The industrial era 4.0 offers various facilities for the community. The rapid development of digital technology triggers changes in consumer behavior, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic today.
Since the implementation of the activity restriction policy, people who used to be free to shop at the market now tend to do online transactions. As a result, the fulfillment of household needs is carried out through gadgets and digital platforms which have an impact on a surge in business transaction activity. Of course, this poses challenges and opportunities for business people. Businesses who are accustomed to relying on sales in physical stores need to make adjustments by starting an online business to be able to compete.
When starting an online business, there are two platforms that you can choose from, namely Website vs Marketplace. The website shows professionalism, while the marketplace offers convenience. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. So, which one is better for your business? See more information in the following article.
The Advantages of a Website Compared to a Marketplace
1. Full Authority
With a website, you have a full control over your online store. You can design the store according to the needs and behavior of your customers, from determining the layout, the dominant colors, to the payment methods.
In addition, having your own website also helps you in building your own brand, not just a product name. A brand is the identity of the product. Create a product with a strong brand so that consumers understand what differentiates your brand and your competitors.
Offer a unique shopping experience and create a strong identity for your target consumers to attract potential buyers to shop at your store. With a strong branding, growing business opportunities will wide open.
2. Access to Consumer Information
On a marketplace, you can’t access the consumer’s shopping habits, but this doesn’t apply to a website. On a website, you can find out information related to the best-selling products to less popular ones. Later, you can use this data to plan the right strategy for the development of your business.
Disadvantages of Website Compared to Marketplace
1. You Must be Active on Doing a Market Research
When you start building a website, you might find difficulty to get original traffic. This is only natural because creating a website takes a long time to gain customer trust and maintain its credibility.
What you need to do is maximizing the branding on your website and optimize it well. Don’t let your website fail to compete with your competitors.
2. It Needs a Quite Large Amount of Funds
In making a website, you need a large enough of funds. Starting from hosting and domain rentals every year, website marketing, to regular website maintenance fee. These costs are needed so that website performance can run optimally which makes customers comfortable when transacting on your online store.
The Advantages of Marketplace Compared to Website
1. It Does Not Need a Lot of Funds for the Beginning
Unlike website, selling on a marketplace does not need a large amount of funds. You can just open an online store to sell your products because buyers can find the products you sell easily.
Meanwhile, when selling on a website, you need to pay to create an online store and carry out promotions so that potential buyers are interested in visiting your website.
Even though you don’t need to spend a lot of money at the beginning, the marketplace provides advertising options so that your business will compete with others. You need to pay a number of promotional fees to the Marketplace so that your product will rise on the search column. This must also be taken into account in your future costs to be able to continue to compete.
2. Easier Management
Are you a business owner who have never used an online buying and selling site? Don’t worry! There are currently many marketplaces that are equipped with user guides which makes them user friendly. The management is also much easier and more practical which makes it easy to use for a business owner who is just getting started.
The Disadvantages of Marketplace Compared to Website
1. Fierce Competition
Presented as a forum for sellers, the marketplace offers convenience to build relationships through communities between sellers and buyers. Unfortunately, this also makes business competition in the marketplace very tight. Starting from price competition, quality, to the services provided. That’s why you need to set a careful strategy so that your store doesn’t go out of business.
2. Hard to Gain Customer’s Trust
Despite the broad market segmentation, one of the biggest challenges when selling on the marketplace is gaining a buyer’s trust. Due to the many online crimes happen on a marketplace, such as fraud, poor product quality, and scamming, buyers are much more careful in making transactions.
On a marketplace, it takes time and effort to convince customers that you are a honest and responsible seller. Always sell the highest quality products and ensure good testimonials from customers.
Marketplace vs Website, Which One is Better?
Now you have a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of websites vs marketplaces. Whatever your choice is, it all depends on your business needs.
For those of you who choose to make your own online store, try checking the e-book that you can download for free below for tips on maximizing the performance of your online store so you can increase the credibility of your business and be able to compete with others.
In addition to paying attention to the platform that will be used, you also need to pay special attention to the easiness in payment for customer satisfaction. Integrate your business with a payment gateway that has obtained an official permission from Bank Indonesia and meets international security standards like Duitku.
Remember, whatever the transaction is, Duitku is the answer!
