Selling Online: Amazon, eBay, or Etsy
Starting an offline store cost a lot of money, you also need a lot of money to run the store, Online stores cost less, therefore, I believe if you want to start a business try an online business.
Managing your online business is somewhat easier compared to running an offline business, for instance, if you hire virtual assistants, you can easily run your online business, and you can let your virtual assistants handle things like providing support (for your business), handing purchase orders, maintaining your social media pages, uploading product details, etc.
eCommerce refers to selling online, when the businesses are performed on the internet, they are called eCommerce. Therefore, when you sell on Amazon or eBay, you are basically doing an eCommerce business. Ecommerce can be considered a lucrative method to make money from home, you can do eCommerce in two ways, start your own store and sell from your website/store or use marketplaces like Amazon or eBay. The second option is a low-cost eCommerce business whereas the first option is a high investment and high-risk business.
Amazon Vs. eBay: Which Marketplace is Better to Make Money?
Amazon and eBay are two popular marketplaces where you can make money in numerous ways, such as...
Selling products
Affiliate marketing
Dropshipping
Amazon and eBay are basically online marketplaces that allow you to sell your products or someone else products, refer buyers to the store and earn commissions for sending buyers, and sell products without spending money to develop the products or procure products (dropshipping). When you are doing affiliate marketing, depending on the products you are selling, you will earn 3-20 percent commission on successful sales. Apart from these marketplaces, you can sell products, do affiliate marketing, or dropshipping on many platforms, but these two are the two most trusted networks.
Between eBay and Amazon, which marketplace is better to make money?
eBay has 187 users, whereas Amazon has 200 million Prime subscribers.
Amazon gets 2.1 billion visits every month in the US, whereas eBay has 689 million monthly visits in the US.
If you check the statistics of Amazon and eBay, you will see Amazon has a better advantage. Does that mean, Amazon is better?
Whether you want to do dropshipping or sell directly, it is easy to get started on eBay, however, on Amazon, you will have to fulfill a lot of requirements, including manually getting approved. Furthermore, Amazon's selling program is not available globally.
Etsy
Etsy is an online marketplace to sell digital and physical products, including printables and templates. If you are a graphic designer, you can create printables and templates and sell them through Etsy. On Etsy, you can also sell digital arts. My favorite platform is Etsy. On Etsy, I sell digital art, photography, social media templates, and printables like calendars, T-shirt designs, etc. I generate more sales on Etsy compared to my own store but I spend money on Etsy to list the product and market products. Etsy also cuts a 6.5 percent sales commission. previously it was just 5 percent.
Selling Digital Product Vs. Selling Physical Products
I am selling digital products to make money online. I have a blog that receives moderate traffic from social media, search engines, and other sources. My blog has a shop page where I have listed ebooks, digital paintings, social media templates, printables (T-shirt design, calendar, etc.), and courses. I don't sell a lot of digital products but I manage to sell one or two products once in a while. If I had better targeted traffic, I could have earned more by selling digital products. Even though I do not generate a lot of sales I am still happy because, unlike physical products where I have to create products, again and again, and spend money for packaging and shipment, I can sell the same product again and again and I do not have to spend money on packaging and shipment. I also sell digital products from online marketplaces.
