Listing & Syncing Products Across Multiple Storefronts & Marketplaces

Welcome to our weekly blog series, “How To Optimize Your Fulfillment Strategy.”

Whether you’re an experienced business owner or just starting out, there’s always room to make improvements to your strategy. Over the next few months, we’ll deep-dive into various aspects of fulfillment and best practices for each one, including:

• Storefronts & Marketplaces
• Custom Orders
• Shipping Packages
• Pick, Pack, & Labeling
• Order Management
• Product & Inventory
• Shipping Carriers

In our first edition, we detail the benefits of listing and syncing products across multiple storefronts and marketplaces. Read on to learn more about why this is vital for an e-commerce business’ growth.

About Storefronts & Marketplaces

Storefronts

Storefronts are a great choice for e-commerce sellers that desire the feel of a brick-and-mortar shop. While marketplaces are product-focused, storefronts are focused on creating a brand to support products. This is due to the fact that all storefronts provide some level of customization to the seller.

There are many storefront options that provide varying levels of customization. Some storefronts provide plug-and-play templates, like Squarespace and Wix. Others allow you to customize every aspect, like WooCommerce and Shopify.

By allowing your products to live on their own webpage, customers will see your business as a legitimate brand. This is especially important as new customers find your store, as they will feel that they can trust you to sell them a legitimate product. Storefronts also allow for great profit margins. This is because the seller has full control over product pricing.

Marketplaces

Marketplaces allow your products to become one of many in an ecosystem. This type of selling platform enables customers to find products relevant to their search on the marketplace’s search engine.

Some examples of marketplaces include Amazon, Google Shopping, Walmart.com, eBay, and Etsy. In all of these platforms, the focus is generally on products and not brands.

By listing products within a database of other sellers, products have good visibility, searchability, and scalability. Performance marketing also allows sellers to pay in order to rank higher on listings.

The Benefits of Listing Products on Multiple Platforms

There are multiple benefits to listing your products on both storefronts and marketplaces, including:

• Your products can reach a wider range of customers
• It’s easier to expand where you’re selling than to expand what you’re selling
• You don’t have to sacrifice your brand for a larger product reach

However, many business owners are hesitant to expand to multiple platforms. This is because it can become difficult to maintain. To keep multiple platforms organized, it is ideal to use a spreadsheet or some other type of software to make sure there aren’t any orders slipping through the cracks.

Additionally, it is vital that your current inventory is synced across all selling platforms. Without accurate stock listed on each storefront and marketplace, orders might be placed for items that no longer exist. To ensure stock issues do not arise, we recommend implementing an inventory syncing software.

How Soapbox Can Help

Our Soapbox software allows for inventory syncing across all storefronts and marketplaces. Once you add all of your selling platforms to our software, any updates made to one platform will also be reflected on others. For instance, if you have five items in stock and four are sold on your Shopify store, your eBay account will also list only one of that item remaining in stock.

Our software’s restock alert threshold will also notify you wherever you need to replenish your stock. This feature is also customizable for each individual product. Additionally, users have the option to set their restock alert threshold based on a number or percentage of stock.

To learn more about how our software can help you grow your e-commerce brand, create a free account. You can also reach out to us at support@soap-bx.com with any software questions.

Check back next Friday, where our next “How To Optimize Your Fulfillment Strategy” post will discuss best practices for custom orders.