Why and how to keep your own e-store converting even if you are boosting sales through marketplaces

Before we begin… let’s be clear. This is not a comparison of marketplaces and single-brand e-stores. Both channels can be powerful engines for sales and can be transformative for business. Each brand is unique and individual retailers are best placed to decide if they need one channel or both, as well as what balance works best.

Instead, I want to explain why—even if you are utilizing the awesome power of multi-vendor marketplaces to boost online sales—you still need to focus your online business around your own store. It’s the beating heart of your brand and you should treat it as such.

Why sell on marketplaces?

There are so many great reasons for retailers to use marketplaces to sell their products and services—all of which have been amplified by the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis. In fact, marketplaces have been a lifeline for retailers of all sizes, and especially for small businesses without their own existing e-commerce sites.

They allow retailers to reach a significantly larger number of potential customers than typical online stores. Retailers can, therefore, use marketplaces to shift more inventory, particularly stock that is not moving in the brand’s own store, such as out-of-season products, old lines, and overstocks. 

Even if your site is not making use of marketplaces as a primary or even secondary sales channel, your potential customers are—and not just to make purchases. For example, research shows that 90% of people visit Amazon to compare prices and products before committing to an online purchase. 

It’s tempting to think of marketplaces as the answer to everything for online retailers but there is still nothing more important to your business than the strength of your own store.

Why you need to keep focusing on conversion through your own e-store

A strong brand identity

First and foremost, remember that your website is the ONLY place where you are in complete control of your own brand identity and the integrity of your business. Social media sites and marketplaces may be great portals for communicating about your brand and sharing your products with the world, but your own website is the one place where you fully own every piece of space on the page and can showcase your brand in the design that fits your message. 

And it is a two-way street. Having a strong and recognizable brand makes you more likely to sell in volume on marketplaces. With so many vendors competing to sell similar products in the same space, it is hugely advantageous to be recognizable, as that is the basis for trust.

Giving customers choice

Many businesses see a split in the type of products they sell through different channels. They find that customers will naturally gravitate toward marketplaces for certain purchases but will usually seek out the brand’s own store for others. Mobile phones are a good example here; customers will happily buy accessories such as cases, headphones, and chargers from marketplaces, but will prefer to buy high-end products such as new phones directly from the producer as it guarantees authenticity and a high level of after-sales support. Understand which of your products buyers will want in each channel, then optimize your promotions, supply chain, and service accordingly to make sure that buyers get the best experience no matter where they are converting. 

How to keep your website converting

There are many actions you can take to optimize your e-commerce site. If I had to pinpoint just three things, in the context of making your site perform well in relation to marketplaces, I would highly recommend:

Responsive design

Make sure that people can view your site on any device and that it looks and works brilliantly on all sizes of screen. Marketplaces and social commerce are a step ahead of most e-commerce sites because they have checkouts and interfaces that work on mobile devices. This is now an expectation in the mobile world, not a nice-to-have feature.

A/B testing

If you have a composable or headless e-commerce site, you can easily test different versions of your storefront against one another and constantly calibrate your site to what works best for your customers. There are SaaS tools available that make this quite easy to set up and run, and the difference in conversion rates after even minor changes can be significant.

Retargeting using Deep Learning

Potential buyers see your products in different places around the web, so it is important to use to remind them where they should be finalizing their purchases. 

By using retargeting ads, you can send people directly to specific pages of your site for the products they have been browsing. This means that, even if they have gathered information elsewhere, they can easily convert in your store in only a few clicks.

Deep Learning is an important element here. There are so many moving parts to a customer’s online journey from discovery to conversion. It is almost impossible for humans to understand and interpret every action and then make the right offer at the exact right moment. Retargeting ads from RTB House are powered by Deep Learning algorithms that learn over time and constantly improve their own accuracy. It is an endless process of digital trial and error that goes far beyond any human capabilities and is much more effective than competitive AI-based or Machine Learning solutions. 

However, behind all the algorithms is a simple goal: helping your customers return to your site at the moment in which they are ready to make their purchase from you. In that way, Deep Learning retargeting ads are an effective tool for keeping your e-store as the beating heart of your brand.

If you want to know more about Deep Learning-powered retargeting for e-stores or marketplaces, feel free to contact me at any time. I’d love to talk more about what we do at RTB House.