Striking a balance with marketplace selling

Merchants looking to make gains during the crucial holiday season would do well to consider optimizing their strategies for selling on third-party marketplaces. In addition to Amazon.com and eBay, a growing array of sites offer the opportunity for other merchants to sell their wares in exchange for a cut of the revenues. Even traditional retailers like Walmart.com are getting into the act, giving small- to mid-sized merchants a unique opportunity to leverage the platforms of some of the biggest online brands around.

At April’s MarketLive Summit, speaker Jordan Weinstein from ChannelAdvisor outlined the benefits of selling on third-party marketplaces. Among them:

  • Exposure to new audiences across the board. Weinstein cited a statistic from eBay claiming that 75% of a brand’s customers on third-party marketplaces are new acquisitions who hadn’t previously shopped with the brand. So while merchants may be reluctant to set up shop on platforms provided by ostensible competitors, they should weigh the benefits of such broad exposure against the potential risks.

  • Mobile visibility. Amazon and eBay attract the lion’s share of traffic to mobile commerce Web sites, according to data Weinstein shared from comScore. Since conducting product research across dozens of individual merchant sites can be unwieldy, and entering and saving payment information on Amazon and eBay is simpler than entering credit card data over and over again, it’s no wonder that consumer prefer these clearinghouses when using their smartphones.

    DFF Data on mobile marketplace usage from comScore and Channel Advisor

  • Search visibility. As discussed in our prior post, merchants who struggle to break onto the first page of natural search listings can leverage the likelihood that big brands such as Amazon and Rakuten will rank well to gain exposure.

  • A foot in the door to international markets. As leading shopping destinations worldwide, Amazon and eBay represent a relatively hassle-free way to explore the potential of international expansion.

Of course, just because marketplace selling can be a smart strategy doesn’t mean it’s easy; merchants should dedicate staff resources to managing their marketplace presences, or hire outside help in the form of marketplace agency firms. And to strike the right balance, merchants must make a series of tradeoffs so that they take advantage of the marketplace platform without diluting their brands. Factors to weigh:

Marketplace size. While in theory the broadest exposure may come on giant marketplace networks such as Amazon and eBay, merchants may have a hard time competing for visibility with other marketplace sellers, even for products they manufacture themselves. And since owning the prime position or “buy” button is crucial for marketplace success, in some cases merchants would do well to establish a presence on smaller marketplace sites where their chances of visibility are better. OJ Commerce, which sells sporting goods, offers a women’s Schwinn bike on Amazon, but doesn’t event show up in the “other buying choices” box on the product page, where the default option is to buy from Amazon.com itself. On NewEgg, however, OJ Commerce is the sole and default seller of the item.

Marketplace example for OJ Commerce

Marketplace example for OJ Commerce

Popular vs. unique products. Merchants should select their product mix with an eye toward visibility. While consumers are more likely to search for top brand-name items on marketplace sites, merchants may stand a better chance of prominent positioning with unique products, including gift packs and sets. Additionally, merchants should tweak their product offering from marketplace to marketplace depending on the amount of competition they face for top items. For example, in Amazon’s baby care section, 13 merchants are vying to sell a lotion from manufacturer California Baby, while just 4 are listed for a gift set that includes the lotion along with other essentials.

Marketplace example for baby lotion

Marketplace example for baby lotion in a set

Customer service and fulfillment investment. Much like the formula behind Google’s natural search algorithm, the precise calculations that determine which merchant wins placement in the coveted “buy” box on Amazon or a top listing on eBay are not divulged publicly. But and eBay’s best practices documentation indicates that seller reputation is a big part of the equation, suggesting that merchants must be prepared to answer questions promptly, fulfill orders swiftly and accurately and otherwise invest in ensuring a smooth and satisfactory experience for marketplace shoppers. Merchants without infinite budgets must weigh how best to focus their investments to both achieve stellar marketplace status and optimize their core eCommerce offerings.

Does your brand sell via third-party marketplaces, and if so, which ones?

Why & how to craft a post-SEO acquisition strategy

Merchants have long relied on search engine marketing to acquire new customers — and for good reason. Search engines are the leading way consumers find new Web sites, and for merchants, optimizing eCommerce sites to rank high in “natural” (unpaid) search results has been a cost-effective way to gain visibility for their brands.

But a growing number of signs indicate that SEO’s dominance as an acquisition strategy may be nearing an end — forcing merchants to diversify their activities. Among the factors contributing to this change:

  • Consumers discover new sites from a widening array of sources. Search continues to dominate, with 54% of consumers saying they use search engines to find new Web sites — but that’s down from 61% in 2010, according to technology researcher Forrester. Moreover, new sources are growing in importance, most notably social media sites, which are now second in popularity as a discovery tool.

Data on finding web sites from Forrester

  • Amazon has overtaken Google as a shopping research tool. With its vast repository of products and customer reviews, Amazon.com represents more than a purchasing destination for consumers. from 2009 to 2011, according to Forrester, while Google slipped by 45%.

  • Recent algorithm changes make it harder to earn a page 1 ranking. As we’ve discussed previously, the algorithm that determines the content of natural search results on Google has changed over the past couple of years to favor , but sites whose content has attracted inbound links from other reputable domains. While small- to medium-sized merchants are increasingly produciing high-quality content, establishing inbound links is a resource-intensive process that ultimately remains outside their control — making it harder to compete with larger brands for attention and visibility. To further up the ante, over time Google has changed the format of its search results display to include fewer natural links. On mobile devices, where screen real estate is at even more of a premium, the problem is especially acute. Such changes are probably one reason why paid search has skyrocketed in popularity as a means for finding new web sites, growing 125% from 2011 to 2012, according to Forrester’s survey. But paid search can be an expensive proposition, and therefore just as difficult to dominate as natural search listings.

Of course, these trends have yet to converge to displace search as the leading tool for site discovery, and merchants shouldn’t abandon their SEO efforts. But they should begin to experiment with new ways of attaining visibility, with a view to being well-positioned to adapt to whatever the landscape holds in the future. Strategies to consider include:

  • Marketplace selling. Use a product or brand name as a search term, and the first page is likely to be dominated by links to online mega-mass-merchants: Amazon, eBay, Rakuten (formerly Buy.com), and so on. Rather than try to battle their way to the top of these listings, merchants might do well to adopt an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” mentality and take advantage of the marketplace selling opportunities these sites offer. Of course, successful marketplace selling is complex enough to warrant its own blog post (watch for it!), but the payoff can be twofold: not only can merchants win sales from new buyers, but they can “own” the marketplace link to their brand’s products from high within natural search listings. By selling on Amazon’s marketplace, beauty brand Perricone MD in effect nabs the top two natural search results for one of its product collections and, coupled with its paid search ad, dominates the top of page-one results.

SEO example from Perricone MD

  • Email 2.0. In Forrester’s study, consumers rated email from companies or brands as a top source for finding Web sites; in fact, from 2011 to 2012 email’s growth in popularity was second only to paid search, at 73%. So while merchants tend to think of email as strictly a retention tactic, they should also incorporate ways to attract new customers, such as this Valentine’s Day promotion from The Gap, which offered an enticing discount for subscribers with a one-use-only code, and then awarded a slightly smaller discount to friends who received the forwarded message. Those recipients not only had the opportunity for instant savings, but saw how being a subscriber enabled access to still better deals.

Email invitation example from Gap

  • Smart social media. Not only is social media now the second-most-popular means of finding sites for consumers, but search professionals predict that social media mentions are growing in importance when it comes to natural search rankings. In 2011, page-level social media mentions were thought to make up 7.22% of the search algorithm, compared with 5.30% in 2009, according to SEOMoz’s most recent survey of ranking factors; the majority of SEO experts polled for the survey said social media signals would grow to be a top ranking factor in the future. So while merchants have struggled to attribute direct revenue to social efforts, social media contributes to overall brand visibility and is therefore worth a thoughtful approach. Merchants should:

    • Enable social sharing and endorsement of products on every network. A brand’s products can still be shared and promoted by individual users on social media sites even if the merchant doesn’t maintain an official presence there. Add Google+ “+1” and Pinterest “Pin It!” functionality to product pages on the main eCommerce site alongside links for Facebook and Twitter sharing.

    • Interlink social outposts and the eCommerce site. Be sure to give your sites maximum linking exposure by cross-promoting wherever possible.

    • Seek endorsements and mentions from authorities. With inbound links, the authority of the link source counts – so merchants should attempt to attract attention from highly relevant sources.

      • Cultivate relationships with reputable industry bloggers; send them press releases and new products likely to be of interest.

      • Seek out topic-relevant Twitter accounts that have already attracted plenty of followers encourage them to follow the brand.

      • On Facebook, “like” related pages with credibility, such as industry organizations, cultural institutions and media outlets, and invite “likes” in return. Cosmetics manufacturer Stila has “liked” fashion publications such as Allure, which “likes” Stila in return, thereby elevating the brand’s social visibility.

Social media example from Stila

What means aside from SEO does your brand employ to achieve visibility with new customers?

Top holiday priority: tablet-aware commerce

Ever since the debut of the iPad, merchants have known that tablets are a force to be reckoned with. But new data shows just how prevalent tablets are becoming: , according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project — a tenfold increase since 2010 and an 88% jump since last spring.

Data on tablet usage from Pew

Of particular interest to merchants is the fact that unlike smartphones, which are most popular among young adults, tablets are most prevalent among 35-to-44-year-olds, and therefore represent an opportunity to reach adults with disposable income and family shopping responsibilities. The majority of tablet owners live in households earning more than $75,000 per year and are parents, Pew found.

Not only does a considerable portion of the population use tablets, but, as we’ve written previously, tablet shoppers are more apt to buy from their devices than smartphone shoppers, making the audience particularly desirable for merchants to pursue.

For these reasons, merchants should make catering to tablet shoppers a top priority as they optimize their sites for the upcoming holiday season. Depending on their audience, merchants may decide that launching a whole tablet-specific site or app isn’t feasible or even desirable — but all merchants should at least build an awareness of tablets into their strategies. Among the considerations:

Responsive design. As discussed previously, responsive design — which employs a single base of code to generate multiple iterations of sites according to device — has a number of potential benefits and pitfalls. But the popularity of tablets suggests that consumers are willing to expand the number of devices they use as new ones become available, so merchants should begin forming a strategy that allows for agile development of sites for new future gadgets as well as smartphones, tablets and desktop/laptop computers. Responsive design takes technological prowess to implement correctly, but merchants may decide that now is the time to learn the ropes and make the move.

Device context and content. Tablet usage patterns differ significantly from those for  smartphones in a number of respects, including:

  • Location. Study after study shows that tablets are used extensively at home and, to a lesser extent, at work — but almost never on the go. Smartphones, by contrast, are used wherever tablets are, but are also integral to experiences in transit. Just over a third of tablet owners use them in stores, for example, whereas three quarters of smartphone owners consult those devices in-store.

  • Form-factor limitations. Browsing, viewing images and in-depth research are simply easier on the larger screen of a tablet; as a result, smartphone usage is task-oriented and focused, according to technology researcher Forrester, while tablet behavior encompasses more exploratory and leisurely endeavors.

  • Personalization. Tablets are more likely to be shared with other household members, Forrester found, whereas smartphones are linked to a single owner.

Given these behaviors, merchants catering to tablet shoppers should therefore adapt content to fit these usage patterns. Whether creating a separate tablet environment or incorporating tablet-friendly elements into the main eCommerce site, merchants should present tablet shoppers with:

  • Video and images. Take advantage of the multimedia-friendly tablet environment and present tablet users with plenty of visual shopping experiences — not just product images and videos but coverage of live events, user-submitted galleries and visually-oriented shopping tools, such as the shop-by-aisle environment on CVS’ iPad app, which allows browsers to select products as though walking the aisles of a physical drug store location.

Tablet example from CVS

  • Research tools aplenty. Since tablet shoppers tend to proceed at a more leisurely pace than those on smartphones, merchants should provide the means to delve deep into products and related lifestyle topics. Comparison tools, buying guides and detailed product reviews all support the research activities of tablet shoppers. Design Within Reach provides users of its iPad app a “design in context” section which explains why items in its collection are significant vis a vis the history of interior design.

Tablet example from DWR

Search marketing. As noted in a previous post, the share of clicks from mobile devices to paid search advertising is growing rapidly. Merchants should craft separate campaigns, not just for desktop/laptop searches and mobile, but for tablet devices as well. In 2012, the average cost per click for desktop search was $0.75, while on smartphones it was $0.48 and on tablets it was $0.62, according to marketing researcher Marin Software. Tablets’ higher conversion rates — 3.3% compared with smartphones’ 2.8% — drive a higher overall ROI than on smartphones, making tablet search advertising a relative bargain when it comes to paid search. But rates are rising rapidly, according to Marin Software, with tablet-specific campaigns poised to rival the costs for keywords targeted to desktop/laptop browsers —  which means merchants should take advantage of the opportunity now to target tablet shoppers while their budgets can still withstand it.

Paid search data from Marin Software

How do you plan to court tablet shoppers during the upcoming holiday season?

From engagement to purchase: just-right checkout

One of the frequent questions merchants face is how to optimize the checkout process on the eCommerce site. The issue is a crucial one: not only does streamlined checkout help combat cart abandonment, but with the proliferation of alternative payments and gifting options, it’s vital to create a smooth process that can adapt to shoppers’ preferences.

Single-page formats have debuted in recent years, due to the perception that a single page presents fewer hurdles for shoppers and is easier to understand and digest. Case studies have shown that single-page checkout can boost completion more than 20%.

But as with anything, the devil is in the details. Like multi-page checkout, single-page checkouts can be streamlined or cluttered, straightforward or confusing, and can lead to gratification or frustration. Because single-page checkouts require more complicated technical processes to verify the information shoppers submit as they proceed down the page, they can be harder to execute, especially when all those options for alternative payment, multiple delivery addresses and the like are factored in.

Perhaps that’s why, in a sampling from the top 100 merchants in Internet Retailer’s Top 500 list, the vast majority — nearly 89% — use a multi-page checkout, with most sites featuring a process that takes four pages to move from the login page through to “submit order”. (We didn’t count the cart page or the post-order confirmation page, and we simulated the simplest of purchases: one that would be shipped solely to the billing address, without gifting options, and paid with a credit card.)

Checkout data from MarketLive

Clearly, one-step checkout isn’t the panacea for every path-to-purchase fallout problem merchants face; otherwise these merchants, who number among the biggest of the big brands, would have adopted it. But the good news is that regardless of the number of steps involved, merchants can deploy tactics that help shoppers along the path to purchase — balancing the desire for simplicity with the need for trust-building signposts. To optimize checkout, merchants should:

Consider a hybrid model. Merchants needn’t adopt an either/or stance when it comes to checkout; they can blend aspects of one-page and multi-step formats to create the sleekest possible path to purchase. Several merchants we surveyed in the two-page category use the first page to determine if shoppers are existing account holders, new reigstrants, or guest checkout users, and then follow up with a one-page checkout tailored to their preferences — thereby ensuring the single-page format includes only the options appropriate to the audience. L.L. Bean uses a modal window to determine whether shoppers are current account holders, then presents a clearly-labeled accordion-style single-page checkout. Guest users are invited to create an account as part of the process.

Checkout example from L.L. BeanCheckout example from l.L. Bean

Downplay less-popular options. Merchants should use their analytics to determine which checkout options are used infrequently, and then position them accordingly on the page. For example, merchants already routinely use a checkbox to let shoppers duplicate their shipping address information into the billing address form; some merchants we surveyed took this notion a step further, eliminating the form for entry of the second address altogether unless shoppers indicated the need for it. Similarly,  the option to log in as a registered account holder was placed in the right-hand column on a number of merchant sites we surveyed, thereby eliminating the need for a “login or guest checkout” starter page altogether.  Dick’s Sporting Goods uses this technique, labeling the registered-user process “express checkout” to flag to shoppers the expediency of creating an account.

Checkout example from Dick's Sporting Goods

Provide access to live help. Regardless of the number of steps in checkout, merchants should make access to customer service easy and prominent. Live chat prompts are appropriate throughout, with proactive invitations triggered if shoppers “stall” at any point in the process. And other means of reaching customer service should be prominently signposted, as on the Bass Pro Shops eCommerce site, where a specialized header highlighting customer service and providing links to product guarantees and FAQs is used throughout checkout.

Checkout example from Bass Pro Shops

Truly integrate alternative payments. As we’ve previously written, offering alternative payments is now commonplace.  But merchants shouldn’t merely divert shoppers into alternative payment processes right from the cart page; rather, they should incorporate options as much as possible into the checkout process — not only reducing the impact of the jarring experience for shoppers of being handed off to another site, but also enabling collection of key shopper data within the merchant’s native  eCommerce platform. Build.com uses a tabbed approach to enable payment with Google Checkout or Paypal — but uses its own eCommerce site to collect shipping information and the shopper’s email address. The third-party payment processes have been tailored to avoid duplicate entry of information, and shoppers return to Build.com for the final order confirmation and placement.

Checkout example from Build.com

Stay tuned for more optimization strategies as we head toward the all-important fourth quarter. How many steps are in your checkout process, and why?

From engagement to purchase: best practices for “add to cart”

As the middle of the year approaches, many merchants are already looking ahead to the peak holiday season and fine-tuning site features in hopes of powering optimal sales growth. And with cart abandonment rates still hovering above 50%, according to technology researcher Forrester, optimizing the path to purchase from should be high on the list of to-do items.

While a sizeable percentage of shoppers are using the cart for research, those who wish to buy immediately should have a streamlined option available to them. To that end, merchants are increasingly tweaking every nuance of the purchase path. The step that has perhaps changed the most in recent years is the very first one: the action that results from clicking “add to cart.”

Back in the early years of eCommerce, most merchant sites moved shoppers from the product page to the shopping cart page when an item was added. Now,  though, more than two-thirds of merchants keep shoppers on the product page, according to a sampling from the top 100 merchants on Internet Retailer’s Top 500 list. More than a third of merchants use a pop-up or modal window to mark the addition of an item, while another 30% display a drop-down global cart window. Another 2.86% use a text-based flag on the product page to alert shoppers the selected item has been added to the cart.

Data on add to cart from MarketLive

The use of pop-up or drop-down windows is a testament to the power of motion to dominate our attention. The activity notifies shoppers that their item has been placed in the cart, while at the same time keeping them in the browsing environment — balancing the need to acknowledge the add-to-cart action with the desire to encourage further product selections.

Some merchants lose that sense of balance, though, when it comes to what options for next steps are offered for shoppers to select. Opportunities for promotional messaging and up-sells can be missed in an effort to minimize clutter, while attempts to streamline the path to purchase can leave shoppers without information vital to making a purchase decision. To make the most of post-add-to-cart messaging, merchants should:

Keep the cart option.  While it’s tempting to skip the shopping cart page altogether in an effort to streamline the purchase process, merchants who fail to provide easy access to the cart may cut off the only opportunity shoppers have before checkout to view the estimated order total. With shipping costs remaining a top barrier to order completion, the ability to view and select delivery options is crucial, as is the capability to enter promotional codes. And for those shoppers who are still in pure research mode, it’s important to have access tools that enable saving items to a wish list or printing the cart contents for reference in physical stores. To balance the needs of shoppers who want to check out immediately after adding items to the cart with those who want to consult the tools the cart page provides, merchants should display both options, preferably with equal prominence. They should also clearly label each option to highlight the availability of both the streamlined and standard option, as Rakuten does in modal add-to-cart window.

Add to cart example from rakuten.com

Include free shipping information. Speaking of delivery costs, merchants should use the window that appears after the “add to cart” action to highlight any free shipping offers and their thresholds. While ideally the window should calculate how close shoppers are to meeting the threshold and present a personalized notification,  it’s enough to prominently display a global message, as REI does with the text flag alerting shoppers to the $50 threshold for free shipping.

rei_globalcart

Spotlight smart upsells. Immediately after adding an item to the cart, shoppers should be presented with a curated selection of items. Unlike the cross-sells displayed on the product page itself, the upsells shouldn’t contain SKU variants of the same item or similar items at different price points; rather, the products on display should complement what’s already been added to the cart to entice shoppers to consider a further addition. Crate & Barrel’s modal window displays four products related to the selected item.

Add to cart example from Crate & Barrel

Stay tuned for more path-to-purchase optimization tips — both for the eCommerce site and for mobile. Meantime, what strategies do you employ to keep shoppers engaged after clicking “add to cart”?

Leaders of the pack: Design Within Reach

Most of the time, our blog posts focus on individual eCommerce strategies. But we thought it would be fun, from time to time, to look at how the concepts are put into practice and combined to create a successful shopping experience that uniquely embodies a brand. So starting with this post, we’ll profile the winners of the 2013 MarketLive Merchant Awards, which were announced back in April at the MarketLive Summit. In so doing, we’ll showcase how merchants embody the best practices this blog is all about.

The first featured merchant is Design Within Reach. The company strives to make modern home design accessible to consumers by offering authentic and original products through retail stores, catalogs and online. In keeping with the company’s mission, DWR’s online properties all feature a sleek, minimalist look coupled with ease of use. The main eCommerce site benefited in the past year from revamped photography and a retooled product page that makes the most of multiple images by doubling the size of the image display space and orienting it horizontally — ideal for furniture. The product pages also fulfill the mission of making design accessible by providing detailed product stories that place items within the context of interior design trends and history. Shoppers can share items through a variety of social links, as well as print items for reference when visiting physical store outlets.

Product page from DWR

In addition to offering plenty of in-room photograpy and collection selling, DWR provides a design tool using 3D modeling technology. Shoppers can not only upload or build floor plans and populate them with products, but they can share their creations and comment on others’ designs. By providing such a specialized tool, DWR serves the needs of its shoppers and helps them make informed product choices.

Shopping tool from DWR

DWR offers additional innovative selling tools for tablet and mobile users. Its Webby-nominated iPad app offers tablet shoppers an array of shopping options, from scenic photos with embedded product information to collection pages that allow for mixing and matching room elements by swiping them one by one. The app also features in-depth content on iconic designers and design history, educating consumers and linking to related products.

iPadd app from DWR

The mobile phone version of the site presents a streamlined view of products and categories as well as a store locator that suggests nearby outlets based on the shoppers’ current location  – after obtaining permission to access location data, a step that enhances customer trust.

Mobile permission request from DWR

The brand’s blog, Design Notes, offers an insider peek at the world of design, with reports from buyers’ expos, profiles of designers, and interior design news.The content demonstrates the brand’s authoritative knowledge of design and also provides fodder for social media outlets. The brand not only has a presence on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter but on the design-centric community Houzz, thereby connecting with design-conscious consumers where they choose to congregate.

DWR on Houzz

The brand is marketed effectively across touchpoints. Visitors to the eCommerce site are invited to join the email list, and the home page features promotions of physical store locations, the catalog, the iPad app and social media outlets. Meanwhile, the Facebook page spotlights in-store events.

DWR Facebook events

Would you like to nominate a brand for the “Leaders of the pack” series? Let us know in the comments below!

MarketLive news: a new world of content and on-site search

Merchants know on-site search is essential to their businesses — and they know there’s room for improvement. While the workhorse of a feature contributes to a third of eCommerce revenues, according to the MarketLive Performance Index, most merchants rate their own on-site search capabilities as middling. In a survey by technology researcher Forrester, the majority of businesses reported their on-site search initiatives were only moderately successful, with just 1 in 5 rating their efforts 8 or higher on a 10-point scale.

To complicate matters, the demands of on-site search are only growing more complex. With merchants not only finding new ways to merchandise and classify products, but also creating a raft of value-added content not directly connected with an individual SKU, on-site search tools must now present a variety of information to fulfill shoppers’ diverse needs, while at the same time making it easy to connect with relevant products quickly.

That’s why we’re so excited about our latest major technology release, which includes an array of on-site search features, including faceted navigation for content as well as products. Our content management tool has received enhancements as well, making content even easier to integrate with products.

As MarketLive CEO Mark Pierce told Internet Retailer, “For specialty retailers to compete, content is becoming more and more critical … The search engines are providing higher rankings to sites that have authenticity, which comes from unique links and unique content.”

The Cost Plus World Market site, which is using the technology, features a number of sections that display robust content alongside related product recommendations. The World Food Truck section, for example, uses an interactive map to spotlight regional recipes, with related products displayed beneath.

Integrated content example from Cost Plus

A search for “Lamps” includes lamp categories as part of the faceted results. Clicking on “Mix and Match Lamps” brings up a results page that integrates gift suggestions for decorators and an invitation to join the loyalty program among individual results.

Integrated content example from Cost Plus

To learn more about these features, read the official press release. Additionally, we’re showcasing the new technology at IRCE — find us at booth #1403.

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