Top 5 Video Hosting Sites for eCommerce

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Craig Smith  |  Founder & CEO

For eCommerce sites integrated video can be hugely beneficial, especially when it comes to showing off products or video blogs for brand identity. While the most popular and well-known option is YouTube, there are plenty of other video hosting services that are out there and offer a range of different options.

List of the Top eCommerce Video Hosting Sites

Both free video hosting sites and paid video hosting sites have their pros and cons. Depending on the amount of features you’re looking for, and the amount of money you’re willing to spend, you may even end up hosting videos on multiple platforms.

Below you will find our list of the top video hosting platforms for businesses.

YouTube

By far the most popular video sharing/hosting site, many companies (and not just eCommerce ones) have a YouTube channel. The biggest benefit for most companies using YouTube is the fact that it’s free and that it’s so popular. Videos on YouTube are able to reach a global audience, and with over 1 billion unique users a month, the traffic rate is unbeatable.

However, because it is a free service many videos have ads tacked on before or after the video plays. Many marketers say that they’re afraid these ads will drive traffic away from their site, they do give you the option to disable ads and the ability to customize your embedded videos to not show external links.

YouTube also offers some basic editing tools to adjust things such as color and brightness, as well as add audio, pop-up annotations, or closed captioning. There are YouTube video analytics available as well, though they are not as advanced or detailed as some of the other video hosting services mentioned below.

Vimeo

If your business is more on the creative side and is looking to host high-definition, almost cinematic quality videos on your site, then Vimeo might be a good option for you. Though it doesn’t have the same popularity as YouTube, Vimeo does offer a variety of features that are specifically useful for businesses, especially if you’re willing to drop $199 a year for a Vimeo Pro account.

The Pro account gives users access to unlimited high-def plays with no bandwidth caps or video time limits. Pro members get access to Vimeo Video School (tutorials and lessons on how to improve your videos) as well as Vimeo On Demand, which is a self-distribution platform where users can sell their videos worldwide. The player itself is clean and customizable, and analytics and ads are never displayed on your content. It’s considered by some to be one of the best designed players, as you can produce up to 20GB of well-edited videos per week.

Amazon Web Services

If you’re tech-savvy and are easily impressed with the newest stuff, then Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a great cost-effective option. No just for videos, AWS is a group of features that include options like leasing cloud storage and Amazon-operated computers. The cloud storage service, called Simple Storage Service (S3), should really only be used by those with a solid technical background as it is a little harder than most others and involves you having to embed a separate video player onto your site where you can upload the videos from the S3.

Wistia

If you really want to see how your videos are helping your company, Wistia offers the most in-depth analytics out of any platforms discussed here. Geared almost exclusively to businesses, it offers a well-deigned and customizable video player and superior video analytics so you can see how well your videos are doing. Analytics include data on which parts are the most watched, as well as what point in the video a user exits.

Wistia also utilizes trend graphs’ that show how your entire video library is doing over a period of time. Included in this platform are features that perform tasks such as attempting to collect emails from users, as well as clickables and links to social media.

Wistia is great for SEO as they have a video feature that allows Google and other search engines to better discover you videos. Unfortunately these awesome features don’t come cheap, as this is the most expensive platform with $25/month for the basic package, but can be upgraded to $100/month for larger teams with more traffic.

Social Sites: Facebook, Tik Tok, Instagram

If you’re looking to do something different that is geared toward a more social audience, then Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok are non-traditional options for your business. Tik Tok currently has a growing audience with millions of users, and is becoming more common with both small and large eCommerce businesses.

Facebook updated their platform so that users can upload videos from outside sources, allowing you to use a 3rd party editing service. The app also gives users helpful editing tools to frame better quality shots, as well as mute the microphone and better low-light video captures.

Instagram video has more users and reaches a wider audience than Vine. Instead of the 6 second looping videos of Vine, Instagram Video lets you post attractively filtered videos that are between 3 and 15 seconds long.

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