An online marketplace is a virtual shopping centre where independent e-retailers offer their products. The facilitating site earns commission on the transactions made.
What are the advantages of a marketplace?
Their strong popularity among internet users (in 2015, 32% had already made a purchase through a marketplace);
the opportunity to reach a wider audience;
the ability to take advantage of a pre-existing platform (no web development costs);
no traffic acquisition costs;
no product listing fees;
built-in protection from non-payment, fraud and possible disputes;
certain marketplaces even offer to store and ship products for retailers
With these conditions, putting all or part of your catalogue on a marketplace allows e-retailers to greatly increase their audience and their sales.
Marketplace best practices
To get the most out of this sales channel, e-retailers should be familiar with a certain number of best practices, including:
selling on multiple marketplaces (general or specialised), selecting those with the best search engine rankings;
encouraging customer loyalty (by providing coupons for future purchases, for example);
being proactive and participating in as many promotional offers as possible (on good terms with the product manager) to ensure better visibility;
taking advantage of the marketplaces' audience to move products that have been difficult to sell in the past or that have been in stock for a while;
using a data feed management solution, which covers the publishing, updating and centralisation of product listings.
When utilised correctly, a marketplace can become a major traffic acquisition channel for an e-retailer.
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