How to Successfully Sell Your Products on Marketplaces

Marketplaces are occupying a growing share in the buying process of online shoppers, with over 83% of internet users in England and Wales having used these platforms to shop online. General or specialised, marketplaces offer online retailers a real visibility boost in the world of e-commerce.

According to a report by WebInterpret, 65% of UK sellers said that between 21%-30% of their online sales come from international marketplaces, and in the UK, Amazon is the no.1 most visited ecommerce site, which means we definitely love to buy from marketplaces. On a more global scale, they could represent almost 40% of retail sales online by 2020.

In a competitive market, online retailers must now diversify their marketing channels, and not keep themselves restricted to the domestic market. So naturally, they gradually invest in marketplaces to gain a new source of revenue and clientele.

However, there are a few things to keep in mind before you can successfully integrate onto marketplaces.

Look After Your Product Pages

The product page is the only link between the shopper and the retailer, so it’s important that the retailer gives a lot of information about the product, that will inform and convince the buyer to place an order. This involves editing your titles, descriptions, and your visuals, whilst providing maximum information related to the product, to make your customers feel at ease prior to purchase: e.g shipping costs, delivery time, warranty, payment terms, etc.

Be careful – to prevent your online store from being a victim of duplicate content and therefore losing your SEO, the content of your product pages must be different from that published on marketplaces. So take the time to write quality descriptions on your different product sheets.

Adapt Your Product Catalogue To Meet The Requirements Of The Marketplace

From one market place to another, the attributes and categories of products differ. This is why you must have some knowledge of these elements when integrating your catalogue on the marketplace. The more relevant and comprehensive the information, the better the SEO of your products. While some attributes are not mandatory, we strongly recommend that you add them. Finally, bear in mind that poor categorisation of products will reduce the visibility of your products, and thus will impact your sales.

Respect The Rules Of The Marketplaces

Known for their specific requirements, marketplaces are becoming more selective with who they allow to sell on them. Their reputation is constantly in play, so they require sellers to adopt exemplary behavior on their platform. Amazon, for example, boasts more than 2 million sellers who must have impeccable behaviour under threat of having their Amazon Seller account suspended, either temporarily or permanently.

To be successful on marketplaces, and to keep your place on them, you must be in control of the entire purchasing process, from order management and inventory, to customer satisfaction.

Sell Your Products On Marketplaces With Lengow

If you want to sell your products on the marketplace via Lengow, you’ll first have to contact the marketplace to set up your account. You then have to configure your product catalogue to the standard required by the marketplaces.

Once you’re all set up, you can then manage your products using, for example, the automatic rules tool. This will enable you to avoid selling unavailable products. Order management will be done from Lengow, or directly on your online store via our API.

To learn more about how to sell on marketplaces, you can download our whitepaper for free.