Marketplace strategies in German retail 2019

Results of a structured online survey of manufacturers and retailers on their use of online marketplaces.

Manufacturers and retailers have long recognized that a marketplace presence is the new top location in e-commerce. This is the result of the current study „Marketplace strategies in German retail 2019“. To this end, the INTERNET WORLD BUSINESS together with SAZ Sport and ecom Consulting interviewed 365 dealers and manufacturers. According to this, half of the survey participants (56.9%) would sell their goods in the online shop, but almost two thirds (65.1%) were active in marketplaces. And more than one in four providers generate half of their online sales through marketplaces.

Terrifyingly, the study also comes to the conclusion how unprofessional many companies operate their marketplace business. Around 17% of marketplace traders could not quantify how high their own sales through this channel actually are. The operational operation of the marketplace business is mostly manual. 60% of retailers and manufacturers would not use any interfaces from Amazon, i.e. product listings are processed manually using Excel lists. However, automation opportunities for item setting or order processing were also not used. This not only damages efficiency, it also costs margins. Just like the missing content strategy, which only one in three survey participants would have developed. The rest would use the same content on all platforms. And internationalization would already stop after Austria, France and Great Britain.

The conclusion of the study is that companies have to do more than just list products online. Anyone who has recognized the signs of the times and wants to operate profitably in an increasingly professionalized billion-dollar market needs a specific strategy, competent staff and powerful tools. And in addition to Amazon, which can hardly be used profitably without a dedicated sales strategy and specialized systems, it could also be worthwhile to position yourself more broadly and give smaller and younger market places such as Real, Otto, Zalando and Co. a chance. Because the platforms have long developed into their own ecosystems, each with their own individual success mechanisms.

You can request the study on the INTERNET WORLD BUSINESS website: Read the Paper