But when it comes to how to bring in more customers to your online marketplace, providing better customer experience tops the list. And this is where the significance of personalized recommendations come into play.

Personalized recommendations have revolutionized the way people shop online and are loved by shoppers. Imagine having a personal shopping assistant who knows what you need or what would suit you and presenting them right in front of you! But then, you don’t have to imagine this as you probably are familiar with such experiences, thanks to marketplaces like Amazon.

However, they are more than just a tool to help shoppers on their shopping journey. The benefits of this strategy is undeniable for online marketplaces. But should you really bother about providing custom product recommendations for each of your customers? Let’s check out why this strategy is adopted by most of the marketplaces today and learn how to implement it the right way.

What are personalized recommendations?

Personalized recommendation is a marketing strategy that uses machine learning and collected data to analyze users’ shopping behavior in order to provide custom shopping suggestions to the buyers. These suggestions, when presented to customers at various points of their online shopping journey, help them purchase the right product from your store. Personalized recommendations are mostly based on customers’ browsing history, search queries, purchase history, preferences and demographics. The goal of such a strategy is to provide a convenient and enjoyable shopping experience with a touch of personalization, thereby, improving customer acquisition and retention.

While browsing through a product list, have you ever noticed a particular product that’s highlighted as ‘bestseller,’ ‘recommended,’ or maybe ‘just launched?’ You sure must have seen some while shopping on Amazon. Yes, that’s Amazon’s way of providing you some personal implication for a better choice of products!

What are the benefits of personalized recommendations?

In a research conducted by Salesforce, it was found that 52% of customers expect personalized offers every time they shop. Clearly, buyers are now concerned more on how they are being valued and providing personalizations would definitely hit the bull’s eye. And meeting customer expectations should be of topmost priority of any marketplace. But why should you consider implementing a strategy like personal recommendations for your marketplace? Let’s see how this strategy does wonders for your business.

Provides better customer experience

Time is precious for everyone and customers hate it when they don’t get what they’re looking for within the first few seconds of browsing. One of the major reasons for ecommerce site abandonment is customers not being able to find their desired item immediately. No doubt, an excellent search and filtering module of your website might display the right products for your customer. However, at times, customers might find it conflicting to pick that one right product from the sea of similar products in your marketplace.

Personalized recommendations display the most appropriate products to the customer based on their previous purchase history or their preferences and help them choose the most suitable one. This greatly reduces the unnecessary browsing time and accelerates the checkout procedure. With 59% of online shoppers believing that customized experiences help them find more interesting products, it’s high time you consider using it!

Improves customer engagement

Did you know that personalized recommendations play a major role in increasing customer engagement? When a customer feels overwhelmed with your products and leaves the site, it’s a clear indication that your website isn’t able to engage your customer. Personalized suggestions, when displayed strategically, engage the customer to browse through the recommended products, ponder over it and ultimately proceed to buy them. The strategy creates a rabbit hole-like situation for the customers: customers click one product, then get hinted at another relevant product, and then click on the second product, and the process goes on. This allows them to spend significant time on your website, thereby increasing the average session time. 

According to a report by Salesforce, shoppers who click on recommended products spend an average of 12.9 minutes on the site as compared to 2.9 minutes for those who don’t click on recommended products. The more time your customers spend on your website, the better are your chances of them buying from your marketplace.

Boosts sales conversion

We know that personal recommendations help customers stay on your site for a longer period of time. As the customer is provided with his product of interest, he or she continues to browse through those items and consider purchasing them. This eventually drags them further into the sales funnel leading them to eventually make the purchase. Shoppers who use search as well as product recommendations get converted 3.7 times more than by just searching for the product. So, don’t just rely on your site’s search module and start focusing on targeted recommendations!

Increases average order value

In retail stores, when you proceed to checkout, you would often find little products placed strategically around the billing counter. Such point of purchase (POP) displays immediately catch customers’ attention and they perpetually pick one and add to their cart while they checkout. This invariably increases their average order value without much of an effort!

The same effect could be achieved by targeted recommendations as well. Let’s say, a customer is looking for a particular DSLR. A great product recommendation by your website could help him select the right one. Next, when he proceeds to checkout, he’s prompted by a quick recommendation of a suitable camera lens that would enhance the function of his DSLR. Intrigued by the recommendation, he checks that out and decides to buy that too. On scrolling further into the product page, he’s suggested an appropriate camera case that has been purchased by similar customers buying the same camera. The customer finds it a great recommendation matching his requirements. Captivated by the combo, he proceeds to add all three products to his cart and completes the purchase.

You see, how such relevant products when strategically presented to the customer during his checkout process, increases the customer’s penchant of buying. Without much of an effort, the order value is increased besides making the customer feel that his needs are personally taken care of by your marketplace.

Numerous marketplaces, including Amazon, use the same strategy and lures customers into buying more. And Amazon really knows how to use the recommendation strategy well since 35% of Amazon’s revenue is generated by its recommendation engine!

Retains customer loyalty

Customer retention rate has a direct impact on your sales growth. Even by boosting a mere 5% in customer retention, you can increase your profits by up to 95%. And in the rat race of marketplaces, it’s important that you focus on retaining your customers.

When you deliver a positive shopping experience to a customer, they are more likely to come back to you. With custom recommendations, you give your customers a sense of personalization, making them feel that their preferences are being taken care of individually. That sense of familiarity will build trust on your marketplace and compel your customers to stay loyal to your business. Appropriate suggestions along with customer-exclusive offers and deals will undoubtedly improve your customer retention rate. 56% of customers prefer returning to brands that offer personalized product recommendations. Therefore, providing personalization is a great strategy to invest in.

How does it work?

To make your marketplace ace the recommendation game, you first require a suitable product recommendation engine that will be apt for your marketplace requirements and strategies. A product recommendation engine effectively provides custom product suggestions, special offers and deals that are tailor made for individual customers. It uses machine learning and artificial engine (AI) to analyze your marketplace’s collected data like your customer behavior, search history and other factors in order to provide exact suggestions. 

Product recommendation engines employ complex and sophisticated algorithms taking into consideration the massive amount of data that it processes. We’re not going to dive deeper into those calculations. Rather, we’re going to focus on how it basically works!

Product recommendation engines vary by the approach it takes. There are three broad techniques on which they work:

Collaborative filtering technique

Collaborative filtering system analyzes a wide range of similar customers to predict which products will be of best interest to the current customer. It is based on the most popular product preferences of the mass and recommends items accordingly.

To explain it better, we’ll take an example of a marketplace selling electronics goods. Let’s say most of the customers who visit the marketplace’s website, look for mobile phones. A collaborative filtering analyzes the trend of the users and tracks down the most popular smartphones that the majority of users are interested in or have purchased from your site. When a particular user then visits your site, he or she is suggested the same smartphones, triggering them to further consider buying the product.  

Content-based filtering technique

This technique focuses on individual user preferences and purchase behavior. It detects and analyzes each and every user actions like web pages viewed, time spent on different product categories, products clicked on, products wishlisted or added to cart, etc. Creating a user profile based on these actions, it then suggests relevant products to the same user the next time he or she visits your site.

Considering the same electronics marketplace, if someone has shown previous affinity towards home entertainment systems, he might be suggested to consider purchasing a particular sound bar.

Hybrid recommendations technique

As the name suggests, hybrid recommendation systems combine both the techniques. It evaluates data from similar users as well as individual users. Hybrid system analyzes both the data individually and then utilizes it to recommend appropriate products.  This kind of filtering is the most effective one and is highly used in the majority of marketplaces.

So, if a person searches for a TV at the marketplace, the results immediately display those ‘most searched for’ TV sets at the top of the results based on the collaborative filtering system. When the customer clicks on a particular TV set, it then suggests additional sound systems that go perfectly with the particular TV set, based on his previous searches for home entertainment systems!

Where should you place product recommendations on your site?

Strategically placing your product suggestions on your website is the key to a successful conversion through product recommendations. Your customers should notice your recommendations and feel curious to click on it. So, a random recommendation here and there that misses the eye would do no good. Here are some pivotal areas where you should focus placing your recommendations for good conversion results:

• Homepage: This is probably the first page that your visitor is going to land on (unless they are directed to some other page through ads). Therefore, the impact of the first viewing page should be really strong. Site banners on top of the homepage is a great area that catches visitor’s attention real quick. Line up and highlight your best selling and trending products on this page that comes to the immediate notice of your customers. You can also show newest product arrivals, previously searched/viewed products, or even expert recommendations on your homepage for more influence.

• Category pages: Category pages are the places which drive the discovery of your products. When your customers visit particular categories, you already know what they’re interested in. Recommend the most eye-catching products or fresh arrivals of particular categories or products that most customers have bought from the category.

• Product pages: Product page is the page from where you can start your upselling game. People browsing individual product pages have the highest intent of purchasing that product. It’s the right time to push related products or bundled products in a way that compels your customer to buy them. Terms like “frequently bought together” or “customers also buy this” are pretty alluring calls for such recommendations and would definitely do the work.

• Cart page: While bundled or group products recommendations can still be continued on the shopping cart page, this place is heavily suitable for that final deal. Special discount offers, reminders on wishlisted products, adding another relevant product for free delivery or additional discount, etc., are some of the things that can be put up at this point to increase the order value. However, at this point, your customer is almost at the finishing line. Any misleading or irrelevant push could lead to cart abandonment. Therefore, be extra careful of your recommendations at this crucial area.

Product Recommendation for WooCommerce

Now, you might be wondering how to implement such a product recommendation engine to your site. If you have proper resources and time, you might build your own recommendation engine for your marketplace. In this way, you might be able to customize your modules according to your marketplace’s requirements. Alternatively, you might also want to try pre-built plugins or softwares that would do the work for you and your marketplace. WooCommerce has some popular plugins like WooCommerce Product Recommendations and Recommendation Engine that are pretty good. Alternatively, if you want advanced recommendation features and capabilities for your marketplace, AI based engines like Visenze and Recolize can be your good friend. Whatever you choose, you need to configure your software according to your marketplace needs and trends.

The product recommendation engine market is expected to reach about USD 15.13 billion by 2026 with 89% of companies investing in this strategy. Businesses have found great ROIs after they’ve implemented the product recommendation strategy. So, now that you know the benefits of product recommendation and how you should ideally do it, dive straight into it and watch your marketplace soar to the next level.

The post Personalized Recommendations : A Must-have Strategy for Online Success appeared first on WC Lovers.

Now, imagine that you have someone (or something) helping you out on the other side and performing the role of a store assistant while you’re shopping online!

Chatbots have become the newest ecommerce game changer that are filling the “support” gap and have evolved as smart assistants of many a marketplace. These round-the-clock bots use AI to draw customer preferences and shopping paths and provide exclusive shopping experience. In today’s era of conversational commerce where businesses are connecting with their customers through messaging, chatbots in marketplaces have brought in revolutionary improvements.

But why are chatbots gradually becoming an absolute necessity for marketplaces? We’re here to answer that in this blog. But for those who aren’t much acquainted with chatbots, let’s begin with the basics.

What are chatbots?

Have you ever seen a small messaging popup on one of the corners of a website, prompting you to reply with what you’re looking for or querying if you need any help? Yes, that’s a chatbot. 

A chatbot is basically a computer program designed to infer and simulate human conversation over the internet. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to process user’s queries and simultaneous remarks and provide responses.

While chatbots could be designed to do a lot of tasks, in the case of ecommerce, they are mainly programmed to provide automated customer support and guide customers through their shopping and checkout process.

Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular due to their efficiency. According to a survey made by Capgemini, 23 out of top 100 consumer products and retail organizations have deployed chat assistants. The global chatbot market is estimated to be worth $10.5 billion by 2026. 

Types of chatbots

Before you think of integrating a chatbot into your business, you need to know how chatbots work. Once you understand the various types of chatbots and their mechanism, you’ll be able to choose the relevant chatbot for your marketplace.

There are mainly 3 types of chatbots for ecommerce platforms:

Rule-based chatbots

Rule-based chatbots provide answers to predefined questions when prompted by users. These chatbots are function-based on a set of rules or prompts and can only respond to those. Since rule-based chatbots cannot interpret the user’s language, they are pretty restrictive.

Rule-based chatbots are suitable if you expect your customers to ask simple questions or choose from the set of options that you provide. A classic example of this kind is Facebook’s chatbot on its Messenger platform. It performs automated customer support for businesses on Facebook.

AI-driven chatbots

This is the most effective and widely used type of chatbots used in businesses. Utilizing natural language processing (NLP) technologies, AI-driven chatbots mimic human speech patterns and behavior to understand the user’s intent. Through progressive machine learning, these chatbots use AI to respond to user conversations in order to meet their requirements.

AI-driven chatbots are more effective for handling complex shopping processes like product recommendations and completing transactions. It is almost like a live support agent that can help your customer through his course of shopping from your platform. Sephora’s chatbot works on Kik messenger and has been able to capture Gen-Z customers through its intelligent response with relevant photos, tutorials and product recommendations.

Hybrid chatbots

As the name suggests, hybrid chatbots combine the features of both rule-based and AI-driven chatbots. A hybrid chatbot works on flow-based as well as AI-generated paths. These chatbots are implemented where there is a need for AI interpretation for user’s preferences followed by a rule-based consequential task. Therefore, this type of chatbots are especially beneficial for complex customer support, medical diagnosis, booking and appointments, etc. Snaptravel’s chatbot can effectively help customers search and book accommodations and flights – all by itself and in just 16 minutes!

Hybrid chatbots also refer to those chatbots that involve human agent intervention. Such chatbots analyze conversations between a support agent and user and learn the process for future support. In cases where the bot can no longer assist the user or requires human intervention, it redirects to a suitable live support agent.

Why should you invest in a chatbot?

Let’s be honest, you’re already interested in chatbots, aren’t you? Ecommerce chatbots can improve your website’s functionality and provide a better shopping experience, when implemented properly. Here’s how effective chatbots benefit your marketplace:

Provides 24×7 active support

Think of a support employee who works round the clock, doesn’t take coffee breaks and is replete with a vast database readily resolving customer queries and issues. You’d have a tough time finding a human agent who could fulfill such fantasies! But chatbots can step up to the plate and become your next super employee. They won’t feel tired of even repeating the same answer. AI-enabled chatbots can even study user mannerism and provide resolutions with different eccentricities!

Moreover, customers hate to wait and want an immediate response when they’re stuck with an issue. In a survey of 3200 customers, 12% expected a response within just 15 minutes from their query. Now, unless you do have a round the clock support team, responses could take hours for queries that pour in beyond working hours of your team. Chatbots can solve this problem by significantly reducing the wait time to seconds thereby providing better customer satisfaction. Plus, it eases the load on your support team by letting your support agents deal with more complex queries. Slush’s chatbot handles about 64% of all customer queries, which is a big load-reliever for any company.

Helps in generating more leads

Every visitor visiting your website is a potential buyer and requires to be plunged into your sales funnel. AI-driven chatbots are a powerful conversational tool for any business. It can effectively engage customers in interaction and collect data about customer behavior, preferences, sentiment, etc. These data could be further used for targeted marketing and personalized recommendations.

Chatbots are one of the best tools to promote lead magnets that can lead to fruitful conversions. Lead magnets can include exclusive contents like articles/blogs, informative videos or styling tips that become available to the potential lead after he/she signs up or provides his/her email-address. Via interactive conversation, chatbots can ask for the user’s email details so as to send forth the content, thereby capturing valuable information for further email marketing strategies. 

Static online forms have a high rate of abandonment with 81% of people leaving out online forms midway after they start filling them. Chatbots can break long forms into several steps and help users fill them through interactive questionnaires or quizzes. This lets the user willingly give out information without filling up long forms, thereby improving leads count. Toyota’s Hong Kong branch had implemented Sanuker’s chatbot ‘Stella’ for its Toyota Sienta campaign which collected the customers’ preferences through pleasant conversation and quizzes. Later, it connected to relevant Toyota sales teams available through live chat. This chatbot increased Toyota’s CTR from 0.6% to almost 10%!

Drives more sales

A tenacious shop assistant not only responds to customers’ queries but also ensures smooth culmination of sales. Similarly, an efficient chatbot can work on various aspects of a sales process in order to complete the process. In fact, sales automation is one of the biggest reasons why businesses are relying on smart chatbots.

When customers get a personalized shopping experience, they’re more likely to shop from that brand. A research made in 2017 by Epsilon indicates that 80% of customers are more likely to shop from businesses offering personalized experience. In that light, custom-based offers and product recommendations play an important role in compelling users to buy from you. Amazon generates 35% of its revenue through its recommendation engine!

Much like a personal shopper, chatbots can suggest relevant products or services from your inventory to users when prompted for their interests, issues or requirements. Some bots can be programmed to even custom match or search for mix-match items in order to create a perfect     product for the customers. Nike’s StyleBot, in general, provides amazing product suggestions to customers based on their preferences. However, during its Nike AirMax Day, it utilized its StyleBot to let customers create designs for their very own custom sneakers and became a huge hit. It increased its average CTR to 12.5 times and its conversion rate by 4 times!

With 88% of customers abandoning their carts without completing the online purchase, it is all the more important to deploy all means to recover those customers. Providing tailor-made deals and offers is proven to improve customer retention. By engaging customers in their persuasive conversation and providing alluring deals, chatbots can help you recover those abandoned carts. A lot of times, the bot asks if the customer wants to proceed with their purchase or empty the cart. This gives the customer a silent push to go back to the cart and complete the transaction.

And not just that, chatbots can also lead your customer towards the checkout process. Through its conversational flow, chatbots can, after affirmation from the customer, direct your customers to the third party payment gateway in order to complete the purchase. In 2016, Domino’s introduced Dom, the Pizza Bot, which works with Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Slack and a few other platforms. It helps customers order their favorite pizza along with their preferred customization directly from the messenger. Without even downloading the app, the bot lets you complete your transaction.

Engages in post-sales service

In order to build a long lasting relationship with your customers, post-sales support is pretty crucial. Post-sales support not only turns your customers loyal towards you for further purchases but also makes them advocate your brand. 95% of customers agree with the fact that good customer service is important for brand loyalty. But did you know that your chatbot could also help you in customer retention through after-sales services?

One of the most common post-sales support requests are return, exchange, refund and shipment tracking queries. Since returns and refunds or exchanges usually fall under pre-defined policies of the company or seller, it becomes quite repetitive and monotonous for support agents to deal with these requests. Chatbots can easily process these customer requests in no time, thereby relieving customer support agents of these minor requests. In case of more complex issues regarding return/exchange or refunds, chatbots can also connect the customer with live support agents, turning the whole process into a seamless and speedy one. 

Similarly, these smart AI agents can help your customers track their package without getting into the tedious task of entering tracking IDs or browsing the order tracking page. They pull data from your logistics provider and store them in the backend so that the tracking information is readily available when prompted.

Chatbots can also be programmed to re-engage past customers to share their experience or review regarding their purchase. Mostly through messengers or even emails, chatbots can get in touch with customers who have made a recent purchase from your website and collect their feedback. You can later analyze these feedbacks to improve customer experience, provide personalized deals, and send upcoming sales or product launch alerts.

Reduces resource costs

The global customer service market was valued at USD 10.6 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at an annual CAGR of 15.4 from 2023 to 2030. More and more companies are now focusing on quality customer service thereby investing more on the customer support segment. However, maintaining a sound customer support team is quite an expensive affair for any business. An average payout for a customer service agent in the US is around $38,008 per year. Additionally, there are costs for recruiting, onboarding and training an agent that the company bears when it keeps a customer support team of its own. Even if you outsource a call center for your customer support, it may cost you about $2600 – $3400 per agent per month.

On the other hand, chatbots are way cheaper than maintaining a full fledged support team. Most software companies charge from $15,000 to $31,000 to build a customized chatbot as per your requirements. An AI-driven chatbot with NLP and machine learning features can cost you about $20,000 – $40,000. Building one from scratch can cost from $5000 to ev en $1,50,000 based on how you develop it. 

Now, you might ask, how on earth is that cheaper? Well, these are mostly one-time development costs. Of course, you might also require a subscription fee which might cost from $100 to even $5000 per month when your chatbot is developed by Saas. However, the catch is that a single chatbot can accomplish the task of hundreds of support agents at one time. Not just support, but chatbots can also help in customer retention and targeted marketing – something that a customer support agent won’t be able to accomplish. Plus, they work 24×7, which no support agent, whether in-house or outsourced, will do. Moreover, when you build a support team of your own or even outsource them, you cannot do with just one or two support agents. Therefore, the cumulative costs would definitely exceed that of getting a  chatbot. So, when you do the math, you’ll find that getting a chatbot is way more economical than hiring a support team.

Of course, chatbots cannot completely overrun human support agents. During any kind of problem solving, there may arise situations where human intervention becomes necessary. However, chatbots can significantly reduce the cost of human resources by allowing you to maintain a smaller support team dedicated to more complex issues.

77% of online businesses have already implemented chatbots for support. Furthermore, 60% of businesses are considering conversational bots for after-sales support. So, you know, chatbots are the next big thing in the customer service market. These smart, conversational bots are multifunctional, reliable and save you from human error. Since AI is the future of ecommerce, it’s high time you start considering chatbots as your next customer support team. Just find yourself a good software company that offers the most suitable chatbot service or build yourself a custom one. With chatbots, you’ll definitely see your marketplace perform better, earn more revenue and provide an improved shopping experience.

The post 5 Convincing Reasons Why Your Marketplace Needs a Chatbot appeared first on WC Lovers.

One of the latest shopping trends is the ROPO effect which is quite concerning for marketplaces. ROPO stands for Research Online Purchase Offline : a phenomenon where customers gather all product related information online and then proceed to purchase the same in a brick-and-mortar store. Consumers might take the help of online blogs, articles, reviews and displayed prices in order to make a purchase decision and eventually walk in a retail store to purchase offline. This has an adverse effect on the total online sales of any marketplace.

Nevertheless, every obstacle has its own unique way of combating and believe it or not, there are ways to avert the ROPO effect. Here’s all you need to know about the ROPO effect and how you can turn it to your marketplace’s advantage.

Why is ROPO a concern for marketplaces?

For the last few years, customers were seen practicing a phenomenon known as “show-rooming”: customers would examine a certain product in an offline retail store, gather all required information and then purchase the same product offline. This has been a great advantage for online retailers and marketplaces seeing their online sales flourishing. However, with the ever-changing customer psychology and behaviors, we are now experiencing an anomaly of this habit.

Now, the ROPO effect could be considered less troublesome for individual online retailers who also have their own physical stores. Provided that customers browse their online options to later buy their products in-store, in any case, their products are ultimately being sold.

The challenge, however, arises for multi vendor marketplaces selling physical products. Marketplaces that are based on commission models earn from the number of transactions on their platform. Nothing could be more disastrous than customers simply browsing their products online and ultimately not completing the transaction on their marketplace. Therefore, this ROPO effect is quite an alarming issue for marketplaces in general.

What leads to the ROPO effect?

You might wonder why people choose to purchase offline after skimming through the online options. There are a few factors that leads to this devastating effect:

Quick accessibility to the internet and devices

Currently, around 83.32% of the worldwide population uses a smartphone with active mobile internet users being 4.67 billion! With the heightened accessibility of digital devices, people are becoming more inclined towards checking out what’s beyond their immediate eyesight. With retailers optimizing for local search on search engines, customers get the convenience of checking the product options online and then looking out for the same in nearby offline stores.

In other words, the internet has proven to be a boon as well as a bane for online marketplaces. While it does help online shopping flourish, it also opens local options leading to the ROPO or web-rooming effect.

Credence on online reviews

Before the internet revolution, word-of-mouth was a popular method of promoting products. People would trust on recommendations and then decide on buying something. The same idea has been running down the years only to be propagated through penned down words. Online reviews help people share their story and experience of buying and using a product. That helps potential customers make the correct decision of purchase.

Now, let’s look at the numbers. 93% of customers read online reviews before buying a product. Also, 93% of consumers admit that they get influenced by online reviews. The point is that people nowadays rely heavily on online reviews. Whether they are planning to buy an item online or not, the first thing that most of us do is read through the reviews. Alongside Google, Amazon is one of the top platforms where people look up for product reviews. A lot of time, probable customers get influenced by negative online reviews which compel them to buy in-hand, resulting in the ROPO effect.

The need for touch or trial

One of the biggest reasons why people still opt for in-store purchase instead of so many online options is their need to trial. The satisfaction of touch and feel is, without doubt, missed when shopping online. Also, certain categories like apparel and cosmetics require a closer, prior trial or testing before buying.

Moreover, the accuracy of online representation of products is, at times, quite awry. This is one of the main reasons why 56% of consumers prefer touching and trying a product first before buying it. As a result, they gather all related information regarding a product online and then buy it offline.

Late deliveries

One-day delivery is now a gone thing; people are demanding quicker deliveries, usually within hours. A lot of people still prefer looking for local businesses on the internet to sate their immediate requirements rather than waiting for later deliveries. Let’s say, you suddenly plan to meet someone with a bunch of flowers. You probably wouldn’t wait for 2-3 hours delivery, let alone a next-day delivery. Instead, you’d walk in a nearby florist and pick up the flowers. And that’s what a lot of customers do, unknowingly contributing to the ROPO effect.

Categories that are highly affected by ROPO Effect

Not all categories of products get equally influenced by the ROPO effect. Categories that require the “feel” and “urgency” factor are highly susceptible to this phenomena. Let’s look at the product categories that are most prone to the ROPO effect:

Fashion and shoes

Fashion is one such product category that is most vulnerable to the ROPO effect. The need for touch, feel or trial is mostly seen in case of fashion items such as apparels and shoes. Surely, one would always prefer trying out a pair of jeans or a pair of walking shoes for the perfect fit, comfort and looks. Although online fashion is a thriving industry, customers’ inclination towards trial of such items would never die.

Beauty products

A wrong shade of foundation can have a horrible effect on the overall makeup look. And that’s why customers still prefer buying beauty products off physical stores for beauty products, cosmetics and perfumes. Nykaa, an Indian beauty marketplace, has realized this concept and has eventually expanded to brick-and-mortar stores as well.

Household

Let’s say, you’re in the process of making a great dish and suddenly discover that you’re missing out on a crucial ingredient. Would you wait for 30 minutes for an online delivery of the ingredient or quickly grab it out from a store that’s barely five minutes away? Most people have immediate requirements of day-to-day household items and wouldn’t even mind paying a few bucks extra for a quick hold.

Lighting

It’s impossible to discern how warm or bright a certain piece of lighting would be based on online images. It is difficult to determine the suitability of lighting unless you see it for yourself. That’s why lighting is one such category that customers still prefer buying offline after proper evaluation.

Besides these categories, departments like sports, furniture, pharmaceuticals and certain electronics are also vulnerable to the ROPO phenomenon. To have a better idea, have a look at the effect of ROPO on different product categories in Poland in 2021-22.

How to combat the ROPO effect?

Well, you cannot completely evade the ROPO phenomenon, it is imperative. However, of course, there are ways to combat it. In fact, we’ll list a few ways in which you can actually put ROPO to your benefit. Let’s get into it!

Add value to your products

People opt for in-store shopping probably because they, somehow, find it to be more accessible. If you think deeply on that matter, you would realize that the entire point of online shopping, too, is for convenience. Therefore, you have to focus on the convenience factor of your online service in order to keep people away from any kind of deviation. In simpler words, don’t just sell products, add value to your customer’s shopping experience. Things like free deliveries and quicker deliveries can make your customers choose you over local stores. In a survey made in 2022, it was found that 41% of consumers prefer 1-day delivery, while 24% of the surveyors want deliveries in less than 2 hours! So, if your business has the potential to provide these values and you haven’t started yet, do it now!

Even flexible exchange and return policies would make you more reliable and encourage your customers to shop from you. Easier exchanges, no-questions asked returns and quicker refunds are some of the things that provide an assurance to customers and they wouldn’t hesitate from ordering online. Let’s say your marketplace sells groceries. Benefits like 15-minutes delivery and easy refund on damaged or stale products would definitely make your customers think twice before dressing up and visiting a grocery store!  

Constantly optimize pricing

One of the first things that customers check online while comparing your online products with in-store products is their price difference. If they find offline options to be cheaper, you know the consequences. As soon as you discover the products that are most susceptible to the ROPO effect, you need to constantly monitor their pricing and optimize them. It isn’t always obligatory to keep your prices lower than the offline stores. In order to win the competition, keep your prices in tandem with the market or at least at par with the offline prices, if not less. An effective price optimizing strategy could help you track and amend prices from time to time.

Provide correct and detailed product information

If you check out Apple’s product descriptions, you’ll understand the power of a well-defined product description. Crisp, direct and impactful – the perfect blend of words that would compel customers to buy the product. And that’s what every product description should be – designed to sell. However, most marketplaces’ product information display mere manufacturer’s descriptions. That’s not what your customers expect to read!

According to a survey conducted by Shiprocket, about 98% of customers abandon a purchase if the product information is insufficient or incorrect. Of course, manufacturer’s details are essential and shouldn’t be missed out completely. But you should also pitch your products in a way that would not only emphasize on your product’s significance but also how your customer would benefit from purchasing it.

As visual creatures, we rely more on visuals than what we read. And hence, product images also play an important role in online sales. Insignificant or incorrect images immediately tick off customers. 22% of product returns are due to mismatch between the displayed product image and the actual product. Categories such as apparels and accessories are most susceptible to such cases. Therefore, proper and detailed visuals as well as video of products would encourage your customers to consider it worth buying.

Provide augmented reality experience

We already know that categories like fashion and lighting are highly prone to the ROPO phenomena. That’s mainly because customers probably can’t determine how it will look in reality. A model that’s wearing a piece of dress might look good as per the displayed visual. However, it might not always look equally suitable on the buyer. Similarly, your customers might not be able to figure out how a piece of lantern would look in their living room. Naturally, they would walk-in to the nearest store to check out such products personally. If only you could provide them that first-hand experience right on their browsing device, they would be able to make a better decision!

3D and 360-degree product view has been in the market for quite some time now. The latest feature that you should invest in is providing an augmented reality experience. AR features allow the customers to virtually experience a product in their immediate environment. It greatly reduces the doubt factor that creeps in a customer’s mind in their pre-purchase phase and leads them to complete the purchase. As per Threekit, 61% of customers prefer retailers that provide AR assistance.

Ikea offers AR on their website to let their customers select a piece of furniture and place it virtually on their home space to see how it looks. After ots success, they’ve also launched an app called IKEA Space on the App Store solely dedicated to AR viewing of their products. L’Oreal has also launched its AR technology on Amazon that will let customers try their products virtually through a live front camera.

There are a lot of softwares that provide AR features for marketplaces. Plugins like AR for WooCommerce and WooCommerce Product View in AR are some of the best AR plugins for WooCommerce.

Strengthen your digital presence

When a potential customer searches for a product online and choses an option other than you, it’s because your online presence isn’t prominent enough! Sounds harsh? However, it’s the blatant truth. 

Of course, your customers are interested in the service or product types that you offer and that’s why they’re searching for them online. The ROPO effect, in itself, is the biggest proof of consumers’ online affinity. All you have to do is present your products readily in front of their eyes for them to pick. Google Ads is a powerful marketing tool when used strategically. Strengthen your Google Ads ranking to stay on top of the search results as 46% of the users click the top three ads displayed on the search engine. Adjust your bids and improvise your ad content in order to create relevant ads in order to hold the prime Ad rankings.

Also work on your local SEO. Your customers might search for local options with an intention to walk into a nearby store. Your ad should still appear on the top few search results which could make the searcher reconsider going out and order in. The catch is in your ad content which should directly influence your potential customer’s purchase decision.

The ROPO effect is definitely harmful for your business, but isn’t something that can’t be dealt with. You can’t completely stop consumers from browsing online and later purchasing offline, but you can definitely turn their buying decisions to your favor. With just a few strategies in place, you’ll be able to break the ROPO loop. Hope this blog helps!

The post Understanding and Combating the ROPO Effect appeared first on WC Lovers.

That’s exactly how your online customers would feel if they do not find the products they’re looking for under the appropriate sections or when they find irrelevant products creeping up as they scroll through a particular section.

One of the top reasons why visitors abandon an ecommerce website is because they do not get what they want within seconds. According to a Nielsen Norman study, the average time a user spends on a particular webpage is 10-20 seconds. So naturally, your customer would abandon your website if they are unable to find what they’re searching for within that time frame.

While setting up your marketplace, product categorization plays a pretty vital role in helping your customers navigate through your plethora of products and pick the right one. But how do you even start with it, given the thousands of products that are there in your marketplace?

Seems like a challenge? Let’s crack this in just 7 easy-peasy steps. But first, let’s start with the basics…

What is product categorization?

Take a look at the following screen from Amazon and note the area marked in red:

This path determines which category this certain product belongs to. This is what is known as product categorization.

In simple words, product categorization is how you arrange your marketplace products in systematic and logical hierarchical categories. Similar to biological taxonomy, the entire inventory is classified into broader categories and then further branched into smaller, more precise categories based on individual product attributes.

However, with the increase in products, the process of product categorization can get complicated. Moreover, some products can have multiple categories.

For example, let’s consider the case of a casual backpack. It can take the following path:

Accessories > Men’s accessories > Bags, wallets and Luggages > Bags and Backpacks > Casual backpacks

Alternatively, it can follow this path as well:

Holiday and Travel essentials > Bags and Luggage > Backpacks and rucksacks > Casual backpacks

So, you see, a backpack could be categorized as men’s fashion accessories as well as a luggage essential. The correct taxonomy depends on how you expect your customers would perceive the product before buying it.

Why do we need product categorization?

With all your products spread across your channel in an unorganized manner, where your customers would have to scroll across pages in order to find that one single product – you’re probably murdering your own business!

Product categorization is as essential to your website as setting up your commission policies or onboarding vendors. A proper taxonomy not just helps your customers buy your products seamlessly but also improves your products visibility in Google search results. A good product categorization benefits your marketplace – it ultimately helps increase your sales. Wondering how? Here’s how:

• Improves customer’s shopping experience

Well, by now it is evident that product categorization streamlines the shopping process for your customers. The product hierarchy lets your visitors easily navigate for a specific category of products and allows them to browse through the variety of items categorized under the segment. As a result, your customers have a smoother shopping experience and would leave your site satisfied.

You might wonder, is the hierarchy really necessary when your marketplace has a powerful search filter? The answer is, yes. Even if your channel has a search option, from where your customers can look for specific products, product categorization is still recommended.

Let’s say, someone is looking for a pair of heels without a brand or color preference. The customer would rather have a look into the variety your marketplace offers and choose the suitable pair of heels among the ones you display. In such cases, having a proper categorization would help him/her navigate through the various kinds of shoes your marketplace offers and move effortlessly to the heels section. Moreover, with efficient arrangement, your customers won’t get distracted by your collection of sports shoes while scrolling through the heels section.

• Strengthens SEO

Most people would look up for their desired products on search engines instead of directly visiting your website. Almost 46% of product searches start at Google. And here’s where a good product categorization would help increase your website’s visibility.

A detailed product taxonomy means that all your product categories, product pages and landing pages are indexed categorically. When someone hunts for a product/service on a search engine like Google, the indexed pages and products are immediately identified by the search engine, resulting in their listing on the search results. The individual categories open more entry points to your website and bring in more traffic. With better taxonomy and detailed information attributed to your products, you will ultimately strengthen your website’s SEO and eventually increase your overall sales.

• Aids in advertising campaigns

Product categorization not only boosts organic SEO but also facilitates better results in search ad campaigns. When a customer searches for a specific item on Google’s search engine, Google ads show related products to the customers. Google also provides product recommendations based on user activity, search preference and previous purchases. With accurate product categorization, your ad campaigns associated with related products/services’ are more likely to popup to searchers.

Let’s say, a customer often buys beauty products. Google Ads would sense the customer’s affinity towards beauty products and would suggest him/her similar products. Now, if your ad campaign is associated with face serums and is appropriately categorized under the beauty segment, the probability of showing your product to the customer increases significantly.

The main purpose of ad campaigns is being discovered and generating more conversions so as to increase product sales. Therefore, it is important to reassure that your products are well categorized when you set up ad campaigns.

How to set up a proper product hierarchy

Now that we know how product categorization can affect your overall sale, it becomes all the more important to know how to categorize your products effectively. It isn’t rocket science but does need patience and accuracy. Here are 7 simple steps that you need to follow in order to build up a perfect product hierarchy:

• Gather all products and data at one place

Before you sort your products into categories, it is important to have all the information in one place. You cannot go on fumbling between clusters of spreadsheets while arranging your hundreds and thousands of products. Keeping all product data collected in a single source makes product categorization easier and quicker.

Bring out your ERPs, spreadsheets and databases where you store all your inventory information and logs and start accumulating into one source. Identify the various product attributes and account them properly. This will serve as the onset of your product categorization. An automated product information management (PIM) system would ease attributes tagging and make the process easier, especially when there is a plethora of products with a variety of attributes. PIM services like Akaneo and Pimcore are well compatible with WooCommerce and can be used for WooCommerce based marketplaces.

Keeping your products data in a unified place will provide a holistic view of your product attributes and would help you gauge how deep or diversified your categories should be. Therefore, take time to sort all your product attributes before proceeding to set up the categories.

• Understand customer psychology

The first step towards setting up a strong product hierarchy is to understand what your customers want. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and analyze how your customers would shop from your marketplace. This will let you decide how to arrange and display your products so as to provide maximum convenience to your customers.

Understanding how your customer’s would navigate through your products, you can choose between taxonomic and thematic product categorization. In taxonomic categorization, products are categorized and displayed purely upon their taxonomic relationship. Thematic categorization allows you to categorize your products based on the product’s contextual and thematic relationships. 

For example, when arranged taxonomically, a pack of scented candles could be categorically placed under the “home decor” segment along with other decor items. One who would purchase scented candles as a home decor item could easily find it under the appropriate section. Now, let’s say a person is planning a romantic dinner and is searching for relevant items to purchase. In that case, the same scented candles could also be placed under a category like “romantic decor” along with starry lights and pillows. This will enable the customer to purchase based on the contextual preference.

The goal should be to arrange the products in a customer-centric way rather than in a simply product-centric model. Considering your customer’s shopping psychology will help you set up the basic structure of your inventory categorization and determine the navigational framework. Choose between taxonomic or thematic structure, or better combine both the methods in order to preserve customer objective as well as brand value.

• Build logical product relationship

Once you have all your product data ready, it’s time to start the process of taxonomy. By now you must have determined your customer’s purchase intent and the way they would like to buy your products. Your aim should be to let your customers get hold of what they want with a minimal number of clicks.

Here’s an ideal framework of the different levels of product hierarchy that most of the marketplaces follow:

If you have a niche or narrow variety of products/services, then creating the categories would become simpler. With a wider variety of products, the categories and subcategories might strategically increase.

A great way to progress through the task is by following the examples of popular marketplaces like Amazon and eBay. Their categorizations are simple, classic and concise and can help as a guide for the latest categorization.

• Naming the categories

This could, at times, become a tough challenge. The key is to keep it as simple as possible, so as to let your customers easily relate with their intent and identify the products that are entailed within the category. For example, If you name an electronics category something like “devices with integrated circuitry”, people will have a hard time understanding what exactly you’re selling! Electronics should be simply named “electronics” or “electronic devices”. So, in case of category taxonomy, let’s just stick to being self-explanatory rather than being creative.

Find out your product keywords and name the categories accordingly. For instance, a product titled ‘Susan Classic Tan Handbag’ defines that it is a handbag. Therefore, similar items can all be clubbed under a “handbag” category.

• Building the category levels

While building the category relationship levels and grouping products under these levels, you need to imagine a brick-and-mortar store. Just as a physical store has different aisles and departments with shelves displaying logically related products, your product categorization should also uphold logical relationships between the products.

For the ease of explanation, let’s try and build a women’s fashion category and categorize a sample item like blue sheath dress under this section.

Broad category / Intent category / Theme : The first level that should be created is the broad category. This denotes the broader type of category of products that is based on the theme or purpose of the product. In this case, the main category could be “Women’s fashion” as someone looking for a ladies dress is basically searching for a women’s fashionable item.

Primary category / Family : Next comes the primary category which should denote the primary need of the customer. So, under “Women’s fashion”, different primary categories could be “clothing”, “accessories”, “beauty”, etc. A ladies dress is a kind of fashion apparel. Therefore, a person looking for the above-mentioned type of dress would first go to the “Women’s fashion” main category and then move to the “clothing” sub category.

Secondary category / Class : Under the primary category falls the secondary category which should display the different groups of products that fulfills the purpose of the primary category. Considering the “clothing” category, different types of women’s clothing namely “Formal wear”, “Casual wear”, “Ethnic wear”, “Sports wear”, etc. Let’s say, the sheath dress is a beautiful dress appropriate for brunches and evening gatherings. Then this could fall in under the Casual wear secondary category.

Line : The secondary category should proceed towards the different lines or forms of products that should entail in the secondary category. So, under the Casual Wear category, different types of women’s casual apparel like “Dress”, “Tops”, “T-Shirt”, “Trousers”, “Jeans”, etc. could fit in. The blue sheath dress would, therefore, fall under the “Dress” section of the Casual Wear category.

Type : Now, the “Dress” line could have different styles such as “sheath”, “skater”, “midi”, “maxi”, “wrap” and many others. These different styles could basically be considered as different types of dresses which in itself could become separate categories for each. Therefore, for the above blue sheath dress, the final sub-category could be the “sheath” type of dress.

Here’s the final hierarchy of the specific product:

You can create as many sub-categories as required for your product. Make sure that all the sub categories are logically related to each other and provide a comprehensible navigation for your customers to reach their preferred product.

Additional categories: Sometimes, your customers would also want to check out trending or best selling products of your marketplace. Consider creating additional categories like ‘bestsellers’, ‘trending’ or ‘stock clearance’ and highlight them in order to make them prominent to your customers. Such categories have proved to be the most eye-catching ones.

• Define attributes and values

Once you build your series of categories, it’s time to move on to defining the various attributes for the products. Attributes are basically what we know as “specifications” of individual products that distinguishes itself from other similar products. These attributes help in setting up filters that allow customers to search items easily based on their preferred attributes.

To begin with, start defining the basic attributes like color, type and material that will be universal to most of the categories. The more specific ones like dimensions, weight and size should be particular to individual products.

Therefore, for the above case, attributes such as color, size, fabric, length of the dress, cut of the dress, fit, etc., could be applicable and set for filters as well.

While setting the attributes and values, choose standard values and metrics for the ease of search. Also, if you have a large number of attributes, optimize them by clubbing them together through consistent and standardized naming.

• Assign all products into appropriate categories

After defining the categories, sub categories and attributes, all your products should then be placed into their appropriate categories. Go back to the unified source where all your products are recorded and start allocating each product to their most appropriate category. Keeping the customer intent in mind, a single product could be tagged into multiple categories. However, make sure every product is allocated at least one category.

• Fine-tune the hierarchy

Your task doesn’t end with completing the category levels and assigning products. The first structure might not turn out to be perfect and, therefore, needs to be revised as and when required. With the introduction of new products, you would be required to perpetually fine-tune the hierarchy.

Customer feedback and performance insights would help you understand how your product categorization is affecting your customers’ purchase decision. Try A/B testing with multiple categorization structures and appearances and compare the results. Such insights would help you tweak your hierarchy according to your customers’ convenience and preferences, thereby elevating your conversions and sales.

• Take cue from Google Taxonomy

A great guideline for setting up your product hierarchy is Google Taxonomy which has an exhaustive list of product taxonomy suitable for most of the physical and digital products. The taxonomy is easy to map with a comprehensible hierarchy that will definitely help you build up your own product categories.

Google’s list of Taxonomy is especially beneficial for those who are planning to set up Google Shopping ad campaigns. If your product categorization matches (or is similar to) Google’s Taxonomy, it increases your products’ relevancy. This helps your ad campaigns reach more relevant and potential customers.

For any marketplace, product categorization is something that just cannot be left undone. No matter what, an extensive, navigable product hierarchy along with attribute-based filters will always uplift your brand value through fine shopping experience. Sorting and categorizing your marketplace products might be time-consuming but is worth the effort. Of course, an automated system would help you do the task more easily and quickly, but if you’re in for a manual categorization, the above steps would help you construct an efficient product hierarchy that is bound to let your customers enjoy shopping from your marketplace!

The post 7 Simple Steps to Perfect your Product Categorization appeared first on WC Lovers.

Acquiring a thousand customers for a marketplace might not look like a monumental count, but is quite a milestone for any new startup. It might as well pay your bills in the initial few days of your marketplace journey! Nevertheless, it also gives that much needed leverage for further customer influx which ultimately seals the success of the business. And it all comes down to how effectively you make your brand reach your audience.

In this blog, we’re going to give you 8 solid marketing techniques that will help your brand get discovered easily and allow you to grab your first big volume of customers real quick.

Use your personal network

Let’s start with the most obvious one. The first thing that almost everyone does after launching their startup is asking their near and dear ones to try out their concept. That’s the most inexpensive network you can try in your initial days.

According to a Nielsen report, 92% of customers trust their friends and families’ recommendations. Therefore, the traditional word-of-mouth method is still pretty effective and there’s no harm in pestering your friends and family to spread the word. Even if your product is of no significant use to them, they can definitely pass it down to those who might feel interested.

Find the target social media channel

When Roomi, a housing and room-mate finding platform started, they wanted to target people who were looking for house or room partners in New York. They realized that people most likely to be interested in their app were college goers, specifically those who moved to New York for graduation. So they tapped into Twitter and identified tweets where people were actively searching for room-mates in New York. They shared the available Roomi postings with the interested audience and people started responding to the requests. Within six months, they managed to reach the bulk of their first thousand customers.

The bottom line is go where your customers are. Identify where your target customers interact the most and get involved in those interactions. Analyze your demographics thoroughly and strategize a smart promotion plan in order to pierce through the right audience.

With over 3.9 billions social media users around the world, there’s hardly anyone left who doesn’t have any connection with the networking world. Therefore, social media is a great platform for spreading your solution. A great social media campaign can easily bring your first lot of customers, so try utilizing it to the fullest.

Target offline

When it comes to popularizing your marketplace, don’t forget the offline methods. Before digital media became the holy grail of marketing, people attracted their first customers through first-hand methods.

Print media is still a good way to widen your identity. 82% of e-consumers still trust print ads for their purchase decisions. Sending direct mails or pamphlets could fan out your brand identity pretty quickly. If your business is local, consider local print and tv media for advertisement. Press conferences also help spread awareness of your unique product/service to the media and your potential customers.

Thales Teixeira, former Associate Professor at Harvard explained how Etsy took a cool step to acquire customers offline. In their initial days, they visited various craft fairs and events to scour customers as well as artisans to join their site. This not only brought in more customers but also helped them register the first-tier of sellers – thereby, solving the infamous “egg-chicken problem” is an easy way. So, consider offline marketing as a major part of your marketing strategy.

Emphasize on Blogging and Content marketing

Ask any marketing specialist and he would swear by blogging and content marketing for a good customer acquisition strategy. With over 60% of internet users reading blogs frequently, 70% of them learn about a company from blog posts. That indicates how much blogging is crucial for those early phases of discovery.

Search engines identify websites with blogs as valuable sources of information and, therefore, try to rank them in higher positions of the search results. By improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO), blogging and content marketing can drive around 55% more traffic to your website through organic search results.

Customer oriented content that is inclined on solving problems not only connects well with readers but also has the potential for better conversion. Enhance your website with a variety of content categories like client stories and recommendations, case studies, general articles and infographics. Carefully select your keywords and content and make your blogs SEO-friendly. Remember, your blog posts should add value to your company and shouldn’t be a mere over-hyped sales pitch. Follow these tips that Neil Patel has shared in order to write a killer blogpost for your website.

Try Online Advertising

When it comes to procuring the first lot of customers, online advertising could work wonders. Search advertising is the most used form of digital advertising with Google Ads dominating 91.56% of global market share of digital marketing. Due to its wide reach, more than 80% of companies opt for Google Ads. Moreover, Google Ads provide immediate results and is, therefore, a surefire way to draw more potential customers.

Play with keywords that are relevant to your website and have the potential to get triggered when people think about the problem you’re solving. Make sure your landing pages are in tandem with your ad objective. Start with a low budget and gradually raise if needed. Your aim should be to keep high volume keywords at lower bids. Keep tracking your ad performance and optimize them for desirable results.

Along with Google Ads, you can also try advertising on Facebook. We already know how effective social media promotions can be for brand recognition. So, don’t miss out on Facebook ads as it also provides pin-point targeting and great results.

Promote through influencers

Influencers are the new buzz on the internet. More and more companies are joining hands with popular faces who would “influence” customers to buy their products.

When a popular personality suggests or promotes a product, people immediately connect with them and get easily convinced. That is the reason why popular brands endorse their products via celebrities or influencers. By the way, did you know that 49% of customers trust influencers recommendations when they consider buying a product online? And the fact that influencer marketing has one of the best ROI, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t try this out. 

According to a study, businesses can earn up to $5.78 for every dollar spent on influencers. That’s 5X of your investment! Also, influencer marketing on social media is a quick method of promotion. So, if you want your marketplace to get queued up with customers faster, influencer marketing is your thing.

However, you shouldn’t just ask any influencer to advertise for you. Credibility is the keyword here; it is important that the influencer resonates with your brand and his/her followers align with your target customers. For instance, If you’re a SaaS company, a fashion influencer wouldn’t be able to connect with your tech-savvy audience. A SaaS expert such as Dan Martell praising your product would be more effective for the case. So, if you choose your brand advocates wisely and are able to promote through them effectively, you’ll be able to gather your first thousand customers in no time!

Set out Affiliate and Referral programs

Similar to influencer marketing, the importance of affiliate marketing for any marketplace is indispensable. If done properly, it can contribute to upto 30% of your total revenue. Once you set up an affiliate program, start inviting bloggers, influencers and other marketers to join your program. As they promote your marketplace on various channels, you’ll start experiencing a greater influx of new customers. 

Affiliate marketing is one of the most cost-convenient marketing techniques as you pay commission to the affiliates only when there is a successful sale against their affiliate URL. It is proven to increase discovery and garner prolific traffic to the website. That’s the reason why businesses allocate around 10% of their marketing budget just for affiliate marketing.

By the way, did you know you could also turn your existing customer base into magnets to grab newer customers? 83% of customers are willing to refer to others if they have had a good shopping experience previously. If your customers are satisfied with your products or services, chances are they will ask others to try your business too. With your first few (maybe hundred) customers in hand, you may set up a referral program for your existing customers. Ask them to share their referral links or promo codes to others in exchange for exciting offers or freebies on their next purchase. According to a Nielsen study, people are 4x more likely to buy your products/services if their close ones refer them the same. Fiverr, Envato and Etsy get a huge share of customers solely through referrals from other users. Now, that’s a clever way to let your customers do the work for you!

Spread user-generated content

Talking about low-cost customer acquisition techniques, utilizing user-generated content literally costs you nothing but could steer customers towards your marketplace in no time. User-generated content is basically posts, photos, reviews, ratings, unboxing videos, and experiences shared by your existing customers. All you need to do is share such content to your social media handles and even on your website.

Throwing spotlight on user-generated content can facilitate trust and credibility, thereby encouraging new visitors and potential customers to try out your products/services. Customers believe user reviews 12 times more than direct marketing from brands. This accounts for Amazon’s highest reviewed and rated products also being the bestselling ones.

Another smart thing that Amazon does is that they record data about items that are being wishlisted by various customers. They identify the most popular ones and tag them as “Amazon Most Wished For” items. This triggers a kind of FOMO in customers and boosts sales.

Throw out challenges and competition in return for prizes or deals in order to encourage your customers to share their experience on your social media. This will not only promote your brand and attract more customers but will also help in customer retention.

Keeping the basics right

You cannot build your tower on weak foundations. And that’s why, even before you start investing your time and efforts on advertising your marketplace, you should make sure that your basics are strong. While acing the above marketing hacks would surely help you drive the bulk of your customers, your marketplace’s essential elements should be solid enough to hold your customers. Here are a few pointers related to your business that you should be taking care of along with your marketing game:

• Provide a solution

The idea of building a marketplace just for the sake of business should be dropped right in the beginning. Period. If your marketplace doesn’t solve someone’s problem, it won’t run long – let alone be successful.

Successful marketplaces know how to touch the pain points of their target customers and have conceptualized their products/services in order to alleviate the pain. For example, Uber has given the convenience of getting a taxi wherever they are, even at midnight, without the pain of searching or harking at them. With just a tap on their smartphone, people could easily get a ride to their desired destination.

If you have a marketplace idea in mind, don’t forget to validate it in the first place. Your aim should be to cater to your customers’ needs as well as build a foundation that is sustainable in the long run.

• Mind your website aesthetics

Exhaustive marketing strategies won’t keep your customers pouring in if your website looks shabby and inefficient. For most users, the first impression is the last impression and that holds true for your website as well. 48% of users decide on the business’ credibility simply by judging the website’s design. Therefore, a clean, easy to navigate and visually appealing website should be your first priority.

Your website should reflect your business’ value and USP and your homepage should give a glimpse of what you offer. A well-organized products page that lets your visitors navigate easily through your products and services is also important. Optimize your website to reduce load time. Also, make sure your website is mobile efficient as most of the shopping today is done through smartphones. It only takes 3 seconds for a visitor to leave your site if it doesn’t appease them, so do take care of your website.

• Set customer-friendly store policies

Before purchasing a product, about 93% of customers compare prices online. And not just prices, they also check for other store policies and then choose what suits the best for their needs. Therefore, your marketplace pricing as well as store policies like shipping, return and refund plays an important role in customer acquisition.

While high prices can drive away your customers, inexplicably low prices could question the credibility of your marketplace. Maintaining an ideal pricing is crucial and that should be on your priority list.

Free shipping is another big hook for any shopper and is one of the top reasons why marketplace giants like Amazon continue to flourish. Did you know that 73% of customers buy from a certain marketplace solely due to free shipping? If you don’t have a free shipping policy for your store, chances are you’re already missing out on your customers’ interest.

Talking about easy returns and refunds, 58% of buyers prefer “no-question asked” free return and refund policy. A lot of people check the returns page before purchase and if they find an inconvenient return or refund policy like partial refund, charged shipping for returns, etc., they would probably never return to your site. Therefore, if you’re thinking about customer acquisition, set your return/refund policies straight.

• Provide steal-worthy offers

In marketplace business, competition is always neck-to-neck. Providing attractive offers to your customers would give you an edge above your competitors. Not only helpful in acquiring new customers, but discounts and deals have proven to enhance customer retention also.

Tailor-make your offers for your customers keeping in mind what they’re looking for. A good way to do that is to note their wish lists and customize the deals accordingly. In this way, your visitors will feel valued and would turn into loyal buyers. Make sure you promote the offers in order to let potential customers discover and get interested in your products/services.

• Better customer service

While good customer service keeps your customers loyal to you, it could also help in bringing more customers. As we’ve already discussed, your customers can attract new customers to your marketplace through their reviews and recommendations. If you keep them satisfied with your customer service, they’ll pass on the fact to others and suggest your service to them. Prompt replies to customer queries, providing effective solutions and cultivating a positive experience for customers will take you a long way. So, get your customer support strong and see how it elevates your customer acquisition rate.

Conclusion

Customer procurement could be a challenging task for startups, but atleast is easier (maybe) than building an aircraft! While you maintain the essentials of your business properly, the above mentioned marketing techniques would definitely help you pull your first 1000 customers. It might not be necessary to apply all of the above ideas; in fact, some of the ideas might not even suit your business. If you churn out the right techniques, half your job is done. However, these techniques are tried and tested and are proven to give results, provided applied the right way.

Oh! And congratulations, in advance, for reaching 1K+ customers! All the very best for your marketplaces’ success!

The post 8 practical hacks to get your first 1000 customers appeared first on WC Lovers.

Katharine Paine, the CEO of KD Paine and Partners and a renowned author, has hit the head of the nail right there. In any marketplace, price management is a humongous task which dives virtually into all units of a marketplace. From choosing a revenue model to creating a budget for marketing, a penny miscalculated could lead to a larger fall. Therefore, a fool-proof price management strategy is absolutely important. Today, our focus is on product pricing, which is undoubtedly the most crucial aspect of any marketplace.

The fact that almost 60% of online shoppers consider a product’s price as the first criteria of their buying decision is enough to pay attention to your marketplace’s pricing strategy. If your products’ pricing is too high, your marketplace could get outrun in the competition. Pricing products too low and people will start questioning the quality of your products. This might also adversely affect your sellers’ profit margin. Achieving that sweet price spot can unlock the door to flourishing revenue potential and prolific customer base.

We aren’t here to give you a board full of pricing formulas because, honestly, every business is unique and requires unique pricing strategies. This blog is all about simple yet effective, practically applicable tips that will help you maintain a good pricing strategy for your marketplace.

P.S.: Some of these tips have been shared by our very own WCFM user-entrepreneurs who are successfully running their dream projects through these strategies!

How to maintain ideal pricing on your marketplace

In reality, marketplace owners hardly have much hand in setting the price of the products available on their platform. Essentially, it is the sellers who set the price for the products that they are selling. But that doesn’t mean you (marketplace owner/admin) can do nothing to establish a good pricing strategy for your marketplace. Here are a few ways to achieve the same:

Analyzing the competition and your customers

This is pretty obvious – you should know what others are doing! Competition in marketplace business is pretty tough and your goal should be to stay ahead of your competitors. And, therefore, being aware of the latest developments of peer businesses is the first step towards the same.

Low pricing isn’t always the best way to grab more customers. Free shipping, better customer service and offers are the new crowd-pullers. Get an idea on how other successful marketplaces are pricing their products and what benefits are provided to the customers as well as their platform’s seller. Gather all these information and tweak them to suit your marketplace.

Customers tend to stick to those marketplaces that provide the best value. Know what your targeted customers want. Some customers want lower pricing while some wouldn’t mind paying extra for faster deliveries. Start surveying existing as well as potential customers to know their requirements and trends to discover what works for them.

Being vocal with your sellers

Communication is the key to establishing a long lasting relationship. Sellers and consumers are the two flip sides of a coin and are equally integral to your marketplace. So, if you strive towards excellent customer experience, you should also mind the concerns and benefits of your sellers. 

After a good market research, you would probably come to have an idea of your products’ pricing. Once your sellers enroll in your marketplace, get an idea of their profit margins, shipping costs and other peripherals and discuss your ideal products rate and also your commission rates with them in order to arrive at a balanced value. Direct communication might be possible when there are fewer sellers. As the number increases, establish means of communication like email or grievance forms so that your sellers can talk out their issues.

Set pricing guidelines for your sellers

According to a survey made by Wiser, 96% of consumers prefer to compare prices before buying anything online. This might give you an idea how competitive marketplace businesses can be. In such scenarios, if your sellers project absurd prices for their items, chances are you’re missing out the game.

In order to win the price war, your sellers might lower the rates beyond convention – which is highly unethical. This is where the Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policy comes into action. The MAP policy ensures that sellers won’t sell their products lower than the agreed minimal price set by the manufacturers. Establishing strict conformation by the MAP policies will force your sellers to lay out fair pricing. You would also need to constantly monitor if your sellers are abiding by the MAP policies. Putting forward harsh measures against disobedience of the rules will also ensure riddance of fake and unauthorized sellers.

Consider variable commission rates

We all know that your commission rates could affect the actual selling price of the products. If you set unnecessarily high commission rates for your sellers, they might just inflate the selling price in order to compensate for their losses. But that doesn’t mean you have to settle for low commission rates every time.

A commission of, suppose, 20% for a $5 item is $1, but the same percentage for a $500 item is $100. Deducting $100 from a $500 product seems painful for the seller, given there are other taxes that the seller has to bear with. Items like FMCG and other daily-needs products have more frequent sales than luxury items and generate more frequent revenue. Therefore, sellers selling low cost-high sale items would still accept higher commission rates than those sellers who sell expensive items but only a few times a year. Hence, the ideal take is low commission for highly valued items and higher commission for low cost and frequently sold items/services.

If you run a horizontal marketplace with a variety of products, setting variable commissions depending on the different categories of products can keep a balance between the seller and owner profit margins. For example, Amazon’s commission rate varies from 6% to almost 45% depending on the different categories of products. 

Variable commissions are especially beneficial for those sellers who sell more than one type of product. If you charge lower rates for their luxury products/services, they would not mind paying higher rates for their low cost-high sale items. This sense of balance would encourage them to set a better price across all their products.

Run deals and offers

Who doesn’t like offers and discounts? In a survey by RetailMeNot, nearly 74% of Americans consider deals and discounts as the top factor in deciding what to buy and where to buy online. Therefore, deals and promotional offers should always be a part of any pricing strategy.

And here’s how you can work this to your favor! Run sale events on your marketplace and advise your sellers to provide discounts and deals on their products. Sellers who do have the scope for a discounted price margin can offer discounts for the customers. However, at times, other marketplaces might provide lower rates for a certain product than your seller. Now, it might happen that the seller, due to his calculated profit margin or other reasons, doesn’t want to reduce the price. In such cases, you (as the admin of the marketplace) can run discount offers on the product to slash down the prices. This will not only attract more customers but also regulate sellers’ high prices. Surely, this might reduce your profit a bit, but this will be beneficial in the long run.

Wrapping up…

Product price, packaging, delivery time, customer experience and reputation are some of the most important factors influencing the buying decision of today’s consumers. Having any of these factors wrong can prove to be a huge obstacle for your marketplace’s success. These little, tried and tested strategies would help you understand how you should manage the pricing game of your marketplace. The key is to maintain a harmony between your sellers’ as well as your profits.

In today’s competitive age, every marketplace is trying to woo their customers with low pricing. Aggressively low pricing can never be beneficial and can do more harm than good. Creating a balance between price and value is what every marketplace should strive for. Keep monitoring your seller prices as well as others’ prices and implement necessary measures to maintain a good pricing pattern on your marketplace. This will also help you understand whether you need to optimize your marketplace pricing or not. Hope you found this article useful!

The post Perfect Pricing: Strategies for maintaining an ideal marketplace pricing appeared first on WC Lovers.

With almost half of the consumers feeling content with Amazon’s pricing, this feature remains as one of the top five reasons why people shop from Amazon. So, long story short, a marketplace’s success can depend heavily on its pricing strategy.

As an online marketplace owner, you hardly have any role in deciding the products’ pricing. Whatever be your business model, it is primarily your sellers or providers who decide on the selling price. However, you cannot let your sellers quote just anything as you, too, need to keep your head in the competition. 

Deciding on a good pricing strategy for your marketplace is difficult. But what is even tougher is optimizing the price of your products to make sure that you keep your marketplace and your customer base growing perpetually. 

What we need to understand here is that we are not devising a pricing strategy in this article but a price optimizing strategy. A pricing strategy helps you set the best price for your products/services. A price optimization plan comes after you have chosen a pricing strategy and it is inherently a part of your pricing strategy. Price optimization brings in modification in your products’ pricing and directly impacts your sales, profits, customer satisfaction and business growth. Therefore, you need to optimize your price in a way that it meets your goals as well as stays unique in the market.

Sounds difficult? We’ll simplify it for you. Here’s how you can determine the best price optimizing strategy for your marketplace and take your marketplace to new levels.

What you need to do

Before brainstorming on an effective price optimizing strategy for your marketplace, you need to spend some time analyzing the market and your own marketplace. Evaluating your marketplace’s strengths and weaknesses and your value in the market will help you map a strategy that will be beneficial in the long run.

Determine your goals and constraints

One might consider that the ultimate motive behind price optimization is to make more profit from your marketplace sales. But, profit-enhancement is only just one of the many reasons why marketplaces reform their pricing strategies. A lot of marketplaces have different goals behind price optimization like customer retention, upselling, attracting new customers or targeting customers of a specific niche.

Constraints, too, are inevitable. Maybe, your sellers can’t drop the prices below a certain limit. Maybe, you can’t curtail the costs or budget of a certain department. Obstacles should also be considered while determining the goals. Whatever be your goals and constraints, you need to have them put straight forward. So, write them down before you devise your strategies.

Study your market and customers

Having your data ready is the first step before strategizing your marketplace pricing. This includes both qualitative and quantitative data.

Quantitative data comprises hard analysis of the market and includes information of the demographics of the area serviceable, market specifics, supply and demand, sales metrics, competitor prices, etc. Meticulous research is the key here.

Customer surveys can help in accumulating qualitative data. Speak to existing and potential customers and find out your competitive advantage and perceived value in your customers’ eyes. Measure your customers’ reaction to your deals, discounts, product bundles, programs and promotions. Converge all these data and then jump to further planning.

Analyze your marketplace

Your pricing strategies depend a lot on your marketplace’s internal affairs like your sellers’ profit margin, number of transactions, average transaction amount etc. Keeping marketplaces’ budget, estimates, expenditures, capitals and revenues at your fingertips is also very important.

Accounting for products and shipping costs, warehouse costs, marketing costs, employee salaries and other expenditures is an absolute must. It is crucial to know how much profit you need to make in order to meet these expenditures in the process of planning a pricing strategy.

Know your value metric

The difference between a surviving marketplace and a thriving marketplace lies in identifying and pricing along the right value metric. If you’re not acquainted with this term, let’s simplify it. 

By definition, the way you measure the per unit value of your product is the value metric. In other words, it’s the way you charge your customers for the products or the services you sell.

So, for example, if you’re selling shoes, your value metric is per pair of shoes. If you’re selling SaaS (software as a service), then your value metric could be the features you’re providing or the number of hours you’re providing the service.

Knowing the proper value metric has a huge impact on your marketplace’s success. It determines the way your revenue increases. And that is the reason why you need to align your value metric model with your customer acquisition model.

Start by all the pivots along which you can charge your customers. Remember, these axles need to add value to your product and should not be mere features. Next, send out surveys to your customers and determine what they think of your products/services and whether or not they ascribe value to your products. Once these are done, you will be able to evaluate the results and get a clearer picture of your value metric.

Strategies for the best price optimization plan

All the market research, surveys and collection of data stated above brings us to the culminating point – strategising the perfect price optimization plan. Price optimizing solutions are mainly mathematical programs and require a vast array of data and metrics in order to calculate the right price basis. However, these calculations are not that difficult as it might seem. Here we’ll be discussing 3 main solutions that will help you with the optimization process. So, get your excel sheets ready and let’s get started.

Setting a Competitive Price Index

This is the first and foremost thing that one needs to do in the optimization process. Setting a realistic yet competitive pricing index is very important as it lets you understand your position in the market competition. For this, you need to calculate the price index first. Here’s the formula for calculating the price index for any product:

Results:

• If your result is less than 1, your competitor is pricing cheaper than you
• If your result is more than 1, you are pricing cheaper than your competitor

However, this calculation needs to be done for all the products that you have across all the categories, brands and sellers and also against different competitors. Once you get all the separate data, bring out the average of those price indices and you will get your ideal competitive price index.

We hope now you have an idea why we asked you to keep your Excel sheets ready!

Ideally, your product’s price should be lower than your competitors’. But that might not turn out to be realistic every time. Your price doesn’t necessarily need to be always lower than others but the optimal price should be the one that generates the highest GMV (Gross Merchandise Value).

Maneuvering Price Elasticity

Price elasticity refers to the extent your sales will be affected with every price change. Working your products’ price elasticity in your favour is the key to a successful price optimization. Your products’ price elasticity will determine how much you can amend your pricing. Let’s see how to calculate the price elasticity of your product:

Results:

• If your result is between 0 and 1, your product is highly inelastic. Your customers will still buy your products even at a high price and there will be no significant change in demand.
• If your result is exactly 1, your product is proportionately elastic. It means that your product’s demand will change proportionately with the price change.
• If your result is more than 1, then your product is extremely elastic. With even a slight change in price, your customers might opt out from buying your product and there will be a loss in demand.

For an inelastic product, you can hike its price without thinking much as it clearly seems to be a highly demanding product. For products that are largely elastic, you have to be careful while increasing its price as it can negatively impact the demand of the product. Therefore, you have to carefully set the competitive price index for the same.

Again, price elasticity isn’t static at all. It can change with seasonality, promotion and even weather. A great example is the sudden shot of the demand for toilet paper rolls during the first few months of lockdown due to COVID-19. Sellers quoted considerably high prices for such competitive products and yet people bought them at high prices. Product demand can fluctuate even in a matter of a few minutes, so constant monitoring is extremely important here.

Automating Price Optimization Plan

While the above solutions seem easy, calculating these data for hundreds and thousands of products is definitely a tough task. And constant monitoring and changes in data means constant calculation. Manual monitoring and calculating is almost impossible. Therefore, automating the plans is an easier way to do the same. Taking the help of an automated price optimization software is a far better approach that will help you constantly monitor and optimize your prices with the ups and downs of the market.

There are quite a few price optimization tools like Competera and Price2Spy that will take off the burden from your shoulders and do the task for you. These tools analyze and integrate your marketplace data and suggest the optimal price options for you.

Once you prepare your perfect optimization plan, discuss it with your sellers. Let them know your optimal prices and encourage them to modify their prices accordingly. This might also need you to make amends on things like commission rate and other verticals as well in order to accommodate your sellers interest. Once a balanced point is achieved, go ahead and refine your prices.

Every marketplace is dynamic and so should be its price. However, incorrect optimizing could do more harm than good. 

Inflating your price abruptly could lead to a disastrous abandonment by your customers. On the other hand, a miscalculated low price could cut your profit margin and also upset your sellers. Simply copying your competitors’ numbers isn’t good either as this can easily lead to a price-war. Finding that sweet-point is pretty crucial, but quite achievable. We hope this blog will help you set your pricing right and lead to incessant growth of your marketplace.

The post Perfect Pricing : Optimizing your Marketplace Pricing appeared first on WC Lovers.

However, online retailers need to be extra cautious with their stores as the holiday rush can also bring in some terrible nightmares like website crashing, checkout issues, empty stock, etc. But worry not! There’s still time to ace the sale season and get maximum profit from your marketplace. Here’s how you can optimize your marketplace before the onset of the most awaited sale of the year.

1. Take site performance seriously

The biggest nightmare of online retailers during the sales week is a website crash. An “Error 404” or even a “try back again later” message can do more harm to your customer retention graph than a bad customer service. Companies lose millions within minutes when their websites have a downtime right during the sale. Even big brands like Microcenter, J. Crew and GlassesUSA faced major outages during the 2019 Cyber Week sale, leading to customer dissatisfaction outrages on social media. J. Crew alone lost around $775,000 in sales and angered thousands of customers in just a single holiday afternoon.

It is imperative that your marketplace would experience a sudden surge of traffic during the sales. Therefore, even before you plan promoting your offers, start optimizing your website for the cyber week’s pressure. Bob Buffone, the CTO of the web optimization software company Yotta, says that if a website is not load tested for at least five times the usual traffic, it’s probably going to fail.

A good assessment might take several months, but it’s never too late. Tools like Google’s TestMySite and PageSpeed Insights could give your site a thorough check and suggest fixations. Here are some of the things that you can try to speed up your site performance:

1. Use a reverse proxy server (an HTTP gateway) and load balancers.
2. Cache certain necessary sections of the website. Storing and releasing data and files could induce server lag. Caching data or documents could satisfy certain requests directly and fasten up file retrieval, thereby, speeding performance.
3. Check and enhance the databases for the increased amount of orders.
4. Temporarily change certain dynamic pages of your website into static pages. Dynamic pages like dynamic pricing pages, recommendations and social media content can consume a lot of CPU cycle leading to slower loading time.

2. Optimize for mobile buying

About 37% of the digital sales during Cyber Week last year came solely from mobile phones. Needless to say, mobile phones are the most convenient method of online shopping. If your mobile site experience isn’t at par with your competitors’, they’re going to switch to their sites. Therefore, focus on providing an easy yet interactive mobile shopping experience to your customers to hook them to your marketplace.

Now, you might think that your website is fully mobile-responsive, and that’s where people go wrong. A mobile responsive design and a mobile site aren’t the same thing. A responsive design resizes and modifies the website design to make it fit and look good on a mobile. On the other hand, a mobile site has a different UX which is created keeping in mind a browser’s/shopper’s navigation and usability requirements. Consider adding features like quick and easy login and one-touch buying which are essentially beneficial for the holiday rush.

Alternatively, having a mobile application could take you to a level higher. When Domino’s Pizza launched their app, they saw a 28% rise in their sales. App downloads jumped by 42.2% during Cyber Week 2019 as compared to 2019. If you have enough time and resources, you can also invest in having your own marketplace app before the holiday sales begin. Keep your app simple to use, optimize its speed, integrate social media connection to the app and see your sales soar! WCFM Customer App can help you get your own marketplace app. 

3. Improve your site navigation

Imagine a customer buying from your site during the last few minutes of your Cyber Monday sale and he is struggling through your site to find the perfect gift for his family. It is frustrating to navigate through a poorly designed site menu or a products page, especially when people are rushing through the sale hours. And not just for the holiday sales, but improving your website navigation could increase your site conversion rate by 18.5%. Likewise, about 80% of visitors will abandon your site if they experience navigation issues.

Declutter your main menu and categorize into different sections or subsections. Bring the categories under offers to the front and highlight the offers clearly even under the menu section. Don’t try to fit everything under a drop-down menu; instead, you can introduce dedicated pages to show categories. But do keep in mind that opening a page takes more loading time than a drop menu, so limit it to wherever necessary. 

Amazon categorizes their products on the basis of the discount offers or price cap which makes it easier to search items on price/offer preference.

Search result optimization is necessary too. Make sure that the search results display the products according to their relevance. It should also compensate for misspellings.

A strategic and concise site map would help your customers navigate better during the shopping spree and will provide a smoother shopping experience.

4. Simplify the checkout process

A lot of shoppers buy stuff out of impulse during the holiday season. In order to boost this “impulse shopping” and to make more sales, reducing the checkout barriers could be beneficial. A one-click purchase option on the products list page will help single-product buyers check out immediately. 

Reduce the number of steps before the actual check out. If someone has shopped from you previously, save his/her preferred payment option and display it as the default payment option on the checkout page. Entering card details during checkout is often time-consuming. Along with the card payment, provide wallet payment as a payment option which can be a quicker method for checkout. Dynamic checkout buttons that are preset with the customer’s preferred payment method will also speed up the process.

5. Recover abandoned carts

The number of abandoned carts increases during the holiday sales. Believe it or not, worldwide online cart abandonment is almost at 70% today. In Black Friday 2019 alone, the abandonment rate was 73.78%. Abandoned cart popup messages are just not enough. Shoppers today simply ignore them. A good way to catch the fleeting visitor’s eyes is by offering a special discount and highlighting the discount on the popup message.

The same goes for abandoned cart emails – the offer must be mentioned in the subject line itself. Take cue from your customer’s shopping trait and offer them personalized discounts. Some customers also visit Facebook shopping sites so make sure you revert them through Facebook Messenger. Integrate an automated solution that would pick up the leads and send offers via emails or messages.

6. Prepare a holiday shipping plan

There’s a reason why this week-long sale is known as the holiday sale. People shop for the purpose of gifting their loved ones. It’s obvious that they would want it to be delivered before the holidays begin. Let your customers know if the added product(s) could be shipped within a quick time range or atleast the expected delivery date. You can also add a separate category for products that have guaranteed delivery before the holidays. This would be beneficial for people who don’t have much preference for gifts and only want timely delivery. If certain products in the cart cannot be delivered before or during the holidays, alert the customers before they checkout and ship them separately.

If you’re not offering free shipping yet, consider applying now. According to a survey by Forbes, a staggering 84% of customers purchase online specifically because of free shipping. Check your profit margins and set your selling price according to the profit threshold. In case of self fulfilment, increase the strength of your fulfilment team, if possible, in order to facilitate smoother shipping during the rush days.

7. Fix your return policies

Impulse shopping means frequent purchase bloops, leading to more returns. Poor return policies would further disappoint your customers. However, most merchants have difficult return policies during the sale like delayed reverse pickups and returns, no return on sale products, no free returns, etc. Fix your return policies and try to make them more customer-friendly. 80% of shoppers expect free returns, so this is something that should be a must in your list of sale amends. Offering easy returns can actually enhance customer retention so work up your return policies before the sale.

Experts predict that this year’s Cyber Week sale is going to be massive and might break all records of the previous years. It’s time to tighten up our belts and get on to some serious action. We still have some time before people start sojourning your site! Do a thorough checking of your website, fix up the issues and let your customers have a great shopping experience this sale week. Provide hard-to-miss deals and promote them on your social media channels. The best time of the year is here and it’s better not to miss this opportunity!

Happy Cyber Week!

The post How to Optimise your Marketplace before the Cyber Week Take-off appeared first on WC Lovers.

The post How to create a Booking-type Marketplace using WCFM Marketplace appeared first on WC Lovers.

What this blog entails is to basically explain to you the purpose of each of our plugins/addon plugins so that YOU can decide which plugin/addon plugin you really need. This quick read is especially helpful for those entrepreneurs who are relatively new to WordPress/WooCommerce and require a less-technical guide to their path towards choosing WCFM products.

So, let’s get started!

WCFM MAIN PLUGINS

WCFM Marketplace

While you can create an eCommerce website on WordPress through WooCommerce, you would require a multivendor plugin in order to turn your eCommerce store into a multivendor marketplace. And there comes our flagship plugin. WCFM Marketplace is a one-stop, complete solution for your marketplace. The best WooCommerce multivendor marketplace plugin till date, WCFM Marketplace helps entrepreneurs build the marketplace of their dreams without much of a hassle.

WCFM Marketplace allows you to build up a complete marketplace with a variety of commission systems, commission withdrawal and payment system, store policies, vendor capabilities, shipping modules and much more. It provides you with all the features that you would require to create a dynamic multivendor marketplace ready to hit the market.

Also, for advanced features and additional power, we have developed a range of WCFM Addons that compliment WCFM Marketplace, helping you develop a more powerful and advanced marketplace.

WCFM Marketplace is ideal for those who want a simple, user-friendly yet effective software to build their marketplace. Sure, a bit of PHP knowledge would be helpful for some complex functions. However, the USP of WCFM Marketplace lies in its simplicity and it’s ability to perform most of the functionalities with the help of diverse filters.

When you download and activate WCFM Marketplace, WCFM and WCFM Membership plugins get automatically downloaded in your WordPress. If you do not require WCFM Membership, you can simply deactivate the plugin from your dashboard. However, you would still require to keep WCFM activated for WCFM Marketplace to function properly. 

Price: FREE

WooCommerce Frontend Manager

Aka, WCFM – our very first plugin – is the basic one that you should have if you have a WooCommerce multivendor marketplace, irrespective of the marketplace plugin you’re using. It works as a frontend dashboard for vendors and admin alike. It helps your vendor (as well as the admin of the marketplace) manage their stores from the frontend. We’re not going to discuss it’s awesome features in detail, but let’s quickly brief you on why you need it.

Lets say, you’re running a WooCommerce multivendor marketplace with hundreds of vendors selling their products. You have the generic dashboard with quite some unwanted widgets that come with WordPress. Imagine the hard time you’ll have as an admin to manage each and every vendor, their capabilities, stuff related to their products and orders, etc. individually from the backend! It’s also imperative to let your vendors manage their stores and inventory from their end. Would you give your vendors access to your backend? The question of security, and messing up the entire system, is inevitable.

Now, wouldn’t it be easier to manage all these things from a single interface, be able to perform tasks on an individual or global (in your marketplace) basis, and yet not hamper the backend? WCFM lets you do the same – one can easily perform site activities from the front-end of the site and ensure that the back-end is safe and clean! The admin can regulate all the activities of the marketplace while vendors can easily manage their stores – all from the frontend!

As mentioned earlier, WCFM can be used with any WooCommerce based marketplace plugin viz. WCFM Marketplace, Dokan Multivendor, WC Vendors, WooCommerce Product Vendor, Yith Multivendor…. Except WC Marketplace, as we’ve discontinued providing its support of late. It should also be noted that WCFM is a prerequisite for any WCFM plugin or addon.

Price: FREE

WCFM Membership

WCFM Membership works as an addon to WCFM. It provides different membership levels to your vendors. Through WCFM Membership, you can create different levels of free as well as paid membership levels for your vendors and assign different capabilities, limits, and commission to these membership levels. On joining your marketplace, your vendor can choose a membership plan (with free, one-time or recurring subscription payment option) which will determine his capabilities and commission. Your vendor will have the membership details in their dashboard and will be able to change the subscription plan anytime they want.

WCFM Membership also works with other WooCommerce based multivendor marketplace plugins mentioned above. If you’re using WCFM with a multivendor plugin other than WCFM Marketplace, then it is not mandatory to have WCFM Membership. This, of course, is completely dependent on your marketplace requirements. However, WCFM Membership, along with WCFM is a prerequisite for WCFM Marketplace.

In order to explore the full potential of WCFM Membership like assigning different capability modules for each membership level, you would additionally require WCFM Group and Staff, an addon we’ll talk about later in this blog.

Price: FREE

WCFM ADDON PLUGINS

WCFM Ultimate

As the name suggests, WCFM Ultimate is the ultimate addon plugin that you need for the best frontend experience that you could imagine. While WCFM helps you manage your marketplace seamlessly from the frontend, WCFM Ultimate lets you take it to a level up. It supports a frontend dashboard capability of a variety of product types – from auction to rental to subscription – you name it and you get it!

WCFM Ultimate provides a bundle of additional features such as bulk and quick editing of stock, product custom field, category-wise attributes, store invoice, shipment tracking, support ticket system for customers and many others – something that you wouldn’t find in WCFM alone.

It also provides some exclusive third-party advanced plugin compatibility like that with ACF, WC Product Addons, Toolset Types, Geo my WP and others that will help you build your store even more efficiently. With advanced features and options for products, stock management, orders, bookings, shipping, reports and review, WCFM Ultimate is an addon you cannot just miss. Check out its awesome features and decide for yourself.

WCFM Ultimate works with all the previously mentioned WooCommerce based multivendor plugins. But we strongly recommend using WCFM Ultimate along with WCFM Marketplace for an unmatched marketplace capability and functioning.

Price: $49 – $299, based on the subscription plan

WCFM Group & Staff

Through WCFM Group & Staff addon, the marketplace admin can categorise the marketplace’s vendors into different groups and assign various sets of capabilities to these groups, so that the vendors in those specific groups could enjoy the capabilities and/limits. In this way, the admin is saved from endlessly assigning one capability after another to individual vendors. Doesn’t this make your work easier?

WCFM Group & Staff also allows assigning ‘shop staffs’ – your vendors’ own group of staff who can manage the stores through the capabilities and limits assigned to them by the vendors. If required, the admin also has the option to allocate a Shop Manager, who will have his own set of capabilities assigned by the admin, for times when the admin takes a break!

Now one might think, what is the difference between WCFM Membership and WCFM Group & Staff? While WCFM Membership primarily allows you to create different membership levels for your vendors and assign vendor subscription fee and commission rates as per the membership level, WCFM Group & Staff lets you assign different capabilities and limits to these levels. In other words, WCFM Group & Staff works as an addon to WCFM Membership for additional features on the latter. Nevertheless, WCFM Group & Staff works individually as well with other marketplace plugins.

Price: $39 – $249, based on the subscription plan

WCFM Affiliate

WCFM Affiliate is the perfect vendor affiliation tool for your marketplace that will help your business grow. Through your own affiliate program, your vendors can refer other vendors to your marketplace and get commission through every referred vendor signing up to your marketplace or from products sold from the referred vendor’s store. Vendors can also generate their own affiliation URL and receive commission when a customer purchases any product through that URL.

WCFM Affiliate comes with its own Affiliates dashboard for the vendor. It also features its own statistics as well as an affiliate URL generator. Please note that this is a vendor affiliation tool and cannot be used as an affiliate marketing tool for your marketplace.

This addon, too, works with other marketplace plugins as mentioned earlier.

Price: $29 – $149, based on the subscription plan

WCFM Delivery

While WCFM provides you with an extensive Shipping module most necessary for your physical goods’ marketplace, this addon facilitates another important component of the same – delivery. WCFM Delivery lets you as well as your vendors manage product deliveries easily. If you have your own delivery team, you can manage your marketplace deliveries through this addon. Moreover, if your vendors fulfill the orders through their own delivery team, then this addon could be beneficial for them. With this addon, you/your vendors can add an unlimited number of delivery assistants, assign delivery agents to order and get instant delivery notifications – right from the dashboard.

With WCFM Delivery, the admin/vendor can set available delivery slots for the stores and also display the non-deliverable slots, so that customers can choose their preferred delivery time slot before checkout.

Now, delivery agents can also login to the system to view the details of their delivery assignments for e.g., customer details, address, mode of payment, etc. But would you really want all delivery agents to have access to your system? Wouldn’t an automated system for assigning delivery assignments be better for the delivery agents? For that, we have WCFM Delivery App, specially made for delivery agents for hassle-free deliveries. It notifies the delivery agents about any new delivery assignment assigned by the vendor/admin and provides all the details of the assignment to the agent. WCFM Delivery addon along with WCFM Delivery App is a complete delivery solution for your marketplace.

Price: $29 – $149, based on the subscription plan

WCFM Product Hub

Any seller or marketplace owner would know the importance of having bundled products, grouped or kit products in their marketplace. Bundled or composite products help increase sales. Some of the best plugins for advanced products grouping through bundling, kitting and chaining are WC Bundle Products, WC Composite Products, WC Chained Products, WC Force Sells and WC Group Buy and Deals. But installing these plugins to your marketplace will let only the admin enjoy its features. What WCFM Product Hub does is that it enables the vendors to create complex products like bundled products, assembled products with various components, offer discounts on chained products, etc. And the best part is that they can do it easily right from the frontend! So, your vendors can upgrade their selling game through lucrative offers on grouped products, thereby, increasing the overall sales of your marketplace!

Please note that the above mentioned WooCommerce plugins are required to be installed in order to let WCFM Product Hub to work for your vendors.

Price: $11 – $99, based on the subscription plan

WCFM Analytics

Having an eCommerce site up and running is not enough. You need to constantly monitor and measure the progress of your marketplace which in turn will help you scale properly. How would you know if a certain product of your marketplace has been the best selling one? How would you know if your marketplace’s sales are growing in a certain region over a certain period of time? WCFM Analytics makes this tracking much easier. This addon gives you complete statistical information on your marketplace’s progress based on various parameters.

By installing this addon, you’ll get to check your marketplace’s analytics by your stores, regions, products and product categories, listings, etc. You can also check the affiliates statistics and product comparison statistics from the same dashboard. All your numbers in one place!

Price: $11 – $99, based on the subscription plan

Conclusion

Hopefully, now you’re aware of the purpose of each and every WCFM plugin and also know about the prerequisites of these plugins. Each marketplace is unique in its own way and therefore, has different requirements. This was just an overview of the products and we suggest you go through the detailed documentation of each plugin before buying them. If you still need further clarification, we’re always there to help you out!

The post A Quick Guide to WCFM Plugins: Why do you need them? appeared first on WC Lovers.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: 5 Tips to Start Selling Internationally appeared first on WC Lovers.

Well, we cannot give you an actual shipping budget for your marketplace, nor an estimate for that matter. But we can surely tell you the different areas or scope of shipping expenses based on your shipping model. We will also guide you to setting the shipping prices for your customer.  So, keep on reading for a holistic view of a marketplace’s shipping cost and charges!

DROPSHIPPING

You need not spend much (and mostly none) for shipping when you let your dropshippers fulfil your orders. That’s the basic advantage of the dropshipping model. Since your dropshipper ships the ordered products, they take care of the shipping expenses – whether they ship themselves or through a partner carrier.

However, some suppliers/vendors do charge a certain amount for their dropshipping services. That might be one of the few areas of shipping expenditures that you, as a marketplace owner, need to bear.

While setting up the commission based on the products listed on your website, you will have to consider your vendor’s SRP (Suggested Retail Price). Your dropshipper, i.e., your vendor would suggest a price that includes their shipping charges and any other charges if applicable. This is usually agreed upon by the contract but the vendor might increase the price depending upon increased shipping charges. There are a few good ways in which the selling price can cover the shipping fees:

1. Offer free shipping to your customers and cover the shipping charges from your profit.
2. Increase the selling price slightly and then offer free shipping to your customers.
3. Charge a low flat shipping rate and increase the cost of the products slightly.
4. Pass on to your customer the exact shipping cost charged by your vendor.

We will further discuss the different options for setting up shipping rates later in this blog.

SELF-FULFILLMENT

The term “self-fulfillment” is pretty self-explanatory – it means that you will have to take care of the various shipping related costs. However, the best thing about self-fulfillment is that you know each and every scope of expenditure and can control it as it suits your marketplace. You don’t have to worry much about hidden charges that could be a case with third-party fulfillment. So, this is one option where you get to see all charges upfront and set the prices for your customers accordingly.

Scope of fulfillment cost:

1. Packaging materials and tools – When you pack your products in-house, you would need a plethora of packaging materials, tools and machineries to pack and handle the products. Cartons and packing boxes, packing fillers, duct tapes, printers and ink, warehouse trolleys, etc., are some of the common items and tools required in a packaging warehouse.
2. Warehouse – Self-fulfillment requires maintenance of a warehouse.
3. Transportation – This is the main expense related to the shipping unit of your marketplace. When you decide to ship as well as deliver your orders by yourself, you would need to consider factors like vehicle cost, fuel charges, delivery team recruitment and maintenance costs, etc. Even if you rely on a third-party carrier, you would still need to transport the product to the carrier office. The kind of transportation you choose for these transports is the main factor of the cost of shipping.
4. Return Shipping – Returns/exchanges and the costs involved for the same should also be considered. Whether you send your own delivery agent for reverse pickup, a third-party carrier, or ask the customer to send it back on their own, the return shipping cost must be borne by you.

1. Shipping insurance – There is always a risk of your products getting misplaced, lost or damaged when you ship them. If you ship expensive products or in higher volume through a carrier, it’s always safe to get shipping insurance. This will help you avoid the loss due to the damage as your insurer will reimburse the cost. 

Setting shipping charges:

Setting shipping charges for products that are fulfilled in-house is relatively easier due to your complete knowledge of the actual shipping costs. There are four primary shipping rates options that you can apply for your marketplace:

• Free Shipping

Amazon has spoilt online buyers with the privilege of free shipping. According to the 2018 Global Ecommerce Study by Pitney Bowes, 91% of customers would leave a shopping site that doesn’t offer free shipping! Therefore, this option is not just a shipping option but also a marketing one. However, free shipping doesn’t mean that you give the shipping charges from your pocket. Well, you indirectly charge it from your customers and that’s the trick!

There are a number of ways in which you can effectively strategise free shipping for your customers:

• Including the shipping charge in the product price and displaying the selling price accordingly
• Providing free shipping at a minimum spend amount threshold
• Providing free shipping against loyalty programs, like that of Amazon Prime, that requires recurring subscription payment
• Providing free shipping for standard delivery and levying shipping charges for expedited deliveries

The bottom line is to set your prices in a way that you don’t need to scrunch your profits a lot in order to provide free shipping to your customers. However, this method is one of the sure-shot ways to increase conversion rates and sales.

• Flat Rate

As the name suggests, flat-rate shipping means that you set a standard and fixed shipping charge for your customers. In this option, the weight, dimensions or distance of the delivery point is not considered to affect the shipping charge for each order.

The best way to set a flat-shipping rate is to average the total shipping and handling costs for each product of a certain category. For this, you would have to determine the shipping cost charged by your carrier for each item through their website based on your product’s (or package’s) weight, dimensions and delivery distance. This might seem to be a tough process but you would have to do it anyway when you actually ship the package. Once you get the average of the shipping costs, you can fix a suitable flat-rate for shipping across your orders.

Now, the shipping cost of some orders might not be sufficient due to the flat-rate. However, that deficit gets covered when some items are charged a higher shipping cost than they might actually cost. This option benefits customers who wish to buy more items in a particular order paying only a fixed shipping charge instead of individual shipping rates.

• Table Rate

Let’s say, you need to deliver an order to a customer who is just a few miles away from the warehouse. Your customer might not prefer paying the same shipping charge that you charge for an outstation shipment! In such cases, table-rate shipping can be utilized.

Table rate shipping is the opposite of flat rate shipping. In this type of shipping, you set shipping rates for individual orders based on the package’s weight, dimensions and the distance covered to deliver the order.

You can also consider setting threshold shipping charges based on order values or quantities. For example, you might levy a certain shipping charge for a certain order value or quantity and subsequently lower the shipping charge with higher order value or quantity. This shipping option is beneficial for those marketplaces that have a wide variety of shipping zones and require flexibility in shipping charges.

• Real-time Rate

This option is for those who want to display a no-frill, upfront shipping charge for their customers. In this option, you display the exact shipping cost charged by your carrier partner when your customer is checking out. The shipping charge is determined by the carrier partner based on the customer’s location, package weight or dimension and other delivery preferences. Therefore, the shipping charges vary from product to product across the website.

You can add surcharges for your packing and other costs with the carrier cost and set the shipping charge for your items accordingly. However, one of the biggest disadvantages of real-time shopping charges is that your customers might get shocked by an individual product’s shipping charge as per the carrier rate and might eventually abandon your website. Nevertheless, this is a great method if you want hassle-free shipping coverage without the risk of undercharged shipping because your customers pay exactly what your carrier partner charges you.

THIRD-PARTY LOGISTICS

When you outsource your fulfillment to a third-party logistics service provider, your logistics partner takes care of the shipping peripherals. Apart from the in-house costs of maintaining a warehouse (if you have one) and a management team, fulfillment costs are mostly charged to you by the 3PL provider! Some logistics providers roll the costs together and charge a fixed lump sum that needs to be paid monthly/annually while some providers charge for every single movement involved in the fulfillment and bill accordingly. 3PL costs can be complex, so you need to be careful with the price fixations and surcharges. Here is a list of cost factors that your 3PL provider might charge you for.

Scope of fulfillment cost:

1. Software setup – an integrated software that automates fulfilment procedures between the two sites (your/your vendors’ warehouse and the 3PL provider’s warehouse) is extremely important. While some 3PL companies do it for free, some charge for the software. However, these are mostly one-time fees.
2. Inbound shipping and receiving – This is the fee that your logistics provider would charge for picking up and receiving the ordered products from your or your vendor’s warehouse. This can either be a flat-rate or per order/product based.
3. Storage and warehousing – 3PL providers charge an amount for storing your products safely in their warehouses. The charges depend on the volume of your product and is calculated by the space your product or the pallet containing your product is taking up.
4. Packaging and label printings – Your 3PL provider would pack your products for further shipping and would charge you a cost for the packaging based on the dimensions and weight of your products. Shipping label and special label inserts are also charged in this step.
5. Kitting – Kitting refers to the special arrangement or assembly required for your package before it is finally shipped. This includes assembling multiple SKUs and creating a new SKU for the package. Since kitting is unique to each order, kitting charges can vary.
6. Shipping – This is the actual base cost required to ship a product. Your 3PL provider might charge you the shipping fees based on the expedition preferences like how fast you want your orders to be delivered, preferred mode of transport, etc.
7. Returns – Some 3PLs take up returns on your behalf. However, they might add a certain processing charge against the same.

Setting shipping charges:

Against the above factors, your 3PL provider might share with you an estimate of shipping charges per item/order even before you set a contract with them. Based on your logistics partner’s shipping charges per product/order, you can set the selling price of your products. You can either fix a flat-rate for each order based on the average of the shipping charges estimated by your 3PL provider or display the upfront charge for each order. With time, you would be able to determine which option is suitable for you so that your 3PL shipping charges are completely covered by your customer.

WCFM Marketplace for the Ease of Shipping

WCFM Marketplace provides a comprehensive solution for marketplace shipping. It’s powerful and highly flexible Shipping module takes marketplace shipping to the next level. WCFM Marketplace allows the marketplace owner/admin to set various types of shipping options like Free Shipping, Flat-rate Shipping, Per-product Shipping and even Local Pickup. Not just that, it also allows Shipping by Zone, Shipping by Country and Shipping by Weight and Shipping by Distance. With varied filters and additional capabilities (addon required), you can modify the module as per your marketplace’s requirements! Even if you choose to ship your orders through a carrier partner, WCFM Marketplace is compatible with a number of shopping plugins that can easily fetch live carrier-rates and simplify the shipping process. For advanced shipping options and hassle-free shipping process, WCFM Marketplace can be safely considered as the best option in the market.

The post MARKETPLACE SHIPPING – Part 3 : Shipping costs and charges appeared first on WC Lovers.

What next?

Once you’ve picked a suitable shipping model for your marketplace, you need to tread carefully to ensure a smooth execution of your shipping strategies. Not just executing the plan, but executing the right way is the key to a successful shipping story. In this blog, we’ll talk about how to work your way through the different models of shipping so that you can manage your shipping more seamlessly.

DROPSHIPPING

In dropshipping, the marketplace owner has very little, or almost no apparent control over the supply chain. This could lead to a lot of problems like quality issues, delayed deliveries, wrong shipping, exchange/returns issues, etc. Here’s how you can have an upper hand over your dropshipper and ensure a successful marketplace shipping.

Choose trustworthy sellers

The first step towards a successful dropshipping supply chain is to onboard reliable sellers. Since the seller is responsible for the deliveries and shipping, it is important that they are trustworthy and don’t let you into a shameful scam. Choose your sellers carefully and verify their stores and credentials before listing them on your marketplace. Make sure that their delivery standards align with your marketplace and customers’ needs. Although they handle the entire shipping, your customers will find you (or rather, your marketplace) responsible for any mishap or unsatisfied delivery. Get these answers cleared before appointing any seller:

1. Are they listed on any other marketplace? If yes, how well rated are they on the other marketplace(s)?
2. Do they have tie-ups with other logistics solutions or do they have their own shopping and delivery team?
3. How are they sourcing their products? Does the quality of their products match your marketplace standards?
4. How do they pack the products? Will their packaging meet the products’ safety and storage requirements?
5. What are their return/exchange policies and do they align with your marketplace policies?
6. How good is their customer support?

Ask for sample products from the seller to verify the quality of the products. However tempting it might be, the lowest price isn’t always the best. Try analysing why and how the seller is putting such a low selling price and trust them only if you find the source convincing. A little compromise on the profit margin is always better than a risky affair. Establish strong SLAs (service-level agreement) and encourage the sellers to abide by the same.

Lookover the stock

Imagine this: a customer places an order on your marketplace. When the time comes to process and ship the product, you get to know that none of the sellers have the product in their stock! You wouldn’t want to face such a situation, would you?

Solution: Keep a steady eye over your sellers’ stock. If you find a certain ordered product out of stock, contact the seller immediately and ask him to provide you with updates about restocking. Now you wouldn’t have a hands on access to your seller’s inventory but there are other ways to look over their stock. An automated solution that keeps you updated on the stock will be helpful. WCFM Ultimate allows the admin to check the stock of their sellers and also enables auto update of the products page regarding products that are ‘out of stock’.

Another way to prevent backorders is having multiple sellers selling a particular product. In this way, one or the other seller will always have the product available for dispatch.

Tracking orders

Since the shipping peripherals are fulfilled by the seller, you need to keep a track of the shipments in order to avoid your customers’ queries. Also, in case of late deliveries, your customer might enquire you its whereabouts. Knowing the exact status of the order is necessary to provide an appropriate reply to them.

Set up an automated system that will notify you when the shipment is dispatched and the expected date of delivery. It is always better to have a strict ground of delivery time frame for your sellers to which they must adhere. WCFM Ultimate allows the vendor to update the admin when the order is out for shipping and when the order is delivered. The customer as well as the admin also receives a tracking code for easy tracking of the order.

SELF-FULFILLMENT

Self-fulfillment lets you have total control over your marketplace. You (or your team) process the orders, pack them, ship them and/or deliver them all by yourself. But with complete control comes greater load! Since most of the task is done in-house, things can go haywire without proper management of each unit. You already know the different steps of self-fulfillment. Now let’s dig deeper into the better practices and tips for an effective in-house fulfilment and how to do it the right way.

Automated solution for management

If you have a team that manages your warehouse and does all the packaging and shipping, you would have to have an eye on them to ensure timely dispatches. The best way to do this by having a single integrated system that will help you manage every process the way you want. Let’s say you receive an order and now you have to pass it down to your inventory manager. Would you really take the traditional way of calling him/her down and informing him/her of the order? This can never be a convenient option, especially when you start receiving hundreds of orders per day!

An automated system which sends instant notification to your store/inventory manager of every order placed can be your greatest buddy. You should also be able to send instant instructions to your team and receive notifications of each step of the process.

Investing in automation will save a lot of time that would have otherwise been wasted in inter-communication. It will greatly speed up the process and also allow you to have direct control over the entire fulfilment process. WCFM Marketplace allows you to do all these things, plus a lot more! 

Effective packaging 

“Packaging can be a theater, it can create a story” – perhaps, Steve Jobs had realized the importance of good packaging when he said this. The first thing that a customer gets to see when they receive a product is its outer packaging. A good packaging is not only important for the preservation and safety of the products but also reflects your brand. A squished or damaged package will immediately put off your customer. Therefore, make sure that your products are packed properly to avoid product damage and replacements.

Package material depends on the weight and type of product and also how far it needs to be shipped. For local deliveries of lighter items or groceries, paper bags could be an economical yet environment-friendly option. For larger/heavier products or products that need to be shipped to a greater distance, cardboard or corrugated boxes are widely used.

Check the dimensions of your product before you choose the packing box. Too small a box for your product can expose your product to more physical damages. Conversely, if you need to pack smaller items in a larger box, make sure you provide enough padding material like styrofoam, bubble wrap, packing peanuts, crinkle paper, etc. If you’re packing more than one item in the same box, wrap individual products with bubble wrap. Seal the openings of the boxes with strong tapes.

Labeling

Your packages must be labeled properly to avoid misplacing /delivering to wrong addresses. The following must be clearly printed on the shipping label:

• Name and address of the customer/recipient
• Nearest landmark of the customer’s address for easy identification
• Name and address of the seller
• Return address in case of exchanges/returns
• Scanning code of the package

Also make sure that you use good quality ink to print the labels which don’t get washed away easily by a slight rub or a splash of water. A sales invoice should also be included with the package. WCFM Ultimate lets the seller/admin print packing labels as well as seller invoice for the purpose.

Shipping through carrier services

In our previous blog, we discussed the various ways of shipping based on product type, weight, dimensions and distance. For local shipping, having your own delivery team and vehicles is quite convenient. But what happens when you need to ship outside your region? You would require to make frequent trips to post offices or carrier services like UPS, DTDC, etc.

Shipping through a carrier service would require you to follow quite some guidelines. Their shipping charges vary with the dimensions of the boxes, weight of the boxes, distance between the source and the delivery point, etc. Therefore, you have to be careful with your packaging to avoid additional freight charges. 

Now, it’s better to have a fixed carrier partner for your marketplace deliveries. If you ship your products through different shipping services, it would be quite difficult to fix the actual selling price for your customers. If you have a fixed carrier partner through whom you prefer shipping most of the time, then an automated system would be helpful. The biggest advantage of having these softwares is that it allows you to track your product as well as print shipping labels of the same carrier service, fetch real-time carrier charges and much more! WCFM Marketplace is compatible with quite some third-party shipping plugins that help you manage your orders’ shipping via carrier services like UPS, FedEx, DHL etc.

THIRD PARTY FULFILLMENT

When you tie-up with third party logistics for fulfilling your orders, you know that you are dealing with experts in this field. 3PLs like UPS, DHL and FedEx deliver thousands of packages all around the world and, therefore, they have the best practices for safer and faster deliveries. However, a lot of outsourcing relationships eventually result in premature termination. Reason: inability to plan and implement the right outsourcing initiatives. Want to know the right way to outsource logistics? Read on. 

Choosing the right 3PL partner

The biggest mistake people make while choosing a 3PL partner is that they run after options that are cheaper. Oftentimes (if not always) quality handling and shipping is compromised in the facade of cheaper rates. A botched up fulfilment by your 3PL partner can cause a massive loss of your marketplace’s reputation. So choosing the correct partner is essentially important.

Do your homework and don’t just go for hearsays. Compare two to three different 3PL providers before choosing one. Set your KPIs precisely and compare them with your logistics options. Analyse their service capabilities and determine whether they will be capable of aligning with your marketplace’s scaling tracks or not. Even a sudden spike in your order volume should be effectively handled by your 3PL provider with the same shipping standards as set before. Shortlisting suitable 3PL providers could take months, but don’t skip your research in a rush.

Checking the safety standards

Safety standards are on a constant upgrade. It is imperative for 3PL providers to comply with the latest safety initiatives. Keep a check on how your selected 3PL provider approaches the safety measures in their operations. Besides the protection of your assets (i.e., your products) and safe deliveries, your 3PL provider should also take protection of data and financial security pretty seriously. ISO and OHSAS certifications are some of the standard certifications that your 3PL provider must have. Also check for their food safety related certifications like FDA certificates if you outsource shipping of your food items.  

Negotiate and set a contract

Price negotiation is possible with larger order volumes. Your 3PL partner probably ships products in bulk and therefore, there’s always a scope for some price negotiation. Your goal should be to minimize compromisation with the service against the best value provided. Choose a pricing model suitable for your marketplace and then set a contract. 

Contract preparations could be stressful but it’s absolutely necessary to have a strong set of terms and conditions for both parties. Once you’ve selected a 3PL provider, nail down precise and detailed terms and conditions of the contract. Pen down your SLAs and standards carefully. Usually the arrangement is locked for 4-5 years but avoid long-term contracts, if possible. A lot of providers allow monthly contracts and payment systems. Make sure you have the provision and flexibility to switch to another provider if you’re not satisfied with their services. Take help from a legal advisor while preparing the contract to avoid legal loopholes.

Review their operations and performance

Although outsourcing your order fulfillments takes away a huge chunk of work load from your shoulders, you shouldn’t just sit back and relax. You need to keep a hawk’s eye over their performance and check any kind of discrepancies. Quite often, 3PL services begin to falter in their standards and services after the honeymoon period of the agreement is over. Periodic review of their operations and performance is necessary to ensure that they stick to the SLAs.

You can also conduct occasional surveys through your customers wherein you can measure your 3PL partner’s performance based on their review. If you find regular or serious  discrepancies, discuss them with your outsourcing partner and ask them to rectify their shortcomings.

Marketplace shipping management could seem daunting, but keeping things systematic could save you some of the hassle. Take your time to set things up – a proper inventory, trustworthy sellers, packaging and shipping materials, an efficient team, and most importantly, an automated system to manage all the entire process. WCFM Marketplace’s shipping module is excellently effective in managing marketplace shipping based on any shipping model. As an admin, you can track your items when your dropshipper fulfills your orders. It gives you total control over your stock inventory. Moreover, even if you choose to ship your orders through a third-party carrier service, WCFM is compatible with a number of third-party shipping plugins that would make your shipping even more seamless. Therefore, an automated solution like that of WCFM Marketplace could become a perfect tool for you to manage your marketplace shipping.

Our next blog will guide you through the probable shipping costs and charges that you might need to bear based on the shipping model you choose. So, keep an eye on this series!

The post MARKETPLACE SHIPPING – PART 2 : Executing marketplace shipping the right way appeared first on WC Lovers.

Today, however, ships aren’t the only means of transit. Technology has put its feet forward to make shipping of items faster, safer and easier. But the concept remains the same – good shipping strategies can build a successful marketplace.

On the flip side, bad shipping can ruin your marketplace’s reputation altogether. Shipping and delivery largely impact brand loyalty. 84% of customers might never return to a marketplace simply because of a bad delivery experience. As a marketplace owner, you wouldn’t want that, would you?

A successful shipping strategy is something that you should plan from the very inception of your marketplace. A number of factors affect your shipping strategies – type of product, products’ dimensions, shipping time, marketplace model, customer’s requirements etc.

This blog will throw light on the different elements of shipping and will help you plan the basic shopping model for your marketplace.

What customers want

Customer expectations are rising each day. Marketplace giants like Amazon have made people habituated to shipping advantages like free shipping and same-day delivery. This has become an indispensable benchmark for startups.

Free shipping is still the biggest fuel for online shopping. A survey says that free shipping drives 77% of customers to purchase online from a brand. While 35% of customers are satisfied with next-day delivery, 39% of customers demand same-day delivery. Surprisingly, 20% of customers expect a 2-hours delivery window when they choose a brand!

Likewise, high shipping costs or hidden fees is the number one reason why customers abandon their online shopping carts with 50% of customers citing this reason. Delayed delivery and unsatisfactory return policies deter another 18% and 10% of customers from successfully checking out.

As we can see, most customers might abandon your website if they don’t get free shipping and faster deliveries. Now, it is quite understandable that all marketplaces cannot provide free shipping. However, it is important to set a feasible shipping charge that won’t drive away your customers – something that we’ll discuss in another blog. But expedited delivery is something that you cannot discard. Accordingly, you’ll have to plan your fulfillment model and shipping strategies.

What products you’re selling

Planning a shipping strategy depends a lot on what type of physical product you’re selling. For example, if you’re shopping large and heavy items, you need to determine the weight and dimensions of your products as shipping charges might depend on weight. If you’re delivering groceries, then your packaging should be good enough to retain the freshness of products. Also, you might have to deliver perishable items faster than any other product. Before you move on to plan anything, ask yourself these questions:

1. What kind of product am I selling?
2. What is the shelf-life of my products (in case of edible and perishable products)?
3. What are the dimensions and weight of my products?
4. From where do I source my products?
5. How far do I have to ship my products?
6. How fast do I need to deliver my products?

Once you answer these, you’ll have a clearer picture of your shipping requirements.

Usually, in case of smaller items, shipping through roadways or airways can be chosen depending on the distance and charges involved in the shipping. For larger and heavier items, railways and ships can do the work.

Bulk items like coal, iron, agricultural products or crops, oil and petroleum and machinery are usually shipped through waterways. Because heavier or larger items, and often odd-shaped machinery cannot always be shipped through airways, ocean freight becomes preferable. In fact, 90% of shipments are done through oceans and seas. The only drawback of this mode is its transit time which is considerably more than the other modes.

Air freight caters to faster deliveries and is one of the most commonly used modes of transportation for outstation shipping. For shipments of perishable items like flowers, certain pharmaceuticals and even food, airways are considered to be the best option. However, there are weight restrictions in air freight which is quite negligible in ocean freight. Also, air freight is one of the most expensive forms of shipping due to its expedition demand and high cost of fuel.  

Roadways are one of the most convenient ways of shipping packages that need to be delivered in nearby areas. While trucks and trailers can transport large items to a greater distance, quick deliveries of small items are done by smaller trucks, vans, cars or bikes. It is also cheaper and faster when compared to the other modes. However, weather conditions, road conditions and traffic can affect the speed of deliveries through roadways.

Often, just one mode of shipment is not enough for the complete fulfillment of an order. Especially if you’re sourcing the products from one place to your inventory and then shipping it to another place, you might have to consider multi-modal transportation. Through a combination of different modes of transportation you can ship your products from start to end in a cost effective yet expedited manner.

Choosing a fulfillment model

Order fulfillment is the entire process that entails right from the moment a customer places an order to the final delivery of the item. It involves various intermediate steps like order processing, product packaging and labeling, picking up the package from the source point and delivering it to the customer. Returns and exchanges are also a part of the fulfillment process.

While considering the shipping unit of your marketplace, you can choose among 3 broad models of order fulfillment – dropshipping, self-fulfillment, third-party shipping. Each models have their own set of advantages and disadvantages and it completely depends on your marketplace model

Dropshipping

Dropshipping allows the vendor to fulfill the entire shipping procedure after the store admin passes down the order to the seller. As soon as the order is received by the admin of the marketplace, he/she informs the seller about the purchase. The seller then processes the order, packs and prints the labels and ships the product directly to the customer. The dropshipper chooses his/her mode of transportation for the product shipment. The seller might also take the help of a third-party logistics solution. In case of returns or exchanges, it is usually the responsibility of the dropshipper to fulfill them.

Dropshipping spares you the hassles of managing your own delivery unit and shipping of your orders. However, you do not have much control over the shipping process and cannot have an overlook on the quality of the shipment. Also, you cannot always be sure of the stock your seller has. However, it is most suitable for startups or businesses with low initial capital as you don’t have to focus on inventory management or shipment expenditures.

Advantages:

1. No need to pre-purchase from the seller. Purchase is done only when an order is placed in the marketplace.
2. No need to maintain an inventory/storehouse.
3. Seller ships the product(s) so no need to have a dedicated delivery team for your marketplace.
4. Easier for startups and new marketplaces where capital is low.

Disadvantages:

1. Cannot control the quality of the product and/or packaging or speed of delivery.
2. In case an order has been placed and your seller doesn’t have the product in stock, you might get into a false position.
3. Might have to take the responsibility of missing/wrong products and face bad reviews against the marketplace.
4. No customization in packaging, hence reduced brand establishment.
5. Harder to scale when dealing with multiple dropshippers.

Self-fulfillment

If you choose to have a complete view over your shipping unit, then this is for you. Self-fulfillment refers to the process where your marketplace has its own inventory and delivery team and the shipment is fulfilled in-house.

It is quite common for marketplace owners to start with an inventory and involve a team to pack and deliver the products. However, in-hose fulfillment typically takes up a lot of time; you have to set up an inventory and manage it, recruit a team to pack, label and ship/deliver the products to the customers, etc. Also, the cost of managing a warehouse and required machinery for packaging might become a headache for startups. You might also have to tackle some of the well known challenges of marketplace deliveries. 

On the brighter side, you could do your own custom packaging for your products, thereby, increasing your brand’s face value.

Advantages:

1. Total control over the entire fulfillment process.
2. You have an inventory of your own, manage your stocks and can assure the quality of the products dispatched.
3. Ability to choose custom packaging thereby increasing brand popularity.

Disadvantages:

1. Additional load of managing an inventory and assigning different teams for packaging and shipping orders.
2. Setting up an inventory and machinery could be expensive.
3. Self-packaging might become time-consuming.
4. Might become difficult when business grows and the number of orders increase.

Third Party Shipping

If you want to outsource the fulfillment in a hassle-free and relatively cheaper way, then you shall consider third party shipping solutions. In this model, third party logistics (3PLs) agencies/companies fulfill the various elements of shipping like picking up the ordered product, packaging and printing labels, quality checking, shipping and delivering, and even return/exchange processing. All you have to do is contact and tie up with a good and reliable third party logistics company and let them do the job.

3PLs often work with a lot of marketplaces and fulfillment centres and, therefore, have expertise in the logistical area. Also, they often ship in bulk from different fulfillment centres so they can ship substantial bulk at a lower cost.

Some 3PLs like ShipBob offer custom packaging to their clients, thereby fulfilling their clients’ brand visibility.

However, you need to choose a 3PL solution very carefully. If you don’t receive enough orders than expected or ship your products in smaller amounts, shipping charges might get significantly higher. Negotiating with the logistics company is important if you want to maintain an economic yet effective shipping structure.

Advantages:

1. Hasslefree shipping solution since most of the fulfillment procedures are carried out by the 3PLs.
2. Expertise in shipment and logistics.
3. Cost effective when orders shipped in bulk.
4. Cuts on inventory costs, shipping and delivery management expenditures.
5. Shipping is significantly faster than self-fulfillment and dropshipping.
6. Scope of custom packaging is available.

Disadvantages:

1. Quality can be compromised if a trusted shipping service is not chosen.
2. Shipping charges can rise up significantly for small numbers of order shipments.

Deciding on a shipping model suitable for your marketplace could be a bit tricky and might require some research. A wrong shipping model can cost you millions and even break your marketplace. On the other hand, with an effective shipping strategy, your marketplace can quickly rise the steps of success. Your shipping strategy should be one which is not just convenient and economical for your marketplace, but also adds some value to your customer. You wouldn’t want to risk delayed delivery for the sake of cheaper shipping rates, right? Do a bit of research and look around what others are doing. It’s not necessary that you have to follow just one shipping model for your marketplace. For example, Amazon utilizes multiple shipping models for successful shipping. All you have to do is analyse your customers’ demands and market trends, figure out your product specifications and then choose the best shipping solution for your marketplace.

The post MARKETPLACE SHIPPING – PART 1 : Choosing a shipping model appeared first on WC Lovers.

Rise of Voice Commerce

How convenient would it be if you could ask Alexa to place your grocery order? Alexa and Google Home have been your assistant in reading out your daily news headlines or playing your favourite songs just through a command. But it has also taken the eCommerce industry by storm! Loup Ventures predicts that 75% of the US households will have smart speakers by the end of 2025. As of now, about 20% of smart speaker users are using their devices to do some kind of shopping related activities like searching a product, setting reminders for sales, tracking their deliveries, etc. By 2022, voice commerce sales is estimated to reach $40 billion in the U.S. and U.K. alone!

Apart from the convenience that voice commerce provides, an important reason why it has been on the rise is its growing accuracy. Google and Amazon are pushing to incorporate as many local languages as possible into their voice devices namely Google Home and Amazon Echo. This has helped customers shop through their voice speakers more easily.

But for your online store to utilize the potential of this trend, you need to optimize your store for voice search. Optimize your website content to increase the chances of your business to match the searches. Matt Janaway, CEO of MarketingLabs, suggests to elevate your conversion-inducing content to answer common customer questions based around your product. Value-based content neatly drops the customer into the conversion funnel leading them to eventually buying your products. For example, if someone asks for a cure to hair fall, a search result of your solution-based blog might lead to the customer actually looking for your product in the next step!

Make sure that your website and mobile app navigates well with voice command. No one wants to get stuck at your website when Alexa replies, “I don’t know what to do next” to your command! Ensure a smooth and simple checkout flow that can be easily followed through voice commands. With Alexa and Google Assistants raging through online shopping, this digital trend is set to soar in 2021.

Ease of Omnichannel Shopping

The term might sound new to a lot of people, so let’s get to know about it better. Omnichannel retailing refers to providing single customer experience across all devices used for shopping through unified sales and market targeting. This means that whether the customer uses his mobile phone or his laptop, he will experience seamless shopping experience in all his devices.

According to a survey by the Harvard Business Review, 73% of customers admit to have used multiple channels and devices while shopping online.

The goal here is to provide the optimum customer experience to the customer through all your channels. Use analytics tools to monitor customer behaviours and optimize your channels accordingly. For example, if you find out that your customers are more likely to shop from your website through their mobile phones, optimize your website for the same.

Moreover, mobile shopping has seen a spike in the recent years. By the end of 2021, mobile shopping would contribute to almost 73% of total eCommerce sales. But did you know that 30% of online shoppers will quit your website if it’s not mobile-friendly? Therefore, in order to ensure a seamless omnichannel shopping experience to your customers, focus on mobile shopping. A dedicated mobile app is a must for today’s retail world. But if you don’t have a budget for an app, consider creating AMPs (accelerated mobile pages). It’s basically a stripped-down form of an HTML which makes the mobile pages really fast. You can also try a PWA (progressive web app). PWAs load faster than a website and also helps your customers browse through your previously-visited pages offline. With the rise of mobile shopping and shopping through voice commands, this eCommerce trend is going to stay past 2021.

AI and AR enhancements

Artificial Intelligence has already been used in eCommerce. From relevant suggestions while shopping to assisting to customer queries, it can be safely said that AI has taken over online shopping. Online sellers would not hesitate to spend $7.3 billion on AI enhancements.

It works by analysing and remembering your customers preferences and shopping habits and provides them with valuable recommendations. A common example could be those live chat bots that popup with relevant information or suggestions while you shop or assist you in your queries. By the end of next year, more than 120,000 stores will implement AI techniques to provide better customer experience.

While physical retail stores provide customers with the convenience of physically inspecting a product before buying, the touch-experience is missing in online shopping. Imagine if we could buy a certain makeup product by trying it on our face virtually! Yes, AR helps us do so! Augmented Reality (AR) is a recently developed AI feature that has augmented customer’s shopping experience to another level. This has proven to drive conversions by helping customers see the details of your products like size, scale and virtual appearance, thereby helping them choose your products.

A lot of brands like Lenskart and Maybelline have utilized AR to help customers judge the products on themselves and make a better choice. Consider offering a 3D view of your products to display its texture and shape from various angles for a 360 degree realistic experience. In the future, AR for larger items like home equipment and other goods would become more relevant. It’s important to equip your website and mobile app with AI and AR features as this has quite some potential in the coming years.

Sustainable Consumerism

People are gradually becoming concerned towards the environment and are taking steps towards a sustainable ecosystem. Subsequently, sustainable consumerism or green consumerism is on the rise. People are relying more on brands that care for the environment in the long run. Customers are looking for products that are produced in an eco-friendly way or can be recycled later. 65% of consumers prefer buying products from environment-driven brands that advocate sustainability.

A lot of eCommerce brands have already started taking green consumerism seriously. Amazon has pledged to reduce their carbon emission to zero by 2040. Nestlé is striving towards making 100% of its packaging reusable or recyclable by 2025. In another instance, the conglomerate giant, Unilever, reached its sustainability targets by acquiring 26 small and sustainable brands. These brands grew over 46% faster and delivered more than 70% of overall turnover.

There are some great ways to attract green consumers to your brand. Take a clear stand on environmental issues and decide on your sustainability goals. Be vocal about your practices and deadlines for achieving your goals. Opt for green packaging like reusable bottles or paper bags, and promote e-receipts instead of paper bills. Take an initiative and look out for alternative and eco-friendly production of your products. The apparent shift of consumers towards environment-friendly products is a high indicator that this trend is going to stay.

New payment methods

Use of internet banking or credit cards is almost a matter of the past now. Newer payment methods have emerged in the recent times that have made online purchases more convenient for shoppers. Digital wallets like Google Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay are being widely used by online retailers. They contribute to about 41.8% share of total eCommerce transactions. eCommerce brands are incorporating new, varied and even local or country-specific payment options for seamless checkout. A lot of e-stores are compatible with Paypal, the worldwide leader of online payments solutions, as well as local payment methods like MangoPay and PayStack. Therefore, it’s imperative to make your online stores compatible with these payment methods.

One payment method that might emerge as a popular option in 2021 is cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have several advantages over other payment methods. It has lower transaction fees, faster payments and is more secure than other options. Bitcoin is gradually venturing into a broader market. Overstack has partnered with Coinbase, a Bitcoin platform, allowing users to pay via their Bitcoins. The coming year might see Bitcoins on the rise, so you might want to adapt your eCommerce store with the same.

Every year, new technologies and innovations are being adapted by eCommerce markets. Some potential trends fail miserably by the end of the year but some trends emerge as mentionable breakthroughs. Our research and predictions say that these eCommerce trends are going to rule 2021. However, keep an eye to the latest developments and methods that can prove beneficial to your online business. We hope that 2021 becomes a year of success for all entrepreneurs with new and better ideas on the front.

The post 5 eCommerce Trends that will rule 2021 appeared first on WC Lovers.

Cut to modern days, affiliate marketing is proven to be one of the most viable forms of marketing for the past few years and is seen to be contributing to almost 30% of the total revenue for the companies. Through affiliate networking, marketplaces can not only make their brand more popular but also make more sales. But this type of marketing is especially beneficial for startups and new marketplaces. Wondering why? Let’s read a bit about the basics.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing can be considered as outsourced marketing: you ask others to promote your business in return for a commission. Affiliate marketing involves an affiliate partner signing up for an affiliate program provided by the retailer to promote their website or products. The partner is assigned an affiliate link which pushes through his promotions. This unique link garners traffic to the site and every time a lead purchases a product through that link, the affiliate partner gets paid a certain percentage of the sale as commission. In this way, both the partner and the site generates a considerable amount of revenue through affiliation.

Affiliates can promote the link through various methods like Google Ads, blogs, YouTube videos, product reviews, e-mails, etc. Similarly, there are different options for commissions that can be set up for the affiliates such as commission due to registration to the site through the affiliate link, commission due to sale of the product through the affiliate link, etc. Due to its simplicity and the potential to increase sales rapidly, affiliate marketing is gaining popularity on the global market. About 84% of marketplaces leverage affiliate marketing.

Why is Affiliate Marketing the best for startups?

Neil Patel, one of the top business influencers, states that he hasn’t seen any other form of marketing more effective than Affiliate Marketing. There are several advantages of opting this kind of marketing for startups. Let’s look at some of the most important ones:

1. Cost Effective: According to a recent survey by Gartner, the average marketing budget for a startup is around 11.2% of the total revenue of the company. Out of this, usually 15% of the marketing budget is spent on Affiliate Marketing. Why do you think these startups allocate such a huge chunk of their budget on Affiliate programs? Performance based marketing is usually more cost effective than other forms of marketing because the commission is paid only when there is an actual sale or an effective conversion. You pay only for the results and, therefore, you do not require any initial investment. Also, you are aware of your cost per acquisition so you know how much money you’re spending and making through affiliations. Apart from that, you don’t have to worry about hiring additional marketing staff especially for this kind or bother about creating content for the same. Moreover, having a robust affiliate software like WCFM Affiliate can alleviate your stress as it provides all the tools and resources required to set up an efficient affiliate program for your marketplace. This type of marketing definitely provides good ROI!

Read more about what WCFM Affiliate offers!

2. Improves discovery: In order to be discovered by potential customers, businesses usually look out for advertisements and other promotional options. As for affiliates, they usually have a broad and established visitor base. When these affiliates promote your products or website, they let your brand be discovered by the visitors who might not have even heard of your brand. 83% of affiliate marketers are focusing on this type of marketing to increase their brand awareness. Thus, Affiliate Marketing provides ample exposure to startups, thereby leading to increased sales.

3. Builds popularity: When a popular market influencer or blogger speaks about your marketplace, people tend to believe what he/she says. People tend to fall for third-party recommendations on a product or service and user generated content (UGC) for such reviews become a social proof for the brand, service or product. 91% of 18-34 years old trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. By partnering with trusted bloggers, reviewers and influencers, you can further the reputation of your marketplace and its products to a larger extent.

And most importantly…

4. Greater traffic and conversion rates: According to a survey, one of the top challenges for marketers is generating traffic and leads. While paid ads are often quite unpredictable when it comes to grabbing more leads, Affiliate Marketing is a much safer option. When affiliates promote your website on different channels, your pages get linked to those platforms. The more your pages get linked to relevant audiences, the more traffic you get. Moreover, Affiliate Marketing gives a “halo effect” on your search engine ranking.The affiliate links don’t have a direct impact on your search engine rankings but since more people are looking up for your products and navigating through your web pages, your website automatically does better on the search results. Thus, a good network of affiliates not only brings in more traffic but also spikes search algorithms and improves your SEO and SERP rankings.

Talking about the conversion rate, the average conversion rate of Affiliate Marketing is about 1%. Well, that might seem to be very low. However, this is just an estimation as most of the affiliates do not expose their actual conversion success rate due to market competition. In reality, the average conversion rate through Affiliate Marketing could be somewhere between 2-3% but it is also shown that successful and strategic marketing has led to almost 10% success rate! E-Commerce is specifically known to have an average conversion rate of 1.84% through marketing. Therefore, Affiliate Marketings seems to be a good option for increasing leads for marketplaces.

WCFM Affiliate: The best tool for your marketplace’s affiliate program

Apart from bringing in more traffic to your website, one of the crucial requirements of a new marketplace is bringing in more vendors to join your marketplace. WCFM Affiliate allows not only the usual influencers or bloggers becoming your affiliate but also lets your vendors become your affiliates! Your vendors can also become your affiliate and promote your marketplace to other vendors. In this way, your marketplace gets exposed to more sellers, increasing your seller count easily!

WCFM Affiliate provides all the necessary tools and resources that one requires for starting his own affiliate program for his marketplace. The best part is that it lets you set the commission for your affiliates and generate different affiliate urls for promotions. Without any hassle. Through WCFM Affiliates, you can set different types of commission for your affiliates like pay out when a new vendor registers for your marketplace, pay out when a product is sold due to an affiliate’s referral, etc.

As you install this addon, you as well as your affiliate will get a separate Affiliate dashboard where one can get an overview of the total commissions being paid out to the affiliates, total revenue earned due to the affiliate program, no. of vendors registered due to the program, etc. Also, you may check all the affiliate’s commissions statistics from his stats page.

The best part is that the admin can generate unique affiliate urls for the affiliate partners with just one click! Setting up and managing your marketplace’s own affiliate program has become easier and more efficient with WCFM Affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is not only advantageous for new marketplaces but also for existing marketplaces that want their vendor connection to become stronger. It is proven that through affiliates, vendors place their trust on the affiliate’s promoted marketplaces much easily. With a wide network of vendors, your marketplace will have a variety of products and, therefore, would stand out from the rest of marketplaces. Experience the power of Affiliate Marketing for your marketplace with the help of WCFM Affiliate and ace your marketing game.

The post Why Affiliate Marketing is the next big thing for your Marketplace appeared first on WC Lovers.

Bring out something exclusive

People expect something extra during the Cyber Week. Launch new and exclusive products during this time and witness a surge in your sales. In 2018, popular shoe brand Allbirds launched a limited edition sneakers on Cyber Monday. It took the sales by storm and sold out like hot cakes. Although they didn’t put any offer on the product at all, you can top a new release with exclusive offers like additional discounts to early birds or free gift only for the sale. This will ensure increased sale of the item.

Offer enticing discounts

This might be the most basic and easily the most obvious advice for Cyber Week, but no one can deny the lure of a great discount! People spend hours on discovering the greatest discounts online during this holiday sale. Definitely, they aren’t going to be wowed with a meagre off! For the Cyber Week, give away your greatest discount of the year. The goal is to add value to the customer’s purchase, so set up your discounts accordingly.

Moreover, it is noticed that customers are more eager to spend on shopping during the holidays, often buying stuff they don’t even require! What do you think allures them into buying such items? The label of a good discount can boost the sales of your lesser-sold items as well. Therefore, don’t forget to cash on the tendency of impulsive buying and set sweet discounts on those hardly noticed items of your inventory.

Provide free gifts

Who doesn’t like freebies? Customers’ year-long wait for the best deal must be rewarded with some free stuff. Your free gift doesn’t necessarily have to be of equal amount. The idea here is to improve customer experience by providing something that adds a value to the purchased item. If someone buys a television set, throw in a streaming gadget along with it. If someone buys a mobile phone, give a free mobile cover along with it. Holiday season means gifting each other and it’s the best time that you actually work on the emotion of gifting and improve customer retention. 90% of consumers say that free gifts increase brand loyalty. So, don’t underestimate the power of a small token of gratitude during this Cyber Week.

Create bundle products and promote up-selling

Consider selling your products in bundles. Bundling products gives an opportunity to increase the average order value (AOV). Offering a discount on a bundled product creates a sense of added value to a customer’s purchase and is, therefore, a great way to boost sales. According to an estimate by McKinsey, about 35% of Amazon’s purchases come from “recommendations” – typically bundling products- and that the success rates of such recommendations are almost 60%.

Especially beneficial for SaaS companies where they sell their services/products on subscription basis, offering a bundle would not only increase the sales but also make people try out the added service/product. If your product/service turns out to be great, you’re in for customer retention and comeback sale!

Up-selling is a marketing tactic used to encourage customers to spend more. It works like this: once a customer decides on buying a product, he/she will definitely spend that amount. Convincing them to upgrade with an addon then becomes easier than convincing them to to buy the product in the first place. Offering addons during the checkout process is the most common way of up-selling. Statistics reveal that upselling works 60-70% of times with 7 out of 10 people falling in the trap of adding more products while checking out. Throw in some enticing products during the checkout and see how your AOV soars!

Build urgency

Have you heard of FOMO? Yes, the fear of missing out on any deal might just drive people into buying more. Focus on creating “limited time” offers in order to build the sense of urgency. Use a countdown timer on your website displaying the remaining time to the end of your promo offer. In certain cases, this trick has proven to drive sales up by almost 332%!

Apart from time based urgency, add stock urgency to your website showing the remaining stock left before your service/product gets sold out. Booking.com shows many instances of stock urgency by suggesting that a certain hotel room would be sold out if not booked fast enough. Other methods like using the term “Claim NOW” on CTAs and using the colour red on strategic places creates a sense of panic among customers which compel them to not just buy the product but buy them immediately!

Set up offer pop ups for abandoned cart

Shopping cart abandonment is a huge issue across all industries. People often look through your website, add products to their cart but unfortunately leave your website right there without actually purchasing. Statistics say that almost 3/4th of customers leave websites with incomplete checkout.

In order to avoid abandoned carts, you have to hold your customers for a few more seconds and compel them to complete the purchase just when they’re about to click the ‘close’ button. Offer pop ups play an important role in making your customers feel more inclined towards actually buying the product. Offer a sweet and exclusive offer before they leave or a quick discount coupon on those abandoned cart messages. This will make your customers look back and complete the purchase.

Run Social Media campaigns

What’s Cyber Week without marketing? Letting your customers know of the offers that you’ll be putting up during the holiday sale should be one of your first priorities. Connect with your Facebook customer community with banners and posts related to the offers. Facebook and Instagram ads come a great way when a wider reach is required. If set up correctly, social media ad campaigns could be a convenient and pocket friendly option to reach out to more audiences. That’s the reason why marketers are increasing their Facebook and Instagram ad spends by 27% and 54% respectively, year after year, with increased impressions. Encourage your audience to use your brand hashtags or provide giveaways for more engagement. This will not only keep your existing customer base on the hook but also bring in new visitors.

Besides ad campaigns, Facebook retargeting is a must for online marketers. This paid advertising strategy shows your ads to those who have visited your site previously without any purchase. Facebook and it’s partner sites will show your ad to these potential leads, thereby increasing conversion. Retargeting ads is proven to give higher ROI than any other marketing strategy, with some marketers reporting almost 200% ROI from retargeting alone. The bottom  line is to utilize your social media handles in a fun and engaging way to attract your customers to the sale.

Focus on email marketing

When email providers introduced the “Promotions” inbox where all marketing and promotional emails were automatically dumped into, people thought that email marketing has gone to its grave. But the truth is, email marketing is still very much alive and one of the most viable marketing options. DMA Insights has revealed that almost 99% of email recipients check their email inbox everyday. On an average, 24.88% of emails actually get opened. As of May 2020, the open rate of marketing emails of almost all industries is 16.22% while the click-through rate is 7.17%. This means that chances are pretty high for your promotional emails to be read by your customers. Besides, the ROI of email marketing can reach upto 122%. It would be foolish to ignore a good email campaign, especially for Cyber Week.

One of the biggest mistakes of email marketing during the cyber week is sending out the emails after the holidays. What’s the point of promoting your deals on Monday when the sale is almost towards the end? Start emailing before the onset of the holidays, better before Thanksgiving. While it’s important to engage your customers through mails almost throughout the week, set up reminder emails for bigger deals and for the more important days like the Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Perhaps a small thank you message for shopping during the sale or a token of gratitude with a small discount for future might take you a long way!

Run contests and consider gamification

Tag 10 friends on this post and a lucky winner gets a freebie! Invite 5 other friends and get $5 cashback on every purchase they make! Sounds familiar? Yes, running contests on your social media handles is an amazing way to engage your customers and increase your website’s traffic as well as generate leads. The psychology of victory and achievement leads many users to participate in such games and contests in return for some rewards. As a result, not only do your current customers constantly stay on the hook, but things like tagging others or making others subscribe to your services generate more leads.

Gamification strategies include challenging one’s intellect in a fun and engaging way. Quizzes, puzzles, riddles, spin-the-wheel, etc, are some of the fun gamification examples that you can apply to promote your brand and your deals during this Cyber Week. Focus on providing memorable experiences, rather than a simple run-of-the-mill game and your customers would love shopping from your website!

Spread the word through Affiliates

Affiliate marketing has turned out to be a pretty feasible method of marketing for the past few years. It is proven to be contributing to almost 30% of the total sales revenue.  While about 84% of marketers provide leverage to Affiliate marketing, Cyber Week seems to be a good time for promoting your deals through your affiliates. Notify your affiliates beforehand through emails and provide them with details about your Cyber Week sale. Your affiliates will promote your website and deals to their followers, thereby providing more exposure during the sale. But make sure that you let your affiliates know of your Cyber Week plans way ahead of the sale dates so that they can plan their promotions accordingly and make your Cyber Week successful.

If you haven’t started chalking out your marketing strategies yet, then this is the right time. Follow these simple tips to ace your marketing game this Cyber Week and boost your sale like never before!

The post 10 Marketing Hacks for driving more Sales on Cyber Week appeared first on WC Lovers.

Why stress on Delivery?

When it comes to online shopping, people fall for 2 basic factors over anything – better value and on-time delivery. In fact, 2 out 3 customers prefer shopping from retailers providing better delivery options than the ones that have better value or variety. 73% of online shoppers feel that delivery is most important in the overall shopping experience.

Customer retention is the biggest reason why online retailers stress so much on timely delivery. According to a research published on Convey, 98.1% of customers have admitted that delivery impacts brand loyalty. As found in a study by Oracle Retail, 13% of consumers would never buy from a retailer again if he/she has experienced late delivery.

E-commerce giant Amazon’s delivery has always been one of the best in the market. From Free Delivery for Prime members to One-day Guaranteed delivery, Amazon has made sure that its customers look forward to none other than them for the ultimate shopping experience. In order to stay at par with such competition and to cater to the customers’ growing needs, about 65% of online retailers are looking forward to ensuring “same-day” delivery.

Delivery Dilemmas: The challenges faced by marketplaces

As a marketplace owner, you have to do a hundred different tasks to make your marketplace run competently. Managing the delivery system of your marketplace is one of those tasks that requires topmost priority. While last mile deliveries have become even more crucial than ever for a good shopping experience, certain shipping challenges need to be handled even more carefully now. Let’s understand these problems in detail and find out ways to solve them.

Logistics management and it’s cost

Logistics is perhaps that stage of a marketplace business where the whole digital experience boils down to an offline workout. But that is exactly where the game begins. One of the most commonly considered options is taking the help of a third party logistics agency to fulfill the delivery assignments. Logistics giants like FedEx boasts wide area coverage while UPS and USPS are quite popular for their shipping fulfillment in the U.S. However, relying on a logistics partner incurs a recurrent cost that often mounts up to a hefty amount. Shipping charges for delivering single or small products become even higher in some cases. It becomes difficult particularly for startups or SMEs to carry on with such high costs, especially when competing with other marketplaces offering “free deliveries”. Often, in such cases, marketplaces are compelled to gulp in the shipping charges themselves in order to provide free deliveries.

In another scenario, a marketplace can also consider operating their delivery system all by themselves. However, managing an in-house delivery system can easily become a headache when you don’t have enough and efficient resources. Investing in a warehouse where you can maintain your inventory, bringing in equipment and utilities, maintaining a robust IT, utilizing a software solution for efficient management of a delivery team, etc. – is equally time and cost consuming!

Solution: If tying up with a third party logistics solution is not your thing, you can let the vendors carry out the entire shipping process from their side. The vendor can dispatch the items as soon as they receive the order. Therefore, there are minimum delays in pickup and almost no unnecessary paper works as the last mile delivery is often done by the vendor’s delivery team. In this way, the marketplace owner not only gets rid of the shipping hassles but also saves the additional costs of a third party logistics partner or a warehouse. 

And if you’re bothered about how to keep a control on the delivery peripherals even when the vendor is handling the deliveries, well, WCFM has a great solution in hand! WCFM Delivery addon is the perfect delivery extension that helps you manage the delivery system of your marketplace seamlessly. The admin has access and control over the order details, dispatch details and even delivery agents. In this way, the admin has a bird’s eye view of the entire delivery process even when the vendors take up the task. 

Alternatively, if you have the resources to carry out your marketplace’s delivery assignments by yourself, you can consider having your own warehouse and maintain a team of delivery agents. A common practice followed by most of the marketplaces is setting up different hub centres in different areas/regions and shipping the orders in bulk. Shipping several small items individually could be expensive and, therefore, bulk shipping reduces the shipping cost significantly. Once the items reach the hub centres, the individual items are further picked up and dispatched to the nearest locations according to the orders. WCFM Delivery also allows the admin to have his own set of delivery agents and lets the admin operate the delivery team by his own. Admin can add delivery agents and assign them with the delivery tasks.

One of the most interesting features of WCFM Delivery is that it allows local pickup by the customer for local orders. Customers can pick up their ordered item from the vendor’s/admin’s store, if located in the same city. This completely erases the shipping cost and becomes quite convenient for both the customer and the vendor/admin. The pick up time slot can also be defined by the admin/vendor.

Know more what WCFM Delivery can do!

Transparency

Customers expect complete transparency in every step of their online shopping experience. According to a survey, 9 out of 10 consumers would stop buying from the brand if it lacks transparency. The same survey also discovered that 89% of people would stick to the brand even through times of crisis if their history is transparent. Often customers are kept in darkness regarding the free delivery criteria or the minimum cart value to be eligible for free shipping.This is one of the topmost reasons for customers abandoning cart. Therefore, being open and avoiding hidden costs/conditions will increase customer retention.

Transparency holds true even for deliveries. Customers want to know the status of their order, how they are being shipped, when the shipment will reach their doorstep, etc. In other words, they are most likely to track their orders from the very next moment they’ve completed the purchase. 56% of online shoppers constantly track the deliveries, with Americans being the most active trackers. Naturally, a lack in shipment transparency would avoid consumers from further buying from the particular marketplace.

But transparency within the business is also crucial, especially for vendor-fulfilled deliveries. Are the orders being delivered on time? Are the deliveries fulfilled properly with complete customer satisfaction? These questions would obviously haunt you if you depend on your vendors for deliveries of the orders. Marketplace owners have very little role to play in vendor-fulfilled deliveries but are solely held responsible for any faulty deliveries. According to a study released by the Acquity Group, 52% of customers hold the marketplace responsible for delays in deliveries.

Solution: As we mentioned, being transparent regarding the entire shopping process is definitely required for the goodwill of the marketplace as well as for customer retention. Minimum cart value for free shipping or any other condition regarding delivery charges should be aforementioned clearly before the checkout process. Not only does it avoid the probability of abandoned carts but also increases sales. WCFM provides the vendor/admin with an option for displaying minimum cart value for free shipping criteria.

A robust tracking system is extremely important. Since customers have the right to know the status of their order, it becomes the duty of the marketplace to provide timely updates of the order. From the moment the online purchase is completed, the customer must receive shipping updates as to when the ordered item is dispatched, how long it will take for the parcel to reach the customer, when the parcel is out for delivery, etc. WCFM Delivery allows the customer to receive instant notification regarding the whereabouts of the shipment. Right from the dispatch of the item through the entire delivery process, the vendor can share updates of each process of the shipping manually (if requested by the customer). WCFM Marketplace also has the option of providing Tracking Code and Tracking URL in case the vendor uses any third party courier service. Through the tracking code/URL, customers can easily track the parcel dispatched by the vendor through the courier service’s website. 

But it’s not just the customers who should be tracking their packages. As a marketplace owner, it is also extremely important for you to track the order status when you rely on your vendors to carry out the deliveries from their end. WCFM Delivery provides constant updates of all the delivery actions that are happening for a particular order through timely notifications under the dashboard as well as through emails. This helps the admin/owner of the marketplace to avoid falling into a false position for faulty deliveries or undelivered orders.

Delayed Deliveries

From robots to drones, online retailers are pushing their limits and incorporating the best technologies and techniques to shoot up their delivery game a notch higher. In the world of “one-day” deliveries, there’s no room for delayed deliveries. According to a study by Oracle Retail, 13% of consumers who experienced delayed deliveries would never buy from the same marketplace. But what causes such botched up deliveries? Apart from the common unavoidable reasons like traffic, vehicle breakdowns, bad weather conditions, sudden spike in shipment delivery volume, etc, there are certain management-level factors that affect the on-time deliveries of orders:

1. Miscommunication – Since most of the work and management of the marketplace goes online, i.e., without any direct contact between the admin and the seller, certain miscommunication often creeps in. Orders are often not notified for dispatch, vendors often delay in dispatch due to delayed information of transaction, delivery agents are not assigned on-time, etc., are some of the effects of the communication gap between the admin, vendors and the delivery agents. Such mismanagement results in delayed deliveries.
2. Unavailability of services – Every customer wants minimal wait time for deliveries. But there are certain days when the vendors might not provide delivery services. Problems arise when customers are not notified of the unavailability of the delivery service on those certain days but they order expecting faster deliveries. Such incidents happen especially for marketplaces selling products that are meant to be delivered the same day or the next day like flowers, grocery, medicines, etc.
3. Incorrect delivery slots – Have you ever noticed the timer in Amazon which indicates the remaining time for ordering in order to qualify for same day/next-day delivery? Well, of times, customers are not notified of the available delivery slots and they unknowingly order in a wrong delivery slot. Food delivery sites often fall as prey to such delivery slot commotions.
4. Mismanagement of assigning delivery agents – While your vendors are responsible for the shipping of the orders, it is crucial that they manage their delivery team properly. Mismanagement of allocating delivery personnel for a certain order can actually delay the shipment.

Solution: As a marketplace owner, you need to ensure that your (or your vendor’s) delivery unit is managed well. One delayed delivery can cost the goodwill of your marketplace. Proper communication should be established between the admin, the vendors and the delivery agents. An automated notification facility would be helpful to notify the admin and the vendor for any new order as well as for the delivery agent for any new allocation of delivery assignment. All available delivery slots and even unavailable delivery slots/days should be clearly notified to the customer even before he orders the product. Through WCFM Delivery, vendors can set up delivery hours for their store which gets displayed on the products page. Expected delivery time should also be mentioned to avoid providing false hopes. WCFM allows vendors to set a generic expected delivery time globally and later modify the estimated time at product level. Extra care should be taken while allocating delivery agents and avoid mixing up of delivery agents for a particular order or non-allocation of delivery agents of any order.

While WCFM Delivery can be quite helpful in managing the entire delivery process efficiently, the admin should have an overview of the entire management. An efficient internal management would definitely lower the cases of late deliveries, thereby, enhancing customer retention.

In a nutshell: How WCFM Delivery powers better Delivery Management?

WCFM Delivery is a one-stop solution for your marketplace’s delivery needs. It not only lets you control the delivery system of your marketplace but also lets your vendors manage the delivery of their products by their own delivery teams. 

The admin as well as the vendor(s) can add delivery agents, assign delivery agents for particular delivery assignments and receive notifications directly from their delivery agents right at their dashboard. Vendors can also schedule delivery time slots for customers to choose from, which is of great use especially for food and grocery deliveries.

WooCommerce’s default location input format is address-type. But WCFM Delivery allows the customer to pinpoint the delivery address on the map for better identification of the location. 

Once delivered, the customer can also mark the delivery as “completed” ensuring greater transparency. A complete solution that helps you operate your deliveries and manage your delivery team more efficiently, WCFM Delivery is a must have addon for your marketplace.

Bonus: WCFM Delivery App

While you and your vendor have the power to control the deliveries of your marketplace through the addons, your delivery agents also require a software which will enable them to manage the delivery assignments.

WCFM Delivery App complements WCFM Delivery by establishing a powerful communication between the vendors and the delivery agents. This app allows the delivery agents to receive notifications regarding new delivery assignments and view delivery details such as order number, seller and customer details, delivery location with Google map, etc. The delivery agent can also update the vendor as well as the admin of the marketplace regarding completion of the delivery assignment. Thus WCFM Delivery App is inevitably the best accompaniment for your delivery needs.

Delivery management could seem like a monumental task but with WCFM Delivery, you can easily manage your deliveries without any hassle. Additionally, WCFM Delivery App allows your delivery agents to provide real time updates regarding the deliveries.

Simplify your deliveries with WCFM Delivery addon along with WCFM Delivery App and start delivering to newer horizons with ease and on time!

The post The Challenging Aspects of Marketplace Deliveries… And how to solve them! appeared first on WC Lovers.

COVID-19 has, surprisingly, brought in ample opportunities for certain sectors. Health and eCommerce sector has seen a remarkable boom in the past few months and is promised to grow more. But there are several other sectors that have taken the advantage of the pandemic and should be considered if planning for a startup. Here are 5 marketplace sectors worth investing in during COVID-19:

Online Retail

This is almost a no-brainer and is pretty evident that COVID-19 has brought in a sudden surge in the online retail sector. When most physical retail stores had to be shut down due to worldwide lockdowns, online retail marketplaces became saviors to people looking for their daily necessities. The success of online retail marketplaces during the outbreak could be determined by retail-giant Amazon’s demand surge. Amazon.Inc has reported a 26% revenue surge during its Q1. When most of the companies are either “benching” or terminating their employees in this crisis, Amazon decided to hire an additional 75,000 employees to cope up with the surge.

Even when things are getting normal gradually and retail shops are slowly opening up in some places, people would still prefer buying online to avoid the spread of the virus. The convenience of getting the supplies right at home with minimal risk of infection is the biggest reason why online retail will remain at its peak for months to come.

Things to take care of: Apart from the various factors that you should consider before creating your marketplace, shipping is one thing that should be the strongest in your marketplace right now! Timely shipping in the time of crisis would be greatly appreciated and would lead to better customer retention. Also, safety should be of utmost priority in these times. Make sure that your/your vendors’ packaging and shipping units are well sanitized and that the delivery personnels are marked safe.

Read: How to create your own WooCommerce based multivendor marketplace with WCFM Marketplace.

Food and Grocery Delivery

Similar to online retail, food and grocery delivery have also seen an all-time high for the past few months. People responded to the declaration of the global pandemic by panic buying and over-stocking. The unavailability of the goods in the local markets drew them to online groceries. According to a source, e-Grocery platforms have recorded a surge in daily users by almost 40,000 during this period! The fear of getting exposed to the virus is also making people reluctant to go out for grocery shopping. An online poll has revealed that most people are now likely to buy their groceries online even after the pandemic subsides.

Food delivery has also seen a good spike during COVID-19. With dining out comes the question of hygiene, hindering a lot of people from eating outside. Therefore, online food ordering and home deliveries are successfully catering to the culinary urges.

According to Statista as on March 18, 2020, 60% of 18-24 year olds have already increased their frequency of using online food delivery services. Uber Eats has seen a 10x increase in restaurants’ self sign-ups. Therefore, this is a good time to start up an online grocery or food delivery marketplace.

Things to take care of: Along with fresh supplies, a stable delivery management is of extreme importance. A lot of food and grocery delivery services failed to meet demand due to the lack of human resources. So, make sure you have a robust team of delivery agents. Maximize efficiency in your delivery providers and the delivery vehicles employed.

E-Learning

Virtual learning has been rising up for quite some time now. However, COVID-19 has kicked in momentum in remote learning. Schools and other educational institutions have been temporarily shut down affecting around 1.2 billion learners around the world. Online learning has helped students cope up with this crisis and continue with their learning. Byju’s, an India-based e-learning platform, has seen an increase of 200% in student enrollment in its portal, making it the current highest valued ed-tech company in the world. The number of learners of Unacademy has also tripled since the outbreak.

According to the E-Learning Market – Global Outlook and Forecast 2020-2025 report, the e-learning market is expected to display a significant growth in the next five years. With technology interfering in almost all sectors of life, e-learning will not just flourish during these tough times but also has the potential of being one of the most successful business models in the long run. Moreover, you can tie up with various schools and institutions, as Pearson does, to facilitate teaching via web-conferencing, creating a virtual classroom.

Things to take care of: Skilled educators and great content is the key to a successful online learning platform. Make sure that your users don’t come to an empty platform. One of the biggest challenges during this time would be a stable internet access to all. Make your content downloadable so that the users can learn at their own pace.

Virtual Healthcare

Virtual healthcare service has been gradually developing over the past few years, but wasn’t much popular. People preferred going the traditional way of visiting the doctor for their ailments. According to a survey before the pandemic, almost 82% of people in the US alone did not use telehealth services. But COVID-19 has pushed the telehealth services to its greatest potential till now. With hospitals and medical centres being overwhelmed with Covid patients, people are now relying on remote healthcare.

Online healthcare services provide the convenience of digitally consulting medical professionals of various specializations right at home, often for much lesser fees. People are now being able to share their problems and seek remedies from medical professionals via call or video conferencing through these services. Amwell, an online healthcare service, has seen a whopping 158% increase in the usage of its app in the US since January 2020. Online consultation appointment via Plushcare, another telehealth service, is up by almost 70%. With social distancing becoming the new norm, The Economist has stated that the growth of this segment will augment to a great height in the coming 2 years.

Things to take care of: People are in panic-mode right now and would be primarily seeking medical assistance for COVID-19. Therefore, proper medical assistance following the WHO guidelines should be provided. Incorrect diagnosis or improper advice could cost you heavily and could also be punishable in some cases. Follow the health department’s guidelines of your country/state to create any medical content. Make sure to check the medical qualification of the consulting health professionals joining your healthcare website/app.

Fitness and Wellness

Worldwide quarantine has deeply affected the physical and mental fitness of people of almost all age groups. Gyms, yoga centres, and even jogging parks have closed their doors; office-goers are working from their home; children are staying inside resulting in much lesser physical activities. Such inactivity is taking a toll on our physical health. Public health scientists in the US have raised concerns that lockdown measures could increase childhood obesity. According to a survey published in Clinical Obesity, nearly 56% of people admitted to have significantly reduced their intensity of workout since quarantine in the US. Such times of crisis have also brought in severe mental stress. The same survey has revealed that more than 72% of people are suffering from anxiety and 83% said that they have become more depressed.

Remote fitness and wellness services can help people cope up with inactiveness digitally. Online gym or yoga sessions through videos, virtual dance classes and tele-consultation with fitness trainers and nutritionists has become the new fitness trend fighting the effects of lockdown. Tone and Sculpt, an online nutrition and workout service app, has seen a growth of 88% since April. Moreover, global fitness apps are estimated to grow at a CAGR of 31.25% during 2019-2026. Apps providing one-to-one consultation with psychologists or mental health experts have helped people grappling with the COVID stress. With urban lifestyles becoming unhealthy day by day, these apps are going to be our next fitness buddies.

Things to take care of: Post-COVID wellness is a hot topic now – it’s all about imparting physical and mental wellness advice to patients who have just recovered or are recovering from COVID-19. But again, make sure to enroll skilled fitness trainers and wellness experts who would conduct their workout or consultation following the WHO guidelines.

Necessity is the mother of inventions. Although the global pandemic has become a major cause of downfall for many businesses, there are still plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs. The secret to successful marketplaces is their ability to cater to the needs of the time. Look around and see what people need and you’ll find an idea that will make you prosper even in these tough times! So, good luck and get ready to start up your own marketplace!

The post 5 Businesses that will flourish due to COVID-19 appeared first on WC Lovers.

We had a tough time deciding on this sudden discontinuation of support but evidently, there are several reasons behind this conclusion.

Firstly, for the past one year, we have noticed only a handful of users using WCMp with WCFM – the number of support requests being less than 20! We do not know the exact reason behind this persistently declining number. The decreasing popularity of WCMp could be one as the plugin isn’t really making much progress feature-wise.

Secondly, the recent few versions of WCMp have made significant changes to its core structure without much of a new functionality. This requires some serious updates from our end as well. But again, the deteriorating demand is discouraging us from further working on the same. It seems futile to put such effort in a task which people wouldn’t use.

Additionally, our marketplace plugin, WCFM Marketplace, is visibly gaining more acceptance among new as well as existing WCFM users. A lot of users have even migrated from other solutions to WCFM Marketplace in the last one year! Therefore, our prime focus, from now on, would be to add more features to WCFM Marketplace and take over the spot of the best WooCommerce marketplace solution.

Keeping these factors in mind, we’ve decided to move on and remove our support for WCMp. We know that this could be a shocker for the existing users who are still using WCMp with WCFM and we deeply regret the inconvenience caused.

And although we aren’t “too good at goodbyes”, we would never want you to suffer for our course of action. To make sure that your business doesn’t get affected due to this decision, we are offering FREE migration to WCFM Marketplace along with one year free subscription to any of our premium plugins that you require to maintain the dynamics of your business.

To avail this offer, kindly contact us here.

Thanks for keeping your trust on WCFM.

N.B.- WCFM will continue its support for the following multivendor solutions as before:

• Dokan Multivendor
• WC Vendors Marketplace
• Product Vendors – WooCommerce

The post We’re breaking up with WCMp! *sad face* appeared first on WC Lovers.