Selling on marketplaces: how do you go about it successfully?

Online marketplaces have provided sellers with a springboard to expand globally. Selling on a marketplace gives you immediate access to a wide range of potential buyers, and if you approach it in the right way, it can be very lucrative. This has not gone unnoticed, and sellers are signing up in droves to make use of these platforms. Not everyone succeeds here: how do you ensure you get the most out of the marketplaces?

Selling on marketplaces: how do you go about it successfully?

Online marketplaces have provided sellers with a springboard to expand globally. Selling on a marketplace gives you immediate access to a wide range of potential buyers, and if you approach it in the right way, it can be very lucrative. This has not gone unnoticed, and sellers are signing up in droves to make use of these platforms. Not everyone succeeds here: how do you ensure you get the most out of the marketplaces?

Choose the right marketplaces to sell on

The first step is to determine the marketplace mix. Which marketplaces will you start selling on? Opt for a specialist marketplace with relevant traffic, or choose an all-round giant such as bol.com with millions of visitors. Assess the opportunities for your products on the marketplaces you’re considering, to help you decide which ones to sell on. To do this, you can look at factors such as competition, prices and search volumes on the marketplaces.

Several marketplaces may be of interest to your business, but we advise you to get one marketplace properly established before setting up the next one. This prevents you from having too many marketplaces half-finished, which means you won’t be realising their full potential. It’s also easy to forget that there are still tasks to be completed here. So make sure your products are properly set up on Decathlon first, before making the move to Amazon.

Start manually or automatically

Once you’ve made the right choice regarding channels, it’s time to set them up optimally. You can list your products on the channel manually, but you can also automatically upload your product feed and keep it up to date. This can be done using integrators such as Channable. This allows you to automatically synchronise stock levels, prices and content, amongst other things.

Inventories

Stock levels are a key factor when selling on marketplaces. Your organic ranking on marketplaces is often determined by the traffic and sales generated by your products. So, if you’re constantly out of stock, you’ll generate little traffic or sales on your listing. Once you’re back in stock, your listing will be at the back of the queue again and you’ll have to start building it up from scratch. So make sure you always have stock of your products.

Prices

The prices you set when selling on marketplaces are more important than you might think. As there are often several similar products on sale on marketplaces, direct competition is always present.

On marketplaces, prices are often displayed immediately, which means customers are constantly comparing prices. If you’re selling a product that’s significantly more expensive than a competitor’s, there’s a good chance you won’t secure the sale. And that’s without even considering the Buy Box.This does not mean it is impossible to sell a more expensive product on marketplaces: you can convince a customer through content.

Content

‘Content is king’ is a phrase often heard. This also applies to sales on marketplaces. Content is the only thing customers see of the product before they buy it. The content must therefore look good and convince the customer to make a purchase. Are you selling a product that is slightly more expensive than comparable products? In that case, the content can add value to the product, making the customer willing to pay more. Ensure your content is clear, honest and comprehensive, incorporating the product’s key information. When doing so, ask yourself what information is relevant to the customer – after all, they are the ones who have to decide whether to buy.

Drive traffic to your listings

Once you’ve optimised your listings on your chosen marketplace, it’s time to drive more traffic to them. Many online marketplaces offer the option to advertise on their platform. On bol.com and Amazon, you can utilise various advertising options, whilst on fonQ you can also make use of their advertising features to drive traffic on the platform to your listings. However, you can also drive traffic to your listings from outside the marketplaces. Do you need help driving traffic to your listings? Or are you unsure which marketplace should be included in your mix? We’d be happy to help you work through this.