By Ryan Elich, Jazva
Building a successful online marketplace
forces you to think carefully about the products and services that today’s
consumers want. With hundreds of competitors out there, you need a smart
strategy that will attract people to your site and improve your online
marketplace sales.
Questions To Ask
Yourself About Your E-Commerce Site
You can start making your e-Commerce site
more successful by asking yourself questions. Some of the most important
questions to pose include:
●
Have I targeted my audience well?
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●
Do I give shoppers the services they want?
●
Does my site make it easy for customers to find
the products they want to buy?
●
Why are some shoppers choosing other marketplaces
over mine?
●
Do I offer more value than reigning sites like
Amazon and Walmart Marketplace?
When you know the answers to these
questions, you’re on the right path to online marketplace growth.
What Makes A Marketplace
Successful?
Successful online marketplace sites need
to do more than sell items at low prices. Success comes from attracting and
retaining shoppers. Your online store isn’t successful until consumers start to
trust your site and buy from it repeatedly.
The amount of money that you earn matters,
of course. Why would you create a marketplace if you didn’t want to earn money?
The money, however, comes as a result of making your site successful. If you
focus on money instead of the customer experience, then you won’t find much
success in e-Commerce.
Follow these three concepts to make your
marketplace more attractive to consumers.
1. Give buyers solutions
to their problems
Shoppers want to use online marketplaces
that can help them solve their problems. At a basic level, most people buy things
because the items will solve an issue. The issue could be that they need new
clothing for winter, video games to ease their boredom or mousetraps to end an
infestation.
You also need to solve some of the
common problems that consumers face when they shop online. Providing excellent
customer services, fast delivery and comprehensive product reviews can make
your marketplace stand out from others.
2. Provide secure, easy
payment options
Today’s consumers understand the high
risk of identity theft, so they try to avoid e-Commerce stores that don’t give
them secure payment options. Sophisticated shoppers also pay attention to web site
security, because they know that poor security gives hackers more opportunities
to install malware that steals payment information.
Your marketplace needs to offer secure,
easy payment options that consumers feel comfortable using. Ideally, your
online store will accept several payment options, including PayPal and Stripe.
Some customers, however, will want to use their credit cards. Make sure you
protect their security by verifying payment information with tools like
Authorize.net and Payment XP.
3. Offer features that Amazon
lacks
Nearly two-thirds of online shoppers
purchase items from Amazon. The company has become so popular that many people
automatically use it when they want to buy anything from salt to artwork.
If you’re going to attract shoppers, you
need to offer features that online marketplaces like Amazon lack.
In Amazon’s quest to capture a larger
market share from online marketplaces in the USA and international
marketplaces, the company’s customer services have suffered. Customers can
still return purchases for free, and the company provides rapid shipping. That
means you need to focus on adding value to your marketplace.
You can draw customers away from Amazon
by giving shoppers detailed descriptions of your products, answering their
questions as quickly as possible and providing personable service. Something as
simple as sending your customers a follow-up email can help your marketplace
stand out. Making it easy for shoppers to reach customer service
representatives is even more helpful since trying to get an answer from Amazon
is nearly impossible.
Final Thoughts
Luck plays a role in every marketplace’s
success. No amount of luck, however, can make a bad marketplace successful.
Start by focusing on the things that matter most to your customers. Then,
you’ve positioned your marketplace to grow when you get your lucky break.
Ryan Elich is the sales leader for Jazva, a unified multi-channel e-Commerce solution
that manages orders, listings, inventory and shipping, all through one
platform. For the last eight years he’s been fortunate to work with hundreds of
retailers, brands and wholesalers from a range of sectors, helping them to
automate their back office operations so that they can concentrate on sales
& digital marketing. Outside of work, his passion is selling baby potty
training products online. He enjoys time with family, fantasy sports and
Disneyland.
