Online sales sites: the best selected
More and more companies, stores and small artisans are tapping their customers and selling their products on the Internet, via e-commerce. Immediately, however, they are faced with a fundamental choice: which online sales sites to use? Which ones are the best?
Amazon and eBay are among the best known and most reliable, but platforms such as Etsy, Vinted or Ruby Lane can intercept a more defined target audience – more interested, younger or, why not, wealthier customers! Classifieds sites such as Facebook’s Marketplace or Subito.it also allow businesses to sell with advantages, while platforms such as Shopify can save you the trouble of building a site.
Let’s try to sort through the sites for selling online, putting together a – reasoned – list of the best platforms. How much do they cost, what kind of sales are they useful for, where are they used and how do they work? Here are features and differences for choosing one or more than one to use for multichannel sales.
Amazon: the King of sales sites
Amazon is the world’s best-known online sales site.
The platform ships more than 1.5 million packages a day, and according to surveys, virtually 100 percent of users consider Amazon reliable and safe.
Jeff Bezos launched Amazon in 1994 as a site to sell books. Today the platform is something decidedly different. It is a marketplace-that is, a site that brings together products from different sellers under one brand-where you can sell items of all kinds, although electronics is the most popular product category on the platform.
On Amazon you can sell products occasionally, both new and used, but it is certainly among the most suitable online sales sites for developing a real business e-commerce. By choosing a professional subscription (€39 plus VAT per month) you can sell an unlimited number of units. In addition to the fixed cost, Amazon charges a sales commission, the amount of which varies from 8% to 15%, depending on the category to which the product belongs.
Other additional costs change depending on how the orders are shipped. Indeed, you have to choose whether you want to manage shipments yourself (the so-called FBM program) or whether you want to outsource storage and shipping management to Amazon (FBA or Amazon Logistics program).
Strengths:
- Among the best-known sites for selling online in the world
- Considered reliable by almost 100% of users
- Ability to take advantage of Amazon logistics for storage and shipping
eBay: the cross-selling site
Founded in 1995-and arrived in Italy in 2001- eBay is one of the world’s best-known and most widely used online selling sites with its more than 183 million users. Born as an online auction platform, eBay today is a site where one can sell virtually any type of item-both new and used, in both auction and fixed-price modes. As such, it is a suitable place for both casual sales (such as used or handcrafted items) and for developing an online sales business.
Sellers must pay a price both for displaying the ad (once the first free placements are exhausted, which is currently 150 per month) and once the item is sold. Commissions on sales are 10 percent, except for some categories.
If you are thinking of opening a full-fledged online store on eBay, you can activate several subscription packages (Basic, Premium, and Premium Plus) that lower the cost of individual listings and offer, among other things, the ability to collect listings in a customized area.
Strengths:
- More than 183 million users
- One of the online sales sites present in virtually every country in the world
- Ability to create a custom area
Etsy: online sales site for crafters and designers
Etsy is an online sales site dedicated mainly to handicraft and vintage items. Launched in the United States in 2005, it has greatly expanded its market in recent years and has become well known in Italy as well.
Etsy is one of the sites for selling handmade or designer products online, such as jewelry, clothes, home furnishings, toys, art objects, bags and vintage items (which must be at least 20 years old). Because of the way it is structured, it is suitable for both casual sellers and those who want to set up a full-fledged online craft, self-made, or art store.
There are no fixed costs for setting up a store on Etsy, but you do pay a listing fee (€0.17) and a 5% commission on the sale. The site provides several tools to customize your page and thus develop your brand.
Little curiosity: the name of this online sales site comes from a film by Federico Fellini.
Strengths:
- Audience interested in crafts, vintage and handmade items
- Online sales site also well known in Italy
- Commissions on sales lower than average
For a more in-depth overview of this platform, read our article on getting started selling on Etsy.
Bonanza: among the sites to sell online with less commissions
Bonanza is an online selling site present in certain countries: the USA, Canada, the UK, Spain, Mexico, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal, Australia, Brazil and India. Primarily Bonanza is known in the U.S. market, although it is expanding rapidly elsewhere. Compared to giants such as Amazon and eBay, it is definitely a more niche platform, but among its advantages it definitely has the easy customization of its store (called a stand), the lack of fixed fees, and low commissions on sales.
Bonanza is a site for selling items from many categories online (full list here) although it is particularly used for selling crafts, design, jewelry, cosmetics, and toys. It can be used for both casual sales and to develop your own e-commerce craft or design business in a structured way.
The site does not charge commissions for creating the product catalog or monthly commissions for the online store, but it does charge sales commissions-although significantly lower than average (around 3.5 percent). Unfortunately, documentation and support in the Italian language are currently very weak.
Strengths:
- Customization of one’s own store
- Lack of fixed costs
- Low commissions on online sales
Ruby Lane: the online sales site for collectors
Ruby Lane is the premier online sales site for antiques and vintage. Founded in 1998 and dedicated to the founder’s mother (the Ruby of the name), Ruby Lane is a marketplace for antiques and collectibles, art, and jewelry.
Compared to the better-known Etsy or eBay, it is definitely a niche platform, but with a well-defined audience: it tends to be affluent and includes collectors. The main markets are the U.S., Canadian, British, German, and Australian.
The way the fees charged by the site are structured, it may be the right place more for developing an online store than for casual sellers, if you deal specifically in antiques and valuables.
To sell on Ruby Lane you must pay a flat fee of $25 per month, but this is refunded if you post more than 15 listings per month. A 9.9% commission is charged on sales for a maximum of $250.
Strengths:
- Select clientele
- Affluent buyers and collectors
- Free ads for structured sellers
Chairish: the online sales site for furniture and design
Chairish is an online sales site for furniture, art, and design. You can sell both new (but handcrafted or art-like) and vintage and antique items. It is an extremely curated platform with fairly strict rules that define the items accepted for sale. It has nearly 4 million users – tending to be furniture and interior design professionals.
Here are other features of this site for selling online: posting of ads is free, but the minimum value of an item offered for sale must be $25. Commissions on sales are quite high, 20% or 30% depending on the type of seller: casual or professional. One’s digital stores can be customized to develop one’s brand. Companies can then activate specific subscriptions with additional services, such as the ability to choose the order in which their products are displayed.
Strengths:
- Site for selling online curated and with strict rules
- High perception of reliability
- Shopify customization
Shopify: the platform for creating e-commerce
Shopify is a true infrastructure for creating online sales sites. The marketplaces so far described in this list-such as Amazon or eBay-place your products under a single brand, Shopify in contrast provides the tools to build a real online store without having to deal with domains, hosting, and website creation.
It is an online sales site to evaluate if you want to structure a real e-commerce business, while not useful for casual sellers.
Among the tools Shopify provides are more than 70 graphic themes to choose from, the creation of virtual shopping carts, the ability to customize content and automatically optimize navigation from mobile. You can also seek advice from the platform’s experts. For those who also have a physical store, the platform also gives the option of unifying sales channels thus collecting all sales information and reports in one place.
Shopify has monthly fees that start at €27 per month for the basic version.
Strengths:
- High customization of your own site to sell online
- Resource savings compared to building an online sales site from scratch
- Not a marketplace: ability to fully develop your own brand
Facebook Marketplace
Marketplace is the section of the famous social network dedicated to selling items and products. Launched in 2016, Marketplace allows you to sell items occasionally (mostly used), but also gives you the opportunity to activate an online store for business pages (Marketplace for Business).
The clearest advantages of Facebook’s Marketplace are that it is completely free and can reach Facebook’s boundless audience (nearly three billion users) on one of the most widely used daily media around the world.
Items offered for sale can belong to virtually any category and are linked to one’s personal Facebook profile or business page. By opening a Facebook Shop, on the other hand, it is possible to customize the selling experience and present it together on Facebook, Instagram and Marketplace.
Strengths:
- Access to Facebook’s audience (nearly three billion users)
- Completely free
- A single store for Facebook and Instagram
Craigslist: the open source site for selling and buying in the city
Craigslist is the most popular classifieds portal in North America and Australia, it falls among the sites for online sales in that it is widely used to occasionally sell second-hand items.
Featuring sparse graphics and an opensource engine, Craiglist was created in 1995 by Craig Newmark and initially included only ads for the San Francisco area. However, the city footprint has remained in the categorization of the listings, which is based primarily on the city where the item is offered for sale. In fact, purchases and payments usually take place in person.
Virtually any type of item can be sold on Craiglist.
Strengths:
- Good for occasional sales
- Ability to sell any type of item
- Based on city and geographic proximity
Vinted: the site to sell clothing and accessories online
Vinted is a site to sell clothing and accessories, new or used, online. There are 45 million users of the platform in 13 countries, although most users are located in France and Germany. In Italy, the platform only arrived in late 2020.
One of the most interesting features of the online sales site is the fact that it is totally free. There are neither sales commissions nor costs for posting ads. A commission is applied to the final price for the buyer. However, sellers can purchase additional services to make their ads more prominent.
The way it is structured, the site can be used both to sell occasionally and to structure a full-fledged online sales channel. You should definitely consider it if you are in the clothing business (second-hand or new) and want to target a very young clientele.
Strengths:
- Totally free online sales site
- Young and active clientele
- Just arrived in Italy and expanding
Subito.it: classified ads for casual sellers and shopkeepers
Born as an Italian classifieds site, Subito.it has now turned into a full-fledged online sales site, thus suitable for both casual sales and businesses that want to open their own online store.
It has 11 million users per month and its target market is uniquely Italian.
For casual sales the ads are free (but additional services can be purchased to increase the visibility of the ads), while companies that want to open an online shop can activate subscriptions. At the moment, however, to access Subito.it for businesses you have to leave your contact details and VAT number on the site and wait to be contacted.
Strengths:
- Italian online sales site
- You can sell any type of item
- Possibility of customization for companies
E-commerce: the must-have packaging products to sell online successfully
Whether you want to sell online as a small or medium-sized business or as an artisan, professionally or occasionally, one thing is certain: you cannot do it without an essential element such as packaging.
Under the packaging category fall all the essential products to package the product, such as official packaging, adhesive labels, explanatory cards, thank you cards, gift cards or promo codes for future purchases. Then you also need the outer packaging, the one that must protect and guard the product until it arrives in the buyer’s home, which comes with the tape to close it in the best way. These are some of the must-have products for anyone who owns an online sales site or wants to start one.
Pixartprinting makes all these products available and ready to ship, you can find them on this page.
Enjoy your online sale!