How do you get started on the marketing platforms with PIM in 2024?

33% ! According to Xerfi, this is the share of online sales that will be made via marketplaces in 2021. The race to omnichannel therefore undeniably involves these sales platforms. Easy to say, more complex to undertake!

Why go to marketplaces?

The marketplace is an online sales platform that acts as an intermediary between sellers and buyers, whether they are individuals or professionals. It is often an ecommerce site that attracts a large traffic and heterogeneous audiences.

You probably know the well-known marketplaces like Amazon, Cdiscount or Ebay. These three platforms are in the top 3 of the 25 most popular ecommerce sites in France in 2020 according to an analysis by Semrush.

But then, with so much hype you might be wondering, why should you start a marketplace atall?

We explain everything in detail!

There are several advantages for a company to launch on a marketplace:

1. Marketplaces are excellent platforms to quickly increase the visibility and awareness of your brand and products. They benefit from a large amount of traffic which gives the seller the opportunity to reach a wider or highly qualified target group at a lower cost.

2. Speaking of cost, save money! The high prices of ecommerce website creation are driving many brands to turn to marketplaces. This solution allows even the lesser known brands to display and sell their products without incurring expensive costs.

3. Minimise risk-taking. Marketplaces are an opportunity to test new markets and assess the maturity of your business before investing in new market share.

4. Diversify your sales channels. If you have other sales channels, Marketplaces fit perfectly into your omnichannel sales strategy.

5. Go international. Online platforms, marketplaces have no borders. It is an opportunity to conquer new markets in the four corners of the globe.

Marketplaces offer many advantages and are aimed at all types of sellers, individuals and professionals. However, they need to be launched with a precise strategy in order to guarantee an optimal ROI and experience.

How does PIM facilitate and optimize your presence on marketplaces?

Without a strategy, getting started on marketplaces can quickly become a tedious job! In addition to being highly competitive, each of them has its own criteria in terms of content, visual formats, compulsory or optional information... This can quickly turn out to be time-consuming, lead to errors and also discourage you.

In addition to this, investing in new marketplaces means thinking about :

• Further adapting/enriching product data,
• Comply with imposed formats on a case-by-case basis,
• Generate new formats for product photographs,
• Ensure updates when the product catalog is constantly evolving.

Fortunately, there is the PIM (Product Information Management) solution which will allow you to optimize and facilitate your experience on the marketplaces.

The PIM centralizes your entire product catalog. It is compatible with all marketplaces and allows you to define upstream the rules of transmission of product data by adapting the product sheet to their requirements. This can be :

• A maximum number of characters for the text description,
• The choice of required or optional fields,
• Resizing the visuals according to the requirements of the marketplace,
• The opening of the catalogue is differentiated according to each selected marketplace.

Once these rules are in place, each modification made and validated on the product sheets of PIM automatically updates their equivalents on each of the marketplaces. No more need to make sure to update the product sheets on each marketplace!

Even in a multi-brand environmentIf your company manages a portfolio of several brands, each offering different products on different marketplaces, the PIM simplifies the management of product data by optimizing processes.

Opening new marketplaces becomes a real pleasure!

Conclusion

Engaging in marketplaces means investing in a new sales channel.

If this channel is based on a well thought-out strategy and a tool that facilitates the management of product data, such as PIM, marketplaces are an opportunity to reach new audiences and new markets. Marketplaces are important in the development of your sales but your omnichannel strategy does not stop there!

Discover 5 more reasons to choose PIM to accelerate your omnichannel performance and deliver a flawless product experience by downloading our white paper.

Download the ebook