To remain competitive, brands need to meet consumers where they shop. And as shoppers become increasingly channel-agnostic, marketplaces help brands and retailers an opportunity to diversify their online presence, by bringing in new customers.
Marketplaces are critical for brands. Not only do they act as an additional sales channel, but they also increase brand awareness, leading to direct customer acquisition. They can be a great way to expand into new markets and often provide a complete end-to-end experience for customers.
Consider the following questions when thinking about your marketplace strategy:
- What role does each marketplace play in my overall brand goals? (eg: international expansion, shifting discounted or overstocked products, or brand awareness)
- What will you stock on each marketplace? For example, will you stock discounted items only, your full product array, or only a selection of items?
- How will you handle the technology? It has become much easier to connect to marketplaces with a solutions provider that integrates your back-end system and connects you to multiple marketplaces.
- What ecosystem will I need? Marketplace integrators like ChannelEngine offer a complete toolkit that handles content management, translations, and financial administration, while also delivering advanced pricing and repricing tools tailored to match each marketplace and country.
But you’ll also need to consider fulfillment and what you want to do in-house. The answer to your marketplace strategy will vary widely according to your brand and the kind of products you sell.
For example, a luxury fashion retailer might want to consider more of an exclusive arrangement than a budget home cooking equipment brand.
Developing a marketplace strategy that aligns with your brand’s goals is crucial, but once you’ve considered the broader distribution questions, it’s time to take action. Expanding to new marketplaces is an exciting opportunity to reach new customers and diversify your revenue streams.
So, you’ve decided you want to expand! Whether you’re an experienced seller or just testing the waters, expanding to new marketplaces can feel overwhelming. But with the right tools and strategy, the process can be smoother than you think.
Expanding into new markets is a game-changer, offering access to millions of potential customers.
However, each marketplace comes with its own set of requirements and challenges. To help guide you, we’ve created this step-by-step guide that outlines the marketplace expansion process you can follow using ChannelEngine.
Plus, we’ve got an exciting downloadable resource for you - our Marketplace Expansion Pack.
Step-by-step guide for expanding to new marketplaces:
Step 1: Do you already know which marketplace?
Choosing the right marketplace is the very first step in your expansion journey.
If you’re unsure where to begin, consider factors like the customer base, competition, and fees for each marketplace. You can also explore the full list of marketplaces we support here.
If you're already using ChannelEngine, feel free to chat with your Customer Success Manager (CSM) for advice tailored just for you. And if you want a quick overview on picking the right marketplace, check out our blog on Selling on Multiple Marketplaces - it covers 7 key things you’ll want to keep in mind.
Step 2: Got your seller account set up?
This step is usually straightforward but it's very important to do it right- set up an account on your new marketplace. Depending on whether the marketplace is open (e.g., Amazon) or closed (e.g., Zalando), the process can vary.
For example, marketplaces like bol have very specific requirements for European sellers. But don’t worry, ChannelEngine helps simplify this step by ensuring your credentials are ready and that your data complies with marketplace requirements from the start.
Step 3: Ready to set up your marketplace presence?
Now that you’ve got your seller account, it’s time to get your products and brand ready for success on the marketplace. A well-organized setup can significantly boost your visibility and sales right from the start.
Here’s a breakdown of the key elements you’ll need to cover:
Product listings compliance
Each marketplace has its own set of rules for product listings - this includes everything from image formats to specific product attributes.
For example, Amazon may require different image dimensions than bol or Walmart, and categories might have mandatory fields that need to be filled in.
Our marketplace integration software can make this easier by helping you adapt your listings to meet marketplace-specific criteria, ensuring that your products are approved quickly and without hassle.
This reduces the risk of listing rejections and saves you from manually adjusting product content for each marketplace.
Content and category mapping
Getting your content and category mapping right from the start is essential for visibility and discoverability. Marketplaces categorize products differently, and if your product isn’t mapped correctly to the right category, it might not even show up in relevant searches.
Correct mapping also helps with SEO, making sure your listings rank higher on the marketplace’s internal search engine. We simplify this step for you by automatically mapping your product data to the correct categories for each marketplace, helping you optimize your listings from day one.
Pricing rules
Setting the right pricing is key to staying competitive and maximizing profitability across marketplaces. Marketplaces often have different fee structures, and your competitors might price their products differently on each platform. You can set up different pricing rules, so you can automatically adjust prices based on competitors, marketplace fees, or your own profitability goals.
Additionally, the coveted buy box, a feature available on some marketplaces and in certain regions, can make a big difference in visibility and sales. We can support you in managing your buy box strategy, helping you stay competitive where it matters most. By managing pricing efficiently, you can stay ahead of the competition while maintaining healthy margins.
These are just three key factors to consider when setting up your brand and products on a new marketplace, but of course, there are many other elements to keep in mind. And we're here to guide you every step of the way.
Step 4: How’s your inventory looking?
You've got listings ready, and now managing inventory is the next important step. Expanding to new marketplaces can increase the complexity of inventory management, making it harder to avoid stockouts or overselling. We sync inventory across all your marketplaces in almost-real-time, ensuring your stock levels are accurate everywhere, which keeps your customers happy and your operations running smoothly.
Step 5: Time to start selling and manage those orders
Handling orders from different marketplaces could become chaotic without the right process in place. But with our platform, you can centralize your order management, so no matter where the order originates, from Amazon or Cdiscount, you’ll have a single interface to manage fulfillment and returns, track shipments, and ensure on-time delivery.
Step 6: What’s next? Optimize your operations
Once your marketplace expansion is up and running, it’s all about optimizing. Use our Insights module to fine-tune your strategies, automate more of your tasks, and improve efficiency as you scale across multiple marketplaces.
Success stories from our customers
Let’s take a look at two brands that used ChannelEngine to expand their marketplace footprint:
Azerty - a Dutch electronics retailer
They successfully expanded across multiple European marketplaces with us. By automating tasks like product listings, order management, and inventory syncing, Azerty streamlined its operations, allowing the team to focus on growth.
With ChannelEngine’s support, they efficiently scaled their business and maintained consistent performance across all channels.
Read more about their journey with us here.
Brabantia - a global homeware brand
They expanded across Europe with ChannelEngine, streamlining operations across multiple marketplaces, including Amazon and Bol. This helped them increase their sales significantly while keeping operations lean.
Read more about their journey with us here.
Simplifying expansion with ChannelEngine
Expanding to a new marketplace doesn’t have to be something that gives you nightmares. With ChannelEngine, you can easily integrate with new marketplaces, sync data across multiple platforms, and ensure that all your operations: inventory, orders, and compliance, are managed from a single platform.
The best part? You can focus more on growing your business, while we handle the behind-the-scenes complexity.
