How to Choose E-commerce Marketplace for Your Products
Awareness of your online startup's financial statements is important
09/06/2023
India’s e-commerce revenue is expected to jump from $39 billion in 2017 to $120 billion in 2020 growing at an annual rate of 51%, which is the highest in the world. Without a doubt, now is a good time to join this fast growing sector to potentially have a profitable venture.
Building an e-commerce business requires strategic thinking and planning. However, one major challenge is to choose the online marketplace from the 19,000+ existing platforms for your products. Why is choosing the right e-commerce marketplace so important? It is important because it directly impacts your business growth, operational costs, customer engagement and fulfilment of your business objectives. Each e-commerce marketplace has its own set of benefits that can help you with potentially increased sales. Some of the benefits are:
- Greater reach and wider audience
- Simple registration
- Categorized product placement
- Round-the-clock technical support
- Selling tools and analysis features
But, how can you tell which online marketplace is right for your business? Here are the essential features you should look for while choosing an e-commerce marketplace.
Ease of Use
The greatest advantage of selling your products on an online marketplace is the ease and simplicity of use. It involves a very simple process of registration that the interested sellers are expected to complete. Next is to manage your product listings – images, product descriptions and seamless handling of customer orders.
The right e-commerce marketplace should make seller registration easy and system navigation simple for both sellers and customers. Choose a marketplace that is easy to set up. It allows you to focus on business development rather than your store development and maintenance.
Why worry about how to present your product to your target group, when you can focus on your product itself? Let your e-commerce marketplace offer you ease-of-use by providing you with ready-made solutions that are SaaS-based and require no coding knowledge, web hosting, or technical teams on your end.
The right e-commerce marketplace should make seller registration easy and system navigation simple for both sellers and customers. Choose a marketplace that is easy to set up. It allows you to focus on business development rather than your store development and maintenance.
Why worry about how to present your product to your target group, when you can focus on your product itself? Let your e-commerce marketplace offer you ease-of-use by providing you with ready-made solutions that are SaaS-based and require no coding knowledge, web hosting, or technical teams on your end.
Design Flexibility
This applies to uploading or creating a listing for your item. Many online stores let you upload, drag and drop images to an HTML page. Your choice of e-commerce marketplace should give you flexibility to create and edit your listings. It should give you room to use various image resolutions, add what you like and change what you do not like.
SaaS-based e-commerce marketplaces have a responsive design that allows them to be available on a wide range of devices. Responsive design ensures that the website view is properly accommodated in different devices (mobiles, laptops, desktops, tablets, etc.). Over 1.2 billion people access the internet from their smartphones worldwide. So, choose the e-commerce marketplace that allows the website design to be mobile friendly; that is a critical feature you must consider while choosing your e-commerce marketplace.
Each website will come with a host of features for better control over selling and product listing management. This impacts the way you manage orders, returns and customer feedback.
You should choose an e-commerce marketplace that provides you with the best-integrated tools to help you with the following website features:
SaaS-based e-commerce marketplaces have a responsive design that allows them to be available on a wide range of devices. Responsive design ensures that the website view is properly accommodated in different devices (mobiles, laptops, desktops, tablets, etc.). Over 1.2 billion people access the internet from their smartphones worldwide. So, choose the e-commerce marketplace that allows the website design to be mobile friendly; that is a critical feature you must consider while choosing your e-commerce marketplace.
Each website will come with a host of features for better control over selling and product listing management. This impacts the way you manage orders, returns and customer feedback.
You should choose an e-commerce marketplace that provides you with the best-integrated tools to help you with the following website features:
- Content management system: It allows you to easily manage the website contents, such as logo, product descriptions, policies, banners, footer links, etc. The marketplace must ensure that you can easily upload high quality visual content with zero lag or errors.
- User-friendly design: Shoppers must be able to locate the product they want to buy in a minimum number of clicks. A good website must have products listed in shopping categories, filters, comparison capabilities, etc.
- Search engine optimized code and layout: This may help in attracting more customers, improving conversion rates, increasing brand awareness and potential sales. Choosing a marketplace that is famous for selling your product category is also beneficial.
- A flexible shopping cart: This allows both guest users and unregistered users to checkout easily and place orders with ease.
- Integrated payment gateways: This offers multiple payment options for customers.
- A wholesome order management panel: This feature ensures that sellers have all the necessary information on order placement, cancellation, exchanges, refunds, and order status.
- Secure servers: Security-focused servers do not store critical data pertaining to debit and credit cards as well as passwords in readable formats.
- Scalable infrastructure: An e-commerce website should be scalable and must provide excellent uptime, ensuring that the website is available everywhere, all the time.
- Mobile-friendly website design: This is a critical feature to deliver world-class customer experience
- Reports: The e-commerce marketplace should come with reporting features, such as marketing tools and smart analytics, making business growth easier and faster.
Sales Features
Sellers are increasingly moving their businesses to online marketplaces because they want to access tools, services and information that can improve how they handle buyers, manage sales margins and expand reach.
Prominent e-commerce marketplaces can help you with high-quality sales features. Online stores have a dashboard that show you the current status on sales-related issues – payments, listed products, orders received, shipping details and customer feedback. The sellers must ensure that the e-commerce marketplace provides sales services like:
Prominent e-commerce marketplaces can help you with high-quality sales features. Online stores have a dashboard that show you the current status on sales-related issues – payments, listed products, orders received, shipping details and customer feedback. The sellers must ensure that the e-commerce marketplace provides sales services like:
- Free delivery or low shipping costs
- Special discounts or personalized offers to customers
- Effective marketing tools
Help and Support
Of course, there are times when you may need help with reporting tools, dashboards or even a query on what to do next. The biggest online marketplaces have their own backup and support teams that can be reached through email, calls and messages.
Sellers that are e-commerce beginners should pay attention to this feature when they go for a marketplace hunt. It is also important for e-commerce marketplaces to leverage a strong customer support system for improved customer service. Thus, before choosing an e-commerce marketplace, ensure that it provides to your customers the help needed with:
- Tracking, cancelling and editing their orders
- Return and refund policies and procedures
- Digital services device support
- Registering for exclusive memberships, understanding the benefits associated with the same, and the procedure for cancelling such memberships
- Adding or editing payment methods
- Viewing and reloading gift card balance
- Submitting or editing the information on their registered account
- Account settings
- Shipping policies
- Account registration
Value for Money
Customers often turn to online stores as they feel that they get better offers and deals that give them monetary benefits. If business growth is your main goal, then search for a marketplace that pays special attention to product pricing. That is, they should be well known for providing differentiated deals and discounts and putting customer needs first. You can match business growth with sales on a marketplace that attracts a bigger number of customers by providing them with attractive prices.
Customer Ratings
Online marketplaces also affect the customer experience in many ways. Sellers will often receive ratings and reviews from buyers after they have bought an item from them. This is an indicator of how satisfied they are with the item received, seller services, and the overall buying process. Look for an online shopping store that has this feature. This will help you to understand how good your products and services are. It can even show you the areas or items that might need improvement.
Positive reviews from customers add to your credibility and build a bond of trust and a good brand image. At the same time, proper and timely response to any criticism or crises allows the buyers to keep faith in your company and your services. This feedback system should be seamlessly driven by e-commerce marketplaces to make the entire process transparent and connect the customer to the seller in a better way. E-commerce marketplaces must also allow buyers to post images of your products after they have received it. This allows other buyers to get a real-life look of the product and get a better idea about its features, looks, benefits, etc. If your product really stands out in terms of quality, then the potential buyers would surely choose your products over the wide range of existing competition.
Marketplaces should even encourage the buyers to post reviews, recommendations and images of the products on social media after they have received them. They can also be e-mailed satisfaction survey sheets.
Positive reviews from customers add to your credibility and build a bond of trust and a good brand image. At the same time, proper and timely response to any criticism or crises allows the buyers to keep faith in your company and your services. This feedback system should be seamlessly driven by e-commerce marketplaces to make the entire process transparent and connect the customer to the seller in a better way. E-commerce marketplaces must also allow buyers to post images of your products after they have received it. This allows other buyers to get a real-life look of the product and get a better idea about its features, looks, benefits, etc. If your product really stands out in terms of quality, then the potential buyers would surely choose your products over the wide range of existing competition.
Marketplaces should even encourage the buyers to post reviews, recommendations and images of the products on social media after they have received them. They can also be e-mailed satisfaction survey sheets.
Payment Cycle
All payments received against orders have to be directed to a bank account. Your bank account is normally linked to your seller account during the initial registration stage.
Each marketplace has its own policy regarding payment cycles. Choose the e-commerce marketplace that is credible and offers you seamless and timely payment experience. Here are a few key points of consideration for seller payments:
Each marketplace has its own policy regarding payment cycles. Choose the e-commerce marketplace that is credible and offers you seamless and timely payment experience. Here are a few key points of consideration for seller payments:
- Fees charged
Know that e-commerce marketplaces are not free. You can register and upload item listings for free, but you are charged a fee on every sale made. Some marketplaces only take into account the final price offering or may add GST cut-offs. Always read the fee policies to get a better idea of what such fee is. Only then will you be able to create a competitive price range. Different e-commerce marketplaces charge different subscription costs for different commission plans. Choose the marketplace that provides you the needed services and one that fits well in your budget. - Delivery options
Online sellers have a choice in shipping and logistics handling. They can choose a self-ship mode, or the e-commerce platform owned dedicated delivery service. To get an exact idea, see what your local online marketplace is offering you.
What you choose will be determined by the item you sell, competitive pricing strategy and selling approach. - Addressing seller concerns
Over time, sellers get more confident about e-commerce marketplaces they have registered with. Still, there can be concerns and issues that need to be fixed. This can be in connection with order problems, return requests, questions on fees, etc. Choose an e-commerce marketplace that has dedicated resources to address your concerns and provide assistance as and when required.
Conclusion
There is so much more you can do when you become an online seller. Selling is simplified with Amazon. See how you can register your business on Amazon today.
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