Every e-commerce strategy today focuses on driving traffic to online shops, converting that traffic into paying customers and retaining those customers after a purchase, and for a good reason. A solid e-commerce marketing strategy helps increase brand awareness, customer loyalty, and online sales.
Although marketplaces provide a way to reach more customers and have the infrastructure to start selling, they require ongoing management to ensure that merchandise, pricing, and fulfillment are optimized.
Not to worry, as we’ve gathered essential tips to include in your e-commerce strategy, guaranteed to help you sell your best offers on multiple marketplaces. These tips will help you to sell across borders and add seamless experiences across all channels. Let’s begin!
Tips to Improve Your Presence on Marketplaces
Selling must adopt new strategies to ensure a positive shopping experience. Omnichannel shoppers today expect seamless, intuitive purchase experiences at every stage of their journey. This and marketing strategies in e-commerce will ensure that they remain loyal.
Here are some tips you can use to help you get started with your e-commerce strategy as you grow and sell on marketplaces.
1. Understand the exact product and operational costs.
One of the first things to do when designing an e-commerce strategy is to look at your product and the costs. The cost of running a website differs from doing business in a marketplace. Before you jump in, it is crucial to understand your operational costs. Marketplaces can consume a significant portion of your sales and quickly erode your profit. To calculate the volume of profit you will need, you need a baseline.
2. Provide different shipping and return requirements.
Shipping and returns can be a part of additional operational costs. Amazon Prime benefits, for example, have made it a standard to offer fast delivery and hassle-free returns. No matter what their actual needs are, Amazon customers want their items delivered quickly. It is possible that you are not able to provide this speed with your current operations. In your marketing e-commerce strategy, additional costs and operational tasks must be considered. You will need to include these costs in your prices if you offer expedited, preferred shipping. This will help keep customers from abandoning shipping.
3. Incorporate value-added marketplace service.
Standardizing marketplace value-added services, such as fulfillment, as part of your e-commerce strategy can lead to significant efficiencies. Amazon claims it can double the sales of sellers who also use it for fulfillment. The majority use marketplaces for fulfillment to maximize their sales and operational benefits. However, it is important to consider the additional costs associated with setting up these operations, as well as the fees and expertise required to manage them.
4. Take note of the different search, marketing, and technical skills.
Each marketplace has its tools and operations. You are unlikely to have any expertise in these systems. You can start by looking for experts in e-commerce advertising strategies who can promote products in particular markets. You can reduce errors and speed up the process by outsourcing until you have those skills. These additional costs can reduce your profit.
5. Structure your pricing strategies.
The wide variety of products available to shoppers means that it is not just the essential product details. A structured pricing strategy will be critical to your market success. Your e-commerce strategy should include two of the most important elements:
- Algorithmic Repricing can be a necessity to compete in any major market. Repricing tools can be used to adjust prices based on competition or to guarantee more. You should ensure that you have a tool or system that aligns your prices across channels, such as Amazon and eBay, as well as Walmart and Google, to allow you to keep your pricing consistent across all marketplaces.
- Velocity Pricing allows you to adjust product prices based on sales trends. Set your criteria, and prices will be adjusted based on sales data. The price of an item will rise if it is ordered more often. The price will drop if sales fall. You can use velocity pricing to increase margins on high-seller products and lower prices as sales slow down.
You don’t need to choose between the two pricing strategies. A combination approach is best for maximum impact.
6. Synchronize your inventory.
Overselling is a problem that sellers (and customers) often face when selling products through multiple channels. It can happen when a product sells quickly on one platform, but the inventory count doesn’t update across all your selling channels. There are a few things that customers find more frustrating than having to cancel a purchase and then discover that the product is out of stock.
A trusted inventory management solution is the best choice unless your catalog only contains a few products. This is the best way to sync product quantities across multiple markets. The right solution will not only prevent overselling but also make it easy to expand your business to other markets or channels.
7. Optimize product content.
There are product listings people see and product listings people purchase.
What’s the difference? Optimized product content.
In an e-commerce advertising strategy, your listings should not only be about the product they list but also how they are organized. Images, descriptions, keywords, categories, and product titles often make consumers convert from browsers to buyers. The more convincing your product descriptions are, the more likely your listing will rise to the top in search results and lead to more sales.
High-quality product content can make the difference between a listing that stands out and one that is buried. This is why more retailers and brands are turning to robust data feeds. They ensure that product information meets each market’s requirements and is easily found.
The Bottomline
Selling on online marketplaces is a crucial part of any business expansion, whether you are launching an e-commerce store for the first time or have been selling online for many years. These platforms can help you increase brand visibility, increase sales opportunities, and even protect you from fraudulent charges. As a business owner, you need to consider how each channel fits into your overall e-commerce strategy. You also need to know how to manage customer data and transactions across multiple points. The next generation of e-commerce will reward sellers with the best marketplace strategies.
Level up Your E-commerce Marketing Strategy With ADVDMS
At a fantastic pace, the entire marketplace landscape is evolving and expanding at an alarming rate. Now there are more than 140 marketplace options available for retailers and brands, each with its own rules, requirements, and built-in audiences.
An expert in SEO in Colorado Springs, like Advanced Digital Media Services can help you design an e-commerce strategy. We will ensure that it provides greater reach, seamless integration tools and services, customer data and analytics, fulfillment support, and access to customer data. Discover the most suitable marketing e-commerce strategy for your business by calling us today.
