How To Get Your Brand Ready To Sell Your Products on Marketplaces?
The number of types of marketplaces is as abundant as the number of retailers; however, there are a few that matter and have some common features that you can capitalise on to boost your sales.
A marketplace could be a product or a service, SaaS, community-driven, or managed by a third party. The term "rebel marketplace" refers to platforms that do not utilise intermediaries and adhere to open coding standards.
No matter how many and what type of marketplaces you choose for your products, your omnichannel strategy will be stronger if you include some of these platforms with an online marketplace marketing strategy.
How Does an Online Marketplace Work?
Multiparty online marketplaces allow multiple third parties to provide product information. Multichannel e-commerce is primarily done via online marketplaces, and they can be used to streamline the production process.
Online Marketplaces: Why Sell There?
An e-commerce business must first ask itself, why should it consider branching out to other marketplaces?
There are a few other good reasons to increase your sales and user base, too. We will now explore the top reasons why the market is expanding.
1. Growing Sales
In addition to making more sales and increasing profits, expanding to marketplaces has obvious benefits. There are various marketplaces, each with its own audience (often overlapping) and fee structure. Getting your brand's product and audience aligned with the right marketplace is straightforward.
2. Brand Development
It is a fact that many people buy products from a company's webpage after finding them on the company's site; this is a common occurrence. Additionally, the more a customer sees a brand, the more he or she is likely to purchase its products or recommend them to friends. Marketers can quantify brand growth through overall traffic to the site and branded searches but it's hard to quantify.
3. Customer Loyalty
It is important to sell on online marketplaces because they have established audiences.
Moreover, if you're planning to launch on any of the niche markets, each has a very loyal customer base that is constantly looking for new products on those platforms. The same thing happens when you sell on a marketplace online; although the situation is less dramatic.
4. Growth in the Long Term
Additionally, if your product succeeds and gets positive reviews on the marketplace, you can often expect long-term growth. Your operation and customer service will be required to ship and service your customers through the channel. Furthermore, you won't have to reinvent your business as long as you continue to optimize your listings. The essence of “not putting all your eggs in one basket” is shown here.
Here's How To Get Your Brand Ready To Sell on Online Marketplaces
1. Be the Best At Customer Service
As obvious as it sounds, when you sell items through an online marketplace, you must go above and beyond with the customer service you provide. The customer experience and expectations built into each marketplace differ, so you must meet them if you want to succeed.
Response time should be under 24 hours for every message from a customer, regardless of the channel. Offer discounts, free returns, and, in general, satisfy the customer to the extent possible when selling on a new marketplace. Establishing yourself as a top seller comes with time to adjust to your customers' expectations and grow in your reviews.
2. Improve Your Listings
A good listing optimisation strategy improves your search engine rankings and click-through rates. Make sure your products are properly described with good pictures and relevant keywords.
If you are writing for a customer, take time to ensure you have all the product information they may need (dimensions, instructions, specs, etc.). Additionally, utilise the various SEO tools available for the channel.
3. Pricing should be automated
Pricing needs to be adjusted for every online marketplace. There should be a price variation according to the channel due to the difference in fee structures and the audience composition. Markets such as Overstock also demand that you have the lowest price available anywhere on the internet and that becomes difficult to track.
It is, therefore, best to use a pricing automation tool to monitor all the pricing on every marketplace. Prices can be automatically adjusted and posted to the market using a tool like Prisync or Snoffie.
4. Promotions and Advertising
Sellers have access to advertising solutions through many marketplaces. The advertising features and offerings of other channels are gradually developing. There are fewer capabilities with these and they do not offer the kind of customisation you would expect, but they are still highly effective for getting more clicks, impressions, and sales.
A promotion can also have a significant impact. In general, it is common for companies to test out couponing during the weekend versus the weekdays. You could also run a promotion for a month and see how it does.
It is still very difficult for businesses to expand this way because they think it takes too much time and money.
5. Ship Free of Charge
Free shipping has a higher conversion rate when offered to customers. A majority of customers prefer free shipping.
Free shipping is typically included for sellers, and their prices are raised to meet the added shipping fee. Having free shipping is actually rewarded by marketplaces with lower fees and higher impressions.
There have been a lot of tools and platforms developed in the last few years that have allowed businesses to reach new markets with much less cost and effort.
6. Market the Selected Few
It's not a good idea to share your entire catalog on a marketplace. Don't sell your top products on the marketplace because they would attract all the traffic, and the marketplace would steal traffic from your own website. Instead of promoting well-known products, consider promoting those that have a very limited market. In addition to marketing your most popular products, it is a good idea to promote secondary products as complementary goods.
7. Good Content
While many product pages have ugly designs, they don't mean that the product information can be ignored. Provide accurate and useful information in your product content to users, since those are the preferred marketplace choices. Avoid having duplicate content in your product descriptions that could harm your search engine ranking. Create a unique product description, include all the information that your competitors overlook, use keywords and clear labels, and add features and benefits.
8. Better and More Reviews
Getting good user ratings is the best way to market (and the better the ratings, the better the marketing). Your popularity and the quality of service you provide to your customers will make you popular in the marketplace. Your clients should be reminded to leave a review on the marketplace, but avoid paid reviews since they are generally prohibited.
Choosing the Right Online Marketplace for Your Business
Here's how we find the best marketplaces for your business.
1. Select a Region
Choosing a marketplace with a presence in the geographical area that you serve is the first step. Look for platforms that are popular in India only if you only sell in India.
Use online marketplaces with access to a particular country or region if you are planning on expanding there. You could secure your market share in a new market by entering one in another country or region.
2. Category Popularity
Now that you've determined which markets are in your favorite region, you need to determine your product category.
- What products are people selling on these marketplaces that are similar to yours?
- How popular is this category?
- Do you think there is still plenty of room in this category or are there many other sellers?
3. The Integration Potential
The selection process has now been narrowed down by region and the popularity of your product category, and we can move on to the actual integration process. Picking a marketplace that integrates natively with your e-commerce platform is a good rule of thumb.
4. Review The Commissions and Fees
If your business is trying to find the best marketplace, you must also consider the fees and commission structure. In general, marketplaces charge a commission of between 10% and 15% as well as very low monthly fees.
The fees should be considered as well. If you're only charged when you sell the item on some marketplaces, then you might be better off selling there.
5. Sales are Brand-driven
Whatever may be the platform, if your brand is strong then your sales will grow. Build a brand and promote the product under it. Marketplaces also have a brand value that is why it has visitors and sales. Build a unique brand that resonates with your audience through quality products, customer service, and content.
Also Read:
1) How to hire the right staff for developing your small business?
2) How To Charge for Your Services if You Are an Event Planner?
3) How to Answer the Phone Professionally at your Business?
4) How a Good Market Research Can Give You a Steady Start?
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FAQs
Q. How can I find the best online marketplace?
Ans. The right markets for your business will entirely depend on your business strategy, there is not one set market you should pursue. The factors to consider are geography, the popularity of the category or product, integrations, and the commission structure of the marketplace. Selecting the right marketplace will be determined by these factors.
Q. What kind of products can be sold on a marketplace?
Ans. It depends on the marketplace and region that you are selling to. It is based on the rules and regulations of the nation and marketplace alike.