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Integrating Internet Marketplaces, such as eBay, Shopify, Facebook or Etsy amongst others, within your EverWeb website is something that can be desirable as it helps extend your sales reach as far as possible. As a seller of goods and/or services you will want to reach as many potential buyers as possible.

Extending Your Sales Reach

As a seller, you will want to maximise your sales reach with the minimum of effort. Your website may, in fact, be your primary sales driver, as it is probably the main place where your customer base will come to first for your goods and services. Your website is a great place to attract an audience that fits your market niche. It is also where you can easily apply SEO focus and if you want to rune your SEO then there is also EverWeb’s SEO PowerUp addon to help with fine tuning.

Using an Internet Marketplace might be a great way to give your sales a lift. Sites, such as eBay, probably have a far bigger customer base than you can achieve with your own website. Tapping in to this may be advantageous as it is a quick and easy way to broaden your potential customer reach. The downside to this, though, is that you will have to set up and maintain your goods and services again, You will also probably be subject to seller fees as well.

The solution to duplicating work is to offer your products and services through your Internet Marketplace and linking them back to your website. This will save you time and effort when adding, removing and updating your products and services.

What Is Important For Internet Marketplaces…

Many Internet Marketplace vendors used to offer ways in which you could directly integrate the goods and services sold on their sites directly in to your own website. This provided an effective way for sellers to easily link to their marketplace vendors.

Times have changed, though, as many such integration tools offered by Internet Marketplaces have either been stopped altogether, are offered as a premium product to purchase by sellers, offered as part of a marketplace ‘developers’ kit or have been replaced by third party solutions. 

Making linking to your website more difficult helps Internet Marketplaces retain potential buyers in their website and ecosystem. It also ties in sellers too, as many Internet Marketplaces vie to be a ‘one stop shop’ for both buyers and sellers.

Integrating Your Internet Marketplace In EverWeb

As it becomes more difficult to easily link your website in to your Internet Marketplaces, you could spend a lot of time and effort looking for a solution . Here are some options that may help you reduce the time and effort on finding an integration solution…

1. Check out the EverWeb Addon Resources Page: You may find the solution to integrating your Internet Marketplace with EverWeb from EverWeb’s Addons page. For example, EverWeb integrates with platforms such as Shopify, Etsy, SoundCloud and so on. Check out the Resources -> EverWeb Addons page in the EverWeb website to see if your vendor is already supported.
2. Checkout EverWeb’s Videos on YouTube: EverWeb’s YouTube channel includes a lot of integration videos to other products including Internet Marketplaces. You can quickly search YouTube to discover if the integration you require is already there.
3. Check out EverWeb’s Blog Posts: Search our blog posts for the Internet Marketplace vendor you are wanting to integrate with. Also check out third party blog posts too such as All About iWeb.
4. Third Party Widgets: Another good source for integration is to check to see if any of EverWeb’s Third Party Widget vendors have created a widget to link to the products and services in your Internet Marketplace. Some third party vendors may even offer to build a widget for you although this may be chargeable. Check out the EverWeb Addons page for a list of Third Party Widget vendors.
5. Check out Your Internet Marketplace’s Resources: Sometimes using your marketplace’s forum is the quickest way to find out if integration with your website is possible. It may be that this information is easy and upfront to find, but be aware that sometimes this information is buried deep in the vendor’s website, or in their developer resources. You may find that integration is easy or requires coding knowledge. You may also find a lot of information is out of date. If there is no information easily available, then the chances of easy integration is likely to be less. The best option here is to ask immediately if integration is possible before wading your way through your forum.
6. Legacy Resources: Sometimes vendors have, in the past, offered integration tools to link your market place to your website. However, many vendors have now stopped this practice. These such resources may, or may not, still be available for use. If a resource is still available, it may now work with limitations. Our advice is to use your vendor’s user forum to ask if there is any way to integrate your market place in to your website and what possible problems and limitations using a legacy solution may bring up.
7. Use EverWeb’s HTML Snippet Widget: One of the easiest ways to integrate your Marketplace in to EverWeb is usually by using the HTML Snippet widget. Here, your marketplace vendor creates a piece of code which can be used to link e.g. one of your products or services, in to your website. In EverWeb you would add the HTML Snippet widget to your page then paste in your vendor’s code in to the ‘HTML Code’ section of the Widget Settings then press the ‘Apply’ button to save the changes.
8. Ask EverWeb!: If you cannot find an integration that works for you, you can always ask EverWeb Support of use the EverWeb Discussion Forum to ask if integration is possible.
9. Use Hyperlinking. If your Marketplace vendor does not have a way to integrate in to your website, or if the cost of doing so is prohibitive, then often the only way left to integrate is by hyperlinking the products or services from your website to the corresponding Marketplace product or service pages. The disadvantage of this approach is that you may not land directly on the desired product or service in your Marketplace if you can only link to a ‘sales’ page. Also, your visitor will leave your website and will now be in your Internet Marketplace’s site. At least your visitor will be on your Marketplace page even if not in your own website.

Linking the products and services that you have in an Internet Marketplace such as eBay, Shopify or Etsy is usually possible, as long as you find out upfront the best way in which it can be achieved.

Please let us know if you have any comments, in the Comments Section below.