Consumers continue to seek their favorite brands on marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, Target and eBay — but these aren’t the only profitable options for selling your products. Each marketplace reaches a different audience and has a different set of listing requirements. Winning in different marketplaces requires a three-pronged approach of:
- Launching successfully
- Building a winning strategy
- Defending your brand’s position
Whether your brand is new to marketplaces or has been looking to grow its online presence for a while, these three phases will help set you up for e-commerce success.
Launch Successfully
It’s important to take the right steps to thrive in a new marketplace. From preparing your retailer network to ensuring data feeds are accurate, you must address several essential elements from the start:
- Register your brand. This is the first step to ensuring consumers receive accurate information about your products. Start by enrolling in brand verification and registration programs for greater control over your listings.
- Address your retailer network. ChannelAdvisor makes this easy with solutions like Where to Buy Online, sending consumers directly from your website to preferred retailers’ listings, and Brand Analytics, helping you manage online distribution, grow sales and protect your reputation.
- Meet data feed requirements. Each marketplace has its own unique structure. To comply, it’s essential to transform your data to meet the specifications of each individual destination. This includes both sending product information and receiving order data. ChannelAdvisor Product Feed Management enables you to meet these requirements, deliver the data in a variety of formats and track the success of feed delivery.
- Resolve listing errors. Consumers expect a positive experience with your brand no matter what marketplace you list on. But listing errors can cause products to appear incorrectly — or not at all. A system that flags and resolves errors will keep your listings available and visible in any fast-paced online selling environment.
Build a Winning Strategy
Now that you’re up and running, it’s time to win in the marketplace and stand out from the competition. This requires full visibility of the competition present in major channels to understand how other sellers are promoting and positioning their products. This is especially true on Amazon, where identifying small changes as they happen may make all the difference.
One of the most important factors in marketplace competition is price. Yet, it’s difficult for brands to price competitively while still protecting retail networks. To help, automated repricers allow you to set parameters around pricing values while preventing the potential for undercutting retailer listings.
A winning marketplace strategy also requires maximizing product visibility through advertising. ChannelAdvisor’s Retail Media Services helps connect your products with more consumers on marketplaces and retail sites with expertise from a team of e-commerce professionals. These experts provide the proper support to ensure no opportunity is missed and your campaigns are executed in a cost-efficient manner.
Lastly, incorporating multiple fulfillment solutions into your strategy allows you to build more resilient fulfillment operations. The ChannelAdvisor platform is designed for maximum flexibility, supporting a wide range of fulfillment options, including owned warehouses, Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) and third-party logistics providers (3PLs).
Defend Your Position
Once you’re thriving in a marketplace, it’s important to defend your position with vigilance. One of the best ways to do this is through benchmarking. This allows you to use the data you collect from online distribution channels to improve your processes, strengthen retailer connections and boost revenue. Consider monitoring categories like:
- Assortment and stock to ensure products are on sale where they should be
- Price and promotions to understand the pricing dynamics within your online retailer network
- Search and digital shelf to ensure customers find your products anywhere they’re on sale
- Content and reviews to showcase your brand at its best
In addition to benchmarking, ChannelAdvisor Brand Analytics empowers your brand with the most helpful, intuitive dashboards and insights on things like exports and extracts, email notifications and more. With all the nuances selling online can bring, having an expert with years of e-commerce expertise and a suite of tools for all levels of your brand in your corner makes all the difference.
Get more tips for winning in the marketplace by downloading our white paper, The Three Phases of Winning Marketplace Strategy for Brands.
If you’re ready to learn more today, request a demo to see how ChannelAdvisor can help you thrive in today’s e-commerce landscape.
