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Use online marketplaces to internationalise quickly and easily and profit from cross border sales
The e-commerce landscape in Europe is developing rapidly. Changes in European consumers’ shopping behaviour over the past few years have turned online shopping into a permanent fixture in daily life. In 2023, e-commerce in Europe generated total sales of €523 billion. By 2029, online shopping in Europe is projected to generate sales of more than €915 billion, while the number of e-commerce users is predicted to increase to 446 million.1
Cross-border e-commerce: limitless sales opportunities
There is a growing trend towards cross-border e-commerce, which is gaining more and more significance. In 2023, cross-border sales in Europe reached about €237 billion*2, an increase of 32 percent over the previous year. And Germany was at the head of the race: At €43 billion3, it generated the most revenue in cross-border online sales across all of Europe in 2023. Worldwide projections predict a total volume of €7.9 trillion4 in cross-border B2C online selling for 2030. For companies active in national markets with limited sales opportunities, selling across national borders can open a whole range of new opportunities for growth. Online sellers gain access to new markets, broaden their business and increase their sales.
Although the volume of cross-border e-commerce sales is growing, many companies are still resisting taking the leap into spreading their business abroad. Language barriers often make optimal presentation of their offers and communication with customers difficult, and online sellers must offer additional payment methods in currencies used by foreign customers, all while providing reliable shipping over longer distances.
There’s a way to minimise these challenges and to sell quickly and easily across borders: Online marketplaces.
Online marketplaces: Platforms for quick and easy internationalisation
Marketplaces are the ideal way to test out new markets and to expand internationally in a resource-efficient way. Sellers can make use of the existing infrastructure of the marketplace and their in-country expertise to participate in the growth of cross-border e-commerce with minimal effort and comparatively low costs.
If sellers decide to sell with online marketplaces, they can tap into new markets and build up their presence internationally. It doesn’t matter if a seller already has their own online shop and wants to expand their multi-channel strategy via marketplace sales, or if marketplaces are their first step into online selling and new countries.
Use your existing customer basis to increase your own target group
Sellers can use online marketplaces to increase their visibility, reach and customer base quickly and easily. Platforms with a high brand awareness and wide reach are particularly attractive.
The significant brand recognition factor of popular marketplaces ensures a speedy entry into a new market.
Technological infrastructure makes it easy to connect and simple to manage
Sellers who sell on marketplaces can also use the technological structure which is already in place. This is an especially huge advantage for those who are just taking their first steps into e-commerce as it reduces both the time and financial resources necessary compared to developing their own online shop.
Sellers who are already selling online and may even operate their own online shop can integrate their processes via a software interface in most cases. Using software, the shop, the ERP system or the inventory management are connected with the online marketplace, allowing for automation in the listing of product data, price updates, order processing or customer service.
Know your own needs to choose the right marketplaces
Marketplaces differ in terms of key factors such as target group, sales fees or offers of support. Choosing which marketplace is best for you depends on various factors. First off, the products offered by the seller influence whether they should sell on a general or specialised marketplace. There is also the question of which features or extra services may be of help.
By no means do you have to focus on only one marketplace; quite the contrary, you can put your offers on several marketplaces. Indeed, this is how you will reach the most customers while reducing your dependency on any single marketplace provider.
How sellers can use marketplaces to successfully tap into new markets: The case for Kaufland Global Marketplace
The individual advantages of the various marketplaces covered by Kaufland Global Marketplace offer exciting opportunities to sellers who want to grow, sell internationally and profit from cross-border sales. With just one registration, sellers gain access to five seamlessly connected online marketplaces in Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria. The technical infrastructure of the multi-marketplace technology behind the all-in-one solution gives sellers an easy and quick way to manage their product, order and offer data using just one system. This lets sellers spread their sales channels wide and tap into new countries without using up unnecessary capacities.
The Kaufland marketplaces also have a special advantage when it comes to their customer bases: Due to its 1,550 brick-and-mortar locations in eight countries, Kaufland enjoys a brand awareness of up to 99% in the marketplace countries. Many customers have a deep trust in the brand, which also benefits the online marketplaces. Kaufland.de alone has up to 32 million visitors per month. This combination of online and offline branding is a unique selling point that also eases sellers’ entry into the market in new countries. With Kaufland Global Marketplace, they can tap into five countries, rely on the support of a strong brand and address a large target group. 81 million potential online customers can be reached in the five Kaufland Marketplace countries.
Additional marketplace services from Kaufland Global Marketplace
Kaufland Global Marketplace knows the challenges sellers face and supports their internationalisation plans with a wide range of extra services.
(Personal) Seller Support
A free, personal Seller Support is available to sellers who sell on the Kaufland marketplaces. As part of a long-term partnership based on mutual respect, Seller Support provides individual advice and support for all questions relating to the marketplaces and offers additional assistance.
What’s more, sellers have access to many self-learning options in the Seller University. Using these tools, sellers can grow independently and continuously improve their performance. They can choose from a large number of materials and information sources that help them sell successfully. These include step-by-step guides, such as for registration and onboarding; information-packed video tutorials; templates for product and offer data and advertising options to further increase their sales. Sellers also have the chance to attend webinars free of charge to gather valuable tips for a best-possible launch, as well as for optimising their accounts.
Handling 1st level customer support
Customers can reach Kaufland Global Marketplace’s 1st level customer support via telephone or e-mail. Sellers can also involve customer support in a customer conversation as necessary.
Translation services
The language barrier is a giant hurdle for many sellers in their internationalisation journey. To help clear this hurdle, Kaufland Global Marketplace offers sellers automated product data translations. If sellers want to offer their items on the international marketplaces, they won’t have to take on the extra work of translating their product data.
Customer communication in other languages can also be supported with the use of a free translation tool, enabled in the Seller Portal.
Handling of payment processing in the local currency
Kaufland Global Marketplace handles payment processing in each local currency for all the Kaufland marketplaces. Moreover, the marketplaces provide customers with all relevant payment methods.
(Advertising) options to increase sales and revenue
Sellers aiming for even more (international) sales have access to various onsite marketing options via Kaufland Global Marketplace. These help sellers highlight their offers on the marketplaces, attracting more attention from potential customers and thus bringing in more sales.
One of the most popular onsite marketing tools is Sponsored Product Ads. With the help of this paid product placement, sellers can increase the visibility of their products on the Kaufland marketplaces. Sellers who use this feature have their offers shown especially prominently on category, search result and product details pages. Sponsored Product Ads are displayed based on keywords on each online marketplace and follow the cost-per-click principle. This means that costs are only incurred when a customer clicks on the ad.
Sponsored Brand Ads, which offer attractive advantages to brands and brand rights owners, work in the same way. Sponsored Brand Ads allow manufacturers and sellers to highlight their brands, bringing targeted customer attention to their own brand. This doesn’t just affect brand awareness but also influences sales figures and turnover.
In addition, pricing discounts can be offered as vouchers that are activated on product detail pages, in search results and on recommenders. Sellers can create vouchers for selected offers, winning over customers with attractive discounts on their products.
Another make-or-break feature for success is the BuyBox, guaranteeing offers a pole position. Sellers receive this prominent placement on the product details page only when they provide the customers with the best offer, which is composed of a combination of total price (sales price and delivery costs), delivery time and service performance.
In order to set themselves apart from the potential competition, sellers can use our free Smart Pricing price adjustment tool. The standard version optimises offers with an automated, continuous comparison against the pre-set price limits (offer price and lowest price) so that sellers’ offers can be the price leaders on the Kaufland marketplaces without much effort.
At the same time, it never undercuts the sellers’ pre-set price limits. When using this feature, the system automatically adjusts prices in real time so that they always remain competitive and increase the chances of BuyBox placement. Smart Pricing Plus contains all the same functions of Smart Pricing Standard and enhances the dynamic price adjustment with additional price information, allowing sellers to react automatically to market changes.
The Plus version not only compares the offer price with the current BuyBox winner on the Kaufland marketplaces, but also with the lowest available price online on price comparison platforms. The offer price will then either increase or decrease depending on the selected price limits and the lowest available price online.
Conclusion
Selling internationally on online marketplaces can be done in a fast, efficient and resource conscious way. Sellers who want to grow their online business have the chance to expand in a scalable way, without needing to first build up their own expertise. Marketplaces are tailored to their sellers’ needs. By giving sellers more visibility, extra services and the technical infrastructure, they provide the optimal conditions to successfully launch their business internationally in no time.
About the company
Kaufland Global Marketplace is the ideal partner for sellers and brands of every size and nearly every product range. Only one registration is needed to unlock access to new target groups and cross-border sales opportunities. Whether a small-scale seller or a global player, with Kaufland Global Marketplace, everyone has the chance to increase their revenue, especially in the cross-border segment. The individual marketplace advantages offer sellers an extraordinary environment to effortlessly expand their reach and their online business across borders. To make cross-border potential easily accessible to sellers, Kaufland Global Marketplace offers a wide range of support services to help smaller sellers with topics such as onboarding, or larger sellers with their expansion strategies. The Kaufland marketplaces also provide brands with ideal conditions.
These outstanding conditions were honoured in 2024, when Kaufland Global Marketplace won the E-Commerce Germany Award in the category “Best Global Expansion Solution”.
Register now and sell more online with Kaufland!
Sources:
- Statista: Market Insights: eCommerce, accessed 08.11.2024 ↩︎
- Statista: eCommerce: market data & analysis, accessed 08.11.2024 ↩︎
- Statista: Cross-Border-E-Commerce-Umsatz in ausgewählten Ländern in Europa im Jahr 2022, accessed 08.11.2024 ↩︎
- Statista: Cross-border business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce market value worldwide in 2021 and 2030, accessed 08.11.2024 ↩︎
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