Should You Sell On OnBuy UK: Benefits, Fees & Tools

OnBuy is an online marketplace, created in 2016 with the aim of levelling the playing field for online retailers and improving eCommerce for all. What’s unique about OnBuy, is that unlike other retail listing platforms, it never holds any of its own stock and every product on the site is listed by an independent platform, meaning that sellers will only be competing with fellow sellers and not the platform itself as well.

A big part of OnBuy’s model is versatility. The site’s USP is that it provides a platform where retailers of all kinds, big and small, are given the same tools, resources and support for growth.  All of its efforts are focused on growing your business’ sales, making it an appealing platform for smaller retailers.

OnBuy welcomes sellers of all kinds, making it a truly diverse and vast marketplace. From independent traders, family businesses, SMEs, multinationals and brand owners, OnBuy currently stocks over 35 million products across 17 departments. Some of the most popular categories include:

• Electronics
• Entertainment (movies, music, books and video games)
• Home furniture
• Office equipment
• Household essentials
• Gardening products
• Home fitness equipment
• Petcare products
• Toys

Keep in mind that there are certain items not permitted to be sold through the OnBuy marketplace, including:

• Counterfeit items
• Product preorders
• Gift cards
• Weapons
• Restricted or dangerous chemicals

With a customer base of over eight million in the UK alone, the company has grown by over 600% year on year across 2018 - 2021 and it shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon, reporting 30% daily growth in key European markets earlier this year. 

With low selling fees, low competition, effective product marketing and round-the-clock seller support, it is little surprise that OnBuy has hundreds of retailers signing up each month.

Even so, it’s worth weighing up the pros and cons to help you decide the best places to sell your products online.

Pros of selling on OnBuy

• No additional listing fees
• Over 110,000 reviews on TrustPilot, with a score of 4.4
• UK-based support team for sellers
• One of the fastest growing marketplaces in the world, with a growing customer base
• You can sell across Europe, with exciting plans to expand into the United States in 2025

Cons of selling on OnBuy

• Compared to larger marketplaces like Amazon or eBay, OnBuy currently has a much smaller customer base
• OnBuy has a smaller range of seller tools than some other marketplaces, which may limit your ability to optimise your listings and sales strategies.
• Payment processing fees: OnBuy charges a fee for payment processing, which can eat into your profits.
• As a newer brand, OnBuy may not have the same level of brand recognition as more established marketplaces like Not On The High Street or Amazon.

1. Register 

You can create your account by filling out OnBuy’s application form. You’ll be asked details such as where your business is based and your turnover. You’ll also ned to provide a proven sales history with 50+ genuine reviews in the last 12 months.

2. Setting up your account

You’ll now have access to a Seller Control Panel which enables you to manage your OnBuy account. This is where you can manage orders and select the countries you wish to sell in.

At this point, you can set up integrations with your order, inventory or multichannel listings software to provide a streamlined experience between all the marketplaces you sell on and your inventory.

3. Upload your products 

Once you’ve completed set up, you have three options when it comes to uploading products:

• Create product listings manually via OnBuy’s Product Creation Wizard
• Use OnBuy templates
• Use a channel integration, such as the one offered by Mintsoft

Once you are set up on OnBuy, you’ll want to make the most of what the marketplace can offer to maximise your sales performance. Thankfully, we’ve collated some top tips to help you achieve success.

#1: Price competitively

Because of the absence of listing fees, businesses are encouraged to be as competitive on price as possible in order to capture interest. 

In addition to the product marketing OnBuy does on behalf of sellers for free and as standard, the marketplace attracts a large number of buyers through its pioneering Cashback on everything feature. The cost of these sales is covered by the marketplace itself rather than pushing retailers to drive down prices.

With OnBuy taking the complete financial impact of offering at least 1% cashback on every item it sells, sellers do not pay a penny and are never expected to.

#2: Boost visibility

OnBuy offers users a scalable, risk-free ad service called Boost that lets every retailer have control over how visible their product listings are.

Some of the benefits of using Boost include:

• Ramped up product listing visibility, ranking and additional marketing
• Tiered scaling structure: lower tiers will increase on-site exposure whereas higher tiers will proactively and powerfully market your products across the internet
• Boost can be used on a single item, multiple products, certain categories or brands, even an entire inventory in just a few simple clicks.
• Improves rankings, even once Boost has been stopped.
• No contract or upfront fee - Boost uses a cost-per-acquisition model rather than cost-per-click, making it risk free to try out. Sellers only pay their boost fee if a sale is made.

#3: Consider a global strategy

OnBuy is becoming a truly global marketplace, welcoming sellers from around the world. Retailers can do business their way, opting in or out of territories they want to sell to on the platform in a few simple clicks. 

As the marketplace continues to grow, it is worth considering how you prepare your business for international customers and how you will achieve this. 

#4: Set up a Sale Price strategy

Sale Price is another tool offered by OnBuy to help retailers grow sales by easily discounting products and attracting more customers.

OnBuy allows retailers to define their own Sale Price strategy, whether that’s setting discounts for cultural events, stock clearances, limited offers, launches into new territories overseas and so on.

Like Boost, Sale Price can be easily activated and deactivated for one, several or all products a retailer sells, with no time frame constraints or ‘lock-in’ period.

#5: Keep on top of inventory

Keeping your stock topped up and ready for dispatch for your customer base is key. With eCommerce constantly and rapidly growing and evolving, staying up-to-date with ever-changing consumer habits and trends is key to sustained success.

It is also important to list as many products as you can as you get started selling on OnBuy. Customers see product variety as an important point of interest and casting a wide net will allow you to understand what works well and what could do with improvement. 

OnBuy offers its sellers competitive fees, taking just 7% on consumer electronics and a maximum of 15% for all other items except jewellery (which is 20%). Crucially, there are no listing fees, no matter how many products you list.

With a transparent and straightforward fee structure, retailers won’t incur unexpected expenses or deductions from their earnings. OnBuy operates a Transparent Fee Guarantee, which ensures that all sellers, no matter their size or sales volume, pay the same fees.

In terms of setting up an OnBuy account, retailers have the choice between three account packages, standard, partner and professional.

The Standard Package costs £25.00 per month excl. VAT and includes the following features:

• Product marketing
• Unlimited listings
• Seller support
• Integration access

The Partner Package costs £129.00 per month excl. VAT and includes the following features:

• Product marketing
• Unlimited listings
• Seller support
• Integration access
• Store search functionality
• Custom collections
• Priority support
• Comparison tables
• Seller showcases

Their Professional Package costs £499.00 per month excl. VAT and includes additional features compared to the Partner Package. The extra features include:

• Professional seller badges
• Display your logo sitewide
• A customised store
• Dedicated product carousels
• Prominent ‘Buy it Again’ options
• Core account management

Businesses that sell on OnBuy get paid typically 7 days after the expected delivery period ends, calculated when the items are dispatched. You can also set up a monthly withdrawal on a date that suits you, or withdraw your balance as soon as it’s available.

To ensure your business operations run smoothly when selling on OnBuy, or any third-party platform, you need to consider investing in ecommerce management software. 

With easy marketplace integration, Mintsoft works to unify data across all platforms, including pricing, images, product descriptions and stock levels. You’re also able to manage the entire fulfilment process in one centralised location.

Take the stress out of selling and book a demo to find out more about how Mintsoft can support independent sellers.