Selling on multiple marketplaces is important for online retailers who are aiming to maximize their sales.
It increases your pool of potential customers and provides huge growth potential, but how do you ensure your listings are selling at the best price on every marketplace you sell on?
There are a couple of options, each with its own set of pros and cons, which we’ll explore in this article, but first let’s look at why multichannel pricing is such a critical issue for online retailers.
The importance of pricing on online marketplaces
The price of your listings is the most important variable that online retailers deal with.
It plays an influential role in the Buy Box and Best Match performances of your products as well as determining the profit you take once you’ve made a sale.
What is the Amazon Buy Box and eBay Best Match?
Amazon and eBay both want shoppers to easily find the products they’re looking for, from a seller with a good reputation, at the best price possible.
They achieve this by awarding the Buy Box or eBay Best Match positions to products that fit this criterion. The Buy Box and Best Match positions are the default choice either ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Add to Cart’ with one click in the Buy Box or Best Match position.
Winning the Buy Box or Best Match is the quickest way you can increase sales on your online marketplaces. Taking Amazon as an example, over 82% of sales happen from the Buy Box and this number is even higher on mobile.
Amazon repricing software
Amazon repricing software enables sellers to automatically set their prices at a level that gives them the best chance of winning the Buy Box.
A high-quality Amazon repricer, like repricer.com, takes into account various other criteria utilized in Amazon’s Buy Box algorithm, enabling sellers to maintain Buy Box ownership at a higher price when they have a stronger seller reputation than the competition.
Remember, Amazon wants its customers to have a great buying experience – getting a bargain is no good if the seller has poor ratings and feedback! Repricer.com enables sellers to leverage their seller performance rating to maximize profit.
eBay repricing software
It’s possible to use eBay repricing software to help you win the Best Match position. However, eBay repricers don’t always work reliably and can present a number of issues for online sellers.
What are the problems with eBay repricers?
In order to reprice against a competing product on eBay, the repricer first needs to identify the products it’s competing with.
On eBay, some products are catalogued, enabling them to be identified with a number of different unique IDs. Unfortunately, there are many listings on eBay which aren’t catalogued at all and so can’t be identified this way.
The other way eBay repricers can find relevant products to reprice against is with the use of a text algorithm. This involves searching for products using the product title as the identifier.
The text-matching method overcomes the problem of uncatalogued items, but small variations in product titles can result in competitor products being missed. It’s certainly not a fail-safe solution.
How do you set your prices when selling on multiple marketplaces?
There are some great Amazon repricers out there, but eBay repricers have limited functionality and manually managing prices across multiple marketplaces is very time-intensive, so what’s the answer?
Option 1 – Manually adjust multichannel pricing
Not advisable! If you avoid using a repricer on Amazon you will be quickly outmanoeuvred to the Buy Box and your sales will suffer. Even if you monitor and adjust your prices several times a day you won’t stand a chance against real-time repricers that react almost instantly.
If you’re using a repricer on Amazon but opt for a manual price adjustment on eBay, you’ll end up with inconsistent pricing across marketplaces. This can be a big problem as Amazon suspend Buy Box eligibility for items that are sold for less on other marketplaces.
Option 2 – Manage multichannel pricing with Amazon and eBay repricers
Utilizing Amazon and eBay repricers will make you competitive on Amazon, but your performance on eBay could be impaired. Not only will your eBay repricer struggle to identify competitor products, but your prices will also be inconsistent across Amazon and eBay, which will raise the possibility of your Buy Box eligibility being suspended.
Option 3 – Use multichannel pricing on repricer.com
This is the best and easiest way to maintain consistent pricing when selling on multiple channels while competing effectively for the Amazon Buy Box. Your products will have the benefit of a real-time Amazon repricer – maximizing your chances of winning the Buy Box at the best price – while automatically maintaining consistent pricing across every other channel you sell on.
What is multichannel pricing?
Multichannel pricing is a feature of repricer.com which enables sellers to automatically replicate the prices of their Amazon products to eBay and every other major marketplace they sell on.
It enables sellers to maintain consistent pricing on all their marketplaces and avoids the complications around inconsistent pricing brought about by using eBay repricers or manually adjusting prices.
Should you list products at the same price on multiple marketplaces?
Your prices on Amazon should be your main indicator of the market rate. Multichannel pricing on repricer.com enables you to set a price at either a % or amount above or below your Amazon prices.
As previously mentioned, Amazon can suspend the Buy Box eligibility of products who are selling cheaper on other marketplaces, so that option is a dangerous one!
eBay items typically sell for more than their Amazon counterparts, so many sellers take the option to price between 1-5% higher on eBay. Finding the best strategy for your business is – like many things in eCommerce – down to trial and error.
