The wholesale marketplace is no longer a physical space. Buyers and sellers have rapidly moved online to conduct business and connect with each other. But demand drives supply: the shift online has led to a number of different companies offering digital marketplaces. So which is best for your business?

The most prominent online marketplaces are FashionGo, Faire, RangeMe, Abound, and Brandboom, the latter having recently launched the Brandboom Connect Marketplace. Each offers pros and cons, so let’s take a closer look:

FashionGo 

FashionGo is used by over 1,400 sellers and 740,000 buyers. They deal primarily in apparel and accessories; many of their sellers are strongest in women’s fast fashion. FashionGo takes a consistent 5% commission on top of their set up fee and initial deposit. They strongly encourage buyers and sellers to utilize their FG Pay function, which is powered by Stripe. FashionGo will soon offer dropshipping, which may eliminate some of the customer complaints about receiving and returning wrong items.

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Faire

Faire, meanwhile, attracts buyers with its in-house Net 60 solutions. Sellers, though, pay a steep cost: Faire charges 25% for opening orders and 15% for reorders. Their marketplace is broad, trading in apparel, home decor, jewelry, paper and novelty, pets, food and drink.

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Abound

The last of the marketplaces on this list with a commission cost, Abound requires a payment of 15-25% for your first order and 8-15% for all reorders. They work with only U.S.- and U.K.-based retailers. While it offers some apparel, it deals primarily in accessories, home goods, beauty products, and food and beverage. Like Faire, it has an in-house Net 60 solution, and it offers free returns within 60 days of your first order with a brand.

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RangeMe

RangeMe, too, offers Net 60, along with various financial solution options. They have both free and paid plans, with some features only available to premium customers. They are more focused on non-apparel: their strengths lie in food, beverage, and other consumer packaged goods.

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Brandboom Connect

Finally, there’s Brandboom Connect Marketplace, which deals primarily in apparel, accessories, and home decor. Brandboom Connect is the only marketplace to offer line sheets and lookbook presentations, which can be created in minutes. It syncs with Shopify for easy uploading of products, and any changes to your lookbook changes are updated in real time.

It’s also the only company that uses artificial intelligence to actively market sellers’ products to the most appropriate, based on buyer profile and past purchases. The AI is constantly at work, analyzing data from around the world in order to best pair buyers and sellers. within Brandboom. There is also an Auto Mode that ensures that the AI will market your products to Buyers at the best season and time.

In addition to being “smart,” Brandboom’s Connect Marketplace allows buyers and sellers to communicate with one another and their teams. You can even assign team members different access permissions. No other marketplace offers all of these features. 

Like RangeMe, Brandboom Connect takes no commission. It charges a flat $40-60 marketing fee for a new order from a brand, then 50% of that first fee ($20-30) for repeat orders through Brandboom Connect. Fees only apply when you’re using Connect Marketplace. Once the AI finds a customer for you and they place an order, they are your customer forever. Only Brandboom accepts PayPal as well as Stripe, and a Net 60 solution is coming soon. 

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Design Protection, and Order Management

There are other important factors to consider when choosing a marketplace, such as security, and ease of management. Brandboom stands out in these areas as well.

Brandboom Connect’s AI also protects sellers from buyers with ulterior motives who might want to create knockoffs. Rather than giving buyers unfettered access to all brands, the AI matches buyers with the right ones. By contrast, on RangeMe and FashionGo, all items from every brand are visible to any and every verified buyer. On Faire, some items are simply publicly visible, and on Abound, anyone can see any item, no account required. 

If managing multiple sites to stay on top of your business is giving you a headache, both Faire and Brandboom Connect Marketplace offer end-to-end order management. That means order placement, real-time inventory management, shipment tracking, and more are handled in one place.

While each marketplace is unique, Brandboom Connect allows sellers to step back and focus on growing their brands and creating new products, secure in the knowledge that their sales are safe and thriving in the hands of the comprehensive site and its unique AI.

But Brandboom is more than a marketplace. The all-in-one sales platform saves you money, even if you don’t use Brandboom Connect. If you find a new buyer in a different marketplace, Brandboom lets you skip their repeat buyer commissions and fees. Just send your line sheet presentation to them via Brandboom link. Brandboom never charges a penny for orders you receive outside of Brandboom Connect, so you can sit back, relax, and watch the orders roll in.

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