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How should one market their products through an internet shop? Looking inside a commercial marketplace can reveal some valuable lessons for you. It gets more complex and more challenging to manage multiple marketplaces. You should constantly diversify your sales channels. A well-developed strategy can prevent overreliance on any single platform for 100% of your revenue while allowing for new audiences. There’re several options for solving problems with multi-market environment management. Today we are going to discuss 11 eCommerce marketplace management challenges.
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What Is A Marketplace?
Generally, marketplaces are eCommerce platforms that serve as the convergence point for different products from different manufacturers. Amazon or eBay offer virtual shopping malls but do not necessarily possess the products offered. The individual salesman manages the stores, sells the products in adherence to platform guidelines, and direct deals with customer support. The marketplace is growing as customers can quickly obtain products and information.
A simple click on a mobile device connects the customer or seller. On marketplaces, you can sell saas, software, or digital goods. Find out here how you can do so effectively.
Challenges For Sellers In Global Marketplaces
The online marketplace creates the image you want for your product and lets you get the customer to shop easily for you – however, it’s complicated. The competition, in particular, was tough. Even as online commerce continues to grow in popularity, there are thousands of businesses opening their stores on the website every month. Buyers must have the edge over others.
1. Register Your Brand
Global marketplace management inevitably opens your eyes to potential counterfeiting companies offering products or services from various platforms. There are strict rules about how to manage eCommerce stores, but several scam sellers exist. If you want the trust of the company’s customers to remain, you might want to register it. Amazon and Walmart provide Brand Registry and Brand Portals, respectively. This feature helps sellers gain advanced tools to market their products and track trademark violations. Your company registration is an important legal protection against uninsured buyers using it.
2. Be Consistent With SKUs And Product Variants
Inventory management focuses mainly on what product variants are classified on online commerce platforms. It can easily be managed when only one product variant exists.
Nevertheless, if your products contain multiple variations in size, color, etc., they must have a specific SKU. Code SKUs typically include brand, color, dimensions, and other features. These products will be customized for your business and can be integrated with inventory tracking devices. SKU is useful when searching for a product or making changes to it.
3. Outsource Fulfillment
Most global marketplaces use an eCommerce service, essentially part of the seller fulfillment program. It will allow you to improve your sales process by eliminating the burden of coordinating orders yourself. However, not every channel offers this feature Amazon. The platform requires sellers to provide outsourced fulfillment to companies capable of satisfying its performance standards, such as 2-day shipping or customer support. In unforgiving cases, you’ll need an additional supplier who’s been providing support for your product delivery.
4. Build A Consolidated Catalog
Inventory is a highly tedious and prone task. Your site is your backbone because, unlike a
brick-and-mortar store, your online shop can be accessed 24 hours a day. Purchasing can help increase the ease for a buyer to manage inventory. I’d suggest starting with the same source. You can log into the marketplace to check inventory changes or product inventory information in one place. It gives the best possible reference, which is regularly checked without searching for every channel.
5. Ensure The Quality Of The Product Description
One tenet of eCommerce’s booming marketplace is to deliver the best solution to the customer who is looking. Amazon users trying to rank their products should check for accurate and complete information. Customers can digest your products’ features while completing Product Discovery or by comparing them. Of course, you can achieve higher sales when your products are presented more effectively, including high-quality pictures and features.
6. Offer Customization
Personalized products are an excellent way to give customers a personal touch. However, this will take some effort from our Inventory Team. Make it clear if you can customize your list or SKUs for easier order management. For example, a canvas sack with plain or special printing should always have dropdowns that indicate “flowers”, “abstract” or whatever your designs may be. When your product comes in, the order will have all of the desired features.
Offering customization on global marketplaces can promote personalized products, giving an individual touch to your inventory. This might mean integrating drop-down menus for certain designs or styles right onto the product page, making it effortless for customers to choose their preferences. Platforms like Printful simplify this process by allowing sellers to input custom specifications, such as making your own shirt, directly into their storefronts, ensuring streamlined orders without sacrificing personal touches.
7. Edge Out The Competition With Bundles And Kits
The global markets are sensitive to pricing parity, which means that the platform itself may be affected by your ranking because your product may have a large price differential between you and others. It can be challenging to showcase your product to the right consumers. A solution to this problem can be offered as a bundle or kit. Selling bundles allows you to create new products.
8. Search Rankings
Many sellers aim to gain top rankings in their customer searches. As every eCommerce platform has its way of cataloging or organizing the results for searches, sellers must be aware of differing strategies for the diverse platforms. Depending on how you use Amazon, that doesn’t have to be the perfect strategy for Walmart.
9. Predicting Demand
Relying on inventories, and predicting how many products to place on multiple markets can be challenging. Production prices and storage fees are also required. Some good practices to help manage an eCommerce marketplace site. How can we differentiate our stores from other companies and brands?
10. Errors In Changes And Repetitive Tasks
Products showcased across many platforms may need re-listing, which could make you or the employee responsible for a product description or an updated list. Using automated applications for improvement is a possibility.
11. Poor Inventory
Faulty inventory can significantly limit your revenue. It can be very frustrating when you sell through many different online marketplaces. As an online buyer, obtaining accurate inventory information should be one thing.
Don’t Let Marketplace Challenges Hold You Back
Managing an eCommerce marketplace is not for the faint of heart. There’s a lot to juggle between developing the site, managing feedback, optimizing product listings, and dealing with customer service issues. But if you’re up for the challenge, following our 11 eCommerce marketplace management tips should help you stay on top.
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