What if we told you that you can dominate any marketplace of your liking – and that too without any hassle whatsoever? All you need to do is streamline your marketplace order management, and you are good to go!
Marketplaces are an integral part of any eCommerce strategy. As platforms that offer variety, price comparison, and overall easier and much more enhanced shopping experience for consumers, marketplaces can be the means of taking your business towards success much more quickly.
However, in order for them to actually be set up in a way that works out in your favour in the longer run, you have to work on marketplace order management. By making this component stronger, you can transform your presence on any marketplace and make sure that you are leaving a long-lasting positive impression on all your customers.
Yet, marketplace order management can be a tricky affair, and some businesses may struggle in not only setting it up, but also operating it properly over a long period of time.
That is where this guide comes in! On this page, you will find everything there is to know about marketplace order management – so keep reading.
Contents:
In order to understand what marketplace order management is, we need to first take a look at what a marketplace is. In the world of eCommerce, a marketplace is an online platform that facilitates digital buying and selling of goods. A lot of brands, both big and small, choose to sell their products on marketplaces because they can be a real driving force for growth! Marketplaces can bring a range of benefits to the table, including increased brand exposure, a wider audience, and a better shopping experience overall.
So, where does marketplace order management fit into all of this?
Essentially, marketplace order management is a process that enables businesses to take care of all their orders on an online platform. It is integral to your functioning as a business on an online platform, and enables you to be on top of your performance at all times.
If you get your marketplace order management right, you can very easily gain maximum efficiency and control, and as such strengthen your position in the eCommerce industry. This will also effectively allow you to get more customers onboard, which, of course, is going to boost your overall chances of success.
As of January 2023, the following marketplaces are classed as the top 5 eCommerce platforms. Let’s have a look at some of the reasons behind it being important to make sure that you have strong marketplace order management setup in order to achieve success on these platforms:
Amazon is the world’s biggest online marketplace. If you become successful on Amazon, you can be sure of the fact that you are on the perfect track, as it will boost you eCommerce standing and also enable you to expand your customer reach in every way possible.
However, all of this can only be possible if you get order management for Amazon under control. Because Amazon presents your business to literally billions of people worldwide, the stakes are very high and nothing but absolute perfection shall make the cut. Keeping all of this in perspective, it is pretty obvious why Amazon marketplace order management should be your top focus when it comes to being successful on Amazon.
eBay is also an eCommerce giant; which means that it is also a leading choice for online buying and selling, and hence a lot of businesses gravitate towards it being their choice of a marketplace as well.
However, keep this in mind: in December 2022 alone, eBay’s traffic stood at 669.5m! This means that once your business takes off on eBay, you are signing up for a lot of traffic to your shop, and potentially, a lot of orders as well. You can only deal with all of that effectively if you have strong marketplace order management to fall back on.
Etsy is a unique marketplace that not only offers consumers a large range of unique products to choose from, but also provides small businesses and independent creators a creative outlet that can very well be transformed into a lucrative business.
However, Etsy leaves order management all up to the user of the website, so you really need to work creating the perfect marketplace strategy if you are planning to sell on Etsy.
AliExpress is a Chinese website that never drops below 390 million visits a month! People all over the world routinely order from AliExpress because it offers amazing products from all over the world. You, as a business, can also sell on AliExpress and introduce your products to a large and ever-growing audience.
Anyone can sell on AliExpress: but anyone can also buy. Which means that you will be getting a lot of international customers, from countries all over the world. The only way you can confidently deal with such an influx of orders is if you have a well-established marketplace order management strategy to support you through it all.
Rakuten ranks as the 5th biggest eCommerce platform in the world. It is an eCommerce website created by the Japanese corporation of the same name, and operates in 29 countries all over the world. It was formerly known as Buy.com and sold old computers, but now covers all kinds of eCommerce.
If you want to venture out of mainstream marketplaces like eCommerce and Etsy and want to try something new, then Rakuten can be good for you and your business. However, in order for it to go as planned, you will have to focus on marketplace order management.
As is certain from the discussion above, success on any eCommerce platform is only possible if you pay attention to marketplace order management. But why is this the case? Why, exactly, is marketplace order management so important for eCommerce success?
Let’s have a look at some of the reasons behind this being the case:
Omnichannel eCommerce selling refers to selling your products on multiple eCommerce channels. Although this is the best way to get the traction you need to actually grow your brand, this can only be done if you have your order management mechanisms for marketplaces sorted out.
Good marketplace order management will interlink all your marketplaces together, and hence make it far easier for you to become an omnichannel business than it can be without it. So, for businesses that are considering going omnichannel: this is the best way forward.
Marketplace order management, especially automated marketplace order management that is implemented with the help of a marketplace order management system is the best way to make sure you are not making too many errors with your order processing. This helps you avoid wasting your time, money, and effort on rectifying mistakes, and hence put you in a better position financially but also in terms of efficiency and productivity.
Generally, businesses that invest in marketplace order management just generally do better – which is why it is important to start paying attention to it.
As a business, your number 1 priority should be to impress your customers. As such, you have to put in the effort to create a fulfilment experience that meets all their needs, requirements, and preferences.
You can only do this if the order management aspect of your business is properly planned out. If you master taking orders, you are already halfway there in terms of achieving an unforgettable fulfilment experience, and your customers will surely appreciate that!
So, we keep talking about how important it is to have a solid marketplace order management set up in place – but how can a business like yours make sure that it actually happens?
Of course; with the help of a marketplace order management system!
A marketplace order management software is an automated software system that can help you streamline and improve all your order management processes for any and every marketplace of your choice.
Here are just a few ways in which such a system makes it easier for you to improve your selling tactics on online platforms:
Because it is an automated solution, a marketplace OMS helps you eradicate all manual processes. Instead, it automates everything. This is great because this way, you can minimise all the errors and mistakes that are bound to be made when relying on a manual set up of order management. When everything is automated, not only do you end up saving time and effort, but it is also great for your budget and hence, an automated OMS becomes the ultimate key to efficient marketplace selling.
The ultimate goal for any business is to scale up i.e. grow, without any boundaries and restrictions. If you don’t have a marketplace OMS, you will have to resort to dealing with limited growth. This is because you can only do so much with manual efforts, and sooner or later you will find that you are being slowed down because of them.
On the other hand, a robust marketplace takes away all the burden and responsibility away from you. It allows you to divert your focus on other things; such as scaling up as a business. Not only that, but it also makes sure that once you do scale up and have to accommodate more orders, it can help you do so without requiring a harsh software transition on your end.
Marketplace order management that is actually contributive towards the success of your business is not limited to only one channel. In fact, it is a process that makes it easier for you to sell on different platforms. This is because an effective marketplace order management system will help you centralise data from different channels and consolidate it in one place.
This is beneficial because it means you can access and use it quite easily. It also means that due to this, there is quite a strong interconnection between all your channels, so you don’t have to divide your time and commitment between them. All of this, in turn, makes it even easier for you to maximise your potential and grow as a business.
The better you are at managing your orders, the easier it is for you to improve conversion rates. As a marketplace OMS streamlines your order processing strategies, it makes it easier for you to impress customers to the point that they come back to you, time and again, and buy from you.
This, of course, will help you improve your conversion rates and by the time your revenue report rolls around, you will be able to see all of this effort translated into some spectacular figures!
Although primarily, a marketplace OMS helps you deal with the back end logistics, it also provides some important sales support. It generates data that can provide useful information to your sales team regarding their progress. They can then, accordingly, know which areas need improvement and make decisions that enable those improvements!
In short, a marketplace system will help you not only manage orders, but also provide some great insights that can make it all better for your team.
Good order management on its own is not potent enough to help you solidify your success as a business. To make sure that you are actually establishing a framework that makes it easier for you to meet your marketplace selling goals, you also have to work on making your inventory management better.
Luckily, a marketplace OMS will help you do that. It interlinks order processing and inventory handling, and allows you to automate and streamline both of these experiences in a way that makes it convenient for you to cut back on inefficiencies in both of these areas.
A marketplace OMS is not only about your back end logistics; it can also help you improve your finances. If you pick the right system that offers you accounting integrations, you can connect your order management solution to top notch accounting solutions.
What this does is enable automatic flow of information between the two, and one updates the other. This way, your order processing activity will automatically reflect in your accounting books, and you will know what decisions you should be making to achieve optimal financing decisions.
We have already mentioned this a few times but actually, we can’t stress on this aspect enough. There are so many businesses out there that end up going under just because of inaccuracies. When you are selling on an online marketplace, accuracy is key – which is precisely why businesses that don’t value it end up suffering in more than one way.
With marketplace order management, you can be sure that your processes are completely error-free and hence, accurate. This will allow you to sell way more freely, and will also help you gain the trust of your marketplace customers.
Marketplaces are famous for introducing customers to a larger customer base. If you perfect marketplace order management, you can attract these customers again and again. Not only that, when these customers leave positive reviews, you will also be attracting a lot of other visitors, which means that your business can grow without you having to try too much.
Therefore, if as a business you have been struggling to get more customers, getting on a marketplace and using an OMS that will help you manage marketplace orders will help you a lot.
If there is one thing you absolutely need to remember as an eCommerce brand, it is the fact that you are only as good as your order management. If you leave your order management strategy to manual processes and paper-based systems, you are leaving an impression that as a brand, you are simply not adapted to the modern world.
On the other hand, with a marketplace order management software and the fulfilment experience that you create with it, you are enhancing your overall image as a brand and conveying to the customers that you do, in fact, have what it takes to dominate the marketplace you are operating in!
For eCommerce brands, online marketplaces are great platforms for selling their products. They allow businesses to sell more and faster, which means they can genuinely improve their revenue if they finally take the leap.
However, to make sure that you can actually operate on any marketplace successfully, you will have to focus on marketplace order management. This can only be effectively and efficiently done if you have a robust marketplace order management system in place – which is why you need to get one today.
The good news is that you don’t have to look any further; the best marketplace order management software can be found here.
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