Watch Innovation Delivered
Missed the live event? Catch 40+ speakers across 20+ sessions sharing practical insights, product previews, and strategies you can use now.
Effortless returns and exchanges
Turn returns into revenue with effortless exchanges, a branded customer portal, and centralized tools that cut manual work and unify returns across every channel.
New features that fuel growth
Power growth at every stage of fulfillment. Our enhanced tools for inventory, returns, and analytics help you scale smarter—from order to outcome.
Who We Help
use cases
Products
Core Features
Featured Integrations
Integrations
Resources
Help Center
Selling online opens a whole world of opportunities for business owners and entrepreneurs. Unlike selling in a brick-and-mortar store, ecommerce allows you to sell to people across the globe, and there’s a wide range of marketplaces and platforms to help get your products in front of people who want to buy them. Over the past five years, ecommerce has skyrocketed.
Selling online opens a whole world of opportunities for business owners and entrepreneurs. Unlike selling in a brick-and-mortar store, ecommerce allows you to sell to people across the globe, and there’s a wide range of marketplaces and platforms to help get your products in front of people who want to buy them.
Over the past five years, ecommerce has skyrocketed. In 2021 alone, ecommerce sales totalled approximately £3.9 trillion globally. Whilst growth is slowing, the market is still strong and provides ample opportunities for global growth. The ecommerce experts at ShipStation have compiled a list of the top five marketplaces to host your ecommerce business to help you decide which will suit your needs.
An online marketplace is a website that brings together sellers and buyers, where the owner of the website manages all the transactions. It is commonly called an ‘electronic marketplace’ or ‘ecommerce website’.
Many entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes use online marketplaces to reach the largest target audience possible.
Whilst on the surface online marketplaces may seem similar, they are, in fact, quite different, depending on which ones you choose to use. When deciding which marketplace you’ll sell your products on, it’s important to consider the benefits of each and how they align with the goals you have for your ecommerce business.
There are literally hundreds of mainstream online marketplaces for sellers to showcase their goods to consumers. Here is a list of the top five with a few details that make them different from each other:
The biggest online marketplace by far (not just in the UK), Amazon tops the list. With over five billion global visits per month, your products are guaranteed to be seen by the most people possible. Before jumping straight into selling on Amazon, consider these pros and cons:
Pros:
Cons:
Discover how ShipStation can help make your ecommerce journey easier by contacting our team today.
Launched in 1995, eBay is a tried and trusted online marketplace for everyone from individuals selling things around the house to ecommerce businesses and DropShippers. With over 1.7 billion global visits per month, it’s a safe bet that consumers will see your products. Here are a few things to consider:
Launched in 2014, OnBuy has slowly gained traction with UK sellers over the last eight years. With more than 8.9 million monthly visits, it’s considerably smaller than other ecommerce platforms but offers significant perks as a more agile retailer. Here are a few things to consider:
Launched in 2006, Not on the High Street was once the only online marketplace alternative to eBay and Amazon. The platform was designed to help small businesses sell their products online and with 4.7 million monthly visitors has become a sure-fire success in ecommerce. Here are a few things to consider:
Unlike all the other online marketplaces on our list, Shopify is an ecommerce platform with a difference. Instead of simply listing products under the Shopify brand, merchants build their own ecommerce site within Shopify and have their own brand and uniqueness. Additionally, you should consider:
Whether you want to build your own ecommerce website or operate under a well-known brand like Amazon or eBay, ecommerce retail can offer you the ability to grow beyond the boundaries of a brick-and-mortar store.
To find out more about how ShipStation can help you ship your Shopify orders, read our Shopify Merchant’s Shipping Guide.
Maria is a multifaceted writer and editor who is passionate about creating content that helps businesses succeed. When she's not writing, Maria can often be found in her garden tending to her plants.