Why Being Everywhere Isn’t Always Better: The Hidden Costs of Multi-Marketplace Selling

Maria,

You’ve probably heard it a million times: “You need to be on every marketplace! Amazon, Wayfair, B&Q, Walmart – cast your net wide!” It sounds logical, right? More platforms equals more customers equals more sales. But here’s the thing nobody talks about – this strategy might actually be killing your business.

The Price Matching Trap

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: Amazon’s fair pricing policy (or the price matching obsession). If you’re selling on Amazon and literally anywhere else, you’ve probably noticed something frustrating. Amazon is constantly monitoring your prices across platforms, and they expect you to match their pricing everywhere.

This isn’t just some conspiracy theory – it’s baked into their terms of service. Amazon wants to ensure they’re offering the “best” price to their customers, which means if you’re selling the same product cheaper elsewhere, you’re going to hear about it. And by “hear about it,” I mean potentially lose your Buy Box, get suspended, or face other penalties.

The Promotion Nightmare

Here’s where things get really messy. Let’s say you want to run a flash sale on B&Q to clear some inventory. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. Because now you need to run that same promotion on Amazon, Walmart, and everywhere else you sell, or risk Amazon’s wrath.

But wait, it gets worse. If you want Amazon to show that attractive strikethrough price (you know, ~~$29.99~~ $19.99), you need to maintain your regular price for at least 30 days before running the promotion. This means you have to coordinate not just the sale price across all platforms, but also the pre-sale pricing period.

So now your “simple” B&Q flash sale requires:

  1. Setting the same regular price on all platforms 30 days in advance
  2. Waiting exactly 30 days (no cheating!)
  3. Running the exact same promotion across every marketplace simultaneously
  4. Hoping none of your competitors undercut you during this predictable cycle

This creates a domino effect where:

  • You can’t test different pricing strategies on different platforms
  • Every promotion becomes a site-wide event whether you want it or not
  • You lose the ability to use pricing as a strategic tool
  • Your profit margins get squeezed across the board
  • Your promotional calendar becomes completely rigid and predictable to competitors

The Strategy Killer

This is where multi-marketplace selling really shows its ugly side. When you’re forced to maintain price parity across platforms, you lose one of the most important tools in your marketing arsenal: strategic pricing.

Think about it – different marketplaces have different customer bases, different expectations, and different value propositions. Amazon customers might be willing to pay a premium for fast shipping and easy returns. Walmart customers are often looking for the best deal.

But when you’re locked into price matching, you can’t capitalize on these differences. You’re basically turning every marketplace into a commodity battleground where the only competition is on price.

The Hidden Costs Add Up

Beyond the pricing headaches, being on multiple marketplaces creates a bunch of costs that aren’t immediately obvious:

Inventory Management Chaos: Keeping track of stock levels across platforms is a nightmare. Oversell on one platform and you’re scrambling to fulfill orders you don’t have inventory for.

Customer Service Multiplication: Each platform has different policies, different customer expectations, and different ways of handling disputes. Your support team needs to be experts in five different systems instead of one.

Fee Stacking: Every marketplace takes their cut. Amazon’s fees, B&Q’s fees, Walmart’s fees – they all add up. And when you factor in the reduced pricing flexibility, your margins get squeezed from both ends.

Marketing Dilution: Instead of building a strong presence on one or two platforms, you’re spreading your marketing efforts thin across multiple channels. Your reviews are scattered, your brand presence is diluted, and you’re competing with yourself.

What Actually Works Better

Here’s the counterintuitive truth: focusing on fewer marketplaces often leads to better results.

When you concentrate your efforts on one or two platforms, you can:

  • Develop platform-specific strategies that actually work
  • Build deeper relationships with customers
  • Negotiate better terms with the platforms
  • Create pricing strategies that make sense for that specific audience
  • Focus your marketing efforts for maximum impact

Take a look at some of the most successful online sellers. They didn’t get there by being everywhere – they got there by dominating one or two channels.

The Bottom Line

The multi-marketplace approach sounds great in theory, but in practice, it often leads to a race to the bottom on pricing, operational complexity that eats into profits, and strategic paralysis that prevents you from building a sustainable competitive advantage.

Instead of trying to be everywhere, consider being somewhere really, really well. Pick the marketplace that aligns best with your products, your customers, and your business model. Then go all-in on making that relationship work.

Your profit margins will thank you, your customers will get a better experience, and you’ll actually have time to focus on growing your business instead of just managing the chaos of being everywhere at once.

Sometimes less really is more – especially when it comes to marketplace selling.

Learnings