Multichannel eCommerce retailing is a powerful tool for eCommerce entrepreneurs that allows them to reach more markets and drive more sales.
What seemed like an exciting opportunity yesterday has become more of a necessity today. Customers today are no longer delighted by multichannel eCommerce retailing, they now expect it. To put it in simple words, multichannel eCommerce retailing includes displaying and selling products on various common marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, Buy.com, Sears and ChannelAdvisor, and comparison shopping engines like Google Product Search, Shopping.com, Shopzilla.com and Nextag.com. There are no prizes for guessing that when an eCommerce website puts its products on different marketplaces and shopping engines, it results in a larger audience, greater sales, and bigger profits. Here are 5 ways in which multichannel eCommerce retailing can help an eCommerce website tremendously.
- More Markets and Potential Customers
- Increased Sales
- Better Customer Experience
- Effective Database Creation and Management
- Business Diversification
Displaying your products across multiple channels only means that you can target more customers in more places and reach out to them effectively. People in different countries are prone to using different services. Amazon, the online retailing giant of America is yet to flourish and abound in India. Alibaba, China’s ecommerce behemoth which famously filed one of the biggest IPOs of all time, hasn’t had its name heard by a vast majority of the western population. Therefore, it only makes sense to promote your products on various channels and reach out to more demographics efficiently.
This one is a no-brainer. Though there is some seriously tough competition out there, listing products across multiple channels will certainly result in more sales when compared to being limited to just one or two websites. This is not just about effective targeting, it is also about the emotional connect people may have with their favorite shopping engine or marketplace. A consumer may not be able to trust or connect with your website directly but will have no problem purchasing from you if your store is listed on his or her favorite marketplace.
As mentioned before, customers actually expect multichannel retailing nowadays. They want to compare the products on various stores and they like to see your name everywhere. It not only provides them with a better, more integrated and aligned shopping experience but also creates a good brand recall value for your website. A better customer experience with your presence all around creates a stable and trusted perception about your brand in the mind of the customer and this works wonders for you.
Through multichannel retailing, you can collect more information about the consumers, their browsing, navigation, and buying habits, their personal information, their geographical location, etc. It also gives you more relevant information about the time customers usually spend on a site or a particular section, the bounce rate on products. This allows you to be more prepared and do your pre sales homework.
Through multichannel retailing, you can think of diversifying into product ranges you wouldn’t have thought of before. At the end of the day, the primary target of all businesses is not just sales figures but also business expansion. This presents a unique opportunity to expand your territory beyond your current operational area and tap in on newer target groups.
Managing multiple channels at once may seem like a Herculean task at first, but with effective multichannel eCommerce management services, you can easily overcome that and then enjoy the myriad benefits that it offers.