Why and how to sell on marketplaces?

Amazon, FNAC, Cdiscount, Rakuten or Back Market... these marketplaces are often perceived as dangerous competitors by e-merchants. However, these marketplaces are full of opportunities for sellers who want to develop their business... provided they do it right!

As an e-merchant, selling your products on marketplaces can bring you many benefits:

1. Develop additional sources of income

In 2018, 52% of global e-commerce revenues were generated on marketplaces. Marketplaces have become an essential place for Internet users in their online purchasing process. These platforms are extremely powerful in terms of sales, and represent a golden opportunity for merchants who wish to diversify their revenues and to develop them strongly and rapidly.

Marketplaces generate a lot of traffic. In Q1 2019, Amazon generated more than 29 million unique visitors per month in France, and FNAC nearly 15 million. Every e-merchant knows that acquiring traffic is a daily struggle.

Displaying your brand and distributing your products on a marketplace means benefiting from the visibility of an audience crossroads that contributes to increasing your notoriety among a targeted population potentially interested in your offers.

Marketplaces allow you to sell your products to Internet users who may not yet be familiar with your brand and products.  This way, you enrich your customer file. These new customers, you then have Then you can develop the new customers loyalty through different marketing actions in order to make them discover your e-commerce site and to make them purchase again.

Marketplaces have the means to offer an excellent experience to their customers at all levels: on-site navigation, choice of payment methods, delivery times... These platforms ensure that they offer an excellent quality service to their partners and Internet users.

These platforms ensure that they offer an excellent quality service to their partners and Internet users.

5. To sell your inventory

If you need to sell off your inventory, marketplaces are a great way to get rid of your old products. For example, a clothing online shop that only wants to display its new collection on its site can sell unsold items from its old collections on marketplaces.

6. No risk taking

In reality, there is no risk taking in selling on marketplaces. In most cases, the marketplace is remunerated by taking a commission on the retailer's sale. Therefore, the financial risk is very low. Moreover, marketplaces have a strong experience in fighting fraud and malicious acts. This is a reassurance for e-merchants who wish to limit the risks incurred as part of their diversification.

7. A first step towards internationalisation

Some marketplaces are international and have a large audience in many countries. Therefore, they are a gateway to the world for e-merchants and an excellent way to start selling their products abroad.

How to sell on marketplaces?

Competition can be tough on marketplaces. That’s why an integration on these platforms must be prepared by following these different stages:

1. Choose the right marketplaces

There are many marketplaces: some are generalist, others focus on a specific sector of activity. Some have a low-cost positioning, others only offer luxury products.

It’s important to carefully study and select the platforms that best correspond to your targets, your positioning and your objectives.

2. Measure your profitability

Once you've identified the marketplace(s) that feel right for your business, it's time to measure your profitability. Investigate the offers of your competitors on the platform, position yourself by determining the price that seems fairest to you and your customers, and calculate your margin by deducting the various charges, including the commission fees charged by the marketplace.

3. Optimize your product pages

A complete product page should detail all the characteristics of the product you want to sell on the platform. In order to stand out from the competition, it is recommended use story telling, to share tips, to provide testimonials etc. Don’t forget to write product pages with unique content, in order to avoid Google's penalties linked to duplicate content.

4. Automate the management of your marketplaces shops

Diversifying your activity on marketplaces should not prevent you from focusing on your core business. Instead of time-consuming manual management, there are many solutions that allow you to automate the management of your shops on marketplaces: integration of product flows, referencing, automated reporting...

When multiplying sales channels, logistics can give you headache

5. Simplify your logistics: pool your inventories!

When multiplying sales channels, logistics can give you headache. Should I prepare different inventories for my ecommerce site and my marketplaces shops? How can I make sure that inventories are updated in real time on all platforms? What about returns management?

At Cubyn, we advise you to mutualize your inventories. We offer our customers a simple solution that integrates both the merchant site and marketplaces such as Amazon, Rakuten, FNAC and Back Market.

As soon as an order is completed on one of these channels, we take care of its preparation, packaging, dispatch and delivery to the final recipient. Inventories are then instantly updated on all platforms. We also take care of returns management so that outsourcing logistics really frees our customers from this time-consuming activity.

6. Monitor your activity on marketplaces

Just as you analyze the performance of your merchant site, it is important to keep an eye on your marketplaces shops. It’s interesting to analyze the products that are most / least purchased, to control your costs, to study customer reviews, delivery times... in order to optimize your strategy.

7. Build loyalty with your new customers

As mentioned in the first part of this article, selling on marketplaces allows you to enrich your customer file. You can then build loyalty programs for these new customers through newsletters, blog posts, videos, promotional codes... in order to make them come back and purchase on your ecommerce site and generate more profit.

Marketplaces are now becoming a must for your customers, and therefore for you.

In short, marketplaces are now becoming a must for your customers, and therefore for you. They represent a tremendous opportunity for e-merchants to diversify their business, without taking risks, while limiting their efforts and costs. However, it is recommended that you follow the steps listed above to take your marketplaces launch to the next level.

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