According to WebRetailer report, Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart are the highest-traffic marketplaces in India. But while the likes of Amazon, Flipkart, and others like 1mg and Yatra have established themselves as marketplace leaders, newer platforms are being launched every day. Several new and different types of marketplaces will succeed and might even disrupt industries.
But establishing a marketplace is only the first step of a long journey. For accelerated growth, it is essential to scale the marketplace in a way that helps improve revenue without any significant increase in resources. 3 strategies aimed at marketplace scaling are discussed below-
1. Match Supply and Demand
Most marketplace owners focus on the number of buyers and sellers on their platform or the number of monthly visitors. As a result, a lot of resources are spent to attract more visitors and sellers. But improvements in these metrics won’t mean anything substantial if the marketplace fails to match the supply and demand.
Only when the supply meets the demand will the buyers and sellers be satisfied with their experience on your marketplace. They might even want to return to buy or sell in the future and also recommend your platform to others.
- Understand the supply and demand in every sub-category and city
- Digital marketing services like using product/service-specific or location-specific keywords can help improve search rankings
- Paid advertisements can also help reach the right audience at the right time
2. Invest in Search Engine Optimization
When scaling a marketplace, it is critical to optimize resource usage so that their expenses do not rise as quickly as revenue increases. Search Engine Optimizationad or SEO is one of the most effective strategies for marketplaces to scale their operations while keeping the expenses or resource consumption lower.
SEO is the process of improving your organic ranking in search engine results. The availability of automation tools and affordable SEO services makes it a highly cost-efficient scaling solution.
- Improves ranking of your marketplace for related keywords
- Higher rank improves your reach and attracts more visitors who are already searching for the products/services you offer
- SEO strategies can deliver long-term results
3. Analyze Your Competitors
Marketplaces always have the option to learn from their competitors. Reputed digital marketing companies offer professional competitor analysis services to help marketplaces better understand the strategies of their competitors. The marketing or growth strategy can be adjusted according to the analysis for a competitive edge.
Whether you’ve recently launched an online marketplace or running one with a stable user base, analyzing the strategies of top competitors can help at every stage of your growth.
- Helps you understand the marketing strategies of top competitors
- Can provide a competitive edge while saving operational costs as only the most effective tactics can be chosen
- For instance, if a competitor is using website advertisement, you can invest in the same to reach more people
The Right Way to Scale a Marketplace
The marketplace scaling strategies can vary based on factors such as end-objective, industry, and target audience. However, the time-proven tactics discussed above can be part of every customized scaling strategy.
Reputable digital marketing companies can offer a personalized business solution to help online marketplaces scale and grow consistently. Their expertise in the domain can keep resource consumption low to help marketplaces truly scale their operations and continue growing.
