It doesn’t really matter whether you’re new to the e-commerce game or you’ve been selling on marketplaces for years — the pace of change is enough to overwhelm even the most seasoned veteran. 

New marketplaces sprout up. Consumer expectations change. What’s a marketer to do? Stick to these 10 best practices for consistent performance in a volatile industry. 

10 Best Practices to Improve E-Commerce Sales

1. Focus on the customer.

Consumers are at the heart of all commerce — and they know it. They expect to be treated with convenient, transparent and personalized shopping experiences that are worth their while (and money). 

That’s not to say customer-centric practices don’t benefit the seller too. In fact, creating more meaningful interactions with consumers on e-commerce marketplaces can have a direct impact on sales and revenue. Engage with your buyers regularly and stay in tune with customer sentiment by:

• Strengthening your return policies
• Proactively monitoring reviews
• Staying active on social media (especially in the channels where your target demographic interacts most)

2. Entice consumers with appealing content. 

No one likes a drab online experience. Consumers may even link the look and feel of your website or your brand elements to the quality of your products. But you don’t have to be a design studio to keep up either. Stay relevant in the minds of consumers with e-commerce site best practices like:

• Matching branding and online experiences to target audience expectations (e.g., using bright colors and modern slang to appeal to teens)
• Decluttering website pages
• Using high-quality images with diverse models
• Keeping site and page navigation simple 
• Writing content that proactively addresses shopper questions and concerns

3. Keep product descriptions fresh. 

As your product data is fed to marketplaces and transformed into listings, high quality content can be the difference between a product that stands out and one that gets buried. But even if you have killer content, it can quickly go stale. Regularly assess product descriptions to account for popular search terms, proactively answer shopper questions and update for product enhancements. 

Too much to manage? Successful brands rely on robust data feeds to ensure product information not only meets the unique standards of each marketplace, but stays fresh.

4. Expand your advertising.

No matter which marketplaces you sell on, make sure you’re taking advantage of the full suite of advertising options available to you. Every seller is different, so the key is to experiment, develop and measure targeted ad strategies that work for you and your products.

On Amazon, that means not only building campaigns for Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Product Display Ads, but also using your search term reports to mine new keywords, experiment with bidding and target your competitors’ ASINs. On Walmart, you should make the most of Promotions Manager and Promoted Listings to create offers that grab the attention of buyers and encourage them to spend more.

5. Stay competitive on price.

Modern consumers have become acutely aware of the wide range of options for purchasing the same product at different prices. That means it’s no longer your item details and imagery alone that capture attention. Developing a dynamic pricing strategy is essential to marketplace success. To stay competitive, consider using:

• Automated repricing, which automatically adjusts pricing based on the current competitive landscape. The key is to use a system or tool that aligns your competitive prices across channels so you can keep your pricing consistent across marketplaces.
• Velocity pricing, which makes real-time adjustments in product prices based on sales trends. Whether you want to extract more margin on fast-selling products or lower prices when sales start to slow, this type of technology will make it easier to meet your goals.

6. Demonstrate strong fulfillment. 

To truly excel on e-commerce marketplaces, fast and affordable fulfillment is critical. But in the era of same-day deliveries, it can also be incredibly costly and time-consuming to provide. Managing fulfillment across marketplaces can become complex, but many platforms offer their own services, including Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Walmart Fulfillment Services. 

If your fulfillment operations still involve spreadsheets and manual tasks, it’s time to put things on autopilot. The more you automate, the better equipped you’ll be to speed up delivery times and cut down on shipping costs. Successful sellers often use: 

• Intelligent order routing to select the quickest, most affordable delivery method for each and every order
• Automated inventory management to ensure levels stay up to date with each order, across multiple marketplaces 
• Automated shipment tracking to mark packages “shipped” as soon as delivery is initiated

7. Keep tabs on the competition.

There are nearly 2 million sellers on Amazon, and they’re all vying for the same consumer attention. To compete, you need to regularly assess your competitors’ advertising and sales position. By regularly evaluating factors like delivery times, pricing of similar products and feedback ratings, you can gain a solid understanding of what they need to drive more sales. 

This is especially true on Amazon, where the ability to identify small changes as they occur can make all the difference. Some marketplace management solutions automatically gather key competitor metrics in a competitor dashboard, allowing you to: 

• Identify opportunities for improving buy box performance
• Track the average number of competitors per ASIN
• Stay up-to-date on top sellers offering your products
• Keep tabs on which products Amazon is selling directly
• Discover the 100 best Amazon sellers in any category at any time
• Know when it’s time to act on MAP and proprietary ASIN violations
• Identify competitors who are advertising on your product detail page
• Develop an offensive strategy for product targeting/competitor targeting

8. Sell on social.

Global internet users now spend an average of 2 hours and 27 minutes on social media every day. It makes sense to not only meet them there with advertising, but provide an easier path to purchase. Social commerce has become prevalent among younger shoppers especially. In fact, 58% of 18-25-year-olds have researched products on Instagram. 

Plus, engaging in social commerce is an e-commerce best practice that does more than give your customers another place to buy. It also provides a chance to connect directly with consumers who seek out products that match their interests and lifestyle.

9. Monitor performance. 

Run your e-commerce business on reliable data, not hunches. Tracking performance in each marketplace you sell on or investing in brand analytics software gives you the insight and benchmarks you need to identify areas for growth and improvement. Having e-commerce performance data in the following categories is particularly helpful:

• Assortment and availability. Track out-of-stock rates, buy box ownership and loss rates, assortment strength among top online retailers and number of product URLs across your network. 
• Prices and promotions. Keep tabs on MSRP deltas, days below MSRP, significant price drops, MAP infringements and engagement in brand-led promotions.
• Search and digital shelf. Make sure shoppers can find your products with insight into share of top-of-page products, share of search on brand and category terms and share of sponsored result on priority keywords.
• Content and reviews. Ensure the highest performing content by tracking metrics for each product like average consumer rating, content title and description length, number of images on page and percentage of pages with full content compliance. 

10. Expand to new marketplaces.  

If you’re serious about growing an e-commerce business, marketplace expansion is a must. The key is to determine which marketplaces best fit your product catalog. Getting your products in front of the right consumers might mean moving beyond the big players to more niche marketplaces. Or it may be time to start selling to international consumers through options such as Amazon Global Selling and eBay Global Shipping.

Either way, develop a strategy to keep marketplace management from becoming overwhelming. For most e-commerce companies, the easiest solution is relying on one centralized platform that’s built to integrate with dozens of different marketplaces for optimized listings, fast fulfillment and more.

Rithum Helps You Stick to E-Commerce Best Practices

At Rithum, we’ve watched the industry and the marketplaces within it change over the course of 20+ years. In that time, we’ve taken note of what works best and what doesn’t. Sure, policies change and trends come and go, but the one constant is carefully monitoring your e-commerce program to ensure the strongest content, smartest advertising and greatest appeal among consumers. Our Managed Services team combines the power of Rithum technology with award-winning expertise to help you reach new customers — and new heights for company growth. 

Request a demo to learn how Rithum can help you apply today’s e-commerce best practices for the greatest market impact.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in February 2020 and was updated in November 2022 for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

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Consumers can hardly remember a time before they shopped on Amazon. Today, 54% of US consumers say they begin product searches there before looking anywhere else. 

But success with the world’s largest online retailer isn’t guaranteed. Without the chops to compete and put products in front of shoppers, brands and retailers won’t make it on the highly saturated marketplace. 

Rithum recently released a Comprehensive Guide to Amazon featuring the must-know strategies every Amazon seller should employ to succeed in such a competitive space. What are your brand’s strengths and weaknesses? Are you grabbing shoppers’ attention and ensuring their loyalty with seamless fulfillment? See what strategies put you ahead of the game.

The Multichannel Growth Flywheel

Simply listing your products on Amazon is no longer enough. The marketplace is now home to 1.9 million active sellers around the world — and they’re all vying for consumers’ attention. 

A growth flywheel is an effective, high-level way to structure your thinking as you develop strategies to succeed on Amazon and beyond. 

The flywheel helps assess and develop strategies in five key areas:

• Connect your products to consumers with error-free listings
• Market your products effectively to drive awareness and sales
• Sell your products by converting browsers into buyers at the moment it matters 
• Fulfill your customer’s expectations with fast, efficient delivery
• Optimize your Amazon strategies to constantly improve results

Let’s take a look at how each area helps you focus on essential selling tactics to become a successful Amazon seller.

Connect Your Products to Consumers

How do you want to sell on Amazon? Choose the best model for your business: 

• A first-party (1P) relationship where you sell your products to Amazon via Vendor Central. Your brand is responsible for advertising, promotions and shipping products to Amazon, while they control the pricing and inventory.
• A third-party (3P) relationship where you sell directly to consumers via Seller Central. You control the advertising, pricing, inventory and any fulfillment or logistics. 

Once you’ve decided how to sell, start your Amazon presence strong with error-free listings. The trick is meeting Amazon’s listing requirements while optimizing them to appeal to your target audience. However, every marketplace you sell on is different, potentially leading to listing errors that could cause your products to appear incorrectly or prevent them from showing up at all. Make sure your Amazon connections are error-free by ensuring your product data is clean, organized and in line with Amazon’s standards. 

Market Effectively to Drive Sales

Amazon Advertising helps sellers boost awareness among consumers and increase sales. But with so many sellers to compete against, a simple manual campaign isn’t likely to cut it. The most successful Amazon sellers vary their marketing across ad types:

• Sponsored Products — keyword-driven ads that appear alongside organic search results to promote individual listings
• Sponsored Brands — top-of-page ads that build awareness for your brand among browsing shoppers 
• Sponsored Display Ads — display ads that appear on product detail pages, the Amazon homepage or third-party apps and websites

Investing in a mix of Amazon ad types ensures different consumers see your products at various stages. Not sure where to start? Rithum offers a complimentary advertising analysis where our Amazon experts will take a look at your Amazon Advertising account to identify areas for optimization.

Sell at the Right Moment

A growing number (41%) of consumers now begin their search on Amazon when their intent is simply to research. The more accurate your product listings, the more trust you build during the consideration phase for eventual purchase.

Put yourself in consumers’ shoes when writing product descriptions. What do they want to know? How will they search and arrive at your product? Research similar products to see what competitors are saying, and optimize your descriptions with the most accurate and detailed keywords possible. 

You can also improve sales by keeping prices competitive — but no one has time to manually monitor price variations across hundreds of comparable sellers. Automated repricing tools automatically adjust your prices to remain competitive and align with your goals. Choose from a marketplace repricer, which uses algorithmic pricing technology to help you win the Buy Box or Best Offer position at the highest possible price, or a velocity repricer, where prices are adjusted automatically based on your goals — whether you want to extract more margin on fast-selling products or lower prices when sales are slow.

Fulfill Amazon Buyers’ Growing Expectations

Consumers choose Amazon Prime for its fast, convenient two-day shipping, and they now expect sellers across channels to keep up. Luckily, Amazon offers two options to make fulfillment fast and seamless:

• Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). Send a portion of your inventory to Amazon, and they’ll handle the rest. FBA also manages customer support and returns, removing the hassle from your team.
• Seller Fulfilled Prime. You entice customers with the Amazon Prime name and shipping guarantee, but call the shots on packing and shipping. You’re also responsible for returns, which are automatically authorized by Amazon.

Want to understand the advantages and disadvantages of Amazon fulfillment options even better? Check out these 5 Differences Between Fulfillment by Amazon and Seller Fulfilled Prime.

Optimize for Improved Results

Most consumers now look at reviews before making an online purchase. That means your customer satisfaction rating and reviews must accurately reflect your products to entice new buyers. Stay on top of your customer satisfaction levels by monitoring key metrics, such as order defect rate, return dissatisfaction rate and late shipment rate. Once you become a certified seller, Amazon provides a wealth of data to help you monitor these categories.

Optimizing your Amazon presence also means demonstrating growth. You can expand your presence by going global across the marketplace’s 19 countries of operation. Selling internationally increases brand awareness and expands your customer base. To get started, the Amazon Global Selling program allows you to “test the waters” of cross-border trade.  

Don’t just list on Amazon. Rithum solutions help you execute flywheel strategies to succeed on the world’s most popular marketplace and across more than 340 other channels. 

Get more Amazon selling tips and best practices in our new Comprehensive Guide to Amazon and webinar, Developing a Comprehensive Approach to Amazon: Strategies and Tips for Marketplace Success.

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