Marketplace Sellers – Customer Experience Optimization

Marketplace Sellers – Customer Experience Optimization

Customer service is one of the keys to any successful business. It’s even more important for eCommerce stores, but unlike a retail store, there is no opportunity to establish a physical interaction with customers.

Instead, online stores not only have to work a little harder to understand customer sentiments and deliver that customer service experience remotely. It starts with an improved digital footprint that makes more information easily available to the customer that is engaging and provides all the information they need to feel comfortable making a purchase decision.

Customer service is not just about getting the order, but building customer experiences that are complete, fast and leave customers happy with their purchase.

Here are some of ways marketplace sellers can improve the customer experience:

Add More Value to Product Listings

Marketplace sellers need to bring products to life through detailed and accurate information as it makes the tasks easier for buyers. It’s important to add high-quality videos and images for products to help customers make informed choices. Since customers can’t touch or feel a product in real time and all they will have images and videos to rely upon, it’s therefore imperative to give proper and accurate descriptions of products.

Online stores have to give more time to product listing management because it keeps things streamlined for customers. When product information is complete and addresses their questions, customers feel confident in making purchase decisions.

Optimize Seller Ratings

Customers trust stores that have a high seller rating. This gives them confidence to buy without any apprehension. When the seller rating is high, this also adds to the legitimacy of the store. Sadly, a lot of eCommerce sellers ignore this vital aspect which ultimately harms them in one way or another. Make sure your store does not make the same mistake as it does not take much to improve seller ratings of a store. You can follow these steps to achieve higher seller ratings:

  • Follow the seller’s published content guidelines
  • Post genuine reviews and encourage happy or repeat customers to leave feedback as a way to promote good reviews
  • Implement customers’ suggestions to improve the value of your store front
  • Learn from the negative reviews and proactively address these concerns in the product description.

Work on Customer Engagement & Solicit Feedback

While most sites focus on the cost efficiency of talking to customers, encouraging customers to interact with a site is an opportunity to turn one-time customers into loyal customers. Make it easy for customers to interact. The goal is to engage with customers and solicit feedback after they have made a purchase as this will add to their overall buying experience. And when customers are engaged, you’re more likely to know what they liked and what not.

Here are some of ways to gain value with customer engagement post purchase:

  • Include a personalized note with the order
  • Send a follow-up email and phone number (label the phone number as “cell” and position your company even closer to the customer) and ask for feedback
  • Suggest that customer feedback is consistently shared with senior management.

Follow the Latest Standards in UX Design

As an eCommerce store, the last thing you can afford is poor UX (user experience) design as it can ruin all the experience of your customers. You not only need to have good UX designs, but also need to match the latest standards to build customer confidence. The design should not only feel good but also it needs to work smoothly. You can also take help of an expert team for marketplace UX optimization.

Make sure your online store UX design follows these principles:

  • Easy to go navigation
  • Well-defined and organized site architecture
  • Interaction-oriented design with focus on visual product description
  • Proper visual clues for customers at intended places
  • Responsive designs with security certificates, payment gateway integration and easy check-out process

Don’t Go Out of Stock

Customers hate it a lot when they visit a store full of expectations only to find their product ‘out of stock.’ When that happens, the store loses some credibility and repeat occurrences can have profound negative implications on conversion rates. For products that cannot be consistently stocked, offer alternative product links and make sure that the stocking status is visually obvious when buyers land on the page.

To avoid regular out of stock scenarios, you need cash as only it can help replenish the inventory. Well, if you are concerned about customer experience optimization in true sense then you have to put in place right cash and inventory management mechanisms. This will help a lot in keeping the trust of customers intact at all times.

Marketplace Competitive Analysis

eZdia is happy to offer brands and manufacturers a free Marketplace Competitive Analysis. Tell us about your marketplace strategy and we’ll prepare an analysis designed to help you outrank your competitors.

Best eCommerce SEO practices to Optimize Your Walmart Marketplace Listing

Best eCommerce SEO practices to Optimize Your Walmart Marketplace Listing

The Walmart marketplace provides sellers with a great opportunity to grow their business and offer their products to millions of consumers. Third-party sellers can join Walmart with product listings and take advantage of Walmart’s strength while offering consumers a quality shopping experience. With over 300 million online visitors browsing the Walmart marketplace each month, there is a wealth of opportunity to increase brand exposure and drive sales.

Even better, there are no monthly fees for joining the platform and the transaction there is secure and fast. The Walmart marketplace is not as competitive as Amazon making it a little easier for any one product to gain visibility, but it’s not as easy as simply listing your products and expecting the orders to roll in. You’ll want to optimize your presentation and take advantage of the best practices for the marketplace search algorithm.

Here are the eCommerce marketplace SEO best practices for Walmart product listings:

Keep Your Product Titles Clear and Concise

Product titles are the single most important marketplace element for marketplace SEO. It’s important to keep the titles clear and concise and pack as many descriptive words as possible. If it’s too short you are likely missing opportunity and, of course, if it’s too long it will be truncated. You should always include the product brand with product attributes to make the listing work better. A good title will ideally be between 50 to 60 characters with no mention of time sensitive special offers or no use of generic marketing terms (Example: Sale, Buy Now, Best etc.).

Use High-Quality Product Images

A good listing on Walmart Marketplace includes high-quality product images. Ideally you will have multiple images all using an image size of 2000 x 2000  that matches the Walmart standard. High-resolution images allow customers to zoom in and inspect a product and grasp the product’s  finer details and make informed choices. There is a strong link between image quality and conversion rate.

Keep in mind a few things with images of your product, including:

  • The product itself should fill the image and be as zoomed in as possible
  • Images should always have the front view of the product
  • Image background should always be kept white
  • Images, videos and customer reviews of the products drive more sales

Include Specific Product Features

The key features (sometimes referred to as bullets) attract customers to the products they are in search of. It’s important to include key features in your product listing to boost eCommerce SEO and catch the attention of your target audience.

Keep in mind a few things when you plan to include key product features:

  • Highlight product advantages
  • Use relevant keywords that add value to product information
  • Give a short product description detailing key benefits and using keywords strategically
  • Include a long description with more product features and benefits to catch the attention of your audience

Select the Relevant Product Category

Like any top marketplace, Walmart gives sellers a chance to use product attributes and categorize their products accordingly. When products are categorized correctly, it helps customers search and find them easily. Plus, it also makes the product’s features more prominent in searches. There are some 24 product categories on Walmart Marketplace to select and list product attributes and doing it right with accurate product details can definitely help improve your product’s ranking on the platform.

Get the Competitive Edge with Pricing, Stock Availability and Customer Service

It takes some effort to make your products feature in searches of customers on Walmart marketplace. Just listing is not enough as there will be competition for the slot and without using the right tactics it’s not possible to gain an edge over competitors. To make your product stand out on the platform, you need to focus on three key aspects, including:

  • Make sure your pricing is competitive on each product, neither too low nor too high
  • Keep your stock always available else it can drive customers away to competitors
  • Offer quick shipping and great customer service so that more customers give positive feedback and reviews to be listed there

List Positive Customer Reviews

If customers are happy with your product price and customer service they can feel happy to leave positive product feed or reviews. And if customers have a positive experience with you as a seller, and they give you glowing reviews, you can always elevate key reviews into the product description. This can work wonders from Walmart SEO point of view. In fact, product rankings can improve a lot when positive customer reviews are included with them. Make it a point to ask customers for reviews and feedback so that your sales can pick up more than it generally does on Walmart Marketplace.

Marketplace Competitive Analysis

eZdia is happy to offer brands and manufacturers a free Marketplace Competitive Analysis. Tell us about your marketplace strategy and we’ll prepare an analysis designed to help you outrank your competitors.

Which is the Best eCommerce Marketplace to Sell Online?

Which is the Best eCommerce Marketplace to Sell Online?

Global eCommerce sales are surging and that trend is unlikely to slow down in the coming years. Retailers have a huge potential to capitalize on this growth whether on a dedicated site or a marketplace that offers instant access to potential customers. Every marketplace is a little different and every marketplace requires time to maintain and support, so selecting the highest priority marketplaces is important.

With platforms like Amazon, eBay and Walmart becoming household names, it’s often faster and easier to create a store on these sites. If you can launch on all sites, that’s an approach that can maximize your visibility but that may overwhelm your resources.

Here are some of the best eCommerce marketplaces to sell online:

1. Amazon

Amazon is always the first choice online store whether for a small retailer or a multi-billion dollar firm. The platform is a worldwide leader in the eCommerce space as a presence on it guarantees access to a vast marketplace and a bigger audience than anyone else. On Amazon, there is no monthly subscription fee with an individual plan (but there is a fee with a professional plan) as it charges with per item sold; and there is absolutely no restriction on the quantity of items a retailer can list there.

2. eBay

eBay ranks among the oldest-existing eCommerce marketplaces and it continues to enjoy a strong market presence globally. Apart from giving retailers the freedom to list any item of choice, it also allows them the choice of storefront customization with banner images, product photos which is not possible with most other stores. On this platform, sellers not only set a specific price for any product but can also set their products up for bid. And don’t forget, eBay receives a huge traffic day-in and day-out so being on it can set your store for more growth for sure.

3. Walmart

Walmart is one of the most trusted eCommerce marketplace in the super-competitive eCommerce space and the largest retailer in the world. Walmart eCommerce Marketplace is ideal for all sizes of sellers, where it’s small, medium or large. Walmart has a huge customer base and once you are approved as a  seller, you have high potential to be in front of a large customer base to sell online. And if you really want to beat the competition, you should think of optimizing your product listings to stay ahead of the competition.

4. Etsy

Etsy is a gaining prominence as a marketplace for buying handmade (handcrafted) items online. It’s an easy platform to sell and just requires sellers to upload their product and start selling. When you list your eCommerce store on Etsy, you’re set to gain access to quality customers and the best part; a store can also team up with others for sales and better access to customers. Plus, there are a whole range of tools to create coupon codes and add more depth to sales.

5. Facebook Marketplace

Facebook Marketplace may not be quite like your conventional eCommerce platform but its huge user base can help your business reach millions of customers every day. You can list any item on this platform and can take the product to anywhere, but it’s advisable to keep the listing to the nearby community for better sales. This marketplace is not only free and easy to use but also gives both the parties – sellers and buyers – a platform for open communication.

Conclusion

Clearly, there is no dearth of quality eCommerce marketplace and retailers can easily find the best and give their sales and revenue the much-needed boost.

Marketplace Competitive Analysis

eZdia is happy to offer brands and manufacturers a free Marketplace Competitive Analysis. Tell us about your marketplace strategy and we’ll prepare an analysis designed to help you outrank your competitors.

Amazon SEO: How to Rank High For Amazon Searches

Amazon SEO: How to Rank High For Amazon Searches

Amazon is the world’s largest and most competitive e-commerce site. Gaining visibility for any given search on Amazon requires beating the millions of other products that Amazon might list ahead of yours. The product description you write should  be concise, appealing, and informative and use the language that buyers are likely to use when they search.

Here are some specific pointers for developing high-value content that improves your Amazon SEO and hopefully drive more sales on Amazon.

 

Content that Communicates

Start your e-commerce product description with succinct information about the product. Make the features and benefits easy to read by using bullets to highlight what problem the product solves.  The content should be complete enough that the buyer is left with no questions about the benefit of a purchase. TBe sure you research the intended audience and use the same phraseology that they are likely to use in search for the content.

 

Follow Amazon’s Lead

Amazon will tell you their definition of good content. If they give you 500 characters you should use as many as possible (without going over). Amazon will guide you to build facets, bullets and load images. Amazon’s content guidelines can be found in the eZdia Marketplace Content Guide.

 

Craft Enticing Titles Using Your Keywords

The keyword is the strategy behind the content. Keywords are designed to boost the page’s Amazon SEO value and use the phrases that buyers use when searching for your product. Consider using the Google keyword tool to optimize your keywords for Amazon SEO. Don’t forget to incorporate keywords throughout the text for SEO-friendly product descriptions. Remember that Amazon is a transactional site and keywords should focus on non-branded transactional phrases.

 

Use Images in Your Product Description Design

A picture adds visual interest and gives the most precise understanding of a product. It’s worth it to invest in professional photos that clearly show your product from several angles to provide the buyer a better understanding of what to expect from their purchase. Images reinforce your e-commerce content writing and enhance the look of your page. Follow these tips to improve search rankings for all your Amazon product descriptions.

Make it Unique

If you sell the same product on other marketplaces consider customizing the content for the marketplace. No eCommerce site likes to post duplicative content because it offers no SEO strength. Instead every site wants content that is customized to the site, it’s buyers and its search algorithm’s requirements.

Reviews

Amazon values what your customers think. Driving up the review count (especially if they are positive reviews) helps improve a product’s Amazon search rankings, but encouraging a customer to review a product requires both effort and art. Effort because asking for a review is often a manual extra effort and art because the trick is to ask for reviews only from your happiest customers. If you can identify repeat customers for example, the chances of getting a good review is higher than a first time customer.

Sell More on Amazon: Tips and Tricks

Sell More on Amazon: Tips and Tricks

Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer and an exciting place to expand your business. With its user-friendly interface and step-by-step guide, Amazon makes it easy to list products as a third party seller. Despite the simplicity of the listing process, it helps to understand how to get the maximum possible leverage from your Amazon listings. eZdia works on behalf of large- and small-scale e-commerce companies helping research, setup and optimize Amazon product listings. Here are a few of our helpful tips to build a strong foundation that will promote your brand & will help to sell more on amazon.

 

Become a Professional Seller

Amazon has different classes of sellers. Amazon Professional Seller status is preferable to an Individual Seller if you plan to list more than 40 items for sale. Professional Sellers typically have a higher monthly cost in exchange for lower transaction fees.

Professional Sellers will want to register their brands with Amazon in order to ensure maximum control of the product content and how it’s presented on the site.

 

Buy Box: The Secret Formula

The Buy Box is a reward given to vendors by Amazon.  The Buy Box distinction is Amazon’s pick for the best choice of vendor when multiple vendors exist for the same product. Factors that go into winning the Buy Box can range from Reviews to Vendor performance scores to price and availability.The competition to become a high-rated Buy Box seller can be fierce.

 

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)

This is Amazon’s contract warehouse service that owns the inventory management and shipping. For a fee Amazon manages placing inventory close to customers plus all the pick, pack and ship services inclusive of returns. We know that participation in the FBA program also helps a vendor’s status for any given search or for achieving Buy Box status. Placing your inventory in Amazon’s care typically helps sell more on Amazon.

 

Product Description and Images

A product description on Amazon is the equivalent of the product’s sales person on constant standby to persuade customers into a purchase. Incorrect information leads to negative feedback and returns, which can lower your relative ranking. Amazon allows up to 2,000 characters in the product description. This enables you to highlight the product’s top features and address likely objections.

Images are important and Amazon allows for multiple images and videos to fully demonstrate your product. At least one image needs to be on a plain white background and should measure at least 1,000 pixels wide.

 

Mastering the Amazon Keyword Tool

Keywords are fundamental to optimizing your content strategy for your Amazon listings. For example, the product title should contain the keyword that is both relevant for the product and also a popular search phrase. Words should not be repeated but employing a breadth of similar words works well on Amazon. Amazon allows up to 500 characters in the product name and it’s advisable to include the most important keywords in the product name. Amazon suggests including a description, the brand, product line, material, color, size, and quantity.

Discounts and Pricing

Discounts are an excellent way to convert potential buyers and build a strong relationship. Providing product discounts in exchange for a review can improve your rankings and helps to sell more on amazon. In turn, your offer may be featured on the “Hot Deals” or “New and Noteworthy” pages, driving additional traffic to your products.

Amazon provides an amazing platform to expand your business as long as you know how to use it to your advantage.

Amazon A+ Content: Creation, Guidelines & Mistakes | eZdia

Amazon A+ Content: Creation, Guidelines & Mistakes | eZdia

As you know, the Amazon marketplace is hugely competitive, so anything that gives you an advantage over the competition has to be worth a shot. While every seller has access to the regular Amazon detail pages, only brands who sign up for Amazon’s Brand Registry get to create A+ Detail Pages.

So, what exactly is an Amazon A+ Detail Page?

Well, it’s essentially an enhanced detail or product page with fewer restrictions on formatting, style, and content types than standard pages. If you use an A+ page, you can include images right in the description, comparison tables, line breaks, formatted text, and more. It lets you show the consumer more and helps you to stand out from the crowd.

What Are the Benefits of an Amazon A+ Page?

Well, with over 2 million sellers on Amazon and more appearing every day, competition is fierce, so you need to give consumers a reason to buy from you. A single paragraph and a few bullets don’t give you much room to be creative or to stand out amongst all of your competitors. With an A+ page, you can really showcase your product and your brand, giving you a significantly higher opportunity to catch a customer’s attention and convert them into buyers. According to Amazon, sellers utilizing A+ pages experience an increase in sales of up to 10%.

A+ Detail Page content can also be made to be easy to skim, so readers can get a sense of all the key product details at a glance. You create this skimmable, user-friendly look by creating bullet lists and breaking up the text into small, manageable chunks interspersed with colorful images. You can also make use of videos and HD photography to show your product at its very best.

How to Create Great Amazon A+ Detail Pages

Once you’re approved on the Brand Registry, you have two options. You can select the self-service module which gives you full creative control, or you can go with the Amazon Builds module. If you go with Amazon Builds, it’ll cost you significantly more and, although Amazon chooses the layout and placements, you’re still responsible for providing them with all imagery and content.

1. Combine Text, Color, and Images

Create rich, compelling content that really shows off your product, but don’t confront your readers with huge blocks of text. Instead, make use of the A+ modules and break your copy up into smaller chunks interspersed with color, images, and white space. Add videos, HD photos, and informative text snippets.

2. Highlight Key Features and Benefits

Make sure your product copy expresses all the key features and their associated benefits. Combining benefits with features delivers crucial info about the product and elicits an emotional response from the consumer, encouraging them to buy because they can see how the product fulfills a need or solves a problem for them. Where possible, back up your copy with photos or videos of the features and benefits you’re discussing. Seeing a product used in a real-world scenario can clearly illustrate a point for a buyer and can create a stronger level of engagement that’s more likely to lead to a sale.

3. Use Different Elements

Using banners and headers break up content and let customers quickly find the section they’re most interested in. Banners can also help to add a pop of color and provide an extra opportunity to add brand style, font, or logo. Create more interest by including charts and tables and to provide detailed information for your customers.

A+ Page by eZdia

Scroll the image to see the full page.

Mistakes to Avoid When Creating A+ Pages

Whether you go for the self-service or built for you option, Amazon A+ Pages have strict criteria, and a rigorous approval process, so if you don’t meet their quality and requirements guidelines, they won’t approve your page.

  1. Don’t include prohibited elements, including:
    1. Trademark symbols
    2. Links to other websites
    3. Business contact information
    4. Shipping information
    5. Other sellers
  2. Don’t use low-quality images
  3. Don’t use third-party quotes, such as quotes from customer reviews
  4. Don’t use the same image more than once
  5. Don’t use plagiarized content
  6. Don’t submit weak content that contains fluff or errors

Taking full advantage of Amazon A+ Detail Pages lets you showcase your products in a way that many of your competitors can’t. For first-party sellers, A+ pages are powerful selling tools, but you’ve got to optimize them properly for the best results. To find out how we can help you with content creation and creative design for your A+ pages, contact us today for a no-obligation chat or request a call back by visiting the link below.