Once you’ve got your ecommerce brandsite growing and operating well, the natural next step is to look for opportunities to reach new customers. For many businesses, it may make sense to consider selling on a marketplace like Amazon, bol.com, Zalando or La Redoute.
Marketplaces give your products a built-in audience, brands can enjoy the consumer trust that reputable marketplaces have already established, and they have a scalable infrastructure that allows for quick pivots.
However, for all of their upsides, marketplaces can pose some unique challenges for brands. Unlike on your brandsite, on a marketplace, you must compete head-to-head to win sales – sometimes even against other retailers selling your own brand! Marketplaces also typically have very stringent KPIs to which sellers must adhere, different forms of advertising, and more price-sensitive customers.
The first step to marketplace success is to realize that you will need different strategies than for your brand’s own website.
It's all about winning the buy box
Brand websites are about more than making the sale in the moment; they are about building long-term relationships with clients. Marketplaces, however, are all about winning the buy box. It’s not enough to have a great product; first you have to get your offer in front of the consumer, then you have to close the sale.
Consistent wins require a strategic approach to multiple facets:
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- A dynamic pricing structure to compete against other sellers.
- Fast, trackable shipping with on-time delivery.
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- Extremely responsive, always-on customer service.
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- Excellent customer feedback and reviews.
Getting started is as easy as 1-2-3-4
Ready to jump into marketplace selling? There are four distinct phases in every successful plan:
Start Selling: Set up your storefront and determine your product and pricing strategy.
Optimize: Utilize best practices for product listings. Begin advertising.
Grow: How are your KPIs? Win the buy box by hitting the marketplace targets.
Scale: Expand into new markets and additional marketplaces.
The path to marketplace success
The unique complexities of launching, optimizing, growing, and scaling marketplaces call for an experienced partner to walk your brand down the path to success, step by step.
The naYan advantage is our proven track record in launching, managing, and growing marketplaces for multinational brands, with a special expertise in cross-border fulfillment, multilingual customer service and copywriters, in-house marketers, and experience in providing Brexit solutions for brands.
