No, selling on marketplaces does not require a website. And it is even one of the interests of marketplaces : To be able to sell products on the internet without deploying a site.

On the vast majority of marketplaces, having your own site is not necessary. Many sellers and brands only sell on marketplaces and have no website or even physical stores.

However, having your own site is useful for reassuring customers and enhancing your brand image. It may be wise to create a “catalog” site in order to have a good understanding of the content and to refer to marketplaces to trigger online sales .

A solution like Sellermania allows you to connect to marketplaces without a website and without flow . Everything is manageable from Sellermania. It is also possible to switch from one to the other: manage without a site, then manage with a website, or vice versa.

No minimum number of products is required for sell on marketplaces .

Some merchants start with a few products, others have hundreds of thousands. The main thing is, as in traditional distribution, to have references that sell, and attractive prices.

Sales via Marketplace can represent a huge and rapidly growing portion of a website’s total sales.

According to FEVAD, marketplace sales represent 34% of the overall sales of sites that have it.

On Amazon, Marketplace sales in France would represent 70% of sales overall, a figure higher than the site average, which is around 60%. Some countries have been opened exclusively in “marketplace” mode, such as India, where 100% of Amazon sales are made by marketplace sellers.

On the seller side, the share that marketplaces represent in their activity can be very variable. Some companies sell exclusively on marketplaces and therefore achieve 100% of their turnover there (this is the case of Momox for example, a German company with more than € 100M in turnover on marketplaces). For others who have a website, it is not uncommon for marketplaces to represent 10 to 30% of their business volume.

This is certainly not a rule, as it will depend on the investment and strategy of each seller.

In absolute terms, there is not always an obligation to be professional in order to sell on marketplaces . But to make a certain volume of turnover, it is necessary to have a professional status.

For individuals who wish to become sellers on marketplaces, the simplest is to opt for a status of auto-entrepreneur, or micro-enterprise.

The sales activity on marketplaces requires a minimum of administrative and fiscal procedures as for physical sales in order to be in order and to be able to develop sales.

Selling costs on marketplaces of course vary according to the players who offer its sales functions.

Overall, most offer fixed fees that correspond to a monthly subscription and variable fees proportional to the number of products – the insertion fees – and the volume of sales.

Marketplaces subscription fees vary between € 30 and € 500 depending on the services included. It is therefore advisable to do your calculations well in order to optimize sales costs .

Depending on the sector, marketplace commissions also vary significantly.

Sellermania collected all of these sales costs on marketplaces in a dedicated file: commissions by marketplaces .

EAN (European Article Numbering) – 8 or 13 digit barcode – uniquely identifies a product.

This avoids having duplicate products in catalogs and in particular on marketplaces. This also makes it possible to sell very simply on marketplaces by avoiding re-entering all product information, if the article is already referenced.

The EAN Code has become an essential element for the referencing of products on marketplaces. Almost all marketplaces require an EAN code to be able to list products with them. Some exceptions exist in fashion, jewelry, old books, furniture …

At some marketplaces you can apply for be exempt from the use of EAN code in certain cases , and replace them with another identifier (this is the case with Amazon for fashion, for example). With eBay you have the option of not putting an EAN code when listing your item, if this is justified and offered by eBay.

To obtain an EAN if you do not already have one, you must apply from GS1 . You can apply for any number of EANs at the same time, and GS1 guarantees ownership of those EANs, ensuring that another seller cannot use the same codes.

It is imperative to use official EANs (GS1) . Unofficial EANs can be rejected by marketplaces, or cause serious damage to your marketplace activity, such as SEO errors leading to disappointment of buyers and possible delisting from your seller account.

Beyond the interest of recovering data and content already present, the EAN would improve natural referencing in Google and the click-through rate.

So why deny it !?

Sellermania knows the EANs and other identifiers produced by heart and offers you a detailed file on the subject: Definition of EAN code . The interface of the Sellermania software makes it possible to automatically retrieve the EANs of the products and to simplify the sale.

As a professional seller of reconditioned or used products, you are subject to the VAT regime on margin .

It consists of only collect VAT on the margin carried out.

The principle of VAT on margin is simple:

The sellers who bought the second-hand goods did not pay VAT (the VAT was paid when the item was new), so do not get any back. It might be unfair to re-pay VAT on the full price of the item, and the seller is in some cases entitled to only pay VAT on the margin they make by reselling the item.

If he displayed the amount of VAT on his margin, he would implicitly give the amount of his margin and therefore his purchase price to the buyer, which would not be very commercial!

The legislation allows in this specific case not to display the amount of VAT. The seller nevertheless has the obligation in his VAT return to specify the bases of his calculation.

Accounting for VAT on margin is done in parallel with “classic” accounting, and recommends the mention “VAT on margin” on the invoice.

Sellermania is the only marketplace integration platform to be "VAT on margin" compatible. 

In Sellermania, activate the “VAT on margin” option for invoices for your reconditioned / used products, to be personalized directly in your Sellermania platform.

The opening of an account usually happens directly on the site of the marketplace itself, this is the case for Amazon, Cdiscount, Fnac, Rakuten, eBay … For some marketplaces, this involves a telephone or email contact (Spartoo, La Redoute …). You will have to pass the “Know Your Customer” (aka KYC) step, which requires you to disclose your identity by providing a certain number of supporting documents (identity papers, company Kbis, names, precise contact details etc).

This step is more or less long depending on the sites which are required to carry out their checks before authorizing you to sell.

It obviously depends on the merchants and the product categories. There is no easy answer to this question. Some merchants have millions of dollars in sales per year, others hundreds of thousands, and some a few hundred dollars per month.

You can find or deduce the number of sales of a seller by looking at their number of reviews, or their profile on marketplaces. This information is sometimes published.

You can also deduce the sales potential of an article via its “Sales rank”, information published by Amazon on each article file.

On most marketplaces, this is absolutely not necessary. On some marketplaces, however, this is essential (Rueducommerce, La Redoute).

Having a merchant website usually indicates that you know how to deliver to the end consumer in good conditions, which will make your daily task easier. On the other hand, many sellers make significant sales on marketplaces and have no website. A site like Sellermania allows them to sell on several marketplaces at the same time saving considerable time in their management and minimizing manual errors.

If you do not know how to deliver to the end consumer, for example if you are specialized in BtoB, you can opt for “deported stock” solutions at Amazon or Cdiscount. The solutions offered by Amazon (“Shipped by Amazon”, FBA) or by Cdiscount (“Shipped by Logistics”, FBC) allow them to delegate delivery and customer service. . It is very often an excellent formula to start and guarantee quality customer service.

If you have a store and want to export your stock to marketplaces, you can do so in several ways:

• If you can export a daily, up-to-date inventory file of what’s available in your store, that file can be used to update marketplaces.
• If you cannot export a daily file, you can dedicate part of your stock to marketplaces

With our Sellermania solution, you can manage your marketplace activity whether you have a website or not. 

It works like a multi-marketplace "Seller Central". You can manage your different marketplaces centrally.

Our studies show that the number of reviews buyers leave for sellers on most marketplaces is relatively low compared to the sales made.

On a site like Amazon, we analyzed a large panel of sellers thatit takes an average of 50 sales to garner a buyer evaluation. In 20% of cases, it takes 20 sales to collect an evaluation, and in 80% of cases, it takes 100 sales to collect an evaluation.

A number of buyers have a habit of leaving feedback when they encounter an issue with a seller. Considering the low number of reviews, this can have a big impact on the seller’s performance. To deal with this problem, many sellers revive their buyers to increase their evaluation rate, in order to improve their seller profile and dilute as much as possible any bad grades they might have.

This obviously depends on the complexity of what you want to do. 

If you start directly on marketplaces, there is no delay . From the moment your account is opened, and you have passed the step ” Verification / KYC », You can start selling on most marketplaces like Amazon, Cdiscount, Fnac, Rakuten, eBay … For some marketplaces, you will need an interface via an integrator: La Redoute, Rueducommerce, Spartoo …

If you want to interface your website and manage it via flows, the easiest way is to go through an integrator. It will take time to integrate, aiming to adapt your feed to what is necessary to sell on marketplaces. The times for this stage range from 1 day to several weeks, sometimes several months. depending on the complexity of what you want to do, the quality of your catalog, your ability to export the mandatory attributes required by marketplaces.

Time to implementation of sales on marketplaces depends on several factors:

• Depending on the marketplace chosen, the reactivity time can vary greatly
• The complexity of your situation can be a source of time to anticipate
• If you have a website with a product feed to distribute on marketplaces, you must already know if the item sheets are already created on the marketplaces, or if they will have to be created.

To check if your products are already referenced, all you have to do is look for the EAN code of your products on the marketplaces.  If you find them, it means that the item file is already referenced. Otherwise, it will have to be created.

If your products are already listed, it’s easier, and in a few days your feed can be configured to be sent to marketplaces. The sale of your products on marketplaces can then go very fast.

With our solution, you can start instantly and independently if you are in the more simple cases. If you need support and are not sure of your needs, our Account Managers are available to answer your questions. We will study your project, and support you throughout the integration phase, until you are operational on the marketplaces.