4 ways to win on marketplaces

Technology advancements and the growth of online marketplaces have made it easier than ever to buy and sell online. According to Shopify’s recent report “Competition is the biggest obstacle to achieving growth in 2022”.  

We have found that the most effective way to combat this would be to reach marketplaces faster and be present where your customers are. Being available when shoppers are searching allows your products to get into the consideration set. Additionally, speed to market gives you more time to sell at full price.

A smart way to achieve this is to identify tasks that can easily be automated. This eliminates the need for bloated manual teams and any form of human error enabling both, speed to market and profitability.  

Revamping The Digital shelf
A digital shelf is an online representation of all your products. It reflects everything a customer needs to know about a product, from price to customer reviews. And therefore, its content needs to be crisp and detailed.  

It has become increasingly important for companies to continually assess how their products are showcased on their digital shelf to fully understand how online shoppers find and engage with their products.

Most companies either work with external agencies like photo studios or cataloging service providers, Omni channel service providers, or OMS/WMS companies. Product data comes from different sources in different formats. It is critical to have one source of truth that is accurate and consistent across the system. Getting it right, however, can take quite some time. And we are here to fix that for you.

Time-to-market is delayed primarily because of tasks such as manually gathering accurate product information, aligning product data to standard formats, and style sheets, etc. The traditional method of cataloging requires a product sample before any information is updated. This is done to avoid any discrepancy. However, it could be a major drawback as a sample takes a minimum of three weeks to get ready.

Companies usually outsource this task of cataloging to agencies. In this case, even though the turnaround time may be reduced, quality usually tends to be compromised. This process causes a lot of back and forth between the company and agency, diluting the effectiveness of the TAT.

A seamless and straightforward solution to this would be automation. Catalogix is a robust plug and play tool that accepts feed from anywhere, it extracts all relevant attributes from the images and text shared and tags the products automatically. Post this, a rapid QC is done to ensure high data accuracy these tags are instantaneously converted into any or all marketplace templates.  

Along with product tags, the AI engine also generates Product titles; Product descriptions, and SEO tags for all products. So, there you have it, a tool that reduces TAT and ensures high-quality optimized content consistently.

Inventory Management
Are you tired of manually managing large volumes of catalogs? Looking for ways to reduce your TAT? We’ve got you covered. It can be challenging to keep up with the ever-changing trends and customer preferences. Product assortments constantly need to be updated and optimized and this could be quite a tedious and taxing task to undertake.  

A simple and effective way to get started would be to track your competitor’s product availability. Their inventory levels give you an insight and enable you to spot newly-added, out-of-stock, or discontinued items in your product assortment versus theirs. Replenished products can also be tracked over time to see if they're rising or falling during this period.  

Automating this process will offer actionable insights in real-time, allowing you to offer the right product at the right time and at the right price. Additionally, it reduces the load of in-house cataloging teams and enables speed to market.

Catalogix is a low-cost, super-fast feed management and syndication platform That takes them from product images to online listing in hours. Unlike other catalog management solutions and agencies that do it manually. Updating the prices and inventory can be done instantaneously using our solutions.

Catalogix uses AI automation and manages the process end to end with greater accuracy and faster TAT.  

Keep track of customer reviews
Analyzing product reviews can yield a lot actionable insight. This information can be extracted from your websites and even social media handles. You may even benefit from monitoring your competitors' customer reviews to get a better understanding of what product is doing better and why. This analysis might help you curate a more desirable/preferred product assortment for your customers.

Forecasting and Predictive Analysis  
With the power of automation, you can run a thorough analysis and identify past performance for each product and every attribute. It is also critical to monitor customer behavior and changing trends on a micro and macro level.    

The intention behind this is to spot real-time patterns in your data, allowing you to make improved and informed business decisions. Automation assists in the process of tracking, analyzing, and comparing factors such as real-time prices for similar products across multiple sales channels.  

This will reduce the need for price reductions, and eliminate overproduction and product waste. As a result, you can receive competitive insights for your business and create a more sustainable and profitable strategy simultaneously.    

Expedite your workflows and list your products across multiple sales channels to maximize your competitive advantage and scale with ease.