In the dynamic world of ecommerce, brands must navigate a diverse range of strategies that, if executed poorly or neglected altogether, can significantly impede sales and hinder growth. Although the specific solutions, execution, and results will differ for every brand, there are six key disciplines that must be considered to stay competitive in an increasingly turbulent ecommerce space:
1. Marketplace Expansion
2. Brand Control
3. Channel Advertising & Marketing
4. Fast & Affordable Shipping Logistics
5. Prime Eligibility
6. Finding the Right 1P/3P Relationship
In this blog, we’ll break down the importance of each strategy, the negative impacts to your brand when poorly executed or neglected, and our market-tested recommendations on how to successfully navigate each one.
1. Marketplace Expansion
Although the reward is great, expanding onto new marketplaces is a huge undertaking as every channel has its own requirements for compliance. Once successfully on a channel, each has a different set of rules of operation and requires separate audits, certifications, and tests.
Rather than expand their reach on new marketplaces, many brands choose to focus solely on the opportunities of one existing channel, like Amazon, due to the complexities of a multi-channel strategy. The downside is they miss out on new audiences, product visibility, unique channel promotions, etc., all of which will further increase brand awareness and sales growth. Ecommerce channels like Walmart, Target, eBay, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Overstock, Wish, Kohl’s, and Best Buy are essential marketplaces for brands looking to take their brand beyond Amazon and DTC sales.
Key Takeaways:
Expanding onto new marketplaces is a challenging process due to the diversity of requirements for each channel that must be met and maintained.
Each marketplace channel is a new discipline with limited overlap, meaning work/processes/expertise can not be easily duplicated channel to channel.
We recommend finding a partner who has established relationships with various marketplaces to save you time and money.
2. Brand Control
In the vast online landscape, it's easy for your brand identity to become diluted or misrepresented by parties that you have no leverage or control over. Brands often find themselves losing credibility and customer loyalty as a consequence of having a soft third-party-seller policy and no strategy around pricing parody, counterfeit protection, and customer experience expectations.
Without brand control, your brand can
experience:
Varying pricing and product information creating customer dissatisfaction and confusion
Poor inventory management resulting in out-of-stock items and delays in order fulfillment
Inconsistent branding diluting a company’s image and decreasing customer trust
Loss of revenue from unauthorized resellers and counterfeits
Decline in advertising and marketing strategy effectiveness
Conflicting customer service experience and warranty validity
Key Takeaways:
Working with a 3P seller that is equally invested in the success of your products and your business is a great way to establish consistency and control.
When goals and strategy are lined up, a consistent brand strategy across a variety of marketplaces can be maintained.
A good partner will ensure you achieve optimal use of marketing budgets, improve ROI and spend quality, and establish brand consistency.
3. Channel Advertising & Marketing
Now more than ever, ecommerce is a “pay-to-play” world. A successful advertising and marketing strategy is crucial for brands looking to rank above the noise of marketplaces saturated sellers. Good advertising connects brands to their target audience, increases visibility, and builds brand credibility. It drives sales, fosters loyalty, and helps businesses adapt to changing market dynamics. In a competitive digital landscape, a strategic approach to advertising and marketing is essential for maintaining relevance across channels. An ineffective advertising and marketing strategy can hurt your sales, lock you out of the buy box, increase your ROAS, and so much more. With intensified competition, increases in ad cost, and shifts in consumer behavior, brands commonly struggle to navigate the complexities of a solid advertising and marketing road map both on and off channels.
Setting the Foundation of Your Strategy:
1. If you aren't advertising on these platforms, start small. Figure out how to win search terms that are specific to your products. Specific terms will have less competition, but can still drive high intent customers to your listings.
2. Get up to speed on each platforms' terms of service. This will vary widely per platform; getting these wrong can result in being suspended or permanently removed.
3. Use the guides marketplaces provide to get started. These channels are motivated to bring sellers into the advertising game on their platforms, so the guidelines they provide do a good job of getting newcomers up and running.
Here is a links to advertising guides for Amazon, Walmart, and eBay.
Key Takeaways:
Advertising has become increasingly competitive, which makes consistent winning of the buy box that much more challenging.
Focus on input metrics like increased traffic, improved CVR and ROAS to achieve output metrics like channel GMV and BSR.
The right 3P partner will help you target, engage and accelerate conversion of the right customers and at scale.
4. Fast & Affordable Shipping Logistics
When searching for ecommerce fulfillment solutions, it's important to understand the criteria for categorizing items as "large." Each marketplace has its own standards, but one constant remains: larger items incur significantly higher fulfillment costs. The higher costs to store and ship makes the product more expensive for the consumer. It makes becoming Prime badge approved impossible. It makes efficient shipping speeds challenging.
For brands selling products in the Large Standard, Large Oversized, or Special Oversized categories, a dilemma arises: prioritize profit margins or prioritize speedy fulfillment for customers. Unfortunately, without investing in the development of extensive in-house shipping logistics, these brands face limited options that allow them to achieve both goals without sacrificing one at the expense of the other.
Key Takeaways:
Shipment and storage fees are always based on the size of the product. Brands with large and oversized product listings ultimately have to choose between profit margins and fast shipping.
A 3P like Spreetail specializes in same-day and next-day fulfillment specifically for big, bulky, and hard-to-ship products. Brands get inclusive fulfillment fees without any additional storage fees, inventory limits, or overage charges.
5. Prime Eligibility
landscape, boasting a staggering user base of over 200 million Prime members worldwide. So, obtaining the highly coveted Prime Badge approval on Amazon is a game changer for brands. Since its inception in 2005, Prime has become the preferred choice for online shoppers, with Prime members spending an average of $1,400 per year on Amazon compared to $600 per year for non-Prime members (Amazon).
Despite the sales and customer experience advantages of Prime, getting Prime approved is not a simple process. With limited ways to qualify – either through SFP or FBA – regulations and fees make some products costly to ship or aren’t accepted by the Prime program altogether.
Here are the guidelines to qualify for “Seller Fulfilled Prime” and “Fulfilled by Amazon”
The alternative is working with a Partner like Spreetail, that already has Seller Fulfilled Prime status and can extend that shipping speed to Brand Partners.
Key Takeaways:
The list of requirements for Prime badge is a lot for brands to manage, especially without the proper infrastructure in place to meet shipping, customer service, and return requirements.
One of the easiest ways to get the Prime badge is to work with a 3P who is already Prime approved with a proven fulfillment track record.
As a SFP business, Spreetail’s logistics operations make it possible to get Prime status, boasting a 94% Positive Seller Rating and 99.7% of orders shipped the same day.
6. Finding the Right 1P/3P Relationship
It's a no-brainer, but there isn't a one-size-fits-all ecommerce fulfillment partner solution. Depending on the marketplace, the category, the size of the brand, and even the product listings, there is a variety of options to choose from, each with its own unique positives and sets of challenges.
Some brands may find, when operating under a 1P model, that they are uncomfortable giving up control by allowing Amazon to assume responsibility for things like inventory management, pricing, and customer relationships. In addition to the lack of control, maintaining Amazon's attention as an equal partner can be challenging, especially considering the dependency on their consistent purchases of your inventory.
Brands dealing with a one-sided or difficult 1P relationship must realize that there are alternative options for shipping and storage logistics, as well as alternative methods to achieve Prime eligibility, provide satisfactory service to customers, and handle product returns.
Key Takeaways:
Finding the right 1P/3P relationship to help you manage your ecommerce strategy is a critical choice that will determine much of your success.
The right 3P partner can get you the Prime badge, manage your shipping, provide customer service, and work as an equally invested partner to help you accelerate your brand on, and off, Amazon.
Accelerate Your Brand: The Spreetail Solution
Our mission is to propel brands to increase their market share while also reducing costs. All six of these problems brands face has the ability to hinder sales growth.
At Spreetail we buy, sell, ship, and grow your business in the following ways:
Buy
At the onset, we prioritize your prosperity by initiating a substantial wholesale purchase order. Through extensive analysis of past sales trends on influential marketplaces like Amazon, we gather valuable insights to construct a compelling proposal based on the potential growth of your product range.
We will engage in a comprehensive discussion about how our services can catapult your progress. This includes leveraging our expertise in handling large and bulky items for shipping, as well as expanding your presence across multiple sales channels. Together, we will devise a tailored strategy that aligns perfectly with your brand's needs.
Our approach flourishes when collaborating with brands that directly manufacture durable goods and possess a well-established track record of online sales.
Sell
We list and sell your products on more than 12 of the leading ecommerce marketplaces. Our team of content experts create new listings or update existing ones, optimize product titles, descriptions, and create assets to maximize effectiveness on each specific channel.
Our in-house advertising team will custom design campaigns tailored to your specific targets, with a continuous focus on driving accelerated ecommerce sales.
Additionally, we provide distinctive marketing programs, such as Bazaarvoice, to strengthen your brand presence across the digital landscape.
Ship
We pride ourselves on delivering exceptional speed, with next-day delivery available to 80% of the country through our expansive network of seven fulfillment centers strategically located nationwide. Once we purchase your products, we store them in our warehouses and distribute them across our fulfillment centers to ensure consistent availability and prompt shipping.
Shipping large and bulky items is our area of expertise. Our logistics operations are designed to enable Prime status or 2-day delivery for products that were previously associated with slower shipping times.
We handle all aspects of returns and reverse logistics, providing efficient customer service through our dedicated team of agents based in Nebraska.
Grow
We propel your ecommerce growth by making strategic, data-driven decisions tailored specifically to your unique performance and trends across the online landscape. Through continuous monitoring of various channels, we stay on top of the latest product insights and opportunities. When a market shift occurs, our sales strategy adapts to ensure your success.
You will be paired with a dedicated account manager who will support you every step of the way. Your Spreetail contact manages only a small number of clients, all operating within a related product category, allowing for personalized attention and expertise.
Our strong relationships with various channels provide your brand with unparalleled opportunities to participate in the latest programs. As a top Seller Fulfilled Prime retailer, a Walmart Pro Seller, and a pioneer in piloting the Target+ program, we offer exclusive avenues for your brand's growth.
Director, B2B Marketing
