Sales on online marketplaces have been growing for the last several years, and the COVID-19 pandemic skyrocketed that growth. Today, marketplaces are a necessary part of a brand’s online sales strategy. These marketplaces allow brands to reach customers where they shop, expand their audience and grow their sales.
First, what is a marketplace? It’s any online platform where multiple sellers work to capture a customer’s attention and sales. Here are five reasons why your brand should start selling on marketplaces if you haven’t already.
1. Reach More Customers
Many marketplaces have a loyal following. The deal-hunter who always checks eBay first; the busy professional who orders everything on Amazon; the dependable Target shopper – getting your brand onto a new channel will allow you to reach a bigger audience, and thereby achieve more sales.
You should also consider which marketplace matches your brand. If your brand is in the home improvement category, getting your products on Lowes or Home Depot may take priority over Target. Figure out who your customer is and where they shop so you can focus on the right channels first.
2. Discover Brand Fans
Getting your products in front of more people gives you a greater opportunity to grow your brand. While a lot of people love the convenience of shopping on marketplaces, many others use marketplaces as search platforms. Once these comparison shoppers find their preferred product (your product!), some of them will navigate to your website to buy it directly. This behavior unlocks an even greater opportunity to create loyal brand fans through remarketing and loyalty programs.
3. Increase Your Search Real Estate
Let’s say your brand sells fitness equipment and you have a great direct-to-consumer (DTC) website. If someone searches in Google for, “kettlebell,” your website may have a chance of ranking on the search results page. However, if you are active on marketplaces, then Amazon’s results (including your kettlebell listing) can also populate. More search engine real estate means more people finding your products.
Listing your products on marketplaces will also help Google recognize your brand as a legitimate seller. Your website’s authority will increase, making it easier for your owned website to gain visibility for key searches.
4. Advertising Opportunities
If you are selling products through your DTC website, you’ve probably invested in some form of advertising, whether that be Google Ads, social ads, display, or traditional forms of advertising. Often, these paid sources require a lot of initial testing and ad spend before generating the return you’re looking for.
Once you are a marketplace seller, you can dedicate spend to on-marketplace advertising, making sure that your products are in front on the customers you want. After all, when US adults begin a product search online, 53% of them start that search on Amazon.
5. Value-Added Services
When selling on a marketplace, you typically do not receive customer data, so you cannot easily remarket to them. However, more marketplaces are beginning to offer value-added services such as data-sharing agreements. It’s predicted that marketplaces will continue to increase these offerings as the relationship between sellers and marketplaces becomes more of an exchange of value.
These data-sharing agreements may not contain consumer’s contact info but can offer valuable trend analysis and data on products, price, visibility and listing optimization.
Selling on marketplaces has become necessary for brands who want to be successful in an ecommerce-first world. Savvy brands will have employees dedicated to their marketplace profitability. When your brand is ready to take its marketplace strategy to the next level, reach out to Spreetail. We buy, stock, sell, ship, and support your products everywhere online (including 15+ marketplaces).
Growth Marketing Manager
