The Journey from Marketplace to a Brand

Are you planning to launch a new brand or already sailing through that journey? You must’ve planned where to sell your products and how to go about creating a brand identity!

Marketplaces are traditionally a good way to push your products in the market as they are less expensive and have the least hassle. But in the long run, selling through your website has huge benefits and is the most vital aspect of creating a brand.

Though marketplaces are highly convenient for consumers to visit as they provide myriad options for them to choose from at competitive rates, a brand’s own eCommerce store is able to enhance the customer experience manifold. 

Benefits of being omnipresent 

• You can create personalised experiences for your customers and connect to them better. Building great customer relationships is essential for brands. Loyalty programs, rewards for referrals and other deals can be offered to create good relationships with customers and retain them. You can also create a community for your audience to engage them and offer them value. 

• You are the one in control and hence can change or modify the website design or customise any channel at any time you want. 

• You can market your products better using content marketing by writing blogs, testimonials, and so on keeping your customers engaged. 

• You can organise your products the way you want. Visual merchandising plays a vital role in customer engagement. Bestsellers at the landing page or most viewed at the checkout; you are the master to decide. 

Visiting the most important aspects

While you are on the mission there are some important points to ponder upon: 

Owning your customers

Selling through your website gives you access to customer data which is otherwise impossible through a marketplace. This customer data can be utilised in many ways for example to send personalised messages, create campaigns, cross-sell and up-sell. You can also tell them more about your new launches, engage them with content and have them come back to you.

While selling on marketplaces doesn’t guarantee repeat business as there are a plethora of similar products from which customers can choose. You don’t own these customers. They are highly likely to buy some other similar product if they get it for a better price. But when you have a customer base for your brand, your customers keep coming back to you. 

You can also alter the experience through customer data to cater to your specific segments by creating tailored campaigns for them and recommending them appropriate products. 

Data insights

The most valuable asset that can be fetched through your eCommerce website is data insights which come from having a direct interaction with the customers. Marketplaces don’t provide in-depth data insights which can help you plan your course of action for further projects. Being the master you can use these insights in any way you want and create better experiences for customers. You can also target specific segments and create tailored campaigns to reap the benefits. 

Brand identity and experience

Brand identity is something your brand will always be known by. You need to explain your products well to the audience and convey your brand idea appropriately for the audience to connect with you. Websites allow you to position your product better as you can provide in-depth details about your product while considering a marketplace, you can only show details that the platform allows. With a brand webstore, you can build your brand identity as you like by giving your online store the essence of your brand philosophy. In true meaning, you can bring your brand to life!

Offering discounts at your convenience

Various marketplaces have their sale days where they put attractive deals and discounts on products. To tackle the competition, you are pushed to offer discounts even when you don’t want to. While being the master of your channels, you can strategically offer deals and discounts to the customers. 

Another point to keep in mind is if you have your products listed on the marketplace at discount, there on discounts, your customers would rather likely prefer buying them from the marketplace rather than from the website at full price. Hence, you need to track sale days for marketplaces and accordingly create deals to attract customers to the website so marketplaces don’t eat up your margins. 

Create a trustworthy platform for your customers and build a connection so they find it convenient to buy from the website directly. 

Tackling competition 

Marketplaces have a lot of competition where chiliads of similar products are available. Ranking well there can be gruelling most of the time. Numerous sales and discounts are always going on the marketplaces which D2C websites find hard to compete with. Ranking your own website can be done with SEO strategies and running dedicated campaigns. 

Moreover, your website is enhanced to browse products in just a few clicks while customers on the marketplace might get weary by clicking so many times even before they reach your products, making you lose on sales. 

Battling product cannibalisation

Marketplaces might lead to product cannibalisation and not all of your products might stay in the limelight. It’s hard to rank your products on marketplaces where there is cut-throat competition. Some of your products might not even get any visibility or due to some being top-rated, your other products might get lost in the ocean of products. 

The journey from marketplace to a brand is challenging but in the long run, having a brand’s own eCommerce store and on other channels too is far more fruitful. 

Food for thought is it?