Selling online: keys for success! A guide for marketplace sellers
After 5 years of building e-commerce in Africa, I have probably been asked more than 1,000 times the same recurring question: “How can I sell more?” or even “Why don’t I sell more?”.
As a marketplace, our role is to provide a platform for offer to meet demand. We are not the ones selling, we are only enablers. However, for many sellers, it often seems that they believe everything depends on our will to make them sell, on a decision to give them more “marketing”. Actually, it is way easier than that. They already have the key to success in their hands, they only need to learn how to use it.
Number of products sold for a seller is simply, mathematically depending on 2 factors: traffic and conversion rate. Nothing else. Multiply one by the other and you get the number of sales.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of what I believe to be the drivers of those two factors and what a seller should look at when trying to increase his/her sales.
Work your traffic
We are often told that traffic, number of visitors depend on our marketing campaigns, on where we direct customers. This is actually wrong. Most of our traffic (our visitors) comes from direct/search: this traffic is not driven by our marketing campaigns but by what customers look for.
Create qualitative content: E-commerce is virtual. When shopping, customers cannot touch the product, they can only see the content page created for it. The quality of product pages is key and will be the only contact the customer has with the product. It better be good. Moreover, good content will be more easily referenced and thus found by the customer looking for it. In this content, do not forget to be very clear on specifications, a good quality picture will catch the users’ attention and make them stay longer on the page (which directly impacts referencing of the product page).
Surf on trends: E-commerce like retail is seasonal. If you try selling boots in Morocco in June, even with a good product well priced, you won’t sell. If you keep it in mind while building your assortment you got it all. Look at the seasonal trends, check the commercial events of the platform you are selling on and build your product catalog accordingly.
Test and iterate: E-commerce is different than offline retail. What works in shops might not work in online shops. Moreover, e-commerce websites are a wonderful platform to test a product and know very fast if it has potential or not. Do not hesitate to enlarge your assortment with small stocks on new products, see which ones are selling fast, buy deep stock of top sellers, delist bad sellers, bring on more products to test and iterate. With such a dynamic perspective of your assortment management you will ensure maximum optimisation of your stock and best return on investment.
Convert visits into sales
Once a visitor arrives on your product page, you have a few seconds of his attention to turn him into a customer. Don’t miss it!
Always sell at the RIGHT price: E-commerce rewards fairness. Do not try to make the most margin possible on a few units sold but take a fair margin to enable the product to be at the right price. Don’t be too greedy otherwise you will lose the opportunity. Too often sellers find new products that attract customers but are too greedy on their margins, they sell at higher prices than they should. When the margin is too high, quickly many competitors will understand, they will bring the same product at a better selling price, competition on the product will develop, prices will lower fast and margins will disappear. You will end-up selling the rest of your stock at negative margins to get rid of the remaining units. If on the contrary, you set the right price from the beginning, you have much more time to build your positioning on the market, grow your volume and thus be able to negotiate better purchasing costs. In this position, you will be hard to challenge on the market. My advice, don’t try to fool the customer. Be fair from the beginning, you will not regret it.
Build your online reputation: E-commerce is about reputation. Online reputation is now a key tool for driving conversion. All major e-commerce websites now leverage on ratings and describe an impressive impact of a good (or a bad) rating on sales. Do not go for short wins and profits, build you online reputation to ensure you build a lasting and sustainable business: set the right price, sell quality products, deliver products in a good condition and offer after-sale support. In a marketplace, be aware that those who buy your products are directly your customers. Treat them well!
Know your market: E-commerce is competitive. Know your customers, your market trends, benchmark your competition and be reactive! Be aware of what your customers look for, always check prices and offers from your competitors (in a marketplace, there is only too much choice). If there are several sellers selling the same product, only seller rating (reputation) and selling price will make a customer decide from whom to buy it. You must have the best value proposition to sell the most.
Leverage on your e-commerce mall: Understand how they work, what they are looking for, what they value, what they offer and try to build the best proposition out of it. For instance at Jumia, consignment (Jumia First) is a powerful tool to boost your sales: it indicates to your customer that the product is stocked in Jumia’s controlled warehouse, has been quality checked, will be packed and shipped directly to you within hours after your purchase, impact on conversion rate can be up to x2 for the same product.
You should also understand the commercial calendar of your online shopping mall. During major events, they will drive a lot of visits on certain categories, build excitement and bring you tons of potential customers, use it. Understand the offers needed to appear in those events and make sure to be present! During Black Friday 2016, several sellers multiplied their sales by up to 50 just by preparing the right offers at the right time.
To sum-up, as a seller, you should try to understand your levers for selling more and use them well. Most of it is actually in your hands.
