Being a noticeable D2C brand that stands out in digital clutter today is perplexing, also the ever-increasing product whitespace battle between brands jostling to make a name or gain a spot in digital real estate. The recent D2C boost in India, fuelled by the pandemic, is not only bringing legacy brands but also a wave of new brands online. In this highly competitive market, the best way to get the much-needed initial boost for your brand is to set up a channel of sales on marketplaces.

Want to know more about how marketplaces can boost your eCommerce sales? Keep reading;

Building Credibility through Marketplaces 

To build credibility with your customers, so they can trust you, accessibility and transparency are an absolute must — in tandem these two standpoints exhibit care, and that care constructs trust.

Marketplaces make your brand transparent. It gives a complete story on everything and keeps a reliable and familiar customer experience. Customers trust marketplaces, owing to their existence for quite a while, and don’t rethink the shopping process. That inherent trust is a major piece of what makes marketplaces so convenient and reliable.

In a 2021 review, 70% of online customers referred to marketplaces as the “most convenient” way of buying products. Convenience and satisfaction tend to come from that implicit trust, predictable ease of use, and membership packages, which incentivize customers to get the best value through timely purchases.

Product discovery and suggestive algorithms drive high conversion of products on marketplaces regardless of the awareness of your brand among digital buyers.

Greater Brand Visibility and Positioning 

Building a digital-first brand is a continuous struggle. A significant advantage of selling on marketplaces lies in their dynamic, diverse, and robust audiences.

Customers who shop online typically turn to their favoured marketplaces. There is a high possibility that your products will sell if your brand is there. This can also eliminate a portion of the labor & capital that goes into marketing, driving traffic, and overseeing leads.

Instead of building the following from scratch, you can leverage the trustworthiness of markets to entice more clients at a lower cost. It’s not just about the initial acquisition, marketplace customers convert to repeat customers easily and come back to purchase more from the platform. As a marketplace brand, you can easily work on improving your brand awareness among your key target group and even extend to various demographics.

In contrast to traditional D2C SEO, you can increase consumer volume while spending less money by utilising the SEO capabilities of marketplaces. Since marketplaces have an extensive catalogue of products, usage of A+ content will help you to index your brand and products better. Strong SEO practices for optimal marketplace reach also mean higher rankings on popular search engines.

An Array of Payment Processing Options

In regard to online payment methods, more is always better. Customers like to pay for shopping through different payment options, for instance, UPI, Debit/Credit card, Buy Now Pay Later integrations, Wallet, etc. Hence, to empower customers to convert and push their impulse to shop, your official website must provide various payment options to customers. Several factors influence the customer’s decision of making payment from the options available:

• Processing fees
• Scale and cost-based availability
• Location, speed, hosting-based technicalities
• Personal preference

The payment handling setup on the marketplaces has been designed in such a way that enables sellers to have a quick as well as an easy management system. This system even permits customers to convert rapidly and maximise conversions after A2C. Furthermore, the payment handling process on marketplaces is secure, convenient, and available in multiple choices.

Quicker, more reliable shipping

Satisfaction assumptions for online stores are rising. In regard to making a purchase, 40% of customers say that a delivery time of two days or more would keep them from purchasing; moreover, 63% of purchasers expect orders to show up in three days or less.

As a web-based seller, you need to give the greatest experience from screen to delivery, yet that isn’t always attainable. When it comes to digital commerce, the greatest obstacles to customer satisfaction are the post-order, and the last mile journey. The last mile journey is generally out of your hands as soon as the order is transported. Lastly, the most common problem that plagues most Indian eCommerce brands — RTOs and returns.

Marketplaces offer mechanised services that wipe out the burden of order fulfilment at minimal additional expense. When you consider the scope of post-sale processes and overhead expenses, the charges of services like Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) and Myntra Fulfilment Centre are a little price to pay for the immense value they offer.

With the right marketplace fulfilment solution, any small to medium brand can scale its business without affecting quality or accessibility.

Streamlined Stock Management

Stock management is another area of risk that can prompt a huge number of issues and expenses, all of which adversely impact the bottom line of your business.

If you’re considering leveraging marketplaces to scale your business, having a powerful stock management framework is the ground zero. Scaling a business doesn’t mean dealing with additional orders. Scaling a business is also about building your expenses in all cases (manufacturing, fulfilment, advertising, and so on). Automated stock systems permit you to scale your brand while minimising expenses smoothly.

Fulfilment services like FBA and Myntra Fulfilment Centre automate inventory management processes and solve some of the most common eCommerce inventory challenges, such as:

• Managing products in different locations
• Communicating between suppliers
• Overselling and/or overstocking
• Limited data insights
• Manual sales management
• Return and refund processing
• When you embrace marketplace automation, you streamline inventory management and fulfilment logistics and get actionable insights to improve your processes

Global Reach

Marketplaces bring global shopping experiences right into your smartphone for shoppers from one side of the planet to the other. They empower you to seek after cross-border selling while avoiding all the common pitfalls and struggles of localization. Because of an implicit worldwide framework, you can depend on marketplaces to assist you with selling to anybody, from any place, and whenever needed.

Ready to take your brand online? GreenHonchos can prove to be a growth partner for your brand. Helping kickstart, execute and manage the growth of over 200 leading D2C brands, GreenHonchos is a leading full-stack D2C enabler offering services like growth marketing, eCommerce digital marketing, marketplace management, social media marketing and much more! For more valuable insights on eCommerce marketing and D2C growth strategies, follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter or visit our websiteto know more about our services.