Marketplaces don't have a demand problem
When we go through a brand's sales on marketplaces, we almost always find demand where the brand doesn't yet sell. Sometimes in markets the company has never considered. So the opportunity is usually there. The hard part is deciding whether the business can handle a new channel without it affecting what already works.
Five questions to answer first
If you can answer them, you have what you need to make the decision. If you can’t, you know where to start.
- Which products have the demand, competition and price level that a marketplace requires, and which should you leave out?
- Who will own the channel, and how much time is it allowed to take?
- Can product information reach several marketplaces without anyone entering it by hand?
- How should stock and logistics be divided between your own webshop and the marketplaces?
- Who already sells your brand on the marketplaces, and on what terms?
Start with the product range
Not every part of your product range will work on a marketplace. Competitors may also have established themselves in categories where your brand isn’t present. Go through the range based on demand, competition and price on the marketplace, and decide what should stay out.
Decide who owns the channel
Often nobody is responsible for the marketplaces, and that’s understandable. The work is done on the side of everything else, sometimes by management itself, and nobody has been given time for listings, campaigns and daily follow-up.
That works as long as it’s a test. But a marketplace can’t be set up and then left alone. Prices, stock levels, ads and competitors’ offers change all the time, and someone has to keep track. Before you launch, it needs to be clear who owns the channel, how much time it is allowed to take and which goals apply.
Review your technology
Just as often, it’s the technology that falls short. Products are entered by hand, or there is no integration that passes product information on to several marketplaces. That takes time already and becomes more work with every channel you add.
Several marketplaces also have their own requirements for how new partners connect. So the integration is not something you can solve once the decision is made. It determines which marketplaces are realistic, how long a launch takes and how much hands-on work remains. A good first step is to count how many manual steps it takes today to get a product into one channel, and how many it will take with the next.
Adapt the product information
If the brand already sells on marketplaces, it’s often the content that holds it back. Product texts are written for your own site rather than for the marketplace’s requirements, and variants of the same product are scattered instead of grouped together.
Requirements differ between categories and channels, so go through them one channel at a time before you spend money on ads. Ads that lead to a weak product page return less than ads that lead to a page that already sells. Take one of your products on the marketplace and compare its page with the channel’s requirements. Only advertise once it measures up.
Decide how stock should be divided
If stock levels don’t match between channels, a customer can find a product on the marketplace that turns out to be sold out. Then you lose both the sale and the visibility. On platforms where availability affects ranking, a sold-out product can lose its position.
So it’s about more than having enough stock. You also have to decide how it is divided. Should the marketplace have its own warehouse, share yours, or should the platform handle the logistics? The choice affects both the margin and how much work the channel requires.
Start by choosing the model that suits your business and the stock level the marketplace should see. If you can’t decide, that is exactly what needs to be sorted out first.
Search for your own brand
Your brand may already be on the marketplaces, but not on your terms. Resellers may sell your products with incorrect product information or outside the agreed partner setup, and a search for the brand name may return listings from other sellers.
In that case the question is a different one: how do you take control of what is already being sold? Start by searching for your own brand on the biggest marketplaces in the countries where you sell. See who is selling, at what price and with what information.
Sometimes the answer is to wait
The answer to a marketplace review isn’t always to launch. Sometimes the company sees the opportunities but lacks an owner, time or technology to make use of them, and then it’s wisest to wait until the foundation is in place.
Sometimes the foundation is already there. Then it’s a matter of confirming that the business is ready and choosing the right marketplaces to start with. Both answers are valuable. What gets expensive is launching before the question has been investigated. If the answer is yes, a good next step is to see how ready your organization is, for example with our Marketplace Assessment.
The opportunity is almost always there. What decides is whether the business is ready.
Want answers to the questions?
Recognize yourself? Then it may be worth a conversation. With Omniarch’s Marketplace Readiness Audit you get a focused first assessment of your product potential, your digital visibility and your readiness to sell on marketplaces, with clear recommendations as a basis for your next decision.
You can reach Alenka Fey, Business Lead, Marketplace & Expansion, at alenka@omniarch.se.
