Home, garden & DIY: a sector experiencing a digital transformation

Many options are available to you. From generalist marketplaces such as Amazon to specialized marketplaces like ManoMano, open your business to new markets and audiences.

Sell under Amazon’s Vendor Central model (where Amazon buys and manages your merchandise), or Lengow can accompany you via the Seller Central model (where you sell your products directly to customers on the marketplace).

In terms of specialist marketplaces, Leroy Merlin, the European leader in the sectors of DIY/decoration and one of the top 5 most visited French e-commerce sites is now available on Lengow:

Other channels are also at your disposal, including price comparison engines, Product Ads, and Local Ads. These channels allow you to present your products and provide information about your stores to users searching nearby. At Lengow, we have a special offer for 2020: distribute your product catalog for free on omnichannel solutions for store networks via our partners Google (Local Inventory Ads), Facebook (Dynamic Ads for Retail), and Criteo.

Don’t forget Click & Collect which allows your buyers to choose their product online and pick up their purchase at the closest point of sale.

Choose which products to distribute through which marketing channels based on your strategy. For example, Miliboo uses Lengow to segment their product catalog and adapt to the specific codes of each marketplace. Out of stock products are sent to Veepee, the majority of their catalog is sent to La Redoute to reassure buyers of the brand’s quality, and distributing on ManoMano allows them to benefit from heavy traffic with a specific focus on the DIY vertical. Thanks to this segmentation, Miliboo has diversified its audience.

Decoration, furniture, lighting, tools… you have numerous product references, and that’s one of your strengths! But competition is tough and you have to ensure your products are well-positioned in the relevant categories on each channel. This was a problem faced by German brand Traumambiente: the company had many variations for each item which created difficulties when publishing product catalogs on the different marketplaces. By matching its catalog’s categories to those expected by the sales channels via Lengow, the retailer was able to sell on over 1,600 marketing channels, including 500 marketplaces.

Each of your products can exist in different variations (size, color, functionalities, etc.) and has key specificities to indicate to future buyers! Generally speaking, a detailed product sheet allows consumers to imagine themselves using your product, leading to better conversion rates. This is particularly the case in your sector, where the color or material, the width of a table, or the size of a tool are decisive elements in the purchase decision. Take care to highlight the various declinations of your products so your customers can project themselves at home with your products.

Use Lengow’s automatic rules like the brand AM.PM, which optimized its product catalog with more relevant and visible titles in Houzz’s search results.

Busy periods, such as Black Friday or the end-of-year sales are not to be missed and require preparation. Anticipate these key moments for your business by choosing which promotions to apply according to your product categories and different channels. Lengow and its customer service team provide you will full support via guides, advice, and follow-ups.

For brands and retailers selling garden products, sales are fundamentally linked to the weather and carrying a certain level of uncertainty. That means you always need to be ready to switch up planned displays when the good weather comes! 

No matter how many channels you broadcast your products on, make sure that the changes you are going to make to your products (price changes, spring promotions, promotion in product titles, etc.) are taken into account everywhere, at the same time.

A tool like Lengow helps you to centralize these changes to your feeds in complete autonomy!

To avoid disappointing your customers, it is key to update your stocks on all your sales channels. A centralized order management platform such as Lengow enables you to save time and remain consistent on all the marketplaces and marketing channels on which you operate.

Lengow is compatible with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), Cdiscount Fulfillment, and Mano Fulfillment. These shipping services allow you to let the marketplaces take full control of your orders (warehouse storage, product preparation and packaging, order dispatch, customer service, and returns management).

Whether small parcels or bulky products: once your orders are accepted, process all your orders with speed for successful deliveries. Delivery is a crucial step in the online shopping process. Long delays, damaged parcels, or shipping errors are all good reasons for canceling an order. Communicate during each step of the delivery to reassure your customers.

Online retailers operating in the garden, DIY, or home sectors… your industry is currently going digital and experiencing serious change. Don’t be left behind… increase the distribution of your products past your brand’s e-commerce website thanks to our expertise!

Main image: Unsplash