Whether a client sells products, services or both, one of the questions I am most often asked is where to sell online.
The answer that that used to pop into my head was, “Your website, of course!” These days however, the answer is not that straightforward.
That’s because there are now A LOT of places where you can sell both products and services online and, given that many of my clients are smaller businesses, these “marketplaces” offer advantages that a stand-alone website could not such as:
- Providing the ability to reach a larger online audience than they could alone,
- Offering powerful features and functionality that would cost a lot in terms of both time and money to implement alone, and
- Existing in the “cloud” so that maintenance, backups, upgrades and hardware costs are handled by someone else.
Given all this you may wonder, “Should a small business not sell on its own website?” I’m not saying that at all! There are many great solutions for selling on your site and they just keep getting easier and easier to implement at a low cost.
The real issue to ponder here is, “Should a small business ONLY sell on its own website?” The answer to that is, “Maybe!” 🙂 Really, it all depends on what makes the most sense for each individual business however, selling in more than one place is bound to increase both reach and sales.
In fact, many e-commerce solutions offer a way to consolidate all your online selling efforts – whether on your own site, on an e-commerce storefront, on an auction site such as Ebay or on a social media site such as Facebook – into one spot. Handy, eh?
All that said, where can you sell your products and services online? To help answer that question, I’ve gathered a bunch of useful links for you to check out. In addition to listing where to sell online, these links also lead to resources that will help you learn how to sell products and services online.
So sit back, enjoy and happy selling!
Where to Sell Your Products and Services Online – and How
Where to Sell Products Online
These links lead to lists with tons of places where you can sell your products online. Click the last link to find solutions you can use to sell on your own site as well.
- 21 Places to Sell Your Products Online
- Want to Sell Products Online? 8 of the Best “New Breed” Online Store Builders
- Three Places To Sell Your Products Online
- You Made It Yourself: Now What? 29 Places to Sell Your Handmade Creations – focuses on crafty folks.
- 68 E-Commerce and Shopping Carts for the Small Business – if you want to sell from your own WordPress, Joomla or any other type of website, this list covers your needs.
How to Sell a Product Online
These links lead to great “How-To Sell a Product Online” information. The last links leads to a treasure drove of great articles over at Entrepreneur magazine’s site.
- Get Started Selling Your Products Online – readers like you have spent a lot of time on this page. You told me it was useful information, but you really wanted a more step-by-step guide. So I put together this inexpensive ebook to get you started.
- 8 Very Useful Tips for Selling Your Product Online
- Selling Products Online: 4 Simple Ways To Increase Traffic and Sales – a real-life case study video with tons of actionable tips and tricks.
- Here’s How “Product Context” Helps You Sell More Stuff Online – interesting insights here.
- Selling Online: Entrepreneur Magazine – tons of advice, tips and tricks on selling online.
Where to Sell Services Online
You can sell your services on your own website using many of the services and solutions mentioned above. However, similarly to selling products, you can also sell your services through online marketplaces.
The links below lead to to some of the top spots to sell your services online.
Bidding Sites
These sites allow you to bid on work ranging from web development to writing to legal services. If you’re a service professional, these should be your go to spots:
Local Services Sites
If you want to perform services for folks in your local area, these are great sites for offering services for which you need to be present to provide:
How to Sell Services Online
These links lead to great “How-To Sell Services Online” information:
- Get Started Selling Your Products Online – readers like you have spent a lot of time on this page. You told me it was useful information, but you really wanted a more step-by-step guide. So I put together this inexpensive ebook to get you started.
- Selling Services on a Website
- 7 Elements of Successfully Selling Services Online
- 11 Smart Ways To Sell Services Online
- Making Your Service Easier To Sell – great tips for online and off!
- How to Package and Sell Services Online – good use of case studies here; see how it works in the real world.
Weekly Link Roundup
Each week, I collect the 10 best posts that I’ve read and share them with you here.
These posts focus on web-based solutions, online resources and up-to-date news for small businesses.
Enjoy!
How Social Login Impacts Ecommerce [Infographic]: Some interesting statistics on how using social login (and sharing) effects e-commerce results.
10 Blogging Tips for 2012: Basic but solid blogging tips.
5 Facebook Insights Your Business Can’t Ignore: Really useful post about what to keep an eye on within your Facebook page’s insights numbers.
How to Use Facebook Ads: An Introduction: This is a great starting point if you’ve been thinking about advertising on Facebook!
How to Move Your Company to the Cloud Without Falling From the Sky: Great tips to keep in mind when you move your business data to the cloud.
How to Start an App Business: Apps are a big business these days – learn how to get started.
Tap-To-Pay Smartphones: The Coming Near Field Communications Tsunami: Is the day coming when you can pay for all sorts of things with your smartphone? Why would you want to do that? Learn much more here…
Putting a B2B E-Commerce Twist Into the SMB: Learn about the advantages that e-commerce provides to a B2B business.
5 New Apps & Tech Tools to Try: A handful of interesting solutions to check out for yourself.
Ten Questions Your Web Designer Should Be Asking You: I love this checklist!
You can also sell your stuff on your business’ facebook page.
You just need the free app to do it-
http://apps.facebook.com/paystand/?ref=ets003
Thanks for your input Buddy!
Yeah, there are a bunch of great apps like these out there – I need to give this one a spin.
-Matt
Another alternative is http://www.selltag.com free and easy to use, I have used it to sell clothes and furniture and works for everything
Hi, Ive used fiverr pretty successfully but never the others. even on fiver took me a while to get going…. Ill tell you guys the trick… Dont wait for customers, promote your own gigs with links!!! time to open up some accounts. Oh, btw… you misspelled gigstir, its with an i
Nicholeta,
Thanks for the tip and for the heads-up on the misspelling!
-Matt
Guy there’s a new website where you can sell you products online. Its very simple to list products for sale by just filling out one form. All you need to do is create a free account and use your existing Amazon account. Once you sell an item your fund are transferred to you Amazon account and you can either you user the balance to buy directly from Amazon or have them send you the funds to your bank account. Check out Swapen.com
Dan,
Thanks for the heads-up on Swapen – looks interesting.
-Matt
Cool tips and advice. I think craigslist would be another place to advertise for free as well. Anyways there are good and bads that come with doing it on that site…
Johan – have to agree with your last statement – I’ve heard so many craigslist stories, some good, some bad, that I tend to shy away from it myself.
That said, it’s always a good spot to try selling, but one should dip a toe in first to see how it goes for you.
another good service work for hire site is http://www.aviduser.com they take 20% of sales up to max of $99 a month, then you keep 100% of the rest.
Thanks for sharing Aviduser Charles!