Online marketplaces have taken off in recent years. Shoppers are flocking to sites like Amazon and Walmart.com for more selection, better pricing, and the ease and comfort of shopping from home. If you’re an entrepreneur, selling your products on online marketplaces can lead to incremental sales growth and will get your brand in front of millions of shoppers.
Who are the biggest online
marketplaces?
First, let’s define some of the big
players where you can sell your products. Here are the top online
marketplaces in the United States based on monthly visitors:
Amazon
eBay
Walmart
Etsy
Target
Amazon is clearly the dominant player
with 2.4 billion visits per month. In addition, an astounding 63% of online
consumers start their searches for products with Amazon.
eBay and Walmart are also very large
online players, with monthly visits to their sites at 885 million and 410.5
million monthly, respectively. Walmart has been growing quickly, trying to
establish itself as a solid alternative to Amazon. This represents an
opportunity for diversification for sellers looking to add additional sales
channels.
Successfully selling your product in online marketplaces
1. Define your online marketplace
strategy
Get started by finding the online
marketplaces that are good fits for your product. Your brand strategy should
match a marketplace’s customer persona. Selling high-end skin cream? Your brand
probably shouldn’t be on eBay or Wish.
Adding only certain products or
product lines to marketplaces can generate brand awareness for your business
while you keep your best items for your own website. This is a strategy that
many brands use to entice customers back to their own sales channels.
You also don’t want to add sales
channels that will waste your time and devalue your brand. Adding multiple
marketplaces may result in faster growth for your company, but they also can
take time for you to master. As you consider sites, conduct market research to
understand how your product will be received by shoppers and the impact on your
branding.
2. Double down on content and images
It’s important to build out your
product content, images, and branding when you list your products on an online
marketplace. Compelling product titles, bullet points, and descriptions will
provide the keywords that will help your item be found in a search. Consider
adding videos and infographics to make your listings stand out.
3. Price it right
Research similar items in your
category to understand how competitors are pricing their products. If you are
selling items that are already being sold on a marketplace, consider using
repricing software that will automatically lower or raise your prices to ensure
your items stay in Amazon’s buy
box and are price competitive.
Other factors that can complicate
marketplace pricing include:
MAP
policies. MAP (minimum
advertised price) policies are the agreements that
manufacturers or brands have with their authorized sellers. Agreements govern
the minimum prices that brands will allow their products to be sold by sellers.
The agreements usually extend to websites and marketplaces.
Marketplace
pricing parity. This is a policy by
online retailers that the total price for a product on their
site (item price, shipping, and discounts) should be either the same or lower
than the price being offered on other online sites.
Item
performance due to seasonality or supply chain issues.
4. Invest in marketing and merchandising
When selling your product in online
marketplaces, you will need a marketing and promotions budget. Launching a new
product or brand requires having a marketing campaign to get your product in
front of shoppers. Focus on these key marketing and merchandising
opportunities:
Advertise your items using Amazon
Sponsored Products, which are keyword-driven bids that can be either
automatically built by Amazon or manually built by the merchant.
Create coupons with Amazon’s couponing
platform, and add a dollar or percentage off coupon which can be “clipped” by
the customer.
Generate discount codes that can be shared on
social media using Amazon’s promotions tools.
Take advantage of Walmart
Connect, Walmart’s advertising platform, where sellers can bid on
relevant keywords to drive traffic to their products.
5. Social proof your products
Shoppers look for social cues because
they want to understand the experiences of other buyers who have purchased and
used your products. Ratings, reviews, and social media posts can help validate
a customer’s purchase resulting in higher sales; in fact, 50 or more reviews of
a product can lead to a 4.6% increase in
conversions.
While making sure you are adhering to
the marketplace’s Terms of Service, ask your buyers to rate and review your
products. Consider using tools like Amazon Vine that
can automate outreach to buyers. Also, take advantage of social media
channels to gather feedback from customers, and then use that interaction to
drive traffic to your marketplace listings.
Online marketplaces offer many
benefits to e-commerce businesses
Tapping into an online marketplace can
offer your
e-commerce business many benefits. They are a great place to
sell your products and grow your brand by allowing you to tap into established
markets.
Marketplaces also can function as
search engines for buyers and can help generate a lot of traffic for your
business.
And finally, they provide an excellent
platform for launching and testing new product ideas.
Source:allbusiness.com