Do you sell your products on Etsy, Amazon, or eBay? Maybe even Zazzle, Redbubble, or Society6? Well, today we're talking all about why you need a website, and if you're serious about your product based business, you're going to want one. Today I am sharing with you eleven reasons why you need a website.

People take you seriously if you have a website.
 
It means you're a real business with a real brand. You can have your own storefront, people can go directly to your business name, and they can find out all about you in one place, as well as your products,  are right there and easy to buy.
 
You're building your brand, not someone else's. 
 
When you're selling on Amazon or Etsy or another platform, all the traffic and all the business that you're giving them, you're building their brand, not your brand. It's essential that you're making your brand for longevity and health of your business.
 
You keep control of your business, and you can't get shut down. 
 
You hear all the horror stories of people getting shut down from Etsy or Amazon for minor infractions.  I have seen it firsthand as I have had clients who have experienced this and been shut down on Amazon for something as simple as answering a customer service email a couple of hours too late. When you have your own website, you don't run the risk of losing your business overnight for virtually a minor infraction.
 
You keep your customers focused on your store and your product. 
 
When they're on another platform, they're constantly being bombarded by, "Go here. Check out this store. Do that. Buy this product." When they're on your own website shopping, you keep control of where they're at and what they're looking at.
 
List building is easier with your website.
 
You can market to the people that have given you their email addresses. When you're on another platform, you cannot gather their email addresses. It's essential that you're able to collect those. When you have a website, you have a hub where they can come.   You can obtain their information, and then you can target them with email marketing, which is one of the top ways to market your business. It's a lot easier to do that when you have a website because you're able to collect the addresses. The value of your business is almost in the size of your list because your sales become very, very predictable based on the number of people you can market to when you know your average conversion rate and the average number of people that you have on your list.
 
The fees associated with owning your website are much less.
 
 Amazon or Etsy both take a percentage of your sales. Imagine if you were able to make all of that money that you would pay Amazon or Etsy or another platform for being on their website and you put that into marketing your site. Can you imagine the extra traffic that you would get and the additional sales if you had that money to put right back into marketing?
 
You can use an abandoned cart app when you have a website.
 
When people go to your shopping cart, put products in and then get distracted and walk away, you can target them.  You can remind them about what's in the shopping cart and that they started purchasing from you.   You will be able to recover some of those sales with this app.
 
You can attach your blog to your store.
 
You can get more traffic through blogging and will be able to expand your reach. When you have the other stores you cannot attach your blog to it.
 
SEO
 
When you have your own website, you can use your platform such as blogging and keywords and other SEO tactics to drive your business to the top of Google. When you're on the other platforms you're building their business, not your business, so SEO is another reason to have a website.
 
You can have better promotions.
 
When you have your own website you can do promotions whenever you want. You can change your website.  Use the front page of your website to attract the customers and notify them of the promotions.  It's a lot easier to do that kind of promotion and marketing tactics when you have your own website.
 
Ads
 
 You can run ads to your opt-in on your website so that you can list build, hence get more customers and grow your business and sales.

If you want to more tips for growing your product-based business come on over to our Facebook group Product Biz Made Easy.  It's an awesome group of like-minded product biz owners.  Join it here.