I know all about apathy. After all I’ve sold on very few platforms other than eBay for the last fourteen years.

In fact, I’ve used eBay exclusively over the last six years – ever since I gave up publishing and decided to return to selling antiques and collectibles as I have done for most of my adult life.

The reason? I’m too frightened to move outside my comfort area and eBay ismy comfort area.

And it’s apathy that has kept me from increasing my profits, mainly because in the last few weeks I have tried selling on different platforms and I’m astounded at the sheer volume of money I have been leaving on the table for so long.

I’m willing to bet some of my readers are also stuck in their own little rut, selling the same products to the same people from the same marketing platforms.

But how do we learn about other places to sell our goods, how do we know if those other places will suit our products and selling preferences?

Tip #1: Check out “Every Place I Sell”

Of numerous ways, my preference is to check in at Every Place I Sell.

Every Place I Sell is a goldmine of marketplaces to join and links to people selling numerous different product types from one or two and in some cases six or more different marketing platforms.

Think of it this way: if someone sells the same or similar products in six or more different marketplaces, that must mean he or she is making good money at all of them, or at least banking sufficient profits to make it worthwhile using those marketplaces.

It’s studying people selling items similar to our own actual or proposed new products that will help us also find profitable new marketplaces.

At Every Place I Sell, you’ll find extremely useful product categories, including Antiques, Baby, Toys & Hobbies – all very similar to marketplaces like eBay and Amazon.

You choose a category matching products you are already selling or might think about selling. That will take you to people currently selling products within your selected categories.

Click on some of those sellers and the next thing you see will be links to their current trading sites. Study those locations to determine which sites are achieving the highest number of sales and profits for your role model sellers.

Digging deeper…

Back at the site’s home page you can narrow down into tighter niches matching your own actual or proposed new inventory, giving you a deeper insight into places to sell and ideas for selling your products.

You do it by keying a specific product type into the search box, as I did for ‘stamps’, and you’ll be taken to people selling your chosen product or whose trading name includes your search term.

Beside the search box on the home page are links to more than thirty different marketing venues (marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, Etsy, and so on). Take a few minutes to study them all and you will find much to benefit your business.

Note: If you ever become disenchanted with a particular marketplace or you just fancy a change of scenery, you’ll never have to look further than that one page at Every Place I Sell. Obviously, not all marketplaces will suit every person all of the time but there will always be several to match your own precise requirements.

You can sign up direct from that page at Every Place I Sell to all the different marketplaces preferred by multiple marketplace sellers and you might want to bookmark the site’s venues page and refer to it often.

There’s another major benefit to selling in different marketplaces, given that some people have their own favourite buying locations and others they don’t like.

For what it’s worth, if an item isn’t available on eBay, I never look for it elsewhere. My husband, on the other hand, buys on Amazon and never on eBay. So selling in multiple marketplaces helps sellers maximise their buying audience.

Tip #2: eCommerce Bytes

Here’s another place to go to decide where next to spread your selling efforts.

That is where you will find the results of surveys carried out by eCommerce Bytes into why some sellers prefer certain marketplaces over others. The results will help you decide which of those sites at Every Place I Sell to begin growing your sales empire.

For the record, in the 2017 survey Amazon came out top across the board of all reasons to love or loath a particular marketplace, Etsy came second and eBay third. Also at the page just mentioned you’ll see how well-known marketplaces fared in past annual surveys.

More helpful, however, is scores given to marketplaces based on various features such as profit potential, customer service, ease of use, and so on.

So if you need lots of help from marketplace staff you might choose one ranking high for customer service (customers in this case being sellers). If you have difficulty manoeuvring your way around unfamiliar sites, you might choose one ranking high for ease of use. And so on.

Most important of all, no matter where you are selling online, and even if apathy is not a problem for you, you should have several sources of income to protect against one or more drying up and leaving you wondering where to turn next. Having all your ducks lined up, in marketplace terms that is, will prevent sudden changes impacting your business and profit potential.

Go take a look at those two sites just mentioned and move into one new marketplace each month.

Check how each new venue benefits you and let me know how you get on.

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