Selling successfully on any marketplace depends on the right data getting to the right place as quickly as possible. Setting that up correctly for each marketplace takes a lot of time, so if you’re going to use more than one marketplace or digital channel that requires a feed (like Google Shopping) then it’s well worth investing in data management software.
That way the time you invest in setting everything up perfectly between your existing systems and the data management software will pay back every time you add another marketplace, or create a new feed. There’s huge economies of scale to be benefitted from.
What do Data Management Companies Do?
Data management software gives you one system to manage to make sure the right Product Title, Image(s) and Description data is being put in front of the customer wherever they see your products.
Plus much greater control over business critical data like price and stock so you don’t sell at a discount when you don’t want to, or (even worse) sell product you no longer have in stock. A situation that annoys the customer, annoys the marketplace, and which can lead to you being charged fees even though you can’t fulfil the order on top of the hassle of dealing with the backorder or refund.
Managing all the data manually is a hugely time-consuming, and only gets more so the more marketplaces you sell on, so automating the links between systems is very valuable.
As well as all the data you send to the marketplaces and digital channels, there is the data you get back from each marketplace — the all-important orders. As with any order, the faster you can get it picked, packed and despatched the happier the customer will be. So, you need systems in place that make it easy for you to handle the marketplace orders as easily as you do your own.
You also want that sale to be instantly reflected in your stock levels across all marketplaces, to avoid selling stock twice.
To achieve all this the flows of data look something like this:
Once you start working with multiple marketplaces, or just one marketplace and Google Shopping, it can be hugely beneficial to add a Data Management Company to the mix.
A Data Management Company provide software that sits in the middle to make your life a lot more straightforward. You only have to integrate with one system no matter how many marketplaces you need to supply and collect data from.
The Data Management Company will be actively monitoring any data requirement changes expected at each marketplace, which means you don’t have to keep abreast of this and the chances are most of the workload to update your information will be done for you, often before you even realise a change needed to be made.
What are the Benefits of Using a Data Management Company?
● Your systems only have to integrate with one 3rd party system, and the Data Management Company integrates with all the marketplaces for you.
● Adding a new marketplace becomes really easy — like flicking a switch, rather than having to build a whole new set of integrations.
● The Data Management Company will be keeping an eye out for any data requirement changes expected at each marketplace, and make it easy for you to adapt to any new requirements.
Put simply using a Data Management Company makes managing your marketplace marketing and sales a lot more straightforward. Enabling your team to focus on the business of selling, rather than endless integration headaches.
If you’re having integration headaches, they can also often be a very fast way to get live on a platform.
Many of the Data Management Companies do a lot more than the basics for you, that could include:
● Marketing, such as running Paid Advertising to the retailers own site alongside marketplaces operating commission based sales models.
● Enable you to tweak your feed for each marketplace via their interface. So you can set pricing rules, or adapt product descriptions to optimise sales performance.
● Rules based pricing and margin management can be a great way to automatically accelerate sales on product you want to clear, or make sure you always win the ‘buy box’ on key lines.
● Consolidate your orders from all the marketplaces.
● Help you pick, pack and despatch by creating picking slips, and even working out which carrier to use for each parcel and setting up the labels.
● Reporting tools so you can analyse and optimise performance.
● Sales and tax management to make easier to compile compliance reports.
● Ability to manage advertising on the marketplaces you’re using.
● Integrations with many other platforms you can use to increase your sales like shopping comparison engines, and product advertising platforms like Google Ads Shopping Campaigns.
● Diagnostic tools to assess the quality of your data before it goes to each marketplace, and highlight any errors you need to fix.
Data Management Companies are not one size fits all — so make sure you find the right choice for your business.
There’s so much you could do that it’s important to work out what you actually need before choosing your Data Management Company.
As with any software purchase consider what problems you want to solve, and what opportunities you want to take advantage of.
What Problems Can a Data Management Company Solve?
- Creating a feed in the right format for each marketplace
- Cost of building each individual integration and keeping them up to date both in money and team time terms.
- Difficulty of bringing the orders from various marketplaces into your system
- Products being sold after you’ve run out of stock
- VAT and duty reporting
Opportunities to take advantage of might be:
- New marketplaces you want to launch on
- Feed optimisation for each marketplace
- Advertising systems
- Price and margin automation
You should also be clear on:
- Which marketplace(s) you want to use now and in the next few years.
- Anywhere else you want to send product data to eg Google Shopping, price comparison engines, affiliate networks.
- Which of your existing systems will need to be integrated with
Once you are clear on all the above — it’s time to go shopping!
Which Data Management Company should I Choose?
Here’s a run down of the Data Management Companies favoured by Fruugo’s merchants, a good place to start your research.
Just need to get a feed that works?
- Feed Manager
sales@feedmanager.co.uk
0800 033 6090
If you’re just looking for a better, easier way to get your product information to Amazon, Fruugo and/or Reverb then Feed Manager may be for you.
They take data from all platforms and can often get everything up and running within 24 hours. It’s a lighter touch simple option that has diagnostics and optimisation capabilities that solve the vast majority of listing problems.
They charge a flat fee, and the Fruugo integration is free of charge.
As well as the above marketplaces they also provide integration to some review sites.
Got the orders sorted, but want to do more with your feeds?
- Channel Pilot
https://channelpilot.co.uk/ 02036957718
Connects retailers and brand manufacturers on up to 2,000 sales channels across 40+ countries, so they can almost certainly integrate with your website, and any marketplace you want to sell on.
As well as getting your feeds in great order, they have a host of options for optimising your products. Including sales performance reporting and the ability to monitor competitor prices, dynamically re-price your products, and manage bidding strategies. All via a single dashboard.
You can manage all that yourself with strategic advice from Channel Pilot, or you can get the Channel Pilot team to manage it all for you.
Their team operate in English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch making them very popular across European retailers.
The pricing model is either a fixed monthly fee or a commission on sales depending on what parts of Channel Pilot you’re using. New merchants can be up and running within 3–4 weeks.
- Lengow
contact@lengow.com
Provides integration with over 40 marketplaces mainly focused on Europe.
A further 1,600 integrations are possible with product ad platforms, affiliate networks, retargeting platforms and more.
Given their European focus support is available in multiple languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese.
Lengow is a self-service platform where you are responsible for managing your own activity. Reporting dashboards are available, and there are lots of ways you can optimise your product information within the system including automated results and price and promotion customisations.
New merchants can be up and running within 2–3 weeks, and pricing is based on packages and is fixed fee.
Looking for everything?
- Sello
Sello have a standalone eCommerce platform that handles both order and product management for marketplaces. You can use it on it’s own to manage all your marketplace activity, or integrate with your website or ERP.
Their focus is on creating high quality integrations with their selected marketplaces, enabling rapid communications between systems for fast accurate updates. That means a slightly smaller list of marketplace integration — Fruugo, Amazon, eBay, Tradera, Cdon, Fyndiq, Coolshop, Elkjøp, Wupti, Rakuten.fr, Rakuten.de, vidaXL, Allegro, Wish, Spartoo, Groupon.
New retailers can be up and running within minutes, and managing your feeds and activity is your responsibility. You can optimise product information using the Sello interface, and there are a range of automatic pricing rules available. To help with this sales performance reports are available.
The pricing model is both a low fixed monthly fee, plus commission on turnover. Using Sello to manage Fruugo is free.
- Linnworks
info@linnworks.com
Via Linnworks you can manage your whole marketplace business, from getting the information to the marketplaces, optimising your listings, and managing the whole order process as they directly integrate with most couriers.
Integration is possible with over 20 of the major global marketplaces and all the popular eCommerce platforms.
Onboarding training is available to all new customers, and it is a self-serve platform where you’re in control of your strategy and optimisation.
Product titles, prices and descriptions can be optimised for each channel independently, and with the sophisticated performance reports you have all the data you need to optimise your activity.
Pricing is fixed fee based on order volume, with a limitation of sku count. Self set up taking 3–4 weeks, which can be sped up with professional assistance when available.
Want everything and someone to manage it for you?
- ChannelAdvisor
www.channeladvisor.co.uk 0203 014 2700
ChannelAdvisor integrate with pretty much every marketplace going.
Via their system you can manage your product listings, and your orders.
There are lots of tools available to optimise your product listings, with the Channel Advisor team there to advise you on the best strategy. Or you can hire them to do the sales management for you.
Pricing starts with an annual fee, a set up cost per channel (marketplace) and then fees based on revenue.
In 2019 Fruugo named ChannelAdvisor their partner of the year, with ChannelAdvisor commenting:
“Our bespoke integration with Fruugo helps our customers take advantage of international markets. We’ve seen many experience impressive results. We’re proud to be named Partner of the Year and extremely excited to continue our work with Fruugo. Together, we’re enabling brands and retailers to grow sales globally.”
– Paul Colucci, Vice President, Global Business Development, ChannelAdvisor
The list above is just a handful of the partners we work with. If you want to find out more visit the ‘Our Partners’ page on the Fruugo B2B site.
Remember whichever Data Management Company you choose, working with them should enable you to manage your marketplaces more successfully. Saving you time, money, and increasing your sales.
Ready to take the next step so you can get selling cross-border? Contact Fruugo today.
.
