In these times of uncertainty and changing markets, marketplaces have become more than desirable refuge channels for many companies, but are they really refuge channels? In the last 6 months sales in channels such as Amazon have grown more than 80% which, combined with the capacity of massive internationalization of product and its potential transactional traffic, make them a viable sales line option not only "to be done", but to be taken into high consideration within the business development plan.
Below, we present a success story in which the enhancement of the Marketplaces strategy has meant a substantial increase in the brand's reach and sales.
Q77+ is a company dedicated to the research and development of food and cosmetic products and solutions based on the most advanced scientific studies with the purpose of providing greater well-being and improvement of personal health for a better quality of life, energy, vitality and mood.
Challenge detected
When they came to ROCKETROI, the Q77+ team was in a deadlock with their marketplace seller accounts. The accounts were not generating enough revenue and they couldn't figure out why this was happening and therefore didn't know how to fix it.
Their initial approach was to be present in as many Marketplaces as possible, but without taking into account the characteristics of each one of them. In other words, listings were not adapted, organic positioning strategies, paid campaigns, review acquisition strategies were not taken into account. Basically, it was an uncontrolled way of managing sales in Marketplaces, so they did not obtain optimal results.
Strategy
As in any business development, in Marketplaces there are as many ways to act as there are personalities. Whether you are a "wolf" or a "shepard" profile, your strategy must always be based on real objective data and not on beliefs. Let's see how we define the strategy for Q77+:
PHASE 1: Study and initial evaluation
Status of all Marketplaces accounts.
Status of the specific feed for each Marketplaces.
Market and possibilities of each product.
Target definition and how to reach them.
Communication flows with customers.
Competitors.
Pricing
Paid strategies.
PHASE 2: Execution of the improvement plan.
Improvement of the feed in a specific way for each Marketplace, respecting content specifications for each platform and taking into account the target audience that we will find in each of them.
Development of an optimal communication flow with the client and programming through email marketing technology for the systematic and automated increase of product reviews.
Definition of a pricing strategy to achieve Buy Boxes in all marketplaces.
Development of an acquisition strategy through Paid / SEM.
The role of technology and data
Technology in the field of marketplaces is absolutely necessary: an online sales strategy in marketplaces approached without specific tools that help us to automate, make massive modifications or simply receive reports in an easy and concise way is destined to fail.
We see how from Rocket the Feed improvement strategy has been designed based on UX or buyer experience when viewing our feeds, but obviously it has also been based on the use of the best words in terms of organic positioning, i.e. the best Keywords.
On the other hand, it would be impossible to make requests for reviews order by order, so with the automated communication flow system we only have to worry about optimizing those emails we send to monitor metrics.
As for Feed editing, can you imagine editing a catalog of more than 2k products one by one? Neither can we, that's why we use feed management technology, to be able to edit as many feeds as possible in the shortest possible time by means of logical rules specially designed for each case.
In terms of analytics, the results data are the compass of where the ship should be heading, thanks to them we can discover where the possible errors are and solve them, as well as create new strategies for product promotion.
Results
analized period: 01/02/2020 – 30/06/2020
Presence in Marketplaces +233%.
Multiplied the range of Marketplaces present to maximize reach and brand recognition nationally and internationally.
At the time of account acquisition, Q77+ Marketplace presence was:
Amazon Spain not optimized through the Seller model.
Corte Inglés.
Promofarma.
Q77+ is currently available on:
Amazon Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and United Kingdom.
Aliexpress worldwide.
El Corte Inglés.
Promofarma.
Marketplaces sessions +147%.
We increased the reach of Q77+ products and customer interest in the products.
Orders +85%.
Increased the number of orders.
Sales +355%.
Increased turnover.
Acos - Paid -27%
Reduced advertising costs with better results.
Conclusion
Since Q77+ has started working with ROCKETROI's Marketplaces team, it has been able to reduce the time spent on Marketplaces from 90% and has changed the concept of "let's go for it no matter what" to "let's go for it, with control and objectively measuring results to assess the strategy to follow or even the convenience of entering one Marketplace or another depending on the country".
The key insights we highlight are:
Improving Feed is key to sales results.
Paid promotion is essential.
Automation and massive processes are vital to make time profitable.
The next steps we plan are: to continue with internationalization, market positioning of our products and expansion into less common areas but with a high penetration rate of e-commerce (such as Poland).
