Marketplace Frustration? Here Are 3 Ways to Bring Customers Back

Ever since Amazon.com debuted the “apparel” tab featuring items from a grand total of 35 sellers, marketplaces have been hailed as an invaluable way for brands and retailers to raise visibility, access new customers and, of course, boost sales. By the early 2010s, the business model had exploded, and brands including adidas, Michael Kors, Tommy Hilfiger, John Varvatos, kate spade new york, Lacoste, Nautica, New Balance, Steve Madden, and Ted Baker signed on. Today, Amazon has surpassed Walmart to become the top apparel retailer in the U.S.

At the same time Amazon has soared in popularity with shoppers looking for a convenient way to buy clothing and accessories, a number of brands and retailers have stepped away from the platform. For some, it’s a decision based on finances. In fact, between commissions, advertising buys, account management, deal costs and other services, Amazon can take up to 35 cents from every dollar sold. For others, the decision is based on nonmonetary costs such as a decline in brand perception or loss of access to valuable customer data.

The issue isn’t limited to Amazon, either. Sellers across Zalando, ASOS, and other marketplaces around the world are looking to reduce dependence on marketplaces and instead drive shoppers to their own storefronts. The problem is how to get them back, especially now that customer acquisition costs are soaring. Sure, retailers and brands can offer discounts and engage in other price-cutting tactics to get a temporary competitive edge, but that won’t support long-term growth. Instead, here are some suggestions that are effective at getting customers back while being relatively quick and easy to implement:

1. Be self-sufficient when it comes to driving awareness.

The pitch sounded great. With such significant traffic, the marketplace would bring you greater visibility and access to a vast customer base. The reality is a bit different, especially when it comes to Amazon. According to the company’s own data, about 70 percent of its customers stick to the first page of search results. This means that getting your product discovered requires you to be listed up front. And since the way search rankings are determined is completely opaque, the only sure-fire way to improve your standing is to pay.

Even if you do spring for the sponsored listings, you’re facing stiff competition from Amazon itself. In less polite terms, the hotter your product, the more likely they are to copy it, undercut your price and deprioritize your listing.

The fix here starts with revisiting how it was done before. Even if you have no immediate plans to leave the marketplace, start acting like you will be. Start with a thorough examination of your marketing budget, figuring out where spend on things like sponsored listings can be scaled back, if only just a little. Then take that “little” and reallocate it to another channel where you believe you will be able to make a more direct connection with your prospective customers.

Social media is an obvious place to start. Perhaps divert a small amount of spend to advertising with the goal of getting shoppers to your owned properties and profiles. Support the ad spend with compelling content and, voila, we’ve guided the shopper from the awareness phase into the interest phase of the purchase funnel. From here, it’s a matter of building the customer relationship.

This one will be hard, but if done in small, measured steps, it should be painless. Just keep an eye on the results of each change, then adjust your approach accordingly. Even small lifts are proof of impact that foretell of the big results that will eventually follow.

2. Maximize the experience advantage.

Since the dawn of e-commerce, there’s been an astonishing disparity between conversion rates online and in-store. It’s not the products or the prices that are the problem; it’s the experience.

For the most part, marketplaces are transactional, with an experience that's merely tolerable. They do nothing to make shopping better, easier or more fun. And the next time you think, “but it’s so much more convenient,” stop and remind yourself that you had to scroll through 800 listings for marginally relevant products before you found what you were actually looking for. Don’t even get me started on the part where you have to compare the shipping times, return policies and other details from multiple sellers lest you make the wrong choice.

The fix here is to give shoppers a markedly better experience, one that makes it obvious to shoppers that it’s better to buy from your brand directly than it is to go through the marketplace. There are a number of measures you can take that will contribute to that goal, with search functionality being the one with the biggest, most immediate impact.

For example, let's say your clever content marketing has enabled you to bring a new shopper to your site. They search for a product and are confronted with a thousand results and can’t manage to filter down any more. If this is part of the marketplace problem, then why replicate it? I know it sounds like an exaggeration, but I for one still run into websites with search capabilities from the early 2000s.

Other upgrades that will make your shopping experience infinitely better than that of a marketplace include incorporating elements that will inspire customers, give them a sense of belonging, and elicit the type of excitement we often have in-store. Suggestions include offering styling advice, providing precise recommendations, and incorporating greater personalization capabilities based on what's searched and put into carts.

The great thing is that there are now scores of solutions addressing these and other pain points of the online shopping experience, and with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, there are incredibly powerful solutions that remain affordable and easy to implement. Furthermore, since you can leverage the data you own, that which no one else can access, you can be sure that the experience is unique to your site.

3. Double down on loyalty and services.

We talk about “retail therapy” in jest, but the release of dopamine and resulting feelings of pleasure is no joke. Yes, we often shop because we need stuff, but buying is often driven more by psychological factors.

The fix here is simply appealing to the non-tangible, implementing measures that increase positive emotions, contribute to a sense of control, and even offer feelings of belonging. For example, include offering exclusive services to engage shoppers, such as payment, size recommendations, tailored personalization and more.

Also impactful are customer loyalty programs. Offering rewards and making customers feel special go a long way toward bringing them back to your site and off the marketplace, ultimately increasing their lifetime value. Furthermore, because it’s much more efficient to bring shoppers back than to acquire new ones, extend the experience past the point of purchase. This is another area where GenAI is opening a new world of opportunities for hyperpersonalized content around styling recommendations, new product announcements and more.

Ultimately, there is still a place for marketplaces. They’re just not necessarily the best channel for everyone, which is pretty much how the market has been treating them for the past decade. No single initiative has the power to instantly fix a situation 10-plus years in the making, but each will make a contribution in the right direction.

Maxime Patte is the CEO and co-founder of Veesual, a Paris-based virtual try-on platform changing the way consumers experience digital retail.