What happens when you publish your products on your site before publishing them to other retailers? Do you get better SEO rankings, or does it have no effect? It is an important question for many eCommerce businesses. The answer may surprise you.
Introduction:
One of the most frequently asked questions we receive from eCommerce merchants is, “What is better for SEO, publishing my products on my site first before selling them to retailers or going through a third-party retailer?” This question comes up because, typically, if you publish your products directly to a major retailer, they will sell your product for you, and you will give them a commission on each sale.
If you publish your products on your site first, you control the entire customer experience. It includes the design of your product pages, their content, how customers can purchase your products, and what information they receive about them. When you go through a third-party retailer, they typically have control over all of these aspects instead.
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the pros and cons of both options and help you decide which option is best for your eCommerce business.
Option One: Publishing Products on Your Site First
Pros:
- You have complete control over the customer experience, including the design of your product pages, the content on those pages, how customers can purchase your products, and what information they receive about your products.
- You can set your prices and earn a higher commission than selling through a third-party retailer.
- You can keep all the customer data and contact information collected on your site.
Cons:
- It can be more difficult to discover your products for customers who are not already looking for them.
- You have to do all the marketing to attract customers even if you are already working with a retailer.
Conclusion: If you publish your products on your site first, you have complete control over the customer experience. It can be easier for you to get discovered by new customers looking specifically for your product since they cannot find them anywhere else (yet). However, this option requires more work since you must do all the marketing yourself. You also earn a lower commission if you sell through a third-party retailer.
Option Two: Publishing Products Through Third Party Retailers
Pros:
- Your products might be discovered by more customers who are not already looking for them because these retailers have a lot of traffic.
- It is easier to get your products featured by retailers since they are already looking for new products to sell on their sites.
Cons:
- You give up control over the customer experience, including how customers can purchase your products and what information they receive about these products. Which means you cannot differentiate your products from those of other merchants.
- You typically earn a lower commission than if you sold through your site.
- You may be unable to keep customer data and contact information collected on the retailer’s site.
Conclusion:
If you publish your products through third-party retailers, you give up control over the customer experience. It is easier for you to get discovered by new customers looking specifically for your product since they cannot find them anywhere else. However, this option requires less work since these retailers already have a lot of traffic, so there is no need to do any marketing yourself. Additionally, you typically earn lower commissions than if you sold through your site.
One thing to remember is that you should always test out both options and see which works best for your eCommerce business. What might work well for another merchant might not work as well for you, so it’s important to experiment with different strategies to find what works best for you.
Wrap up
So, which option is best for you? Well, that depends on your business and what you’re looking to achieve. If you want more control over the customer experience and are willing to put in the work to market your products yourself, then publishing products on your site first may be the better option. However, publishing through third-party retailers may be a better choice if you want your products to be discovered by more customers who are not already looking for them. Whichever option you choose, always test out different strategies to see what works best for your business. Thanks for reading!