Selling on an ECommerce Site Vs A Social Media Marketplace

The Difference Between Social Media Selling & eCommerce

Over the past few weeks, I've shared some tips on improving your eCommerce website as well as some of the different ways to sell on social. This week, I'm going to help you choose whether you should focus on selling on an eCommerce store or opt for a social media marketplace.

But first, a quick refresher:

Selling on an eCommerce store means you're selling products or services on your own domain. ecommerce web design for everything from web design to creating compelling content and managing SEO.
Selling within a social media platform or marketplace involves utilizing the platform's selling capabilities to actively market your products. Generally, if someone clicks, they're driven back to your website to complete the purchase.
You'll have to figure out how to process transactions either way and install shopping cart software or drive buyers to a third-party site like PayPal.

Here are some of the marketplaces you can sell on:

Facebook Shops: Allows you to add products in different categories, communicate with customers and get insights around data.
Facebook Messenger: While still a part of Facebook, this involves communicating with customers (either manually or with chatbots) to reach your target audience.
Shoppable Instagram posts: You can tag brands and products in organic Instagram posts, then your audience can tap to see more details and buy the product.
Pinterest (stats show that nearly half of all users are logging onto the site just to shop).
The Differences Between Selling on an eCommerce Store & Social Media Marketplace

Now, if you're selling on an eCommerce store, you can use a combo of SEO, content marketing and paid ads to drive traffic to your products or services. Because you can use your branding and content to your advantage, this can offer a more authentic experience to your customers.

If you're using an online marketplace, it's less time-consuming. The platform is already there, and you're populating it with your images, copy and products/services. It may be easier for some small business owners to engage with their audience on a site like Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram vs. growing visitors to their website organically.

However, the competition is high. You're competing against many other brands, both big and small. Your company could get lost in the noise, so to speak.

You'll also often pay a fee to sell. For example, the selling fee on Facebook Shops is 5% per shipment, or a flat fee of $0.40 for shipments of $8.00 or less.

So what's a small business owner to do?

14:08, 16 May 2021 (UTC)14:08, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

READ: Your Guide to eCommerce Social Media Marketing

Your social media accounts aren't just platforms for sharing content and engaging with visitors to accomplish those goals. From Facebook to Instagram, it can be a powerful way to market your products and services to your followers.

But despite these statistics, many small business owners still don't understand the value of using these popular platforms to sell. That's why I created this guide: to not only help you understand how important eCommerce social media marketing is, but to give you actionable tips to drive traffic, leads and sales.

Read more on our website.