Some Tips On Finding The Best Marketplace For Your Product
You’ve done a lot of work creating a product, or you plan to. Unless you’ve sold products before, you might not know where you’re actually going to sell your product. There’s something a little scary about wondering where you’re going to find customers and make sales if you’ve never done it before. This post will give you some guidelines for choosing the best marketplace for your product.
First, I want you to know that you don’t have to worry. In fact, it’s easier today to sell your products than it ever has been before. There are several really good solutions for selling your digital products.
And that’s a caveat there. I’m assuming that you plan to sell digital products vs. physical products. If you do plan to sell physical products, then I highly recommend Fulfillment By Amazon. If you sell something crafty, many people like Etsy.
As far as digital products are concerned, there are a few things to consider.
- Ease of use
- Activity of customers
- Features
- Potential profitability
Let’s talk about each of these things in turn. Then, we’ll talk about some possible options. When we talk about specific options, please note that there are new marketplaces and seller solutions popping up all the time. It’s always best to find where competitors are selling their products and where current customers (and affiliates) are likely looking to find new products. That’s usually the best marketplace for your product.
Marketplace vs. Sales Solution
I want to briefly mention that I’ll be talking about two different things here. A sales solution is something like Nanacast.com or E-Junkie.com. These are solutions that allow you to manage your sales and customers. These link with PayPal and other payment solutions, help with the delivery of your product, and a lot more.
A marketplace is something like the Warrior Forum Special Offer section—a spot where product creators can list their products for sale.
There are some that are a combination, like ClickBank.com. And honestly, there are shades of grey and combinations in between. These (like JVZoo.com and others) both help you manage sales and are marketplaces where affiliates and customers can find your product.
You can use a sales solution in combination with a marketplace. For example, you can use JVZoo as your sales solution and feature your links on the Warrior Forum Special Offer section (or at least they have allowed this, this can change at any time). That way you’ll get to take advantage of the WSO section as well as the JVZoo marketplace. That can be the best of both worlds.
I don’t mean to make this confusing. In most cases, I think you should choose what you use based on the sales solution you want to use. If they have a marketplace, great… that’s secondary. It’s important that they have an affiliate solution you can use. Otherwise, you’ll typically make the most sales of your digital products via your own website/sales page.
Ease of Use
This point is especially important if you’re new to selling digital products online. It’s going to be important that you feel comfortable using the sales solution or marketplace you choose.
It’s lucky that they are mostly pretty simple to use these days. There might be a small learning curve if you look to some of the more feature heavy solutions.
Note that if there’s a certain option that appeals to you but you don’t know how to set it up or use it, you can always hire someone to help you. If that won’t work, most solutions have help files, videos, and support staff that can help you figure things out. It’s like riding a bike—it’s so much easier and something you never forget once you do it the first time.
Activity of Customers
Whichever option you choose needs to be easy to use for your customers. The easier it is for your customers to buy, the more likely they are to buy. For example, allowing buyers to pay via PayPal might be a good thing if you’re a new seller. It’s something people are used to using for buying digital products.
Consider where customers are currently going to buy products similar to yours. Which marketplaces do they frequent? Putting your product there can help increase your visibility. In the end, what matters is that you drive traffic to your offer, whether that’s in a marketplace or on your own sales page on your own web site.
Also note that certain marketplaces only cater to IM or business to business. Those in other niches will want to look to other marketplaces. In that case be sure to look at Commission Junction and Clickbank as they might be the best marketplace for your product .
Features
Especially if you have more experience selling digital products online, it’s important to consider the features a marketplace or sales solution offers. You will absolutely want an affiliate solution. Affiliates should be able to sign up to promote your product.
You might also want a way to handle a merchant account vs. just a PayPal account. Something like Nanacast (what I often use) is fuller featured and allows this.
You might want something that gives you a lot of sales data, like clickthrough rates, conversion rates, and that of your affiliates.
Compare and contrast the different features you need or are interested in before choosing a sales solution.
Potential Profitability
The sales solution you choose can help or hurt your profitability. For example, if it’s hard for your customers to use, then you’re sunk. It should be really easy for your customers to buy your product.
It can be helpful if there’s a marketplace for featured products and/or if there’s a way for affiliates to find and promote your product.
Take a look at what you need in a sales solution, whether you need or want a marketplace, and whether other successful product creators in your niche are using that sales solution.
Popular Digital Marketplaces
You will typically sell your product via your own website/sales page. But, you might want to take a look at marketplaces as well.
Some, like JVZoo.com and WarriorPlus.com, have attached marketplaces. Customers and affiliates can search and find products and click through to buy. These solutions are typically for Internet marketing and business-to-business niches.
Clickbank.com has a marketplace and caters to more niches.
The Warrior Forum is a very popular Internet marketing marketplace.
Do a search for marketplaces in your niche if you’re interested in selling that way.
Where Are Popular Product Creators In Your Niche Selling?
Consider where popular product creators in your niche are selling. Looking at where others who are successful at what you do sell their products is a reliable way to find the best marketplace for your product. Follow their links. You’ll probably find that most are selling on their own domain. But you might see them posting a special offer or something like that.
Some of them have converted their products to sell as Kindle books on Amazon.
Do some digging and follow the trail to find additional places where you might sell your product.
Get Your Product Up For Sale
After you’ve done your research, go ahead and get your product up for sale. Don’t sit on your product, never getting it to market. Get a sales page up and use a sales solution. Or, get it up for sale in a marketplace. Or, do both.
Consider More Than One Marketplace
It can really pay off if you get your product up for sale in more than one place. That can increase visibility of customers and affiliates. The more people see your products, the better your sales are likely to be.
Profit!
It can be confusing to know which is the best marketplace for your product and how you should sell it. Hopefully, you’ve found some great solutions today and can come up with a game plan. There’s no one correct answer as to how or where you should sell your product—the only important thing is that you should do it.
Sales Solutions and Marketplaces to Investigate
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are some great places to start. Some are sales solutions, others are marketplaces, and still others are a combination.
- Nanacast
- JVZoo
- WarriorPlus
- Warrior Forum Special Offers
- E-Junkie
- ClickBank
- Zaxxa
- DAP
- Kindle
- Smashwords
- Draft2Digital
- Udemy
- Gumroad
- Amazon
- Commission Junction (CJ)
No matter what, always get your own sales page, list building funnel, and payment buttons going… whether exclusively or in addition to any other marketplace you use.