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How Online Marketplaces Can Help Strengthen A Brand’s E-Commerce Business

E-commerce has been on the rise in India for over a decade. But the pandemic changed the way we shop and made e-commerce ubiquitous. According to the latest report by Flipkart and Bain, India’s e-retail market is slated to reach $50 billion in 2022 and grow to $150–$170 billion by 2027. This implies 25%–30% annual growth and a doubling of market penetration to 9%–10% over the next five years. This rapid growth has forced the most reluctant businesses to go online.

Market trends and consumers’ buying habits are increasingly decided by online retailers. There are two options for offline sellers to keep up with the changing times: build their online store or tie up with an online marketplace.

Their own website can offer exclusivity but building a customer-centric website needs time, investment, and continuous monitoring. It also requires building a customer base from scratch. An online marketplace, in comparison, offers a ready customer base, helps sellers build a brand, leverage social media, and drive their sales through marketing campaigns.

Here’s how online marketplace solutions can strengthen a brand’s e-commerce business.

EASE OF IMPLEMENTATION

As a business, setting up an e-commerce platform is a long and tedious job. One needs to set up an end-to-end process—from building a website to finding the right OMS to maintaining an efficient payment system and ensuring hassle-free delivery and setting up a robust customer support centre. Building such a platform might not be core to the business of a brand or retailer and takes up valuable time and a lot of resources, which could have been utilised in making the product better and creating brand awareness.

Online marketplaces bridge this gap and provide a ready platform where a business can set up shop in minutes. The processes of sales, payment and delivery are all streamlined, and the brand must only focus on its products. It is especially useful for small and medium businesses that don’t have many resources. However, even larger brands have leveraged marketplaces to tap digital consumers. This ensures minimum investment in terms of effort and capital and speeds up go-live for products.

ACCESS TO EXISTING CUSTOMER BASE

An online marketplace already has an existing customer base. When a business partners with an e-commerce marketplace, it becomes easier for the brand to reach out to a broader demographic. These are potential customers who are not bound to a single supplier and are happy to scout for things they need and experiment with newer brands. The brands can choose the appropriate marketplace based on their target customer base.

IMPROVEMENT IN DISCOVERABILITY

New-age consumers do a lot of research before making any purchase. It helps brands when marketplaces optimise their SEO and promote businesses as market leaders in relevant categories. With organic search traffic on a high, a well-done search campaign can deliver excellent ROI for growth-minded businesses. It boosts their credibility, increases visibility and drives long-term success that can be measured in real numbers.

POTENTIAL TO SCALE

An online marketplace always has the potential to scale. It can onboard new merchants and clients, diversify product offerings, and expand locations. It is much more complex and involves higher monetary risk for an individual business with no or minimal digital presence to achieve that same scale of growth and profitability if they do it independently. Working with an e-commerce marketplace helps businesses scale up while maintaining lower operational and marketing costs.

If you’re a business looking to have a quick launch with limited investment, ace turtle can help. ace turtle’s online marketplace solutions enable you to sell products online seamlessly and connect with your potential customers on marketplaces such as Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, TATA Cliq, Nykaa, and Ajio. Its omnichannel technology platform helps brands scale their online business by managing products, orders, inventory, and logistics across multiple sales channels.

Marketplace ecosystem

Online marketplaces provide a comprehensive ecosystem of services to brands and retailers. They provide services such as warehousing and logistics that can boost the business of brands and retailers. Marketplaces provide access to high-intent customer traffic, and access to new customers spread across tier-2, 3 and 4 towns and villages of the country. Brands can also get instant feedback from their customers through reviews and ratings of products on marketplaces. Marketplaces also help in the segmentation of customers. For example, an apparel brand can opt for a marketplace such as Myntra whereas a consumer electronics brand can opt for Flipkart or Amazon.

Marketplace solutions from a technology partner

ace turtle’s online marketplace solutions help brands sell products online seamlessly and connect with their potential customers on marketplaces such as Flipkart and Amazon in India. Its omnichannel eCommerce technology platform helps to make the online selling business of brands and retailers seamless by managing their products, orders, inventory and logistics across multiple sales channels.