Amazon is the largest online marketplace in the world and is the first choice of millions of customers when they want to purchase products from a trustworthy source. Selling on Amazon is a great way to get exposure for your brand — however, it's not easy. As a third-party seller, your products will be listed together with other merchants selling the same product, and competition can be fierce. You're also forced to operate under Amazon's strict return and customer service policies. Plus, there are fees attached to every Amazon sale: whether you use a Professional Seller Account for $39.99/mo. or an Individual Seller Account with no monthly fee, you'll still lose a bit of profits from every item sold. To be truly competitive, you may need to use Fulfillment by Amazon so you can offer Prime shipping. Amazon offers only a minimal chance to build your brand, so you'll benefit greatly from the opportunities presented by having your own website with Shift4Shop alongside your Amazon sales.

eBay has made a name for itself as the biggest auction website and the go-to marketplace for buyers looking for low prices. You can list items for auction or for set-price sales, build an eBay Store with limited branding, and reach millions of potential customers. However, eBay's fee structure is extremely complex and you're going to lose money on every sale — especially since customers visit eBay with rock-bottom prices in mind. You'll also need to abide by eBay's customer service policies even if they're not the best for your business. If you want to be successful selling online, you should take advantage of the brand-building and customer retention offered by a Shift4Shop website. In fact, you can run a great eBay Store directly from your Shift4Shop dashboard and get all the advantages of both platforms while ensuring the future of your business.

Etsy is a marketplace geared toward handmade products including crafts (whether decorative or practical), art pieces including photography, craft supplies, and vintage items at least 20 years old. The seller must be involved in the making of the product if it is listed as handmade. While Etsy began as a great venue for beginning artists to get their start, it's become oversaturated and harder than ever for a seller to make profits. Listing fees, transaction fees, and Etsy Store fees cut into how much you can make, and you're forced to use Etsy Payments which charges yet another fee. Your products are mixed with others from different sellers and your own Etsy store offers only minimal customization, making it difficult to build your brand. And due to Etsy's Fee Avoidance Policy, even attempting to inform customers about your outside online store can result in your account being suspended if any of your Etsy products are available on your own website. If you do run into problems, you'll have a hard time getting help as Etsy's customer service has declined sharply since the company went public and began focusing on investors instead of sellers.

While Shopify is one of the most popular online store platforms today, it's not the best solution for a growing business. Transaction fees will hold you back, and Shopify is known for keeping many of the most important eCommerce features locked behind paid apps. Between your monthly plan and app charges, you'll end up paying over three times the cost of Shift4Shop to get a similar feature set. Other important tools are restricted to higher-tier plans, but even after upgrading you'll still need to pay for the same apps. Shopify also has a limited selection of free themes, making it harder for a new business to brand their store, and the themes are written in a proprietary language called Liquid so customization is a task to learn.

Squarespace is a popular website builder with a set of eCommerce features called Squarespace Commerce included with their Business plan and up (legacy Personal plans can still access some of them but they're not available in new Personal plans). While Squarespace may be great for a personal or portfolio website, its eCommerce features are severely lacking. The simple fact is that Squarespace is not focused on eCommerce and the limitations of its online store features show evidence of being implemented as an afterthought. Payment processors and shipping options are both severely limited and there are very few built-in integrations. Squarespace users have also reported numerous glitches and bad customer support. The $26/mo. Business plan imposes a 3% transaction fee, and while higher-tier plans eliminate this, the included features don't measure up to the pricing.

Web giant Yahoo! offers a basic eCommerce platform called Yahoo! Stores that many beginning sellers use due to brand recognition and relative ease of setup. However, Yahoo! Stores don't have the staying power to support a growing business, and entrepreneurs often find themselves needing to move to another platform to continue to scale up. Transaction fees hinder profits, and Yahoo! Stores lack many important eCommerce features such as coupon creation, blogging, and real-time shipping calculation for carriers other than UPS. Payment methods are also quite limited, cutting down on your options for winning customers. Some vital eCommerce features require purchase of apps for your store, which adds an additional expense. Like many long-time web companies who branch out into eCommerce, Yahoo! is not sufficiently focused to provide the online store solution a growing business needs.