Traffic is never FREE. It happens in both in real life and the digital sphere.

Rental spaces in the retail space cost money. Its not the actual space you are paying for, its the opportunity to leverage on the space where people walks past and view your items. This is the same in the digital space. The only time marketplaces offers free traffic is for seller acquisition and during the initial stages of brand building. After which, for sellers, its literally survival of the fittest.

What happens next?

When marketplaces finally decides to throw you under the bus, I’m sorry, but there is literally nothing that you can do. After spending all your marketing dollars on promoting the marketplace and helping them build their brand while you are left with nothing to yourself. Nobody knows about your brand, your products. You realize that you are just another replaceable product with nothing left to yourself. Your product is challenged by millions of other cheap substitutes while you succumb your brand to cheap alternatives.

How to mitigate the impact of marketplaces reducing organic traffic?

This is why you build your own entity and identity. Today’s world is so filled with easy ways to market your product. Why direct traffic to marketplaces where your customers can easily find a cheaper alternative for your product? Wouldn’t it be better to find a regulated marketplace where only the best items get showcased? Yes, such marketplaces exist but they do come with strict regulations.

Alternatively, building a quality ecommerce website and getting your products featured on your own page would allow you to keep your brand and image for over a longer period. Of course, we ain’t talking about cheap products imported from China. But, if you have something that is truly of value and marketable over the long term, its wise to get a website build up that will give more prominence on your brand over the longer term.