The number of self-employed in our country is growing and has already approached three million. The scale of their trade intervention is very modest: no more than 100 thousand of them work on online trading platforms, calculates Andrey Belyanin, CEO of Tamaki Group of Companies. And the pace of development of marketplaces is far ahead of the figures for the growth of the self-employed. Given the fact that the market regulates itself independently, constantly screening out some sellers, the figures in fact turn out to be not so large. Why not give it a try?
Access to marketplaces is beneficial for beginners without competencies and opportunities for their development. For example, for grandmothers who knit socks and don't know how to sell them.
Marketplaces provide an opportunity to try new online opportunities, especially for those who have only worked offline
Entering the marketplace of new masters gives him the opportunity to explore new niches and position himself as an online platform for the sale of unique, piece-made goods, including those made to order by the client
Difficulties begin when there are many sellers of the same type of product (even made to order) - similar offers become interchangeable in the eyes of the buyer, profit decreases and tends to zero, explains Nikolay Novoselov, director of new business Dicoure. Again, marketplaces win, for which an increase in the number of sellers turns into an increase in the number of buyers.
The number of self-employed in our country is growing and has already approached three million
The strength of marketplaces is precisely in the number of sellers. The problem is how to select sellers who often supply low-quality goods?
There is practically no clear distinction between the purchased product and the one made personally. Therefore, the seller can make minimal changes to the purchased one (for example, repackage), recalls Anna Shafigullina, co-owner of the SellerMARKET company.
Ideally, the marketplace or its affiliated structure could purchase high-quality goods from entrepreneurs for subsequent sale through the marketplace, but the market itself gets rid of the weak ones.
Thus, despite the advantages of cooperation, working with marketplaces will not be as easy as it seems at first glance.
- The self-employed are a tax regime, this is not a new profession, not a new "magic" status that allows you to minimize costs to zero, - recalls Alexander Mityukov, president of the Interregional Association of Courier Services.
It turns out that those self-employed who still want to gain a foothold on the marketplace and make it the main sales channel will have to grow along with the online trading market, which means that they will very soon move to a new status of entrepreneurial activity.
All marketplaces working with the self-employed have certain difficulties. This is onboarding (adaptation) of the self-employed, checking them, supporting such users and solving their specific tasks. The most important part for legal work with the self-employed is integration with the services of the tax service. However, in terms of profitability, the self-employed give more turnover than ordinary users. They are willing to pay more commission, since marketplaces are an important or even the only source of income for them, and also allow the self-employed to minimize the cost of finding customers.
