The Advantage of eCommerce and Decentralization:
The Phore Marketplace and Economic Freedom
It takes much more than a good idea to run a successful business. In our ever-expanding digital age, new opportunities are evolving every day for entrepreneurs. Roughly, over the last decade, eCommerce has expanded rapidly, with the US Commerce Department reporting 17.7% growth rates for 2018. But in this new landscape of online commerce, the challenges facing small business owners are not the same as they were in the previous decades.
Finding the correct products to sell, maintaining a loyal customer base, and scaling business models are all challenges that have evolved rapidly in this space. But perhaps the greatest struggle is determining the medium through which customers will buy your products. Will you create your own Shopify store and have to deal with the additional challenge of maintaining your website, or will you sell on a platform like Amazon at the expense of your profits? Thanks to the major developments by the Phore team, sellers no longer need to make this choice. The Phore Decentralized Marketplace offers entrepreneurs and sellers the opportunity to sell their products across the globe, without the hassle of maintaining your own website — without the wet blanket of fees stifling your business growth.
Examining Mainstream Options
Choosing the platform on which you will sell your products is nearly as important as the product you choose to sell. In order to ensure your business’ stability, it is crucial to find efficient channels and tools to allow you to surpass your competition. There are numerous options of online platforms available, each with their own flaws and shortcomings. Let’s take a look at a few of the mainstream options, and explain how using them can limit your business’ growth.
Amazon:
Exploding in popularity over recent years, Amazon has become a household name. However, if you’re looking to start your own eCommerce business, it may not be the best option. With Amazon, profit margins are everything. When you are competing against an oversaturated field of other sellers, it is difficult to make a decent profit margin, especially with Amazon taking 15% of revenue. This is often spoken of as a “referral fee.” However, if the 15% amounts to less than $2, the $2 is charged. This is in addition to the Variable Closing fee, which is charged on the sale of certain items.
Needless to say, these fees can add up and become a serious issue for your business, especially if you are operating within tight margins. On top of this, only people from certain countries are allowed to register as a seller on the Amazon platform. Click here to check if your country is on the list.
Ebay:
Ebay is another widely-used marketplace that has been in operation for a long time. Ebay differs from Amazon in that anyone can sell new or used items, but with a limited number of listings per month. If you exceed the number of listings, your account is charged a premium rate. These listing fees are non-refundable even if your item doesn’t sell. Additionally, should you choose to relist an item, you will be charged again. When items sell, a “final value fee” is applied, which is calculated as a percentage of the total sale. This could result in a negative profit margin.
Ebay also uses an auction feature which sells items to the highest bidder, making it differ from the direct sale feature of Amazon. This could also result in a negative profit margin, depending on how much was paid for the item, overhead costs, plus shipping expenses.
Complications With International Sale
There are a number of hurdles that international eCommerce merchants must overcome when determining the best way to reach their audience. These challenges are notoriously difficult, and include cultural diversity, accepting multiple currencies, language barriers, customer support, tax laws, and government regulations. When considering the fact that there are 195 Countries in the world, staying up to date on all of the various regulations and laws would require an entire department of workers.
The Advantage of Decentralization
The examples above are just a few of the challenges that entrepreneurs must navigate when conducting business over the internet. Determining a platform on which to sell your goods can have significant implications for your business’ bottom-line, and navigating the complicated field of international regulations can be a real drain on your time — taking your focus away from increasing profitability. The Phore Decentralized Marketplace proves to be a significant advantage over conventional platforms, and greatly simplifies many of these issues, allowing you to devote more of your time to growing your business.
By selling your goods and services on the Phore Marketplace, you will have an unlimited market that is unencumbered by borders and financial restriction. (Sellers must still abide my applicable laws and regulations to remain compliant in their locality.) Sales made on the Phore marketplace will be settled with the Phore digital currency, $PHR, (and other digital currencies as support is added) with the merchant keeping the Phore as remittance. For added flexibility, peer-to-peer exchange functionality is being developed for the next iteration of the platform, which will allow both merchants and consumers alike to swap tokens as they please.
Merchants also are able to offer their products at a more competitive price, since the Phore Marketplace does not charge such high fees. Zero to low fees means that merchants can improve their profit margin, as well as increase their respective market share by offering lower prices than the competition that is selling on sites such as Amazon and eBay.
The Phore team is committed to privacy and economic freedom. Data is not collected, stored or sold. The team is actively developing the tools necessary to increase these basic privacy rights and protections for people around the world. The marketplace application is accessible by anyone with a computer and an internet connection. In addition to the advantages offered to current ecommerce buyers and sellers, the Phore Marketplace opens up economic opportunities to underserved communities who can now take control over their financial futures through selling goods and services online, when before, only very limited opportunities existed in their local communities. The release of the upgraded marketplace is a significant milestone for eCommerce overall, as well as the merchants who rely on it.
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