Products to a marketplace: How to identify if it is worth putting them there?

Currently, it is easy to notice the dominance that marketplaces have when it comes to electronic commerce, in the case of Mexico, most people go to Amazon or MercadoLibre when they plan to make an online purchase, in fact, data from Statista point out that both marketplaces lead sales in the country, in 2017 Amazon obtained more than 505 million dollars in revenue while MercadoLibre obtained more than 489 million dollars. Therefore, joining these spaces to sell may be a better option for many than opening their own online stores, however determining it may not be easy, therefore, on this occasion we share some considerations that will help determine if it is appropriate for a brand to take its products to a marketplace.

How to determine if it is worth taking products to a marketplace?

As highlighted by HubSpot, the starting point to determine if a brand is on the right path to sell its products in a marketplace and getting results is in determining the elements that are popular in this space.

In the case of Amazon, the best-selling items are known to be in the categories of books, clothing, shoes and jewelry, electronics, and games and toys, home and kitchen, and tools and home improvement. The options in this space can certainly be a good source of inspiration to know what to sell or what results could be expected with certain products.

However, in addition to considering what is sold the most in these spaces, there are 5 other extra recommendations that can be followed to determine if it is appropriate to take the products to a marketplace. Here we leave them:

To determine if taking the products to a marketplace is a good idea, nothing better than to start by doing manual research. To get started with this recommendation that will help decide things, you can start by looking at the best-selling items on the marketplace in certain categories. Ideally, once you explore a category and subcategories, you should focus on a niche.

When looking through these listings, you can also check the “customers also bought” or similar sections for ideas of products that would be suitable to sell.

With the products identified in these spaces, the next thing to finish off this first recommendation is to create a list and check Google's Keyword Planner to see if those products have search volume that indicates they're in demand. Or you can use other, more specialized tools to research popular products on marketplaces.

As a second recommendation to know if it is worth taking the products to a marketplace is to use the Google Chrome extensions. There are 2 in particular that are very popular and can help you do keyword research on marketplaces like Amazon, one is Jungle Scout, which shows monthly sales volumes for products, shows products with little competition, and allows you to save products for track them over certain periods of time. This tool can quickly and efficiently narrow down a product or industry in which you will be able to excel (in case you are thinking of product options to sell). The disadvantage of this tool is its cost, it is considered relatively expensive, for businesses that are starting it may not be so affordable.

The good news is that the second extension can do the Jungle Scout thing for free, it is Union Smasher, although its data is not as accurate as the other tool, and it lacks some features, it is useful for Gather estimated monthly sales and estimated monthly sales revenue for products in a marketplace.

It is possible to run into gaps in terms of products when searching organically, these gaps represent good opportunities to determine if it will be worth taking the products to a marketplace. For example, in the case of Amazon you may find 300,000 results if you search for bicycles, but when you search for electric bicycles the options are reduced to 30,000, as in this example there may be particular products where there are fewer results. Sometimes you need to limit the search or make it more specific to find a place and position yourself in a space like this marketplace. Many companies may be selling bikes, but there may be a certain color, a certain type that are not as abundant on the site.

Another way to find gaps in marketplaces is by looking at customer reviews in the product niche, even if there are thousands of similar products, there may be customers who are not satisfied with the current brands or want something in particular that they have not been able to find. These comments can help determine existing opportunities.

Under a premise similar to that of finding gaps in the market, it is worth determining the competition that you will have when bringing certain products to a marketplace. If you're trying to sell a product that currently has 100,000 search results, it's likely going to be hard to differentiate yourself from the competition and drive sales on the marketplace. Fortunately, it is relatively easy to find a niche within a larger market that is less competitive, which ensures that users will be able to find the product more easily. The advantage that this represents is that these users are probably more willing to buy the product since their searches are more specific, and they may be more satisfied with their purchase, a fact that could make the product a success on the platform.

Finally, to determine if it is appropriate to bring products to a marketplace, consider paying attention to your search results. Typically, Best Seller ranks on Amazon and other platforms reflect an item's recent and historical sales, so a high Best Seller rank indicates that the product is in demand, which is certainly critical to achieving results. However, this condition is only worthwhile when more than one product appears in a category that has products that are "best sellers", when this does not happen it is a bad sign. Seeing several options means that consumers do not have a preference for any one in particular, that is, there are opportunities to stand out.

In addition to the above, it is important to investigate shipping costs, fees and other conditions imposed by marketplaces to find out how much you will have to invest depending on the product to sell.