception of this model), so where else can you sell? Which is the right choice for you? Remember: The more you sell, the higher your orders, the less your cost per unit is, and the more money you can make!
Big E-Commerce Stores
When it comes to selling your product, you have several options. Better known e-commerce stores would be Amazon, Touch Of Modern, etc. These will reach a huge audience and give you different options for marketing your goods. They are fairly easy to apply for, but not always easy to . For instance, all you need to do to start selling products through Amazon is to head here and register. Amazon also recently launched an new platform called Launchpad that allows hardware startups to take advantage of Amazon’s massive audience and distribution capabilities. Amazon also has a whole store dedicated to wearable technology and crowdfunded products. In many other cases, you will have to contact the company directly to place your product in their online store.
Pros and Cons of Selling Through E-Commerce:
Pros:
- Huge Online Exposure – E-Commerce sites like Amazon have around 270 million active members, and selling through such online giants will surely multiply your profits. (Source)
- Established Brand Name – New customers are more likely to purchase products to already established E-commerce sites with good credibility.
Cons:
- Huge Fee Structure – Owing to their huge online traffic, E-Commerce sites charge a high amount of marketplace fees, which are deducted as percentages on each sale. It is advisable to look over the fee structures of such sites before you decide to sell through them, to ascertain the business viability that they can ultimately offer. Here are fee structures for selling through eBay and Amazon.
- Competitive Pricing – Even if you price your product low to boost sales, there will be a ton of other competitive sites with lower overheads that will sell products similar to your’s at an even lower price.
Read our case study on Sea Turtle Sports who takes advantage of selling on Amazon.
There are also a number of smaller niche sites that are well-suited to makers who are creating wearable technology and other gadgets. Lumoid (www.lumio.com) for instance, allows you to rent things like cameras and fitness trackers before buying. The Wearables Store (www.thewearablesstore.com) is another smaller e-commerce store that focuses on wearable tech, as is www.grandst.com. Since these companies are smaller and more focused, there’s a better chance they will accept your products for “shelf space” in their store.
Crowdfunding Sites
Some might not realize, but you can also sell directly through your crowdfunding sites. Usually, the product itself is one of the main rewards that campaigns tend to offer their backers and this makes backing something on Kickstarter or Indiegogo a lot like preordering.
As you and your company grow and become more well known and profitable, you will have more and more options for distribution. Next, we’ll look at a more traditional option: going into brick and mortar.
If you want to learn about setting up your own e-commerce store read our article here.
