Comparison of Multi-Channel Selling Platforms

Posted by Paul on February 11, 2014

If you're serious about selling online, you need to be selling across multiple channels and if you have any number of products at all, you need to be synchronizing stock levels, managing orders in one place and ideally managing your listings automatically across the channels.

By channels, we're referring specifically to your own website, eBay and Amazon.

We'll base our review on a company that stocks 1000 products, ranging in price from £5 to £500. They will have an average product price of £100 and an average order value of £50. We'll assume that accounting is done outside the application with Sage 50 but couriers are managed in the multi-channel software if possible.

Their monthly sales will be split across the channels as follows:

Channel

Products Listed

Products Sold

Orders

Sales

Website

1000

200

300

£15,000

eBay

1000

500

750

£37,500

Amazon

1000

300

450

£22,500

Total

3000

1000

1500

£75,000


And the costs/features of the platforms look like this:

Feature

OpenBay Pro

Linnworks

Channel Grabber

Channel Advisor

Initial Setup

£0

£0

£155

POA

Monthly Cost

£20

£80

£115

POA

Stock Levels Sync

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Automatic Listings

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Order Management

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Courier Integration

Extension Required

Yes

Yes

Yes

Invoice Printing

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Label Printing

Extension Required

Yes

Yes

Yes

Sage Syncronization

Tradebox Required

Yes

Yes

Yes


So with some extensions installed, OpenBay Pro can make OpenCart in to the centre of you online world to become your complete order management and channel synchronization platform. It does require a few extensions though and perhaps some fiddling around to get it all set up.

blog comments powered by Disqus