Promoting your products via online marketplaces can be a daunting task, especially when you are just starting out. Each marketplace has its own standards and peculiarities, sometimes making it difficult to get a handle on how best to promote your items.
However, there are some standard tips you can follow that lead to promotional success across the board. Here are a few best practices that work on multiple marketplaces, as well as your own e-commerce storefront.
Product positioning is all about communicating the relevant attributes of your product to your target audience effectively. So, your first concern should be finding the right niche for your product. This will help you decide which marketplaces are the best fits for your products.
Once you know where you will be marketing your products, you must follow the guidelines specific to each marketplace for crafting your product descriptions. Where possible, follow basic SEO best practices by using effective keywords in your description.
As we pointed out in an earlier blog, keywords should relate to the product you are selling as well as its intended use. There are a number of keyword research tools that can help you find keywords that receive significant search volume and that perform well for a specific audience. When you settle on the keywords to use, optimize your titles, descriptions, specifications, and other listing components with the keywords.
Most marketplaces will also allow you to link some of your products together when you create your listings, thus giving you a variety of cross-selling opportunities.
Your use of images is a brand-building opportunity. A high-quality image can be the difference between a ho-hum listing and a high-conversion one. Avoid the use of props, borders, logos or watermarks on your images. Ensure that your image is in focus and well-lit. In other words, be professional.
If your product looks distinctly different from multiple angles, many marketplaces will allow you to provide multiple images to help the viewer get a full view of the product. Take advantage of this feature by providing crisp, clear product images where possible.
Once your products begin to sell, most marketplaces have functionality in place that does a certain amount of automated promotion for you. For instance, your items may appear in a “Hot Products” list, a “Top 10” list, “Wishlists,” or a recommendation list.
Of course, your product does not naturally appear on such lists until it begins to sell. Therefore, to take advantage of automated promotion slots, you might consider jump-starting your sales by offering a short-term promotional discount. Once your sales numbers start to tick upward, the automated promotion slots will work to your advantage.
In a recent Payoneer survey of over 900 e-commerce sellers from China and Hong Kong, we uncovered that joint seasonal promotions are rated as a highly effective promotional strategy. In fact, seasonal promotions ranked equally as important as paid marketplace ads for improving sales.
Manual promotions on your items are also possible on most marketplaces. For instance, you might consider offering free shipping or special promotions such as “buy X and get Y for free for a limited time.”
The majority of marketplaces will allow you to promote your own storefront. A short URL provided by the marketplace can be used on packing slips and in customer communications to steer business directly to your storefront. You can also use this URL on correspondence via email or social media to get the word out.
Though every marketplace is different, there are some promotion best practices that work across all platforms. Appropriate product placement, keyword-optimized product listings, and high-quality images all drive sales for your products. Additionally, taking advantage of automated promotion opportunities, manual and seasonal promotions, and cross-promotional opportunities helps you establish your brand and drive traffic to your storefront.
When that traffic arrives and the sales start to rack up, we can facilitate seamless payment processing. Check out our payment solutions for eSellers today.