How to Sell More Through Third-Party E-commerce Marketplaces

Introduction

The e-commerce industry has witnessed a tectonic shift in terms of volume and revenue in recent years. With 30-35 million new customers, the e-retail sector grew by 25% in the year 2021¹. Mobile internet penetration and pandemic has transformed customer shopping behaviour, and businesses are now relying more on e-commerce platforms to target customers with their products or services.

Recognizing the potential of the online retail industry, Indian retailers are gradually shifting their focus to third-party ecommerce marketplaces, such as Shopify. It has features for everyone, from beginners to ecommerce experts, that allow them to showcase their products, interact with customers, sell products, and accept payments. Retailers can sell a variety of physical and digital products and can also provide services and consultation through third-party ecommerce marketplaces.

The Importance of Selling through Third-party Marketplace

So, what are third-party ecommerce platforms? Also known as e-marketplaces, these platforms manage and host online sales for different brands in exchange for a small fee. Businesses of all sizes can easily access these e-marketplaces to sell their products. Selling your products on third-party marketplaces can help in expanding your business as half of the online product searches are done on third-party marketplaces. Retailers who don’t use the opportunity of third-party marketplaces are losing a huge amount of profits. Take the example of Amazon’s Prime service. There are almost 90 million subscribers who spend approximately $1300/year on the platform. Some of the benefits of selling through these channels include:

• Growth in sales
• Accessibility to new and global markets
• Brand awareness
• Reduction in logistics expenditure
• Exposure of your products to a new customer base

To leverage these benefits, listing your products on third-party market places is not enough. You also need to take steps to stand out from the crowd. Here’s how you can do it.

Use Keyword Optimization to Make the Product Discoverable

The key is to make your product discoverable by your target audience. Use more specific keywords that are targeted to the products you sell. Use a combination of generic, category-based and product-related keywords to make your product discoverable. Avoid choosing too broad or competitive keywords as it will increase the bounce rate and lead to a low conversion rate. Use keywords with SEO difficulty (SD) of 50 or less. Make sure keywords are present in strategic positions such as Page title, headers, sub-heads, product descriptions, Image file names and alt tags, meta titles and description.

Focus on Product Page Optimization

In addition to using the right keywords, you also need to focus on optimizing the product pages to improve the ranking. Product page optimization focuses on all the steps that you take to help your site rank better. Without optimizing the product pages, you will lose out on the SEO advantages. Optimizing the images, product descriptions, using keywords for the product titles, adding product review schema are the details that you need to focus on to make your product discoverable by customers.

Include Relevant Customer Reviews

Building trust among customers is necessary to establish a long-term relationship. An easy way to do this is by adding customer reviews. Customers consider reviews as proof and assure that they are spending on the right product. A lot of customers rely on customer reviews and rating to make an informed buying decision. Take the help of email marketing to request your customers to share their honest review of the latest product they purchased. However, steer clear of paid reviews as sites such as Amazon crack hard on fake reviews. Make sure you send a thank you email to the reviewers as this will also help in establishing you as a trustworthy brand.

Take the help of Content

The role of content can never be ignored when it comes to marketing. Creating interesting product descriptions is not enough if you want to stand out. Write articles that are related directly to your products with a CTA that redirects the reader to your product page. In addition, you can also use popular Q&A forums such as Quora or Yahoo Answers to promote your product by sharing the link of your product page. Apart from this, you can also use your social media optimization to attract more customers.

Keep a Check on the Authenticity

One of the issues that a lot of websites face is dealing with duplicate pages. As suggested by SEMRush, almost all the websites have a duplicate page. However, when it comes to e-commerce websites, duplicate pages are generated automatically. A product when entered twice on the database can end up with duplicate content. To avoid this, conduct careful site analysis. In addition, keep a track of any fake stores or sellers as it will impact your credibility.

Conclusion

Third-party marketplace selling is the next big thing and is here to stay. Instead of treating it as a nuisance, you can take advantage of the situation to earn more profit and reach your target audience. However, to increase sales on an e-commerce store, increasing your visibility on Google is equally important. To do that, you need to take the help of an expert digital marketing agency such as Envigo. We have a team of experts who research and implement techniques that will help you sell more on third-party e-commerce marketplaces.