Let’s be honest: you want to grow your eCommerce store and start multi-channel selling you want to do it with the least amount of effort possible. But where do you start?
Multi-channel selling is an incredibly popular eCommerce business strategy and with good reason. Selling your products on Magento alongside online marketplaces increases your visibility, cements your brand and keeps you one step ahead of your competition.
But, multi-channel selling can also be an incredibly time-consuming business strategy, requiring multiple logins, duplication of effort and constant monitoring. Or does it?
This week, we’ve asked the eCommerce software experts at Expandly to give us the 101 on multi-channel selling and how to successfully manage your Magento account alongside other sales channel(s).
Multi-channel selling – the what
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of managing multiple sales channel(s), let’s first cover the basics: what exactly is multi-channel selling?
Multi-channel selling is the process of selling your products via your Magento store alongside one or more online marketplace. For example, you sell two-tone leather brogues on your Magento store, Amazon and eBay.
(Source: Amazon)
Multi-channel selling – the why
So why would you want to sell somewhere other than your beautifully optimised Magento store? Ultimately, selling in multiple places gives you multiple opportunities to:
Meet new people
27% of shoppers stick to one sales channel when shopping online. If that one channel isn’t your Magento store, then you must meet these shoppers on their chosen platform, which is likely Amazon, eBay or Etsy.
Market your brand
Advertising your Magento store on social media and through word of mouth will only get you so far. Selling products on other marketplaces allows you to communicate your brand message in more places and to people who matter (online shoppers).
Retain customers
There’s nothing stopping current customers from shopping around or heading to an online marketplace to use a voucher or take advantage of free shipping. Multi-channel selling allows your current customers to do this, while still remaining loyal to your brand and products.
Beat your competition
Selling on multiple sales channel(s) also means that you are everywhere your competitors are and aren’t – allowing you to present your products to their current and potential customers.
Scale
Online marketplaces want their sellers to succeed and, accordingly, give them an impressive toolkit to help. You can take advantage of features including Amazon Prime, eBay advertising campaigns and Etsy coupons alongside your best Magento extensions and apps.
Multi-channel selling – the how
Sounds great, huh…but what about that hard work we mentioned?
Multi-channel selling involves managing multiple sales channel(s) and that can be time-consuming, error-prone and pretty stressful to say the least. But it doesn’t have to be. To successfully manage Magento and online marketplaces together, you need to:
1. Sign up
First, you need to decide which online marketplaces you want to expand to. We recommend starting with one of the following and growing from there:
Amazon
Famous for fast shipping and an endless product selection, Amazon is perfect for reaching a large volume of shoppers.
eBay
Known for its affordable products and loyal customer base, starting an eBay business is ideal for targeting habitual online shoppers.
Etsy
Perfect for homemade and creative sellers, Etsy is the platform for selling individual and stylistic creations.
Wish
Prominent across the US and Europe, Wish is great for reaching mobile shoppers and scrollers.
If you’re struggling to make your pick, look at and compare the marketplace fees, seller features and current competition.
2. Set up
We could give you a step-by-step account on how to set up each online marketplace, but they do a pretty good job of that themselves. Simply sign up and follow the on-screen wizards.
Amazon – eBay – Etsy – Wish – Shopify – Magento – WooCommerce – BigCommerce
3. Get listing
Next, you want to start selling on your online marketplaces and that involves listing products. To protect your reputation and enhance your brand, it’s important that you:
- List the right products to the right platforms – for example, your handcrafted, finest Italian leather brogues might be perfect for Etsy but cheapened on eBay.
- Keep your listings consistent – from the colours you use to the tone of your copy and the style of your photographs, it’s important to maintain your brand image.
- Check for mistakes – duplicating listings across marketplaces can cause errors so always check your listings.
4. Manage orders
Once your listings are live, then you need a process for managing the orders coming into your business. This is a crucial part of multi-channel management because how quickly you receive and process orders affects how quickly your customers receive their products, which affects your reviews, recommendations and CLV.
Ideally, you want a process in place that allows you to:
- Receive multi-channel orders simultaneously;
- Gives your pickers and packers access to these orders;
- Quickly update sales channel(s); and
- Bulk print pick lists and shipping labels.
5. Update stock
Your stock is now split across more than one sales channel, which means you have three main options for managing it:
Ring-fencing – splitting and allocating your stock to individual sales channel(s) (e.g. you have 10 pairs of shoes and list 5 on your Magento store and 5 on your Etsy store).
Manual update – listing all of your available stock on each sales channel and quickly updating stock levels upon a sale.
Inventory management – using inventory management software to automatically update each channel upon sale or return.
Failure to keep on top of or update your stock quickly enough can cause out of stock items or, even worse, oversold items – making this a crucial step in your multi-channel journey.
6. Report
How do you know that you’re successfully multi-channel selling? Keeping data and running regular reports enables you to see what’s working well and where you could improve.
Ideally, you want to know:
- Which products perform best on which sales channel;
- Which sales channel(s) generate the highest profit; and
- Which channels you’re most popular on.
Multi-channel selling – the management
To manage all of this, alongside your Magento store, you have two options: manual or software. Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Manual management
Manual management involves a lot of spreadsheets, figures and reports, but it comes with many benefits – especially for new multi-channel sellers. You gain a clearer understanding of how everything works and have no additional software costs or setup fees.
However, manually managing multiple sales channel(s) is hugely time-consuming, error-prone and unnecessary when affordable tech can do it for you.
Multi-channel management software
Multi-channel management software links your Magento store to Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Wish allowing you to push single listings to all of your channels, manage orders from a central screen, bulk print shipping labels and automatically update your stock levels. The disadvantages of multi-channel management software are the costs and the time involved in getting to grips with it.
However, with affordable and self-serve software now available, once you have got to grips with it, the benefits are endless. Duplication is eradicated, errors reduced and spare time increased. You can confidently grow your eCommerce business without worrying about logging into multiple channels, missing orders or wrongly updating stock.
Multi-channel selling – the takeaway
Expanding your Magento store to multiple sales channel(s) is good business sense. Doing it with the right tools, research and partners is even better.
Author
Alan Wilson is the CEO and founder of Expandly – the multi-channel management eCommerce software helping Magento stores across the globe to manage multiple sales channel(s). Find out more with a free 7-day trial.