Why Brands Should Consider Online Marketplaces - Key Elements That Lead to Succes

Benefits of Selling on Digital Marketplaces

Succeeding in the digital world means being agile, staying on top of the trends and finding customers where they are. You can’t always afford to let them come to you, and you don’t have to. Digital marketplaces are where the consumers are at. If you want to open up a new channel that allows your brand to reach a global audience, this is one way to do it, fast.

For example, sellers that join Etsy have nearly instant access to a buyer community of more than 39 million people across the US and 233 other countries. Even for established brands, that kind of targeted audience reach may be difficult to attain, and even harder to retain. So it’s no surprise that nearly a million new sellers became active on Etsy in 2021, up 21% year over year.
 

Many marketplaces also have a significant SEO footprint, increasing the number of buyers who see each product. Further, some marketplaces have their own SEO-like algorithms, which you can use to boost your products to the top of the platform’s search results. 

Fulfillment support is another major benefit. The Fulfill By Amazon (FBA) program allows sellers to get their products to customers quickly, without the major investments and headaches of traditional drop shipping fulfillment. According to Amazon, sellers using the program can realise more than 30% lower shipping costs, as well as a 20-25% increase in sales. Other marketplaces boast similar programs to encourage new sellers to sign up.

Many eCommerce businesses choose to host their products on marketplaces for these reasons, but this is also an excellent opportunity for brick-and-mortar stores as well to get their products online with a minimal risk and cost.
 

Challenges Related to Online Marketplace Selling and How to Overcome Them

While online marketplaces do offer a plethora of benefits for brands of any kind, there are notable challenges to successfully selling on such platforms. Walking into this situation without being ready for these can result in a logistical nightmare. Obstacles to success include:

●    Providing accurate inventory data and keeping stock up to date on both ends.
●    Keeping track of customer orders, especially if you use multiple digital marketplaces.
●    Exporting accurate, properly formatted, and up-to-date product info.
●    Tracking sales data from all the platforms you sell on.
●    Using several marketplaces at once and complying with their different rules for order processing and product formatting.

While these issues occur across multiple channels, there’s a clear underlying issue here: Difficulty managing product and order data across several channels.

The solution? Automation.

Trying to manually keep track of all this data is simply unsustainable. Editing clunky spreadsheets every time you get a stock shipment or receive an order, tracking down emails, or even using paper documents hinder your growth and blunt your competitive edge. To keep critical information consistent across internal and external channels, as well as the fulfillment process, you need solutions that connect them all. 

A marketplace integration will save hours of time. By integrating your marketplace channels with your internal systems, you can ensure that stock is always up to date, meaning no more “out of stock” surprises for your buyers.

Order management is a breeze too. A single integration eliminates the need to log into multiple marketplaces one by one to check on all your orders and move them into your ERP system. Instead, the integration automatically pulls new orders into your systems to jumpstart order processing. Because the data is exchanged electronically, you also avoid countless errors from manual data entry.

Finally, there’s the challenge of creating consistent rich product content to all channels. Without automation, the process of retyping descriptions and reuploading images can be more than time-consuming; it can lead to mistakes and inconsistencies that hurt your brand image. On marketplaces, these issues can even result in low ratings that hinder your products’ visibility and sales.

Product Information Management (PIM) software makes this easier by allowing you to centralise product content in a single platform. You can map data to meet specific online marketplace requirements, such as using “in” vs “inches” vs “in.” depending on the site. You can create marketplace-specific titles and descriptions for better SEO visibility. You can even verify product content readiness against all your (and your marketplaces’) mandates, before publishing content to your channels.

Reach a Wider Audience

There’s a reason business of all sizes, and across industries, are investing in Marketplaces at a rapid rate: the opportunity for growth with limited risk is undeniable. That said, to really succeed in this space, you need to have the best buying experience possible, from content, to availability awareness, to fulfillment. Automated, integrated solutions offer the perfect way to connect these platforms, so your business can enjoy the benefits of marketplaces, without all the headaches.

Interested in adding marketplaces to your omnichannel strategy, or want to increase the effectiveness of your current marketplace listings? Reach out to us and we can help you get started.
 

About the Author: Lanette Young is a Product Manager for TrueCommerce specialising in eCommerce, with over 14 years of experience working with businesses to establish and manage successful online stores. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California and now lives with her husband in Atlantic Beach, FL.  In her spare time, you can find her at a local barre studio teaching or taking class.