e-commerce industry

What to know before you sell your products online

With more and more options turning up, most businesses set up an online presence to make the best use of the internet.

If you wanted to sell any product or start a business before the emergence of the internet and e-commerce, you would have to limit yourself to one location, one supplier, and so on. You would have to wait a long time and work extra hard to expand your business.

But now, with the evolution of the e-commerce industry, you have a wide variety of options from shopify to eBay that allow you to begin selling your products without much thought.

There are a wide array of websites, apps, online marketplaces that allow you to sell your products at very low investment rates. With more and more options turning up, most businesses set up an online presence to make the best use of the internet. Now there are reseller tools like Seller Aider alternative, that are giving excellent results to users.

Every online platform works with a different format and understanding your needs will allow you to best choose a platform. In this article, it is elaborated on how you can optimally use a few of the best selling platforms in India.

What Kind Of Products Can Be Sold Online?

No matter what industry you are a part of, there are essentially two products you can sell: commoditized products and niche products.

Commoditized products are those which have high demand, are essential, or are very popular. These can be either digital or physical products and services, those which nearly everybody needs and uses. These products make up a majority of all online sales.

Niche products are goods and services that serve a specific, targeted audience and product category. These are unique products like hand-made goods, customized goods, and so on. They are often made in small batches or made only on demand.

Many store owners tend to sell a combination of these two products to increase their profit margin and make their shops available to all customers.

By offering both, they can serve customers better and also stand a chance against bigger competition. Premium brands might only sell niche products for high prices and make a lot of profit as well.

Choose How You Want To Sell Online

Understanding how to sell online might seem overwhelming, given the sheer number of choices. But working this out is the second step to starting your online store. Here are the most popular ways to sell online:

E-commerce store builders like Shopify for which there are Best Shopify Developer Auckland available to help.
WordPress with the WooCommerce Extension.
Marketplaces like Shopify to eBay.
Social media sites like Instagram.

You don’t particularly have to choose only one platform and can sell your product across different channels. eCommerce store builders generally provide apps that allow you to integrate your online selling with these different channels. Linking your online store to social media sites can be done easily as well.

Where to Start selling:

1. Your brand’s website: Selling your products on your own website puts all your products, content, and reviews in one place. When you sell your products online through your own website, you have complete authority over the design of your site, over how you run it, and how you interact with your customers. You can put out your own discount codes, sales, and more.

You also won’t have to pay the platform any selling fees, though these fees are usually very cost-effective. However, selling on your own website might not give you the most reach, especially if you’re starting out.

You would also have to invest in setting up the website. But if you have the funds, you can broaden your reach with digital marketing.

2. eBay: eBay is a very popular marketplace that allows the sale of both commodities and niche products. It is a platform that can help you reach a big market from the start.

You can easily sell to customers from anywhere in the world and you can practically sell anything in eBay’s open market. Though it is a super competitive platform, with the right marketing and product placement strategy, you can set up a flourishing business.

3. Facebook: Facebook marketplace allows you to harness the platform’s global reach, making it a very shiny platform for sellers. The platform is effective for start-ups and big companies. It also allows you to choose between selling to your local communities and expanding your reach.

It also doesn’t charge for listing and allows members of the local communities to see the product first. However, the platform doesn’t offer great protection for buyers or sellers and most of the work falls on your lap. It is more of a venue for selling rather than a platform that allows you to define your brand.

If you’re considering starting your online store, consider what stage your business is at, and assess your needs. Finding a healthy mix of using different channels to sell your products online will leave room for maximum stability and profits. You can pick any of the popular selling platforms in India to start with and plan for optimum results by using the platform.

Why India’s digital commerce players need better growth model

None of the digital commerce companies in India are profitable. They typically earn between 5-15 percent commissions but massive discounts and need to expand to more geographies saw those companies losing money. This can be a serious problem when the capital market tightens up.

Digital commerce sales in India have remained flat, so digital commerce companies need to identify a sustainable growth model that can be achieved in a defined time frame, according to Gartner, Inc. One of the challenges was that leading marketplaces cut back on promotions and discounts after the regulation banning price competition came out in March 2016.

“Digital commerce is at an early stage in India, and consumers are value-conscious, so they are enticed when there are big promotions and steep discounts.” said Gene Alvarez, managing vice president at Gartner.

“However, sales stalled once incentives were not present, challenging the performance of digital commerce players. This is partially a result of the continuous discounts at online marketplaces that are competing fiercely to gain market share, and which sets them to an incentive-driven growth model.”

None of the digital commerce companies in India are profitable. They typically earn between 5-15 percent commissions of product sales, but the massive discounts on top of the investment needed to expand to more geographies saw those companies losing money. This can be a serious problem when the capital market tightens up.

“The problem is being neglected when there is plenty of funding, and companies can live off sufficient capital. Once the market tightens, it is a survival game that only those that watch the bottom line and cash flows will win in the end”, said Mr. Alvarez. “There is a need to go back to the basics, that is, to operate on a sustainable growth model. Of which, customer experience and data-driven incentives are two fundamental factors.”

First factor is customer experience: This is the most important differentiator of a digital commerce service as price becomes transparent across sites. Discounts will only retain customers as long as the promotion lasts, while good customer experience will make people come back and purchase more even when there is no promotion. Good customer experience will also entice new customers as word-of-mouth spreads, and visitors experience the service themselves. Customer experience goes beyond a frictionless shopping experience on the website or in the mobile app, and includes delivery, custom service, returns, retail discovery, customer ratings and reviews.

The other is data-driven incentives: Promotions and discounts are still important techniques to drive sales. However, they need to have positive return on investments (ROIs). Businesses can not only recover the cost of incentives but also make a profit. This requires businesses to personalize incentives based on shoppers’ profiles and purchasing propensity, and only give out the amount that is enough to trigger a purchase but not too much to lose money. This capability takes time to build as it requires data analytics and personalization of technologies, built on the data collected about the shoppers.

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5 things you need to know about the Myntra-Jabong acquisition

The recent Myntra-Jabong acquisition has raised various anticipations and here are five things you should know about the acquisition.

The idea of Jabong which is a fashion e-commerce website was conceptualised in 2011 and was launched under Rocket Internet in 2012. It gained massive popularity because of the urban and trendy clothes and was valued at a whopping $440 million by the end of 2013. In the year 2014, the Global fashion Group was formed and Jabong.com was an integral part of it. However, the Myntra-Jabong acquisition has raised various anticipations and here are five things you should know about the acquisition:

1. Myntra acquires Jabong

Myntra, an online fashion app which was acquired by Flipkart in 2014 acquired Jabong for a whopping $70 million. The deal was only sealed after Global Fashion Group decided that Jabong had to tie up with a local player to succeed. Jabong has managed to minimise losses after reducing discounts recently and conditions got better as GFG raised 300 million Euros from Rocket Internet and Kinnevik.

Today, @Myntra got bigger! Delighted to welcome @JabongIndia to the @Flipkart group!

— binnybansal (@binnybansal) July 26, 2016

2. Myntra’s take on the acquisition

“The acquisition of Jabong further strengthens Flipkart Group’s position as the undisputed leader in Fashion and Lifestyle segment in India. Jabong is among India’s major fashion multi-brand e-store with more than 1,500 on-trend international high-street brands, sports labels, Indian ethnic and designer labels and over 1,50,000 styles from over a thousand sellers,” Myntra said in a statement.

Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan said: “The acquisition of Jabong is a natural step in our journey to be India’s largest fashion platform. We see significant synergies between the two companies especially on brand relationships and consumer experience. We look forward to working with the talented Jabong team to shape the future of fashion and lifestyle e-commerce in India.”

3. What this deal actually means

Jabong had captured approximately 25% of the Indian e-commerce fashion market and an acquisition by Myntra means Flipkart’s share rising up to almost 70%. All the sites will operate as independent ones so that the customer base of neither is affected.

Through this acquisition, Flipkart along with holding the largest e-commerce share in the country also made up for what they lack in valuation. If Flipkart didn’t do anything about diminishing funds, they’d be in trouble so by buying out Jabong, they actually accomplished two huge targets rolled into one.

Also, this acquisition puts an end to the rumours of an Indian e-commerce industry heading towards its demise. In the future, Flipkart is bound to beat Amazon and at the same time, revive the industry.

4. Flipkart’s take on the acquisition

“Fashion and lifestyle is one of the biggest drivers of e-commerce growth in India. We have always believed in the fashion and lifestyle segment and Myntra’s strong performance has reinforced this faith. This acquisition is a continuation of the group’s journey to transform commerce in India. I am happy that we will now be able to offer to millions of customers a wide variety of styles, products and a broad assortment of global as well as Indian brands,” Binny Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart said.

Sachin Bansal, the Executive chairman of Flipkart tweeted, “Welcome @JabongIndia to the @Flipkart family. We’ll create history together.”

Welcome @JabongIndia to the @Flipkart family. We’ll create history together.

— Sachin Bansal (@_sachinbansal) July 26, 2016

5. Other suitors to buy Jabong

Myntra owned by Flipkart wasn’t the only company which wanted to buy Jabong. There were other companies in line which were willing to pay bigger amounts of money.

In November, 2014 VCcircle reported that Amazon India was looking to buy Jabong for a whopping $1.2 billion and later, Paytm was ready to pay a little over $500 million for Jabong. Jabong was in the market for a sell-off for a considerable amount of time and the potential buyers were Future Group, Snapdeal and Aditya Birla-owned Abof.

Flipkart was a potential buyer but never really showed much interest but with companies offering such high amounts of money, it has seemed to have gotten itself a brilliant deal at $70 million.

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