Three steps to appear on eCommerce platforms
The e-commerce market is booming. Due to pandemics, more and more people buy goods online. The number of online shops is much bigger than in any shopping center, so customers, overwhelmed with possibilities, look for a way to compare the offers and find the cheapest. A shop with the cheapest offer can expect the customer to buy more products than they originally wanted and has an opportunity to convert the one-time buyer into a regular customer. But how do you choose the best eCommerce platform for your business, and how are you at the top of search results there?
Research
Currently, on the market, there are many e-commerce platforms (websites gathering offers, e.g., Google Shopping, Idealo, Shopzilla) and marketplaces (websites where one can sell a product, e.g., Amazon or eBay) where you can present products to customers. The question is, how to find the most suitable one for you? To answer this question, you should do two things. First, check how many competitors are present on considered websites—generally, the fewer competitors, the better. Second, check the price range of offers and the number of sellers placing the cheapest offer. The wider the price range, the less competitive the website is. Considering offers with the lowest price, the fewer there are, the better. Check if your current prices would be competitive and if your pricing strategy would allow you to compete with the offers you can find.
If you want to quickly check your products’ position on platforms and marketplaces and check who would be your biggest competitors, you can use a free Shop Analysis report.
In the initial research, check every website’s provisions and additional promotion fees. Then, check if the popularity of a website is worth paying more.
Choose where to compete.
After choosing the e-commerce platform or the marketplace you want to be present at, you must choose products you want to compete with. There is no need to be competitive with all your assortment. Choose your high-runners, the most popular products, and use them to bring people to your shop. Even though the earnings on selling particular products will not be spectacular, the return on investment will be generated from selling additional products. There is also another possibility if you are lucky enough. It is the best scenario if you find a niche where you can offer your popular products. Thanks to this, you will have a much earlier way to be on top listings, still keeping a high margin.
Adjust your prices
The price is one of the most important factors in the case of product listing in search results. And if you are on the top of the listing, you will acquire a huge part of customer flow. To succeed, you must always be a step ahead of your competitors. And it doesn’t always mean reducing your prices to be the cheapest. Sometimes, when the second offer is much higher than yours, you can increase your margin, remaining at the top of the listing. As you can expect, such an approach requires quite a lot of work and time. According to your price strategy, you should check your competitors’ processes and adjust your prices quickly.
Is there a way to make it easier? Especially if you want to stay competitive between different platforms, it is worth considering an automated price monitoring system. Such a tool gathers offers from chosen places and presents them in one place, with links to offers and their prices. Using such a solution, you can set the alarm, informing you via e-mail if your position on the listing changes, allowing you to take immediate action.
You can consider a dynamic pricing solution if it’s still not enough. Combined with price monitoring, it can adjust your prices automatically based on competitors’ offers, your pricing strategy, out-of-stock competitors, or several offers available in the market at a certain time.
Summary
Nowadays, offering products only on your online store is not enough. Being visible with your products on the most popular platforms will increase your website’s traffic, thus increasing your profits. Choose wisely what the best platform for your products is. Is it the most popular one, the cheapest one, or the one with fewer competitors? Check your competitors’ prices and adjust prices accordingly to be at the top of the search listings. If the manual adjustment is not enough for you, use automation to speed the process up, allowing you always to be one step ahead of other sellers.
Amadeusz Bathelt
Currently Project Manager in Dealavo. Graduate Mechanical Engineering, Applied Computer Science, and Management at the Technical University of Lodz. Amadeusz gathered his experience in many areas, as a manager in P&G, a manager in Krav Maga school, and designing an ultra-fast Pod called Hyperloop for SpaceX.
