In the rapidly growing Indian e-commerce landscape, leveraging platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart presents tremendous opportunities for sellers. However, success in this realm requires astute navigation to avoid common pitfalls that can hinder your progress. From disregarding brand registration to underestimating the significance of product reviews and ratings, overlooking these critical elements can significantly impact your online retail journey.
Understanding and circumventing these e-commerce mistakes is vital for those venturing into the world of selling on marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart. Let’s explore these pivotal blunders and discover effective strategies to enhance your online retail approach and maximize success.
1. Ignoring Brand Registration
Registering your brand is the bedrock of a successful e-commerce journey.
It’s not merely a legal formality; it’s a pivotal step in safeguarding your products from unauthorized sellers while enhancing your control over listings.
Also, brand registration is a shield against listing hijacking and potential loss of hard work. Especially for generic products, without a registered brand, anyone can sell under your listing, eroding your market share and undermining your efforts. This process not only shields your products from unauthorized sellers but also provides control over listings.
On platforms like Amazon, registered brand status offers additional marketing tools, differentiating your products, building trust with customers, and allowing for greater control over the content presented. This proactive step helps safeguard your investments and efforts against hijacking, ensuring your hard work doesn’t go to waste.
2. Underestimating the Power of Product Reviews and Ratings
Product reviews and ratings wield immense influence over customer decisions.
Disregarding these elements can be detrimental to your success. Encouraging customers to leave feedback and promptly addressing any negative reviews can significantly enhance your brand’s reputation.
High-quality products and exceptional customer service are pivotal for generating positive reviews, and fostering trust and credibility among potential buyers.
It may take time to get customer reviews. Till then ask your friends and known people to buy your products and get them to leave their feedback. Its essential to have at least 4+ positive feedback to get steady inflow of orders.
3. Balance between Sales and Advertising Cost of Sale (ACOS)
Advertising is crucial for visibility, but overspending without considering the return on investment can erode profits. Monitoring and optimizing your Advertising Cost of Sale (ACOS) is essential.
Achieving a balance between visibility and cost efficiency is fundamental for a sustainable business on these platforms.
Target to keep your ACOS less than 20%. Anything higher will mean that you are left with no profits. If your product/category are getting higher ACOS then focus on keeping your TCOS (Total Advertising Cost / Total Sale) less than 10%, to ensure you finally make a profit from online selling on marketplaces.
4. Inadequate Product Research
In-depth product research forms the foundation of successful selling. Failing to understand market demand, competition, and profit margins can lead to investing in products that don’t align with the audience.
Utilize market analysis tools to gain insights into trends, competition, and demand before selecting the products to sell. There are numerous tools available and be pro-active in using these tools to find the winning products.
5. Neglecting Overall and SKU Level Profitability Measurement
Understanding profitability at both an overall and Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) level is crucial. Tracking costs against revenue generated allows informed decision-making about product lines, pricing strategies, and marketing efforts. It’s almost impossible to decipher the marketplace reports and various cost heads to figure out SKU level and overall profitability. So, it’s highly advised to keep 3rd party tools that can tell you your profitability. Weane out loss-making SKUs and focus only on profit-making SKUs.
In conclusion, excelling on platforms like Amazon and Flipkart demands a comprehensive approach, which involves brand registration, prioritizing product reviews, optimizing advertising costs, thorough product research, and vigilant profitability monitoring. Evading these mistakes significantly improves your chances of success in the competitive e-commerce landscape. Continuous learning and adaptation to changes in the market are also pivotal for sustained success in the world of online retail.