In today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, there are dozens — if not hundreds — of digital marketplaces at your disposal to start growing your business and gain traction from the comfort of your own home.

These were the thoughts that I & my co-founder Tijl had (who 4 years ago were 2 broke school dropouts).

We went from cheap Aliexpress products (which basically generated more returns than sales) , to exclusivity contracts with with well-known brands and even in-house production. We’ve tried it all. In which the first year we lost more than we won.

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But what are the key elements we learned on the road:

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Becoming a "successful" marketplace seller depends on a lot of different variables. Your ranking in search results, winning the buy box, the pricing of your products and much more all have an influence on your success.

For us, as online merchants, the most crucial element to success is research, research, and more research.

From keyword & audience research, competitor landscape, and positioning graphs to key opportunity areas. Everything must be clearly mapped out.

This can be done manually through building frameworks but nowadays there are already SaaS tools like Jungle scout and Helium 10 that support you in some parts of this process.

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Once we’ve completed the research and found good opportunities - We searched for the right supplier

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This is the framework we always apply:

Hunt 10 Brands in the category you did research on. Now find 5 distributors of every brand. it becomes 10x5= 50 distributors. Now you have 10 brands and 50 distributors in one sheet.

Let’s start to contact them. Build an email flow with at least 5-10 touchpoints. You can build this with tools like Mailchimp, Lemlist or Woodpecker. You should get 2 brands and 10+ distributors’ approvals. It depends on your copywriting skill and expertise.

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Supplier found? Time for creating a listing

This is one of the most critical questions for any business: How to optimize your product listing to increase your conversion rate?

There is no absolute answer, and it is just never ‘one thing.’

Marketplace success involves doing numerous things correctly, all together to generate long-term sales practically.

But,

To help you better understand it, I share some best practices we always use:
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#1 Product title

The product title grabs the customer’s attention first. The AIDA formula made a HUGE difference in our product titles, but also our thinking process.

I’ll break it down:

A – Attention

I – Interest

D – Desire

A – Action

You should optimize your product title with the “ATTENTION” phase in mind.

Include an SEO-friendly value proposition (Research, research and again research) in the product title, as it is the first thing customers will see in the search bar while viewing numerous products in addition to the primary image.

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#2 Product benefits, not features

Marketplace product features benefits are used to give customers a brief overview of your products. Here you should not pitch your product, but your features should be transformed into benefits for the customer. Too often I see features, no one gives a f*** that it is made of ABS with a coating of XYZ123 containing special paint. People want to hear how your product will change their lives.

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#3 Product description

The product discription focuses on “ helping customers by telling what it feels like to use your brand/product” and can contain brief information about its uses, assembly instructions, and much more.

A well-optimized product listing helps customers make an informed decision and will increase your sales.

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#4 Product image

Consumers don't want to read, that's why it's very important to talk with pictures.

After having your primary image in place, you have numerous options to fill the remaining spaces. Other spaces can include infographics, features, specifications, warranties and even good reviews. Everything that helps customers in decision making.

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#5 Product video

Product videos can be used as the most effective tool to demonstrate your product’s supremacy to the customers.

Add a handful of video types to your product listing, depending on the requirements of the product. It can include brand videos, unboxing, how-to-use videos, customer experiences, and product comparisons.

As I said above, there is no ‘one thing’ for marketplace listings.

Selling on marketplaces requires extensive experience and great knowledge of the platform. Your listing can become a top-ranking product or even a marketplace bestseller.

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As I said above, there is no ‘one thing’ for marketplace listings.

Selling on marketplaces requires extensive experience and great knowledge of the platform. Your listing can become a top-ranking product or even a marketplace bestseller.

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Once our listing was on point. We arranged lightning-fast logistics and we test, test, test

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Curious about the framework we use?
  1. Pick one variable to test - This can be your title or images.
  2. Identify your goal
  3. Create a ‘control’ and a ‘challenger
  4. Split your sample groups equally and randomly
  5. Determine your sample size
  6. Decide how significant your results need to be
  7. Make sure you’re only running one test at a time on any campaign

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Final word

As 2 young wolves who trialed and errored a lot to a power duo who ranked multiple shops and has experienced a couple of listings ranked in 30 days + dozens of orders flowing in, I can assure you just implement the mentioned strategies, be disciplined and you will definitely get your sales to the top. Most important: be patient, don’t hurry. Constantly changing your keywords isn’t going to help. Let it rank at least for 1.5 - 2 months and then analyze it first before changing.

Hopefully you've gained some good insights on how we grow our marketplace accounts over time.

Wondering how we can scale your brand too? Feel free to book below a free audit with me where we conduct in-depth research and create a solid battle plan that will grow your business in no time. ⬇️

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