Marketplace VS Merchants’ Exclusive Websites

As smartphones have continuously evolved for decades, the convenience of shopping online using our smartphones have already been a market trend. However, what really is the difference between the many various Mobile Shopping Websites? How can we actually really create an effective Mobile Shopping Experience? What also are the necessary elements we need? Now let us explore more about Mobile Shopping Experiences!

What are the difference between the various Mobile Shopping Websites?

Mobile Shopping Websites can roughly be separated into 2 different kinds:

1. Marketplace
   
2. The Merchants’ Exclusive Websites
   

Marketplace:

Examples of the Marketplace Websites would include HKTVMall, TaoBao, Zalora, which all includes a consolidation of different many merchants’ selling different types of products.

Advantages:

1. On its own, the shopping platform already has various merchants running their own promotional activities, which would help in attracting customers to Marketplace.
   
2. Merchants do not need to specially set up a website or maintain a website solely by themselves.
   

Disadvantages:

1. A Marketplace would have a relatively higher startup fee and a transaction fee is also charged for every transaction.
   
2. For the same product, the merchants might end up being involved in a price war, in other words also mean to set at a lower price as a strategy, which greatly reduces their profit.
   
3. All the customers information are kept in a common database, and not solely exclusive to merchant themselves, which not only makes it harder for the merchant to have their base of loyal customers, but also lack the data needed when planning promotional activities.
   

Merchants’ Exclusive Shopping Website:

The meaning of the Merchants’ Exclusive Shopping Website is that in the website itself, you would only have your brand’s products, and your customers cannot see any of your other competitors. For example, a merchant is selling A’s brand of skincare products; The website would only contain A’s brand of skincare products, and would not have any other similar brands or products shown.

Advantages:

1. The merchant can have a record of the loyal customers’ data, and with the data, plan the future promotional activities accordingly, to lure more potential customers.
   
2. By turning the customer into your store’s member, you can send the latest information and promotions to them.
   
3. Every transaction would not incur a transaction fee, and the merchant would only have to pay to start their own website or a fixed fee for a fixed period of time (depending on the requirements of different companies). In other words, all the transaction profits would directly go into the merchants’ pocket.
   
4. The price that the merchants set, do not have to be higher than the original price, hence profits would be higher too.
   

Disadvantages

1. The merchants’ own shopping website would have to be self-promoted, and would require a certain cost and more time spent.
   
2. If the merchant hopes that they can set up a website by themselves and not with the use of any online settling up shop tools, the cost of setting it up would be relatively higher.
   

Should I start my own shopping app for my customers?

The cost of developing and promoting the application is not low at all, and attracting customers to download or to even remember about your application is not easy at all. If the scale of your business is not big, and does not have that much (less than a thousand products), why not consider using Responsive Web Design (adjust the web interface and size using your phone browser), which is a better option for your online store on a website.