14 Tips on How to Improve Your Retail Sales on an Online Marketplace
Customers love having the ability to browse and shop for a wide range of products without having to search through multiple websites, that’s why online marketplaces are the most popular mode of online shopping. Because of the favourable reputation, many retailers are turning to marketplaces as part of their sales strategy and it can be difficult to break through the competition and generate more sales.
There are a few ways to improve your online sales on an online marketplace, and in this blog we will go through some of the ways to ensure your success and how to list your products on various marketplaces.
WHAT IS AN ONLINE MARKETPLACE?
A marketplace is an online platform where multiple retailers can sell their products alongside each other, and is a great strategy for stores looking to tap into more potential customers. Some popular online marketplaces include businesses such as Amazon, eBay and Catch.
92 per cent of online shoppers use online marketplaces, so making sure you’re doing it right is crucial to ensuring your products entice customers to add to cart.
Why should retail stores list their products in an online marketplace?
Online marketplaces are the most popular places for people to shop online, and they take up a massive 35 per cent of all online purchases globally. They make up the biggest share of the ecommerce world, so it makes sense why most retailers are now choosing to list their products on multiple marketplace platforms.
Marketplaces open the door for new business partnerships and allow retailers and online sales associates to gain a much larger customer base. They have also been shown to drive online sales by approximately 1,250 per cent.
How do online marketplaces help your business scale and grow?
There are many benefits to selling on an online marketplace:
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Expands your selling capabilities
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Increases retail sales
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Boosts customer trust
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Adds additional selling channels
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Reduces costs related to marketing strategies
Online marketplaces allow you to have your products seen by a much wider range of customers, your products are more likely to come up as one of the top hits on search engines, and people are more likely to trust your products if they’re listed on an online marketplace, all of which help your business grow exponentially.
14 WAYS TO INCREASE RETAIL SALES ON ONLINE MARKETPLACE:
Enhance your product listings
The first step to improving your online sales on an online marketplace is ensuring your content is enhanced for the specific marketplace algorithm. Researching and using keyword strategies allows for search engine optimisation and will guarantee your products come up in customer searches regularly. Not only does this give your products more exposure but it also means it will be more likely seen by potential customers. Keywords will be what helps the algorithm decide on where to place you on their website, and will be vital to ensuring the accessibility of your product listing.
Using words such as outdoor or living room in your product titles and descriptions might be the difference between you and your competitors, and you should also ensure descriptions are written in simple terms that are easy for the customer to skim over and understand. Using bullet points to pinpoint the main product details you want to showcase is a great way to draw the eye and catch the attention of potential customers.
Another way to enhance your listings is by using good quality product images. Most marketplaces will want the main image to be on a white background with the majority of the product in focus. Your images should be high-quality and large to avoid grainy images and to give a detailed idea of the product for zoom in purposes, as larger images can increase retail sales by up to nine per cent.
Making sure your products are listed in the correct categories will help to ensure your products are being seen by your target audience. Categorisation is extremely important for the sales of your products, as any items listed in the wrong categories will be lost in the marketplace algorithm. Retailers should be specific when categorising their products to increase the visibility of their products and the likelihood that more customers will make a purchase.
Choose a niche market
Online marketplaces, especially the most popular ones like Amazon and eBay, have a lot of sellers already, so choosing a niche market will help you create a unique selling point for new customers and increase your customer conversion rate.
Having a niche is a great way to narrow down your marketing strategies to save money and time, as it is much easier to target a specific audience rather than trying to reach the broader population as a whole. It also makes it much easier for your SEO strategies as you can focus on particular trends to grow your sales.
Choosing the right marketplace for your niche will also help to ensure your success. For example, if you specialise in homemade, vintage-style goods, Etsy will be the best option for you. If your items have more of a broad range of categories, Amazon and eBay might be the way to go. If household items or furniture is your niche, Dropshipzone will be the best option for your items as customers are more likely to search for the items they want on a marketplace that is known for a specific niche.
You’ll also find yourself facing fewer competitors if you choose to go with an online marketplace that mirrors your chosen product niche. Best of all, when you focus on a particular selection of products, you can become an expert in the field and be more likely to build customer trust.
List products on multiple marketplaces
You are more likely to see an increase in your online sales if you choose to list on multiple marketplaces, as your products will be seen by a wider audience and customers can choose to buy your products on their favourite platforms.
Actively planning your listings and having an accurate idea of how best to sell on each marketplace will help you to avoid paying more attention to one marketplace compared to others. Retailers should take into account the fees for each marketplace and calculate if the workload is worth the increased profits.
Listing on Amazon
89 per cent of shoppers say they are more likely to buy from Amazon compared to other ecommerce marketplaces, so it’s safe to say customers trust Amazon. However, because of its popularity, retailers are more likely to face a large number of competitors.
If you choose to list your products on Amazon, you can either ship the products yourself or use Amazon FBA, which includes the handling of your products once they arrive in Amazon warehouses, and Amazon will also take care of customer returns on your behalf.
The most important tips for selling on Amazon:
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Main images must have a white background and be high-quality, try to have your product fill at least 85 per cent of the image.
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Include secondary images of the products being used in lifestyle situations or showcase key features.
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Choose a relevant title for your listing, making it as clear as possible and including keywords.
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Write easy to read descriptions, including things like colour, age range, special features and style.
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Include bullet points of the main product features and benefits, use relevant keywords and keep concise.
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Amazon’s search engine bases its data on product performance and relevance.
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You must have available stock levels to improve your online sales conversion – no stock means no retail sales.
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Customer ratings of four stars or higher are more likely to rank higher on the marketplace than products with lower than four stars. Amazon is also known to reward retailers who consistently respond to negative customer reviews with solutions or help promptly.
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Amazon gives the option of adding hidden keywords that are placed in the backend of your listing to improve visibility on the algorithm.
Amazon has ongoing fees to sell on their marketplace, and you can calculate how much you will be paying here.
Listing on eBay
eBay is the most popular online marketplace for Australians, so it offers a great opportunity to get your products out there and known by customers. In 2022, eBay was reporting more than 100 million active users, and 18 million active sellers, so like Amazon, listing your items on eBay means you must have the motivation and drive to work hard to sell competitively.
The most important tips for selling on eBay:
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Get to know the ins and outs of eBay’s algorithm as this will be the first step to helping you generate a profit.
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Think about offering free shipping, as eBay experts state that offering free shipping will help to improve the visibility of your items on the marketplace.
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61 per cent of eBay’s online sales are made on mobile phones, so it is important you are using omnichannel services to promote your products.
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Use good-quality images to help promote your product listings and follow eBay’s listing policies. They are there for a reason and will help to ensure the success and visibility of your items.
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Use accurate and concise product descriptions and titles, making sure to use relevant keywords to help improve your SEO.
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Include item specifications including colour and size, but also include things like intended activity (mountain bike), popular keywords (waterproof) and best use (outdoor). It is best to ask yourself if you are describing your products as clearly and accurately as possible and place yourself in the customer’s shoes.
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Ensure your products are listed in the correct categories. If you have a niche product line then the more specific the better.
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Use at least three images for each product listing, and try to include images of the product being used in lifestyle situations to make them more marketable.
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Use alt text for your images to improve the accessibility of your listing. This also helps with eBay’s algorithm and will ensure your products are listed towards the top of customer search results.
You can see eBay’s full list of selling fees here.
Listing on Dropshipzone
Dropshipzone is Australia’s leading B2B2C marketplace that uses the dropshipping model to make it easier for retailers to get their items to their customers and is a great option for suppliers looking to list their products on a large platform or retailers wanting to sell more products without worrying about inventory upkeep. A third of all online businesses choose to use the dropshipping method because it is the easiest way to distribute a high volume of goods with minimal effort and planning needed.
Dropshipzone offers Sofortig, an in-house app built to automatically sync your stock levels, and provide you with regular inventory updates. It also offers a shipping fee calculator, so you can plan out your finances easily.
We spoke to John Barkle, General Manager of Dropshipzone, about why he thinks you should sell on Dropshipzone. Here’s what he had to say:
‘Retailers and suppliers should consider selling on Dropshipzone because it will give their products exposure to over 1,000 successful small-to-medium online retailers that are dropshipping products to their own end consumers. In other words, Dropshipzone helps suppliers sell more, more often.’
John also spoke about his tips for selling on marketplace:
‘The suppliers that I have watched be wildly successful on marketplaces, including Dropshipzone, are those that nail their product content. They put the effort in to ensure their product photography is best-in-class. They make sure to have product titles and descriptions that perfectly sum up the product's features, specifications and uses.’
Some other important tips for suppliers looking to list on Dropshipzone include:
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Don’t include symbols or all caps in your titles as this will impact the visibility of your listing.
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Use capital letters for the beginning of each word in the listing titles.
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Don’t use suggestive commentary like ‘best’ or ‘high-quality’, this can be misleading for the customer and may result in negative reviews.
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Put product benefits and the most popular keywords at the beginning of your description.
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Use high-quality images with a white background for the main image. It is best to have your images at 1,000 DPI (dots per inch) so customers can zoom in and see the full quality of the product.
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The product should occupy at least 80 per cent of the image area, and should only include what the customer will receive.
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Keep your font size to 16 pixels.
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Keep descriptions to 250-300 words.
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The more frequently you are involved in your marketplace profile the more likely your products are going to be noticed on the marketplace, so upload regularly and edit current product listings to coincide with current trending keywords.
Dropshipzone is free to join and has no ongoing fees unlike eBay and Amazon, and you can learn more about the marketplace here.
Keep pricing competitive
One of the most important retail sales tips is to make sure you are offering the best price for your product. Online marketplaces are extremely price competitive, so it's best to ensure your price is on par with your competitors. A one or two dollar difference in price may just be the difference between your or your competitor winning the sale .
It’s important to analyse and compare prices of products similar to your own to give your customers the best price possible. It’s also best to keep your pricing the same across all platforms to gain customer trust and keep satisfied customers returning.
Amazon offers different pricing tools to help you automatically find the best price, so you can be alerted if your prices are among the best or if you need to lower your prices, and many marketplaces have similar tools to help their sellers succeed.
Set key goals
Setting key goals for your online business is a great way to stay on track and keep in mind what you want to achieve. Goals give you a sense of purpose to work towards, which can be applied to increasing your sales on online marketplaces.
Some ideas for goals to have is a customer rating of above four stars or having a specific number of units you want to sell in a certain timeframe, just make sure your goals are specific and can be measured. Think about any long-term and short-term goals you may have for your business, as this will allow you to plan for the future rather than waiting to see if your sales improve over time without any strategies to help. Setting goals is an effective tactic for creating success and staying motivated. You are guaranteed to see an increase in your online sales if you are striving to achieve specific goals in an appropriate time frame.
Use SEO and SEM strategies
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and is a way for search engines like Google to measure a webpage’s visibility by using measures such as keywords and descriptions on websites. Optimising your SEO will mean your listings are more likely to come up in a customer’s search, so it’s essential to learn what keywords, tags and titles are trending to increase the likelihood of your products appearing first in a Google search.
SEM is Search Engine Marketing, and unlike SEO, it is a paid way to use marketing and advertising strategies to increase the visibility of your products by using keywords to optimise your ads for search engines. Investing in paid search is a great way to increase sales and ensure the success of your products on online marketplaces.
50 per cent of consumers in Australia use search engines to begin their product search, so if you can’t optimise your product listings for search engines like Google or Bing, they may be lost in the abyss of the internet. Just because your items may be listed on popular marketplaces like Amazon or eBay doesn’t mean they will automatically show up in a customer search, and you need to spend as much time on your SEO strategies as you would with on your website.
Retailers can use programs like SEMrush or Ubersuggest to figure out what keywords are trending, for example including the term ‘living room’ when selling a rug might make it more likely to show up in a search engine if living room rugs are trending. You can also use Google Trends to start to get an idea of the trending searches at the moment and localise the data so it is relevant to where you are selling.
Get to know your competitors
In order to improve your net sales, you need to get familiar with your chosen marketplace, and more importantly with what the most successful sellers are doing to make them stand out.
Read the ratings and reviews of your competitors to see how you can be better. Are people complaining about slow shipping times or damaged orders? Are they happy with the price and value of the products? Reviews can tell you a lot about what your customers are looking for, and are a valuable tool to help you increase your sales on online marketplaces. You could even order products and return them to see how their returns policies work and find any ways you can improve.
You can also regularly check if your competitors sell out of products as this can help you decide on marketing strategies, and gives you the chance to be the chosen retailer of customers who usually shop elsewhere.
Track customer shopping habits
Retailers can improve the experience of their customers by knowing what they want, and this is achieved by tracking their shopping habits to better understand their needs.
Using a customer journey map is a great tool to track customer experience, from their initial purchase to the level of support they got from the retailer. You can also measure ongoing marketing campaign conversions to determine what customers respond to. Using this data will help to increase the likelihood of a customer repeating their purchase, and can also bring in new customers through word of mouth recommendations.
Connect with existing customers and new customers
Social media can help to bring in a new range of customers, as well as build relationships with your existing customers. By using a mix of different social channels, you'll be able to promote your products and help increase sales. In fact, social selling statistics tell us that retailers are 51 per cent more likely to meet their sales targets when implementing a social sales strategy. Using social commerce can allow customers to purchase directly from social media channels, making customers more likely to buy your products simply due to convenience.
Retailers can also promote their products on social media. If you are an already established business with a significant audience on social media, letting your customers know you are selling on marketplaces will invite more sales, and this might even bring in new customers. You can also post products with added customer testimonials to build social proof amongst your brand. Posting regularly with working links on your social media is a great way to help boost your sales on an online marketplace.
It is also important to integrate keyword strategies into your social media posts, just as you would with your product listings. Using things like hashtags and keywords in your captions can help place you in the relevant places so you are more likely to be seen by customers scrolling their social media.
Use marketing campaigns to promote online sales
Marketing strategies are important for your brand visibility, and they allow you to highlight the strengths of your products for more consumers to see and interact with. This is an important step to increasing your sales, and adequate planning is needed to ensure you are making the most of each campaign.
Understanding your goals and what you want to achieve is the first step to effective marketing, but you also need to get to know your audience to help you build your campaigns. You can track customer responses to your marketing strategies, and this will help you figure out what works and what doesn’t when it comes to your consumers.
Using social media marketing is a great way to connect you to more customers, and is a cost-effective and easy way to market goods. Understanding how best to use hashtags and keywords will also help to increase the visibility of your marketing campaigns on social media to make sure your products are being seen by your intended audience.
Creating blog posts is another great marketing strategy as you can promote your products within informative blogs, like a style guide for your living room. You can also use email marketing to promote your blog posts and make your customers aware of promotions. The most important thing to remember is to choose the marketing strategies that will work best for your business and your goals.
Have great customer service
Your reputation with your customers matters, they are your number one supporters and can make or break the success of your online business. Having great customer service can also invite great customer testimonials, which can be displayed on your storefront or on social media.
You should aim to reply to customer queries and reviews promptly, offering solutions where applicable as most online marketplace algorithms find this highly favourable. Setting up an automated message or email to thank customers for their purchase will help improve customer satisfaction and increase your customer conversion rate.
92 per cent of customers say they are much more likely to buy a product again from a retailer if the returns policy is easy, so another way to be known for your great customer service is by having a reasonable returns policy that is user-friendly while also having a fair time frame. Customers respond better to products that have a good returns policy and are likely to abandon their cart if they see a product is non-refundable.
Ask for customer reviews
Studies show that 91 per cent of shoppers read customer reviews before purchasing a product, and the average consumer is happy to spend 31 per cent more on products if it has a large number of positive reviews.
When people are browsing online marketplaces, there are much more likely to click on the items with the most reviews and will trust that those products will fulfil expectations. It can be difficult to gain an adequate amount of reviews, so the best thing to do is to ask your customers for them. You can set up an automated email or message system that will be sent once the customer has received and used your product to ask for their thoughts. The majority of the time, if you have met expectations and delivered items promptly, customers will be more than happy to rate your products and share their thoughts.
Having customer reviews can help you drive sales, adds to your SEO, can help customers make decisions and also helps to improve your brand recognition, so it is safe to say that reviews are one of the key steps to improving your sales on online marketplaces.
Offer free shipping
The free shipping model is another way to increase your sales on marketplaces, and although it isn’t essential, customers are more likely to choose your products over a competitor with a fixed shipping price.
If you’re worried about losing out on a profit because you’re offering free shipping, you can cover the cost of the shipping by increasing product prices slightly across all of your platforms, that way you are keeping customers happy by offering free shipping with reasonably priced products.
With free shipping, you are much more likely to build a positive relationship with your customers while also reducing cart abandonment, as many shoppers will choose to abandon their cart if the price of shipping seems unreasonable.
Choose the best suppliers
Choosing the right suppliers for your business is an incredibly important part of creating success, and a lot of thought should be put into who you choose as a retailer as this will help to streamline your supply chain and create the best shipping times for customers.
Not only should retailers choose the suppliers offering the best price, but also based on the plans they have in place for risk management and how they handle customer service and returns. Building relationships between suppliers will decrease the likelihood of any communication errors and will help you to meet marketplace selling standards which will in turn improve customer experience.
Summary
There are lots of ways to increase online sales. If you're looking to improve or optimise your retail store on an online marketplace, then choosing to list your products on one or multiple is an effective way to increase your customer reach.
To make the most of online marketplaces, it’s important to think about things like making sure your content is accessible by using relevant keywords and high-quality images and creating great customer relationships by offering free shipping and competitive prices.
If you’re looking to list your products on an online marketplace and increase retail sales, Dropshipzone has lower risks and costs than other marketplaces, and suppliers and retailers can keep on top of supply and demand without issues of overstock. There are many benefits to using Dropshipzone, so sign up today and begin selling on Australia’s leading B2B2C marketplace.
