Tips to build a marketplace website that actually sells

Abhishek Aggarwal
6 min readJan 21, 2021

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How to build a conversion oriented marketplace website

Did you know that the ecommerce business has a failure rate of 80%? And the reasons for failure are all over the place — no market need, poor ecommerce platform choices, unsustainable business model, and a lot more.

Well, you need not worry about this 80% now as we are covering everything right here for you to be in the rest 20% successful ones. Understanding the pitfalls can help you to avoid them, beat the statistics, build a marketplace website, and run it successfully.

Are you thinking that there is a rocket science behind building a marketplace that actually sells? The answer is a BIG NO as you need a best-in-class ecommerce platform that offers automated marketing tools to match up to your expected online sales. And you are done.

The hack here is not to look for creative ideas every day but using the same ideas differently. Just like there is a famous saying — “Winners don’t do different things; they do simple things differently”. Yes, that’s exactly your hack to boost sales on your online marketplace. Using an ecommerce platform that has state-of-the-art features with ease of use allows you to be consistent with your marketing efforts and win maximum customers.

Read on to get the simple marketing hacks with the ease to use tools of an ecommerce platform

1. Make your first impression worth the watch and sale too

Your website is the face of your business and it has to look awesome. Yes, we are talking about the design details of your website, be it web pages, online storefront, home page or products pages. Everything has to look beautiful and translate your business to the customers in the best possible manner. In addition to looking beautiful, the website should be easy to navigate, simple, and properly functional with ease of browsing the products. And all this happens in the time frame of just 3 seconds (We know, that’s quite a less time to make an impression but this is how the digital world works.)

Selling starts with the choice of customers. If the customer likes your online marketplace and stays there for a while, it is more likely to convert the customer. So, the gist here is that you should choose an ecommerce platform that offers a rich design theme library, DIY themes designer to create web pages with easy drag and drop customizations, and an unforgettable experience to the customers.

2. Focus on your content marketing process

With the changing digital world, the content has become the “new black” of marketing. And there are endless reasons for it. The foremost reason is that content centres around the need of customers rather than itself. Unlike conventional marketing and selling methods, it attracts customers rather than interrupting them. In an online survey, it was indicated that over 78% of customers prefer to understand about the company via the posted articles than advertisements. So, optimizing the content on online marketplace websites, compelling product descriptions, reviews and videos help your customers to understand the core values of the company.

Even if you have an amazing content marketing plan, you need the right tools and technology to implement it on the website. The right ecommerce platform can helps you with ample of SEO (Search engine optimization) friendly features like content tagging, keyword research for product desiccations and reviews, utilization of powerful blog engines, enhancement of user engagement, integration with Google Analytics and Google Adwords, and a lot more.

3. Boost your average order value for better sales

More customers do not always mean more sales when you build a marketplace website. Give a try to ideas that boost your average order value. The key benefits of increasing the average order value are that you make more money from each transaction done by the customer. Often, the customers shop online but they only shop for exactly what they are looking for. On the contrary, there are some average order value strategies that present great products to customers in a handy manner to generate more sales.

To start boosting the average order value, you need the right marketing tools at your disposal. Using these tools of the ecommerce platform helps you to achieve better sales performance in your online marketplace. Choose a one-stop ecommerce platform that comes up with dynamic marketing tools to support your business plan, sell more, and ultimately grow more. Some of the must-have marketing features on the platform include the development of marketing landing pages, abandoned cart follow-ups, real-time notification and live chat support, personalized coupons based on product and order amount, a powerful discount engine based on products, collections, category, user groups, and more.

4. Onboard high-quality vendors to get going with sales

An online marketplace is much more than an online selling website. And to achieve marketplace success, it is highly important to onboard quality vendors that make the customers come back to the store again and again. Moreover, the customers would also love to visit a marketplace website that has a wide range of products.

To begin with, attract high-quality vendors with excellent products that can make your website livelier. An ecommerce platform can help you to onboard the vendors in a few clicks, provide individual seller dashboard, and also, promote the top-performing vendors. The fair vendor comparison feature can be very helpful to analyse, review, and recommend products in the online marketplace. Besides this, you can also try some more tips when you are looking for a good database of vendors.

  • Identify core seller groups on online platforms, social groups, events, or similar marketplaces
  • Provide a competitive working space to sellers where they can easily build and manage their online stores through a dedicated vendor dashboard
  • Automate marketing campaigns to drive maximum traction for your vendors
  • Provide a streamlined ecommerce logistics solution along with extended support for payments, taxes, and more when you build a marketplace website
  • Keep a system for loyalty or reward points to give more reasons to customers to visit your online store

5. Integrated logistics solution with reliable shipping carriers

Most of the online shoppers are scared of shipping and delivery scams. They research a lot about shipping services before placing an order on the website. In fact, shipping is one of the primary reasons why customers hop from one website to another while buying online.

Choosing an ecommerce platform that can help you to partner with reliable shipping partners is the solution here. It helps you build a good logistics strategy and speed up your business growth by simplifying the buying process of customers. The secure and reliable shipments have a great influence on the decision of buyers and help in boosting the online marketplace sales big time. The logistics features like real-time tracking, bulk order uploads, partial deliveries, discounted shipping can make your shipping more streamlined and help your customers to shop on your website without any worries.

Conclusion:

Boost your sales sky-high with the right ecommerce platform

Now when you are clear that it is much easier to build an online marketplace than to actually sell online. Owing a marketplace website itself is like a chicken that lays golden eggs but you have to set the right base for it. And choosing the right ecommerce platform does just the same. The best way to sell faster and better online is to get the most suitable platform for your online business that creates multiple opportunities to sell online. Explore the must-have features of an ecommerce platform by starting your free store trial today.

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Abhishek Aggarwal

He is an ecommerce expert with 7+ years of experience.With hands-on experience of handling B2B and B2C ecommerce projects