Should entrepreneurs create an online store on Prom.ua: pros and cons of the marketplace

Prom.ua needs no introduction. This marketplace has become one of the largest in the domestic online market and is among the top ten most visited websites in the Ukrainian language.

Almost any product or service can be found on Prom.ua. Due to the variety of goods and ease of ordering, Prom is ahead of its closest competitors such as Rozetka, Epicentrk.ua and Bigl.ua marketplaces by almost 10 million visits.

Given the opportunities offered by Prom.ua, it is not surprising that a large number of entrepreneurs are considering creating an online store based on this marketplace. In this article, we’ll try to figure out whether business owners should spend time creating an online store based on Prom.ua, what are the advantages and disadvantages of this idea, and why this option is not suitable for everyone.

What opportunities does Prom.ua provide?

Although Prom.ua was founded back in 2008, its developers seemed to have the gift of foresight. Today, online shopping has become something commonplace and is used by the vast majority of citizens of the country for purchases of various prices.

For users, Prom.ua provides an opportunity to choose among hundreds and thousands of types of goods at different prices. Entrepreneurs have a full range of tools to sell their products or services.

On the basis of the Prom.ua platform, entrepreneurs can use the following sales channels:

• Catalog is the main catalog of goods and services where users search for what they need.
• An online store created on the basis of the Prom.ua marketplace is a store page that is available as a separate website. The list of products from this «site» is also visible in the Prom.
• The Prom.Покупки. There is also the Seller’s Office app with advanced functionality for monitoring sales and purchase processes.

The service also includes a system of ratings and reviews. Each seller and entrepreneur can be rated and given a detailed (or not so detailed) commentary on the seller’s work, the quality of goods and service, etc. The feedback system allows you to form an image of an entrepreneur for a future user and provide information about how they work.

Tariffs for online stores on Prom.ua

Prom offers three basic tariff packages for entrepreneurs to choose from:

• Prom 1000 is a budget package that provides a thousand items in the catalog of your marketplace.
• Prom 6000 is a subscription for small and medium-sized businesses with a catalog of up to six thousand items.
• Prom 10,000 – large companies and online stores often manage catalogs with tens of thousands of products. This tariff is for them.

The choice of any of the above tariffs also includes placement in several formats and additional features, such as:

• The three sales channels are the same as those described above.
• The possibility of self-customization – you can create your own website design and export products for advertising through the Google Merchant Center service.
• Various payment methods – entrepreneurs can use cash on delivery, bank transfer, and most importantly, Prom-pay.

In order to familiarize yourself with the capabilities of the Prom marketplace, entrepreneurs should choose a free trial period after registration. Within 7 days, users will have the opportunity to learn more about the capabilities of a particular tariff and choose the right one or refuse to use the Prom platform.

Why do entrepreneurs create online stores on Prom.ua?

Prom.ua is one of the largest marketplaces with a real audience that uses the service on a regular basis. The number of users and the ability to quickly create a product card and start selling attract entrepreneurs to Prom.

Another reason for choosing Prom as a sales platform is the relative simplicity of the service. The marketplace offers not only a simple purchase and sale procedure, but also a clear system of communication with users through an internal messenger. Prom.ua has a relatively transparent rating system that allows you to earn a decent reputation and build a loyal customer base.

The main advantages and disadvantages of the Promo store platform

From the outside, everything looks good, even positive. Is it really so? Yes and no. The Prom platform does offer many advantages, but there are also disadvantages that may seem more than significant to some. So, let’s take it one step at a time.

Advantages

Here are some of the main reasons why companies and online stores are increasingly choosing Prom.ua as their main or additional destination.

Save time and money

Creating your own website, even if it’s focused on sales, can require considerable financial investment. Prom will help you simplify the opening of an online store, just choose a tariff and start working.

Depending on the chosen tariff, a collection of templates is available to entrepreneurs. The main advantage is that you can customize them yourself and do not need to look for an additional «pair of hands» to help you. The Prom platform provides access to a clear and quite informative administrative panel from which you can manage all business processes. This panel is called the «Personal Area» and is similar in its functionality to the CMS panel.

A website created on the basis of the Prom marketplace can be customized relatively easily – create a storefront, add up to 10 payment methods. A website on Prom even supports blogs with articles, photo galleries, and portfolios. This set allows you to run a full-fledged commercial website with much less time and money invested in its performance.

Another important advantage will be an adaptive version of the site – that is, a version for mobile phones and tablets. Given that the creation of a responsive version is a separate cost item in the case of a self-hosted website or an online store on WordPress, this option from Prom is a significant advantage.

Promotion tools

The Prom platform provides flexible tools for additional promotion of an online store. For example, entrepreneurs can send email newsletters, create promotions for customers, view sales statistics and reviews. In addition, tracking purchases that have not been completed will be a useful tool.

The Prom marketplace also offers paid promotion of goods and services. Promotion is carried out through the internal ProSale platform, which allows you to bring products to the highest positions in search and catalogs for an additional fee. Such products can be placed not only in search results, but also in blocks on the product pages of other sellers, such as «We recommend» or discounts. You can promote products through ProSale using two models: CPA (paid from a percentage of the price after the order) and CPC (when the seller pays for the user’s transition to the product card).

Customer ratings

If you think that only sellers and entrepreneurs can have a rating, this is a misconception. The Prom marketplace allows sellers to rate customers so that other online stores based on the marketplace have an idea of the future customer.

Disadvantages

Among all the advantages of Prom.ua, there are no less significant disadvantages. Let’s talk about them in more detail.

Limited functionality of websites on Prom

Online stores on the Prom platform do work and can generate a certain number of regular customers, but marketplace-based sites have limited functionality. The site’s control panel is not a full-fledged CMS, which does not allow you to make any deep changes to the logic of the site or even the visual component. The number of designs is limited by the tariff, and their quality leaves much to be desired.

It is also impossible to make changes to the website code. All websites based on Prom are the property of the marketplace, which means that only Prom itself can make any changes to the way it works. For a small business, this may not be a problem, but in the case of scaling, the user risks remaining tied to Prom.

Competition at Prom

As with any marketplace, there is serious competition on Prom. A large number of sellers are engaged in dropshipping, and therefore the top positions in certain categories will be overwhelmed with identical offers – even the covers and descriptions will be almost identical. Therefore, the battle for the customer’s attention involves prices. For platforms like Prom, price dumping remains one of the best strategies. Ultimately, the success of your ad is likely to depend on the following conditions:

• There are not many similar products;
• you already have a lot of product cards on your website, i.e. the store is full;
• ProSale is actively used.

Limited SEO optimization

SEO of your online store on Prom depends almost entirely on the marketplace itself. This makes most SEO techniques and tools less relevant compared to a self-hosted website or WordPress store.

Prom offers a so-called SEO module, but its tools are not enough to fully optimize the entire website. Besides, it is quite difficult to achieve tangible results with the SEO module, because Prom focuses on ProSale. And this goes beyond free SEO tools.

Reputation problems

The Prom marketplace has tens of thousands of different online stores. Among them, there are many unscrupulous sellers who spoil not only their reputation but also the reputation of the marketplace. That’s why users willingly choose to cooperate with stores that have a good rating and a long history of orders. For an absolute beginner, the first stages of promoting their own online store can be complicated by the lack of rating and reputation.

How to create an online store on Prom.ua?

The sequence of actions when opening an online store on Prom.ua is not much different from the usual registration:

1. Registering as a seller: you need to provide your email and phone number, create a password.
2. Provide relevant documents: confirm your legal status. To fully work with the marketplace, you need to have an approved status of a sole proprietorship or LLC. If you don’t have any documents, you will still be able to place ads, but in a private mode and in a limited number.
3. Choose a tariff: check out the tariffs at the link above and choose the one that suits your business best.
4. Add products: after paying for the tariff, all the Prom functionality is available to you, which means it’s time to add products.

I could go on for a few more points, but they boil down to «wait for the first orders». Here’s what you should keep in mind: Prom is sensitive to regular top-ups. If you don’t pay the rate, you risk losing your store.

Do I need to open a sole proprietorship for an online store?

Yes, to fully use Prom as an entrepreneur, you need to confirm your legal rights. Technically speaking, you can sell on Prom.ua without it – but, as mentioned above, your ads and the ability to interact with the service will be significantly limited.

If Prom finds out that your financial transactions on the marketplace are illegal, it may suspend the store’s operations. The freeze will last until the issue of business legality is resolved.

Conclusions

Prom, as one of the largest marketplaces in the country, offers significant advantages for promoting your products and services. However, the disadvantages of the service are more than significant: limited functionality, high competition, SEO and reputation problems. However, Prom can be recommended to entrepreneurs who:

• are classified as small businesses;
• have time or financial constraints to create their own website;
• are engaged in preliminary testing of a direction or a new niche for their business;
• are engaged in dropshipping;
• are looking for an additional sales channel if they have a full-fledged separate website.

A marketplace is not an option for all businesses. Yes, at the initial stages, a store on Prom will require less time and money, but the main problems will begin when you scale your business. Lack of freedom in customization, dependence on timely payments, and ProSale are just the tip of the iceberg. That is why developing your own website, provided you have a sufficient financial base and understand the niche, will be the best investment.

Serhii Ivanchenko

CEO

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