online marketplace case study

19 Ecommerce Case Studies You Need To Steal From

You’ve heard it before - always be testing.

But if you’re running an eCommerce business then the tasks of analyzing your site data and identifying leaks in the funnel usually get pushed to the bottom of your to-do list. Let's face it, you’ve got 97 other things you SHOULD be doing today. 

So with that in mind, we've pulled together the following 19 real-world eCommerce lessons to help you cut straight to the chase in implementing some simple solutions to increase your online sales.

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In a hurry? Here are some eCommerce studies you need to steal from:

• How to improve Conversion: Envelopes.com achieve 40%
• How to improve Communication: Budapester increased mobile conversion by 29%
• Make small changes: Edible Arrangements increases same-day sales by 8%
• Make product benefits clear: Amerisleep increased checkouts by 13.9%
• Reduce website friction: Company Folders increase conversion by 68%
• Try cross selling products: Furniture retailer increased its AOV by 4.6% in 41 days
• Reduce clutter and distractions: Taloon.com ditched social buttons
• Use influencers to reach customers: Gwynnie Bee saw 5.85% CTR from Youtube influencer
• Reduce risk of purchase: Express Watches provides authenticity stamp
• Use events to drive sales: eCommerce companies saw a 27% spike during football world cup
• Remove distractions: Underwater Audio bump sales by 41%
• Get customers to take the next step: Kettlebell Kings’s takes advantage of user generated content to drive sales
• Use comparison data: Paperstone took out their competition with data
• Test and measure results: MVMT generated $90M in revenue in five years
• Find alternate channels: ECCO Shoes decreased customer acquisition costs by 14%
• Move past the product: Away generated $125M by standing out
• Drive inbound through content marketing: Bavarian Clockworks reached $1m in sales
• Build loyal engaged followers: Frank Body hit $20M in annual sales
• Be relevant to your customers: Society Socks improved survey response rate by 200%

Save this guide:  19 eCommerce case studies 

Learn from these 19 eCommerce case studies to see what problems they identified and how they implemented simple solutions to increase sales.

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[eCommerce case study #1] How to improve Conversion: Envelopes.com achieve 40%

A common eCommerce problem is prospects exiting the page before completing their order. As consumers, we've all done it before. So the team at Envelopes.com wanted to see if they could “rekindle the flame” and land some sales from hot leads using target followups. These are visitors who created an account and put an item in their shopping cart, so we can see some real intent to purchase at some stage down the track.

The Envelopes.com team were confident that sending targeted follow-up emails generally resulted in sales but weren’t sure of the best timeframe to send them. So they tested out email sends at two alternate time lapses post cart abandonment; the first group sent the following morning at 11 a.m. and the second group 48 hours post cart abandonment.

The emails sent at 11 a.m. the following day delivered:

• an open rate of 38.63%
• a click-through rate of 19.54% and
• a conversion rate to a sale of 27.66%

The emails sent after 48 hours delivered:

• an open rate of 38.01%
• a click-through rate of 24.71% and
• a conversion rate of 40.00%

Although sending these emails on the following day post cart abandonment had a slightly higher open rate, the most important figure, conversion to sale was significantly lower. 

Take home message

Send a follow-up email to people who abandon their carts, if you’re not already doing it. Though Envelopes.com found that 48hrs later was the best performing time, a different cadence and time lag may work better with your customer base, so test out multiple alternatives. If you're looking for some assistance on the creative messaging front, we have included the exact email creative used by Envelopes.com here:

(Envelopes.com Reminder Email 1)

(Envelopes.com Reminder Email 2)

(Envelopes.com Reminder Email 3)

[eCommerce case study #2] How to improve Communication: Budapester increased mobile conversion by 29%

As anyone in the eCommerce realm can attest to, it can be pretty disheartening when a major influx in traffic doesn’t lead to an equally major spike in sales.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to German luxury fashion retailer Budapester a few years back.

Astoundingly, the brand’s website had been seeing hundreds of thousands of visitors each month—but its conversion rates were absolutely abysmal. The problem was even worse on mobile, where Budapester’s conversion rate was less than half that of its desktop alternative.

Upon realizing something needed to be done, the company’s first order of business was to communicate its unique selling propositions and other offers and policies more clearly to its visitors. This meant displaying information regarding free delivery, shipping options , and product availability prominently within its individual product pages:

(Budapester website | Source )

Along with this, Budapester also tweaked its site’s header—specifically, decreasing the logo’s size, and adding the above-mentioned info at the very top of the page. Again, this made it much easier for visitors to learn about these policies and offers right away.

Finally, the team also tweaked the appearance of its shopping cart page. From this...

( Source | Budapester shopping cart – Before)

( Source | Budapester shopping cart - After)

Once more, the above information is now prominently displayed to the consumer—this time in two ways. In addition to the change to the header, the website now displays the company’s offer for free shipping in a green font that stands out at the bottom of the screen.

The end result of Budapester’s efforts, as Growcode explains :

“Its overall conversion rate increased by 12.5%, with its mobile conversion rate going up by nearly 30%. All in all, this equated to an additional 120,000€.”

There are three main lessons to take away, here:

Firstly, it’s essential that you communicate your value to your potential customers in a clear and concise manner. If you offer something of value—say, free shipping on orders over $100—but you don’t tell your visitors about it...how are they supposed to know?

On the other side of this, you want to avoid including redundant or unnecessary information anywhere on your eCommerce website. Not only might this be distracting to your visitors, but it also takes up physical space on your site that could have been put to better use.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that optimizing your site might not mean you need to do a complete overhaul. As was the case with Budapester, a few tiny, seemingly insignificant tweaks can be all your site needs to start generating a massive amount of conversions.

[eCommerce case study#3] Make small changes: Edible Arrangements increases same-day sales by 8% 

Edible Arrangements had a fairly typical marketing challenge . They offer customers a same-day delivery option (and have done so for years) but people weren’t taking advantage of the offer because they didn’t know about it.

To educate customers about this option they significantly increased visibility with a large banner in an extremely prominent position on the homepage, just below the navigation bar. This created urgency around the offer by featuring a countdown timer to the deadline for same day delivery. It was impossible to miss or misunderstand.

(Edible Arrangements website)

The result of this simple countdown feature? An increase in same-day sales by 8% !

You don’t need a new product to promote something. People might not know about a product or service you already have in play, so by increasing visibility to your existing audience, you may be able to snap up some quick wins. As a side note on this particular example, creating some urgency is always a good sales strategy. Encourage your audience to act now, instead of later (or never). 

[eCommerce case study #4] Make product benefits clear: Amerisleep increased checkouts by 13.9%

Online mattress retailer Amerisleep had a problem that was quite similar to Budapester’s:

The company was seeing a ton of traffic on its website, but its conversion rates were nowhere near where the team would have liked them to be.

However, with the help of Growth Rock , Amerisleep decided to take a different approach to improving its website:

Rather than adding or deleting certain information, the team decided to focus on improving the messaging of the site’s copy—in a few ways.

First, the team dug deeper into the true benefits their products provide their customers. In Amerisleep’s case, this meant going beyond promising “a good night’s sleep,” and instead focusing on how getting a good night’s sleep every night can be absolutely life-changing.

(What would you do with more energy and less pain? | Source )

Secondly, the team aimed to reduce hesitation among its visitors by addressing the importance of immediate action. Rather than discussing the above benefits in a more hypothetical manner, the site’s copy was adjusted to address the idea that every night spent tossing and turning is another night visitors will never get back.

Lastly, the team tweaked some rather ambiguous copy comparing Amerisleep’s products to its competitors’ and made it more clear.

Originally, the website had made claims such as “No mattress is more carefully engineered.” The problem, here, is that this could be interpreted as “No mattress is more carefully engineered—but many are engineered equally as carefully as ours.”

The new copy read:

“Our innovative and proprietary materials let us build one of the most comfortable mattresses ever”

Much stronger, no?

Again, these relatively minor tweaks had major implications for Amerisleep: That 13.9% increase in conversion rate we mentioned equated to millions of dollars in added revenue over the course of the next year .

The overarching takeaway here is to write your copy with your audience in mind at all times.

This means:

• Ensuring they understand the true value your product will bring to their lives, and what it will enable them to do or accomplish
• Instilling a sense of urgency in your visitors, so they not only understand what they have to gain from using your product, but also what they have to lose by not using it
• Double- (triple-, and quadruple-) checking your copy to be absolutely certain it means what you want it to mean—and that your visitors will interpret it in the same way

[eCommerce case study #5] Reduce website friction: Company Folders increase conversion by 68%

Company Folders is an established business but had a website that their CEO admitted was “obviously last year”, which is putting it gently.

The main problem they wanted to remedy was their online quote function. This is a vital step in their marketing funnel, so making the process as smooth as possible was essential to  ultimately driving more sales for the business.

This sounds a simple task but with over 15 million product combinations, the current quoting system was highly complex. Further to this, there was a very high rate of prospects dropping out of the form partially completed.

Intuitively they assumed that getting the form onto a single page would help get prospects through the process, but after surveying their best customers, they realized that a redesign was necessary. 

They took a cumbersome single step process with lots of options and broke it up into a multi-step bite size process (pictured below). Doing this resulted in a whopping 67.68% increase in total quotes .

(Company folders website)

Take home message #3

Breaking down a complicated system into manageable smaller steps can help keep people focused and increase conversion . Though additional clicks can often be seen as new opportunities to lose customers, the Company Folders experience tells us that streamlining to shorter stepped forms is the way to go right now.

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[eCommerce case study #6] Try cross selling products: Furniture retailer increased its AOV by 4.6% in 41 days

(Note: For this study, the company did not wish to be named, so we will, of course, respect their privacy)

Perhaps the only thing better than getting potential customers to convert in the first place is getting them to add even more items to their cart before converting.

Our anonymous furniture company knows this—which is why they had been aiming to cross-sell a conditioning kit to customers purchasing leather furniture from their online store.

While sales of the company’s “main” products (i.e., furniture) were pretty decent, sales of these smaller complementary items weren’t all that great. The main problem was that most customers simply weren’t even aware the company offered the conditioning kit in the first place. Basically, the only way they would be exposed to the product is if they were to actively browse for it on the company’s website.

(We should also note that the price of the item being cross-sold costs only about 6% of the company’s average order value, while still adding a ton of value to the main product. In other words, making the additional purchase should have been a no-brainer.)

Knowing they needed to do a better job promoting such smaller-ticket items, the company decided to include a call-to-action directly within the shopping cart page when customers added an applicable big-ticket item to their cart.

So, the page went from looking like this:

(Your Shopping Cart | Source )

...to looking like this:

( Your Shopping Cart | Source )

Customers were then able to add the supplementary item to their cart with a single click (by clicking the plus sign), and could also visit the smaller item’s product page by clicking anywhere else within the pink bar.

The results were nothing short of amazing: As per Growth Rock’s data , the company’s average order value had increased by $55 (4.6%) in only 41 days . This equates to an additional $180,000 in monthly revenu e!

The first takeaway, here, is that successfully cross-selling relevant items that add value to your bigger-ticket items (and that add value to your customer experience ) can have a major impact on your overall revenues.

But simply offering such supplementary products isn’t enough on its own. You also need to promote these items specifically as supplementary to the more valuable and expensive items you offer.

(For example, it’s more likely that consumers visiting a furniture eCommerce site will purchase leather cleaner if they’re in the market for leather furniture. That being the case, you’d want to focus on promoting the product specifically to these individuals.)

Going along with this, you also need to present your cross-sell offer at just the right time to get your customers to bite. Here, the company did so as visitors showed a high probability of making a large purchase — a prime moment to add extra value to their overall experience with the brand.

[eCommerce case study #7] Reduce clutter and distractions: Taloon.com ditched social buttons

Taloon.com got caught up in the trend towards social proof, with "Like” and "Share“ icons on their product pages. However, they noticed unusually low conversions on pages with those social sharing buttons. 

To test what was going on they created two variants of the same page with and without the social share icons.

(Taloon.com website)

They assumed that by de-cluttering the page, it would keep customers focused on the task at hand - checking out.

The results?

“Pages without social share icons saw an improved “add to cart” click-through by 12% ”

Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it right. Always put yourself in the mindset of your customer, and keep them focused on the main task you want them to complete. Declutter pages with unnecessary actions to focus on making the sale.

[Ecommerce case study #8] Use influencers to reach customers: Gwynnie Bee saw 5.85% CTR from Youtube influencer

By now, you’re probably well aware of how effective influencer marketing can be in spreading brand awareness and social proof, and increasing engagement among your target audience members.

A few years ago, rental clothing e-retailer Gwynnie Bee realized this exact same thing. While the team had experienced a decent amount of success using a number of other marketing strategies (such as Facebook Ads), they knew they could be generating a lot more business than they were.

So, the company partnered with Reelio to get the ball rolling.

Working with Reelio, Gwynnie Bee began digging through YouTube’s massive database of influencers in search of those who aligned with the clothing company’s target market.

(Search results for "plus size" on Youtube)

The team’s first order of business was to create a list of potential candidates who fit the “surface-level” characteristics of their target market. This meant finding influencers who were female, aged 18 or older, and who typically wore clothing of sizes 10-32.

Now, here’s where Gwynnie Bee diverged from the “typical” path most brands take. Rather than looking specifically for individuals who often worked with other fashion companies, GB also considered those whose audience overlapped with their own. This meant looking at influencers who create content related to more tangential topics, such as lifestyle, accessories, food, and more.

The team then developed guidelines for their chosen influencers, which enabled them to create content that was authentic and non-scripted—but that also aligns with Gwynnie Bee’s overall marketing goals, as well. In addition to creating content to be presented on the influencer’s channel, GB’s influencers also created a virtual “closet” on the brand’s website to showcase the specific items they loved most.

The results of Gwynnie Bee’s influencer campaigns were...well...pretty darn good. While the average click-through rate of all influencer campaigns hovers around the 2% mark, GB’s campaigns saw a CTR of 5.85% — nearly three times the average .

If you’re just getting started with influencer marketing, the main thing to focus on is finding content creators with an engaged audience full of consumers who align in some way with your own target market. They don’t have to overlap entirely, but you, of course, want to be sure that the people who end up seeing your products will have a genuine appreciation for, and interest in, your brand.

As far as content creation goes , you’ll want to provide your influencer’s with almost completely free rein in order to ensure authenticity. This will communicate to your influencer’s audience the idea that the influencer actually uses your products, and aren’t simply promoting them because they’re getting paid for it.

Finally, you might also consider inviting your influencers to create content on your channels as well as their own platforms. Again, this will prove to their audience that they truly are superfans of your brand who actively engage with everything your company has to offer.

[eCommerce case study #9] Reduce risk of purchase: Express Watches provides authenticity stamp

This is a classic problem for online stores; Do you boast the lowest price or the most authentic products ?

The team at Express Watches were debating whether to communicate a ‘lowest price guarantee’ versus a stamp of authenticity on their website. They tested variants with both, each telling a different story about the clientele: bargain hunters vs aficionados. The results were pretty surprising.

(Lowest prices vs highest authenticity)

By labeling the site with a badge of authenticity, Express Watches saw an increase in online sales of 107% . A huge differential from the price based messaging, simply from a little seal of authenticity.

 You may think you know what your audience wants, but testing out some alternate value proposition could surprise you.

[eCommerce case study #10] Use events to drive sales: eCommerce companies saw a 27% spike during football world cup

The Soccer/Football World Cup is not only the most-watched sporting event on television of the 21 st century – it is the most-watched event of any kind, period.

Needless to say, such an enormous audience makes for some major opportunities for eCommerce companies all over the world.

Of course, it also made for heft competition for brands operating in niches like sporting goods, clothing, and memorabilia.

As SEMRush explains, the brands that came out on top were the ones who:

• Increased their presence on the right channels (specifically, social media),
• Adjusted their ad copy to target soccer fans from specific nations (e.g. whose teams were making a run for the World Cup)
• Developed relevant and valuable offers to address time-sensitivity (e.g. fast and free shipping to ensure orders were received before the Wolrd Cup had ended)

The opportunistic initiatives led to some MASSIVE revenues for eCommerce companies. In Brazil, eCommerce purchases spiked by $16.6 BILLION, or 27% above the average . After Germany ended up winning, German-based eCommerce activity increased by a whopping 75%!

First and foremost – and this goes any business, online or brick-and-mortar – you need to recognize an opportunity when it comes up and strike when the iron’s hot.

With this in mind, it’s worth noting that Brazillian-based eCommerce activity dropped by 17% immediately once the national team was eliminated from the tournament.

As far as recognizing these opportunities, you’ll want to keep an eye on upcoming events – be it a sports tournament, music festival, fashion show, etc. – that relate, in some way, to your brand’s offerings.

The goal is to “piggyback” off of the hype created by these events and market your products to those who are attending or engaged with the event in some way or another.

There are two main ways to go about this:

You might simply do as the brands mentioned above did, and ramp up your marketing initiatives throughout the timespan of the event, or, if possible, reach out to the host of the event to see if they’d be interested in partnering up in some way. This might mean sponsoring the event (in lieu of upping your ad spend) or even setting up a pop-up shop at the actual event

[eCommerce case study #11] Remove distractions: Underwater Audio bump sales by 41%

Underwater Audio had a problem with visitors who were in the middle of their sales funnel, researching specific products but then dropping off at the comparison page. When they noticed this leak they decided to get to the bottom of it. 

Here are the old and new versions of the page. At first glance, they don’t look too different, but the devil is in the detail.

(Underwater Audio website page comparison)

The original one was a bit more cluttered with the table formatting breaking up the flow of information. To test what the problem was, they redesigned the comparison page to make it simpler and more streamlined.

As their CEO said:

“The (rather) unattractive table had information in terse phrases organized in no particular fashion (activity, seal, size, features, warranty, depth). The paragraphs continued below the fold and essentially repeated the table, with only a few unique additions hidden in the text. In short, it was not the most engaging page!”

The new version did away with the data tables, streamlined the text, and put everything above the fold. 

The result? The redesigned page had an increase in online sales of 40.81% .

To quote Occam's Razor, “the simplest solution is often the best” and the simpler flow worked wonders for Underwater Audio. Find pages in your pipeline where users are dropping off and see how you can simplify them to focus your customers.

[eCommerce case study #12] Get customers to take the next step: Kettlebell Kings’s takes advantage of user generated content to drive sales

In yet another case of “x isn’t working as well as we thought, let’s try something else,” the owners of fitness equipment startup Kettlebell Kings switched to a more organic approach after realizing their Google Ads campaigns were costing the company way too much money.

The team’s main focus: Instagram.

Their initiative started simply enough, creating instructional content focused on teaching their audience how to get the most out of their workout sessions. 

As engagement began to soar, the team also noticed that its customers had also begun creating their own content featuring Kettlebell Kings’ products—which led the company to begin using this UGC to their advantage.

(#kettlebellkings on Instagram | Source )

In addition to the more audience-controlled content featured in the image above (that is, content featuring Kettlebell King’s products but not published directly on the brand’s Instagram page), the team also began re-posting certain UGC on their own page. As Gwynnie Bee did with its influencers, the Kettlebell Kings team developed a list of criteria such content should follow in order to be featured—but also allowed for some creative freedom on the customer’s part, as well.

While the content being created (by both the team and their customers) did lead to an increase in brand awareness and engagement , the team took things a step further by adding calls-to-action to many of their posts. For example, many posts that featured specific products were made shoppable, while others included an option to “swipe up” to learn more, download additional content, or sign up for the company’s mailing list.

(Ketttlebell's Instagram shoppable story | Source )

While the brand’s Instagram presence has directly led to “hundreds of thousands” of dollars in revenue, Buffer reports that Kettlebell King’s social media initiatives have played a major role in the company’s rise well into the 7-figure mark .

There are a few lessons to learn here:

Success on social media requires an intensely strategic approach to content creation and presentation. It’s all about presenting your products in a way that showcases their true value to your customers, and how your customers can get this value from your products in the first place.

While user-generated content is always appreciated, that doesn’t mean you need to feature every piece of UGC that comes your way. Again, you only want to showcase content that paints your product in the best light possible, and that provides value of some kind to your audience.

Finally, while using content to enhance engagement is great and all, your main goal should be to get your audience to take “the next step.” Whether it be signing up for your newsletter, reaching out to your company for more info, or going through with an initial purchase, make sure your content prompts your potential customers to engage further with your brand.

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[eCommerce case study #13] Use comparison data: Paperstone took out their competition with data

Paperstone is a small paper company that competes with large brand big box stores like Staples and Viking. With most people defaulting to the brands they know best, Paperstone needed to find a way to leverage their strengths against the competition; lower prices. 

Rather than paying top dollar to compete for advertising attention, they simply included a comparison table on their homepage showing their pricing against that of their competitors.

(Paperstone website)

This simple table increased online sales by 10.67%! Just think about how much revenue that would mean for your business, without running any new promotion or campaign .

Assess your competition and identify your strengths. Then showcase these against your competitors’ weaknesses to make your business look like the obvious choice when compared.

[eCommerce case study #14]  Test and measure results: MVMT generated $90M in revenue in five years

As a brand new company looking to disrupt the rather saturated luxury watch market, MVMT certainly had its work cut out for them in terms of generating visibility and brand awareness.

So, the team turned to advertising via Facebook.

As far as creating content, MVMT’s approach was similar to Kettlebell Kings’: They worked within specifically-defined guidelines to ensure consistency, created a variety of content, and included clear CTAs within each post.

However, they didn’t simply begin creating brand new content for these ads. Rather, they took a look at the content that had already seen organic success, and routed ad spend directly to promoting these specific posts .

(Take a guess which one MVMT decided to promote...)

Though they had clearly figured out a way to ensure their ads would generate even more engagement (based on these previous engagement metrics), they also took things a step further by A/B testing various aspects of their ad content, from the images used to the copy of the ad.

While there are a number of lessons to take away from MVMT’s approach, here, the main thing to realize is that creating ads on any platform should never be a gamble.

MVMT could have easily created new ad content targeting its potential customers and simply hoped for the best. Instead, they used data they had already collected to inform their approach to creating Facebook Ads targeting specific audience segments. In turn, these ads were all but 

[eCommerce case study #15] Find alternate channels: ECCO Shoes decreased customer acquisition costs by 14%

While creating paid ads is more expensive than going the organic route, some paid options can end up being more (or less) costly than others.

Which is exactly why ECCO Shoes decided to partner with Digital Gearbox while switching from using text-based Google Ads to using image-based Google Shopping Ads. 

The first step of the process was to determine which specific products to focus their ad budget on, as well as which audience(s) to target. While the team would end up creating ad campaigns for all of the brand’s products, the initial focus was on getting top-sellers in front of the right potential customers.

The team then developed and optimized their product feed to ensure that any and all necessary information was included within their ads and product pages. This information includes product specs, product images, and any other additional info (such as shipping charges and return policies).

After the ad campaigns went live, the team then shifted into “experimental mode,” where they assessed the performance of each ad and ad campaign, making ongoing adjustments as necessary. In addition to continuous optimization of the product feed and ad content, this also meant adjusting bidding and targeting definitions, as well.

Overall, ECCO’s Google Shopping initiatives proved to be much more cost-effective than text-based ads, as the company’s cost of customer acquisition dropped by an amazing 14% . 

The main lesson here is that eCommerce companies with physical products should absolutely look into advertising via Google Shopping.

Google Shopping allows you to showcase much more information in one place than most other forms of advertising (especially text-based Google Ads). In addition to being able to include product specs and service-related info, the inclusion of product imagery alone is enough for Shopping ads to be considered more effective than their text-based relative.

[eCommerce case study #16] Move past the product: Away generated $125M by standing out

As we’ve discussed at length before , Away is the essentially the byproduct of co-founder Jen Rubio’s frustrating experience with an overly-expensive and not-so-durable piece of luggage.

While it would be easy enough for her and partner Steph Korey to simply develop a more sturdy and affordable alternative product to base their new company around, they realized this alone wouldn’t be enough to get their foot in the door in an already saturated market.

Instead, they positioned Away not as just a luggage company, but as a brand focused on all things travel. 

Essentially, their reasoning came down to the fact that luggage is more of a means to an end than an end in itself. 

As Rubio explains,

"Even before we were like 'let's choose luggage,' we were talking about editorial content and all we can do in the travel space. We see the long-term potential for Away to be much, much more than just selling luggage."

This outlook led to a number of content-related opportunities for the team at Away. Instead of creating content centered around luggage (which, let’s be serious, probably wouldn’t be all that engaging), they created blog posts, podcasts, and even a physical magazine focused on the lifestyle behind luggage and travel.

This enabled the company to stand out in a crowded market, and provide value to their target audience in a way no other luggage brand does. This, in turn, led to massive engagement—and absolutely massive growth for the company, as well.

The take home message here touches on the point we mentioned earlier when discussing Amerisleep’s shift in copywriting strategies:

It’s not about what your product is, so much as what it allows your customers to do, that makes them value your brand.

Rubio and Korey took this idea and ran with it, creating a variety of content to help their audience get more value out of their travel experiences across the board. For them, it’s more important to promote the lifestyle their product is a part of—not just promoting the product itself.

Do you want your target consumers to purchase your products? Of course. But, as Away proves, this can be done in a way so that your promotional materials actually provide value to your audience—and don’t come off as “salesy.”

[eCommerce case study #17] Drive inbound through content marketing: Bavarian Clockworks reached $1m in sales

If you read that headline and your jaw dropped, get ready for another shocker:

With the help of CanIRank’s services , the team at Bavarian Clockworks reached this mark as a brand new company with essentially zero initial following and a very limited marketing budget.

First things first, the team needed to create some high-quality, valuable content for its intended audience. While they, of course, focused on creating instructional and informational content on topics like clock care and repair, they also created content on more tangential topics such as German culture and European travel, as well.

Having a limited marketing budget, they then aimed to promote their content and brand via organic means, such as guest posting and giving interviews to be published on related sites. This enabled the brand to gain some much-needed visibility on established websites with an engaged and relevant following.

The final piece of the puzzle came in the form of technical, on-site SEO. This involved optimizing the organizational structure of the site’s content, creating interlinks between blog posts, and enhancing site loading time.

(Bavarian Clockworks progress graph)

The results speak for themselves: Bavarian Clockworks ended up hitting the 7-figure mark a mere three years from their humble beginnings .

Perhaps the main thing to take away from Bavarian Clockworks’ success story is that generating an enormous following via organic means is absolutely still possible.

While it’s not exactly easy to do so—and definitely won’t happen overnight—startups on a strict budget might want to consider focusing on building an organic following before diving into the world of paid advertising. Not only is it more cost-effective, but it also inherently allows you to build connections with more established brands that can help you grow well into the future.

That being the case, growing an audience via organic means isn’t an “if you build it, they will come” type deal. You’ll need to do a bit of legwork in order to gain traction.

As the team at Bavarian Clockworks did, this means:

• Creating interesting, engaging, and evergreen content that your target audience will find incredibly valuable
• Partnering with established companies and organizations to help promote your content to relevant audiences
• Providing your new audience with numerous opportunities to engage further with your brand

[eCommerce case study #18] Build loyal engaged followers: Frank Body hit $20M in annual sales 

We’ve talked about Frank Body’s meteoric rise to success before —and with good reason.

After all, the beauty industry is already saturated as it is. So it’s pretty crazy to think that a newcomer to the niche would be able to crack $20 million in annual revenue in less than four years.

While (as we mention in our full-length case study) the brand has done a number of things to make this happen, it’s worth pointing out that all of their efforts circle around one main premise:

Creating a community of individuals who feel free to let their guard down, have some fun, and just be themselves.

Even their influencers get in on the action:

(Aviva's Instagram promoting Frank Body)

Now, this might not sound like that big of a deal; a lot of companies are falling back on the “be yourself” motif nowadays. 

But, remember: Frank Body is a beauty retailer. In that industry, the message behind most brands’ marketing campaigns is “use our product to look like a Hollywood star instead of plain ol’ you.”

Frank Body is all about allowing their customers to look how they want to look—not how they think they’re “supposed” to look. 

It’s this fundamental position that has allowed the brand to grow a following of over 600,000 people, and to reach well into the seven-figure mark in a mere four years

The main message to take away from Frank Body’s strategy, here, is to truly understand who your target customers really are before you build your brand around them.

While this piece of advice isn’t exactly some carefully-guarded secret or anything, the reality is that most brands think they’re marketing to their target audience, when really, they’re marketing to a caricature of them . 

In many cases, this is because brands simply follow the same path others in their niche have before them. While there’s nothing wrong with doing so if it works for your brand, there are other times where you’d be better off bucking the trend and going your own way. 

For Frank Body, this meant building a brand around a community of people who use beauty products to show off their natural selves, not hide them. While there’s no way of knowing for sure, it’s rather safe to say the company probably wouldn’t have experienced the same amount of success had it gone the typical marketing route most beauty companies typically do.  

While this piece isn’t exactly some carefully-guarded secret or anything, the reality is that most brands think they’re marketing to their target audience, when really they’re marketing to a caricature of them . 

[eCommerce case study #19] Be relevant to your customers: Society Socks improved survey response rate by 200%

We’ve mentioned a few times now the importance of engaging with your audience to gather feedback and make improvements to your products and services.

But the fact is, there’s no guarantee your customers will take it upon themselves to provide this feedback in the first place. Even if you actively reach out to them, the odds of them not responding are still greater than the chances of them getting back to you.

Knowing this, the team at Society Socks worked to develop a collection of user-friendly surveys targeting consumers at various stages of the sales funnel and buyer’s journey. Their goal was to ensure that each recipient received a survey that was 100% relevant to their experiences with the brand, and also that each survey was incredibly easy to complete.

(Society Soda feedback)

As co-founder Filip Pejic explains:

"Our current campaigns are set up at various stages including Post-Purchase, Mid Subscription and at Cancellation. We’ve integrated the solution into our email system to send automated flows depending on our customers’ stage in the buying process. This allows us to gain a ton of feedback at every point in a customer’s journey and control the number of surveys they receive."

Society Socks also took a look at the more logistical aspects of survey delivery, such as delivery method and timing. This ensured that their audience would receive the surveys on the optimal channel (in this case, email) at a time in which they were most likely to respond.

The most obvious takeaway here, of course, is that you need to learn as much as you can about your customers’ expectations and experiences with your brand. 

As Feedier explains, this means defining or determining:

• Your various customer personas and segments
• The aspects of your products (and overall service) each persona values most
• The aspects each persona wishes could be improved

As we’ve said before, gleaning this information (and more) from your audience will allow you to make improvements to your products and services that actually matter to the people who keep your company in business.

Schedule a Free Demo Today! 

Here’s what you can expect:

• Walkthrough: An introduction to the Core dna platform. 
• Access to a free trial: Free trial access to the platform to test all the features.  

Hailing from Ireland, Paul is a fan of good food and coffee. For Core dna he’s responsible for Partnerships both with agencies and 3 rd  party integrators.  

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15 Best Ecommerce Case Studies to Learn From (2024)

Inspiration. 

This word is often repeated by successful entrepreneurs when they’re describing their way to the top. And it’s a powerful word. 

The best way to succeed in business is to learn from the ones who already achieved that. Get inspired by their ideas, ups and downs, and learn more about their approach to overcoming obstacles. 

That’s why we decided to gather 15 inspiring ecommerce case studies that every marketer should learn from. 

Below, you’ll find inspiring stories of successful online stores. Who knows, maybe one day your company will get on such a list.

In this article we’ll go through the following case studies:

• How Ad Hoc Atelier boosted conversions using live chat
• Dollar Shave Club—the secret behind their marketing success
• Procosmet boosts lead generation after installing Tidio
• Glossier’s way to become a $1.2 billion company
• Shockbyte slashes response times with Tidio chatbots
• How Gymshark bulked up into a $1B+ brand
• How Lunya achieved $25M revenue
• Key factors of Sephora’s online store success
• Allbirds’s way to become a billion-dollar sneaker brand
• How Warby Parker reached a $B valuation 
• Story of Happy Box’s online store success
• Amerisleep’s approach to increase checkouts by 14%
• How Envelopes.Com leveraged checkout conversions
• How Beardbrand established their earnings at $120,000 per month
• How Frank Body achieved $20M in annual sales by investing in content marketing

Boost sales in your ecommerce store with chatbots

If you are interested in more insights about ecommerce businesses, be sure to check out the following articles:

• 10 Best Practices for Ecommerce Customer Service
• 10+ Must-Know Ecommerce Statistics [Report]
• 8 Top Ecommerce Platforms Compared & Reviewed

Before we start exploring the best ecommerce case studies, let’s take a step back and answer a simple question—

What is a case study in ecommerce?

In the context of ecommerce, a case study refers to an in-depth analysis of a particular company, project, or situation related to the online retail industry. It involves examining a specific scenario, identifying the challenges, exploring the strategies used to overcome the obstacles, and evaluating the outcomes.

Here’s an example of a case study. This one is about the growth possibilities that Lyro, new conversational AI , can bring to small and medium ecommerce businesses.

A case study in ecommerce typically focuses on real-life examples to provide insights into various aspects of an online business. These include marketing, customer service, logistics, technology implementation, and overall business performance. As such, these studies often highlight successful ecommerce companies or initiatives, showcasing best practices, innovative approaches, and lessons learned.

Having all the basic information covered, let’s jump to the main topic of the article—examples of the best ecommerce case studies.

15 ecommerce case studies: examples and descriptions

Each of the ecommerce business cases discussed below offers unique insights into how to thrive in the ever-evolving landscape of the industry. So, prepare yourself for a series of enlightening experiences and transformative strategies that could very well inspire the next big thing in your own ecommerce venture.

These case studies on ecommerce brands showcase a wide range of achievements, innovative strategies, and effective solutions that have helped businesses attain tremendous success in their respective sectors.

1. How Ad Hoc Atelier boosted conversions using live chat

Ad Hoc Atelier is an Italian ecommerce platform offering exclusive clothing collections and accessories. The company was founded in 2011 and, during its development path, decided to use live chat tools to increase sales. 

More than satisfying. With the help of live chat software , the company managed to increase the conversion rate from 0.35% to 0.9% . Moreover, they reduced cart abandonment rate from 83% to 73% and decreased the average response time from 3h to 1 minute .

The biggest challenge that Ad Hoc Atelier had faced was that more than 4 out of 5 carts on the website were abandoned, which is higher than the industry average — 70% . This was caused by the long response times, cold and generic emails, and the fact that people didn’t want to communicate through phone calls.

The company decided to change that and focus on a more personalized approach to customers, direct messaging, and short response time. What was the outcome?

• Boost in customer engagement

The Ad Hoc Atelier team decided to add a live chat button to their ecommerce website to help visitors through their buyer’s journey. Thanks to that, they were able to recreate the experience of an assistant coming over when you walk into the physical store to help with some suggestions. 

This replication of the physical shopping experience in the online store led the company to improve their customer satisfaction and conversion rates. 

• Goodbye to abandoned carts

The team defeated the worst nightmare of every ecommerce owner — abandoned carts . And achieved that with the help of sales chatbots . 

Their shopping cart abandonment rate dropped by 10%.

• Slashed response time

With the help of live chat tools, the team managed to respond to their customers within a minute at any time of the day. Thanks to that, the company makes the most out of the traffic on its website. Also, live chat helps them increase conversion rate, catch new selling opportunities, and maintain a high quality of every conversation. 

Use chatbots to generate more leads for your online store

Read more: This is only a short description of what Ad Hoc Atelier achieved thanks to Tidio tools. Be sure to check out the full case study to get details of how the company increased the conversion rate with live chat and chatbot solutions.

2. Dollar Shave Club—the secret behind their marketing success

Dollar Shave Club is a subscription-based ecommerce company that primarily focuses on providing men’s grooming products. The company was founded in 2011 with the goal of offering affordable, high-quality razors and other personal care products directly to consumers.

The company is one of the most famous D2C (direct-to-consumer) brands in the world and surely deserves that status. Once they published the video “Our blades are f***ing great”, it became viral within just a few days!

And, although the video is from 2012, Dollar Shave Club is still using this slogan. Just look at their website.

But only one catchy slogan won’t make your company a successful business. So, what lies behind the massive success of Dollar Shave Club? Let’s take a closer look at three essential points of this ecommerce marketing case study.

• Perfectly prepared unique value proposition (UVP)

Dollar Shave Club emphasized its value proposition of providing high-quality razors at an affordable price, delivered conveniently to customers’ doors. They addressed the pain points of their target audience by offering a cost-effective alternative to expensive razor brands and the inconvenience of in-store purchases.

• Subscription model

Dollar Shave Club’s subscription model allowed customers to conveniently receive razor refills on a regular basis, eliminating the hassle of remembering to buy new razors. This model not only ensured customer loyalty but also provided recurring revenue for the company. 

• Data-driven marketing

The business also utilized data and analytics to optimize marketing efforts. This is essential while streamlining marketing or sales funnels—in fact, 77% of professionals say they track their acquisition and sales funnel performance as part of their analytics. The Dollar Shave Club team tracked customer behaviors, preferences, and purchasing patterns to personalize marketing messages, improve targeting, and refine their overall marketing strategy.

All these strategies helped the Dollar Shave Club team build brand awareness, attract new prospects, retain customers, and establish the company as a major player in the men’s grooming industry.

3. Procosmet boosts lead generation after installing chatbots

Procosmet is a luxury brand offering haircare and beauty treatment products for a variety of needs. These include shampoos, conditioners, and vial treatments that are 100% natural and made with the purest of essential oils. 

The business started with an idea of a blue glass vial for essential oils and active principles. Procosmet is now divided into two brands, Napura and MTJ, which create care products inspired by nature.

Thanks to chatbots and live chat solutions provided by Tidio, Procosmet managed to significantly improve its main success indicators. These include five times higher lead generation per month and a 27% increase in conversion rates . On top of that, one-third of their revenue is now made thanks to Tidio tools!

But how did they achieve that? Let’s get into the details.

The main challenge the Procosmet team faced was managing orders. Such tasks as canceling, modifying, and refunding were very time-consuming for support agents. That’s because they had to do it “manually”—ask for the order number, open the Shopify store, search for the order, and make the requested changes. 

That’s why the Procosmet team decided to let the automation tools help their representatives with repetitive tasks. And it turned out to be a great decision. 

• Boost in sales

Before installing Tidio on their website, Procosmet used to gather about 10–30 leads per month. But, when they switched to Tidio as their customer service automation provider, the number of leads increased to over 100 prospects!

Also, with the help of the newsletter chatbot and Tidio’s email marketing tool, the company achieved, just out of a one-off campaign, a return on investment of over a 1,000EUR.

• Stable conversion rates

Procosmet also struggled with a lot of spikes in the conversion metrics. That was problematic especially when planning sales goals for the next months, analyzing marketing campaigns, etc. But once they implemented Tidio+ , the problem disappeared. 

Read more: Be sure to check out the full story to learn about all the benefits Procosmet experienced using Tidio .

4. Glossier’s way to become a $1.2 billion company

Glossier is a beauty and skincare brand that has gained popularity for its minimalist and inclusive approach to beauty products. Founded by Emily Weiss in 2014, Glossier aims to create a more personalized and simplified beauty experience for its customers.

But how did Glossier manage to grow that much?

Let’s get into details of one of the most inspiring ecommerce conversion rate optimization case studies.

One key factor in Glossier’s success was its D2C model. This strategy was powered by cutting out traditional retail channels and selling directly to customers through its website and physical stores. Thanks to that approach, Glossier was able to maintain control over the entire customer experience and gather valuable data on consumer preferences.

• Strong presence in social media

Glossier also prioritized building a strong online community and cultivating a sense of inclusivity. Through social media platforms, particularly Instagram, Glossier encouraged user-generated content and engaged with followers, creating a sense of authenticity and trust. This approach helped the brand to resonate with millennial and Gen Z consumers who were seeking a more personalized and relatable beauty experience.

• Focus on customer feedback

Furthermore, Glossier emphasized the importance of customer feedback and product iteration. The company actively listened to its customers, taking their suggestions and needs into account when developing new products or improving existing ones. This iterative approach allowed Glossier to continuously evolve its offerings and maintain a loyal customer base.

As a result, Glossier successfully carved out a niche in the beauty industry and achieved remarkable growth, ultimately reaching a valuation of $1.2 billion . But it wouldn’t happen if not for the masterly combination of a strong D2C strategy, a focus on community building, an inclusive and relatable brand image, and a commitment to customer feedback.

5. Shockbyte slashes response times with Tidio chatbots

Shockbyte is a leading game server provider known particularly for Minecraft hosting. The company provides high-performance server hosting services at affordable prices to gamers and server owners globally. Apart from Minecraft, Shockbyte also offers server hosting for games like ARK: Survival Evolved, Rust, and more.

But how did Shockbyte benefit from using chatbot solutions? Here are the results of one of our own ecommerce digital marketing case studies:

• Focus on increasing customer satisfaction 

First and foremost, the Shockbyte team decided to put an emphasis on customer satisfaction. In fact, they managed to boost this metric by 16% within the first few months of using the tool. 

"Our customer satisfaction saw a healthy 16% increase—this is despite us having some of our busiest months this year." Mitch Smith Founder of Shockbyte

• Slashing response time

You won’t build a positive brand experience if you make your clients wait hours for an answer. And Shockbyte knows that. By implementing a chatbot widget on their website, they managed to decrease the waiting times by a whopping 26%. 

It was possible thanks to the “nature” of chatbots and support requests. Significant part of the questions applied to the same issue and could be solved with the same answer. And that’s the place where chatbots come into play. They allow companies to respond to the most commonly asked questions automatically and within seconds.

• Sales boosted by bots

The Shockbyte team decided to go further and use conversational bots to increase sales. With the help of chatbots, they managed to approach potential customers browsing specific product pages. Also, supported by AI chatbot automation , they tested out a variety of sales tactics powered by AI to find the most efficient way of gathering prospects.

And last but not least, by using sophisticated analytics tools, the Shockbyte team managed to categorize chats with their customers. Thanks to that, support and sales agents are provided with the essential customer information pack when they enter the conversation with them.

Read more: Read the full case study in which we describe Shockbyte’s success story . 

6. How Gymshark bulked up into a $1B+ brand

Gymshark is a fitness apparel and accessories brand that has gained significant popularity in the sports industry. Founded in 2012 by Ben Francis and his friends, Gymshark has become a global brand known for its stylish and functional activewear.

One of the key factors in Gymshark’s success was its ability to tap into the fitness and wellness trend. The brand started selling gym apparel from Ben’s garage but quickly gained traction by catering to the fitness community’s needs for stylish, functional, and affordable workout clothing.

But what made them so successful in the competitive fitness industry? Let’s take a closer look at one of the most intriguing ecommerce case study examples.

• Perfectly tailored marketing strategy

Gymshark’s marketing strategy played a crucial role in its growth. The brand leveraged social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube to showcase its products’ functionalities and engage with its target audience.

Gymshark’s user-generated content (UGC), featuring fitness enthusiasts wearing their clothing, created a strong sense of community and authenticity. This approach resonated with fitness enthusiasts who felt a connection to the brand and its values.

• Collaborations with influencers

Influencer marketing also played a significant role in Gymshark’s rise to success. The brand collaborated with fitness influencers and athletes who aligned with its brand image and target market.

The partnerships with influencers helped Gymshark reach a wider audience and gain exposure in the fitness community.

• Agility and adaptability of the brand

Furthermore, Gymshark’s agility and adaptability were also key factors in its success. The brand consistently listened to its customers, actively seeking feedback and making improvements based on their input. This iterative approach allowed Gymshark to continuously evolve its product range, expanding beyond gym wear to include athleisure and lifestyle apparel.

Overall, Gymshark’s success as a $1B+ brand can be attributed to its strategic marketing efforts, strong online presence, influencer collaborations, commitment to its target audience, and adaptability in response to customer feedback. By effectively tapping into the fitness and wellness market and creating a community-driven brand, Gymshark established itself as a prominent player in the industry.

7. Lunya, a luxury loungewear brand that achieved $25M revenue

Lunya is a clothing brand that aims to redefine comfort and style for modern women. Founded by Ashley Merrill in 2014, Lunya focuses on creating high-quality, functional, and aesthetically pleasing sleepwear and loungewear that can be worn both inside and outside the home.

So, what makes Lunya’s ecommerce store so successful? Let’s dive into more details of this ecommerce case study. 

• Well-planned D2C model

Lunya’s D2C model played a significant role in its revenue growth. By bypassing traditional retail channels and selling directly to consumers through its website, Lunya was able to control the entire customer experience . This approach allowed the brand to build direct relationships with customers , gather data on teams’ preferences, and provide personalized shopping experiences. The D2C model also allowed Lunya to maintain higher profit margins to reinvest in product development and marketing.

• Astonishing customer experience

Additionally, Lunya placed a strong emphasis on customer experience and engagement. The brand prioritized exceptional customer service, providing detailed product information, size guides, and responsive support. Lunya actively sought customer feedback, making adjustments to its products and services based on the insights provided. This customer-centric approach fostered loyalty and word-of-mouth recommendations, driving revenue growth.

Read more: Learn how to build an excellent customer experience strategy to provide the best possible shopping experience. 

• Effective marketing strategy

Lunya also leveraged digital marketing strategies effectively. The brand utilized social media platforms, influencer collaborations, content marketing, and SEO to build brand awareness and engage with its target audience. By partnering with influencers and leveraging user-generated content, Lunya expanded its reach and credibility, particularly among millennial and Gen Z consumers.

Read more: Read more about improving customer engagement with dedicated customer service chatbots .

Through a combination of the featured tactics, Lunya achieved $25 million in revenue. The brand focused on delivering a luxurious and elevated sleep experience, alongside ensuring a strong online presence and customer engagement. This allowed Lunya to carve out a niche in the sleepwear market and attract a loyal customer base.

8. Key factors of Sephora’s online store success

Sephora is a leading multinational beauty retailer known for its wide range of cosmetics, skincare, haircare, and fragrance products. It was founded in France in 1969 and has since become a global beauty destination with stores in numerous countries. Sephora offers an extensive selection of beauty brands, including both established names and emerging, independent companies.

The story behind Sephora’s online store success lies in its strategic approach to embracing ecommerce and catering to the needs of their beauty-savvy customers. Now, let’s go through the three key factors that contributed to Sephora’s online store success. 

• Seamless user experience

Sephora prioritized creating a seamless and user-friendly online shopping experience. Their online store was designed with intuitive navigation, comprehensive product information, and personalized recommendations. They optimized the website for different devices and platforms (iOS, Android), ensuring a consistent and convenient experience for customers.

• Social media engagement

The beauty giant’s team actively engaged with their customers on social media platforms, creating a community of beauty enthusiasts. Sephora responded to customer queries, shared user-generated content, and provided real-time updates on promotions and new releases through social channels. This social media presence amplified brand visibility and fostered a sense of connection with the audience.

Read more: Learn how to automate customer service activities like answering product-related questions on social media with the help of conversational tools.

• Continuous innovation and adaptation

The brand also consistently embraced technological advancements and market trends to enhance the online store. Sephora introduced features such as augmented reality, chatbots , and personalized product recommendations to stay ahead of the competition and provide a cutting-edge shopping experience.

And there you have it—multiple strategies Sephora used to successfully build a thriving online store.

The strategic approach has enabled the company to cater to the evolving needs of beauty enthusiasts, providing a convenient, personalized, and engaging shopping experience that sets them apart in the industry.

9. Allbirds’s way to become a billion-dollar sneaker brand

Allbirds is a footwear company that specializes in producing sustainable and comfortable shoes. They are known for their minimalist designs and use of eco-friendly materials.

Allbirds achieved remarkable growth, going from a small startup to a billion-dollar sneaker brand in just four years. But how did they do it?

Let’s take a closer look at the foundations of their huge blast.

• Unique product offering

Allbirds differentiated itself by creating comfortable, eco-friendly sneakers made from renewable materials like merino wool and eucalyptus fibers. The brand combined sustainable practices with minimalist design, appealing to consumers seeking both style and eco solutions.

• Word-of-mouth marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful tool for staying on top of the numerous ecommerce brands in your niche. And Allbirds knows that. The brand focused on creating exceptional products that generated positive customer experiences, leading to enthusiastic recommendations and social media buzz. Influencers and celebrities also played a role in promoting Allbirds, further amplifying its brand awareness.

• Innovative marketing strategies

The company employed creative marketing strategies to stand out in a competitive market. For instance, they used humor and storytelling in their advertising campaigns (on Google Ads, social media platforms), highlighting the unique features and benefits of their products. Allbirds also leveraged social media platforms to engage with shoppers, share their sustainability mission, and showcase user-generated content.

And here we are. By combining the above strategies and tactics, Allbirds experienced exceptional growth, becoming a billion-dollar sneaker brand within a short span of four years.

10. How Warby Parker reached a $1.7B valuation

Warby Parker is an eyewear company that specializes in offering stylish and affordable prescription glasses, sunglasses, and contact lenses. The company disrupted the traditional eyewear market with a unique direct-to-consumer model, including a Home Try-On program. Also, this eyewear mogul seamlessly merges e-commerce with select physical storefronts, emphasizing both fashion and social responsibility.

Here are the key factors that contributed to its success.

• Seamless online experience

Warby Parker prioritized creating a seamless online shopping experience by investing in user-friendly website design. The brand also offered virtual try-on tools that allowed customers to verify multiple frames before making a purchase decision. The combination of convenience and a hassle-free shopping process contributed to its success as an ecommerce platform.

• Customer-centric approach

Warby Parker revolutionized the eyewear industry with its customer-centric approach by introducing a Home Try-On program, allowing individuals to test frames at home before buying. They combined transparent, affordable pricing with a commitment to social responsibility through their “Buy a Pair, Give a Pair” initiative.

Even as a digital-first brand, they seamlessly integrated brick-and-mortar experiences, ensuring personalized service at every touchpoint.

Read more: Discover how to measure customer satisfaction in 6 easy steps .

• Data-driven decision-making process

Warby Parker leveraged data analytics to make informed business decisions. The company collected and analyzed customer data to gain insights into client preferences, purchasing behaviors, and market trends. This allowed Warby Parker to optimize its product offerings, marketing strategies, and inventory management.

Read more: If you’re looking for customer database software , be sure to check out our list of the best solutions in this category.

By combining an effective business model with a strong brand identity, a customer-centric approach, Warby Parker achieved a $1.7 billion valuation and established itself as a leading ecommerce site in the eyewear industry.

11. Story of Happy Box’s online store success

This case study for ecommerce presents a story of Happy Box —a bespoke gifting company. They create expertly crafted gifts, sent in a few clicks. The company significantly increased its online store revenue by implementing various strategies that resulted in a tenfold growth.

But how did they achieve it?

• Enhanced customer support and communication

The company prioritized providing exceptional customer support. Happy Socks improved their response time to inquiries and ensured effective communication throughout the customer journey . This focus on offering quality support helped to build trust and loyalty, contributing to increased online sales.

• Implementation of customer retention strategies

In addition, Happy Box implemented strategies to retain existing customers and encourage repeat purchases. They offered loyalty programs, exclusive discounts, and special promotions to reward customer loyalty. By prioritizing customer retention , Happy Box generated a consistent stream of revenue from repeat customers.

• Continuous testing and optimization

The company conducted testing and optimization to improve its online store performance. They analyzed customer data, monitored their ecommerce conversion rates , tracked landing pages performance, and implemented changes based on data-driven insights. This iterative approach allowed them to continually enhance their website and marketing strategies to maximize revenue.

By implementing all these strategies and managing the omnichannel marketing project, Happy Box created a $100M dollar business. Their focus on improving the customer experience, expanding product offerings, and implementing effective marketing strategies contributed to their significant growth and success.

12. Amerisleep’s approach to increase checkouts by 14%

Amerisleep is a well-known mattress and sleep products brand. They specialize in designing and manufacturing high-quality mattresses, adjustable beds, pillows, and other sleep-related accessories. The company is committed to providing clients with a comfortable and restful sleep experience by combining innovative technologies, eco-friendly materials, and a focus on customer satisfaction.

Thanks to their inventive approach to presenting the benefits of their products, they managed to increase checkouts in their online store by 14% .

But was it the only reason for their massive success?

Of course not. Let’s dive into the foundations of Amerisleep’s great results in the ecommerce industry. 

• Cart abandonment recovery

Amerisleep implemented shopping cart abandonment recovery strategies, such as sending automated email reminders to customers who added items to their cart but did not complete the purchase. These emails can include personalized incentives, such as discounts or free shipping, to entice customers to return and finalize their order.

• Mobile optimization

Given the increasing prevalence of mobile shopping, Amerisleep also optimized its checkout process for mobile devices. They implemented a responsive design, ensuring that their website and checkout pages are user-friendly and visually appealing on smartphones and tablets.

• A/B testing and conversion optimization

Amerisleep employed A/B testing and conversion rate optimization techniques. This involved experimenting with different design elements, popup ads, layout variations, copywriting, and pricing strategies to identify the most effective combinations.

It’s important to note that without access to specific details of Amerisleep’s strategies, the above points are speculative but commonly utilized practices in ecommerce to increase checkout rates. The actual methods employed by Amerisleep may vary, but these general approaches can serve as potential insights into their success.

13. How Envelopes.com leveraged checkout conversions

Envelopes.com is an online retailer that specializes in selling a wide variety of envelopes, packaging items, office supplies, and other related products. The company serves individuals, businesses, organizations, and event planners who require a wide selection of products.

Their offerings encompass both standard and special envelopes, along with customization services, to meet various mailing, packaging, and stationery needs.

The company achieved a 40% increase in conversions . How?

Let’s find out in this case study of ecommerce.

• Abandoned cart emails

Envelopes.com implemented an effective abandoned cart email strategy. When a customer adds items to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, the company sends follow-up emails reminding them of the items left behind. These emails include persuasive messaging, personalized recommendations, and sometimes offered incentives like discounts or free shipping to encourage customers to complete their checkout.

• Personalized recommendations and cross-selling/upselling

The use of data to provide personalized product recommendations significantly improved the shopping experience, leading to increased conversions . Additionally, by implementing cross-selling and upselling strategies, Envelopes.com was able to boost the average order value (AOV), leading to increased revenue.

• A/B testing and optimization of email campaigns

Envelopes.com continuously conducted A/B testing and optimization to improve their follow-up strategies. They experimented with different email templates, subject lines, incentives, and timing to identify the most effective approaches that would attract their subscribers and new customers. By analyzing data and implementing changes based on the insights, they refined their follow-up tactics to maximize conversions.

These strategies helped them recover potentially lost sales, foster customer loyalty, and drive revenue growth.

Read more: Check out the most effective follow-up email techniques you can use to increase your conversion and email open rate.

14. How Beardbrand established their earnings at $120,000 per month

Beardbrand is a grooming company that focuses on providing high-quality products for beard and facial hair care. They specialize in offering a range of grooming products, including beard oils, beard balms, beard washes, mustache waxes, and grooming tools.

The company achieved a monthly revenue of $120,000 by leveraging its unique branding. Here’s how their branding efforts contributed to their success. 

• Niche focus and embracing beard culture

Beardbrand found a unique niche within the grooming market and capitalized on it— beard care. By centering their brand around the celebration of beard culture, they positioned themselves as more than just a grooming product company. By doing this, the beardbrand team created a strong brand identity and connected with a dedicated audience on a deeper level.

• Authenticity and storytelling

Beardbrand’s branding emphasized authenticity and storytelling. They shared the personal journey and experiences of their founder, Eric Bandholz, in building the brand and embracing the beard lifestyle. This storytelling approach resonated with customers, creating a sense of connection and trust.

• Engaging content marketing and community building

Beardbrand heavily invested in content marketing, creating engaging, informative, and entertaining content about beard care, grooming, and lifestyle topics. This not only positioned them as a trusted authority but also drove customer engagement. Simultaneously, they actively built a community around their brand, encouraging user-generated content, feedback, and social media interaction.

The above tactics and activities resulted in a loyal base of customers and brand advocates, significantly contributing to their revenue growth. All these different branding efforts coupled with quality products and engaging marketing strategies, contributed to their huge monthly revenue.

15. How Frank Body achieved $20M in annual sales by investing in content marketing

Frank Body is an Australian-based skincare company that gained popularity for its range of coffee-based body and skincare products. The company focuses on creating natural and cruelty-free products designed to exfoliate, hydrate, and nourish the skin.

What’s interesting is that they achieved a whooping $20M in annual sales by making significant investments in content marketing. So, what exactly did they do?

• Engaging and shareable content

Frank Body created content that was entertaining, relatable, and shareable. They developed a distinctive brand voice that resonated with their target audience, primarily millennials. Their strategy included blog posts, social media content, and videos that focused on promoting self-care, body positivity, and natural beauty. These activities played a significant role in attracting and retaining their target audience.

• Educational and informative content

The company also used content marketing to educate and inform its audience about the benefits of its products and the importance of skincare. They provided valuable tips, tutorials, and guides on topics such as exfoliation, skincare routines, and ingredient benefits. This approach positioned them as experts in the skincare industry, building trust and credibility among their customers.

• User-generated content and influencer partnerships

Encouraging user-generated content and partnering with influencers greatly enhanced the brand’s reach and credibility. By urging customers to share their experiences with the products and by collaborating with influencers, Frank Body was able to generate authentic engagement, social proof, and increased visibility among new audiences.

All in all, Frank Body’s content marketing efforts not only generated brand awareness but also built a loyal customer base that resonated with their values and product offerings.

Ecommerce case studies—key takeaways

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to growing a successful ecommerce business. As demonstrated in their respective case studies, the companies highlighted above achieved ecommerce success through various strategies. 

No matter if the strategies included revamping of copy, personalizing customer messages, or focusing on brand building, experimentation played a major role for most of these brands.. Testing changes and tracking their results led most of these companies to find what worked for them—something you, too, can apply to your business.

And though experimentation may be daunting, consider how your failures can point your business in the direction of growth. Whether you make small tweaks or large adjustments, the room for error also means room for opportunity.

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Content Writer at Tidio. One of those lucky people who turned their hobby into a job. Krzysztof loves wordplay, so beating him in Scrabble is almost impossible.

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Ecommerce: 10 mini case studies of successful marketing for online shopping

This article was originally published in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter .

While ecommerce has been growing rapidly, it still only comprised a small percentage of overall retail sales. For example, in the U.S., on an adjusted basis, ecommerce accounted for 11.8% of all retail sales in the first quarter of 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau .

That was for Q1. Then in Q2, the number jumped to 16.1% – a 44.5% change from the same quarter a year ago. To put that number in perspective, Q2 2019 grew “only” 13.8% over Q2 2018.

What changed? The COVID-19 pandemic, of course. Even with ecommerce’s double-digit growth over the years, brick-and-mortar retail still had many advantages over ecommerce. Some products (like groceries) are hard to ship and easier and less expensive to buy in person. Brick-and-mortar retail has an experiential draw that ecommerce can’t match – from trying on a shirt to being wowed by an in-store (and Instagram-worthy) display. The ability to make a human connection and learn about a product or service.

Suddenly everything changed. That human connection became a detriment. And a no-touch version of goods and even services was preferable if not essential.

And that’s where we are in 2020 folks. A sad statement on human existence, yes. But as marketers, we must answer a practical question. How do we ensure our companies can continue to create value for customers in this changed world? Ecommerce can play a critical role. To help spark ideas for improving your company’s ecommerce efforts, here are specific examples from your peers in a wide range of industries.

Mini Case Study #1: Adding credibility generates a 46% increase in conversion for mattress company

A mid-sized furniture company selling organic latex mattresses engaged with MECLABS Institute to increase the overall number of mattress purchases (MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa). It is one of only a few mattresses that is GreenGuard Gold certified.

The team conducted an experiment to determine which credibility approach would produce the highest rate of mattress purchases and ran an A/B split test.

The control landing page mentioned the certification, but it was de-emphasized.

Creative Sample #1: Control landing page for organic latex mattress

The treatment landing page added a section entitled “What is the GreenGuard Gold Seal?”

Creative Sample #2: Treatment landing page for organic latex mattress

The treatment landing page generated a 46% increase in conversion in the A/B test. The tangible value created by the additional copy helped the customer determine that the mattress was worth purchasing.

You can learn more about this experiment, and see other ecommerce experiments, in Optimizing Ecommerce Experiences: 25 valid ecommerce experiments to ideate your next A/B test from MarketingExperiments (MarketingSherpa’s sister publication).

Mini Case Study #2: Dunkin’ increases gift card sales 300% by quickly tapping into changing customer motivations

The way customers perceive your products and service can change over time. The COVID-19 pandemic is a great example. For most companies, if they just treated customers the same way they did before the pandemic, they would have overlooked customers’ changing motivations. And those changing motivations affect how potential customers perceive your offer.

Dunkin’ is an example of a company that moved swiftly to tap into new customer motivations. “As COVID-19 struck, Americans wanted to find ways to help and to show support for the frontline heroes. Dunkin’ wanted to give people a way to do so, even without being able to leave home,” said Justin Unger, Director, Strategic Partnerships, Dunkin'.

Created in just days, the DunkinCoffeeBreak.com ecommerce site gave customers a way to show appreciation by sending a virtual coffee break in the form of a Dunkin’ e-gift card. Dunkin’ donated $1 (up to $100,000) for every card purchased at this site to the Dunkin’ Joy in Childhood Foundation emergency funds, specifically for non-profits helping families affected by COVID-19.

“Since the initial launch, Dunkin’ has used the site for multiple moments that matter to people, such as Teacher Appreciation Week, National Nurses Week, and Mother’s Day,” Unger said.

The site is driving incremental digital gift card sales and has generated a 300% increase in year-over-year gift card sales for certain events.

“ I think ecommerce, especially in the gift card space, is a key [you can use to] unlock growth. We saw a tremendous lift in online gift card sales with the addition of DunkinCoffeeBreak.com without any cannibalization to our existing online gift card program. It allowed us to reach new guests and tap into the wealth of information and targeting in the digital world, which you just cannot do with plastic gift cards hanging on pegs ,” Unger said.

“Online and mobile shopping surged when social distancing was introduced…based on Blackhawk Network’s partners’ sales data, gift cards sales made directly from a restaurant’s or merchant’s website since mid-March are up 92% from last year,” said Brett Narlinger, Head of Global Commerce, Blackhawk Network , Dunkin’s gift card program partner.

Mini Case Study #3: Home décor company generates $734.40 in sales from “penny campaigns”

“Throughout my ecommerce career I have successfully implemented what I call ‘penny campaigns’ within numerous Google Ad accounts for a large number of different businesses,” said Patrick Connelly, co-founder, Stellar Villa .

Most businesses focus their ad spend on a select few products or services that account for the majority of the company’s revenue, he says. The idea with a penny campaign is to go deeper into your product set and offer very low bids for the ads.

“Penny campaigns can work with both text ads and Google Product Shopping ads, although I prefer Product ads,” Connelly said. Once you have the products added to a campaign, simply set a very low bid. While this can vary by industry, Connelly typically sets bids between five and twenty cents and uses broad match for a larger reach if targeting keywords.

For example, from May through July the wall art company ran a Shopping campaign with Product Listing Ads) for its “Nursery Wall Art” collection. The team set a maximum cost-per-click of $0.20 with a daily budget of $100. “We knew we wouldn't spend close to that, but I like to let Google know we're willing to pay for as many clicks at $0.20 or less as they can give us,” Connelly said.

Over the course of three months the ad produced 354 clicks at a cost of $60.18. The ad generated $743.40 in sales.

“The penny campaign strategy can be implemented on more platforms than just Google Ads. It also works great with Amazon Advertising,” Connelly said.

Mini Case Study #4: Vegan blog grows traffic to 50,000 monthly visits with more diverse SEO outreach strategy

Thrive Cuisine had more than 25,000 backlinks but was plateauing at about 30,000 monthly unique visits.

The team was building links and publishing content on the same schedule as before and wasn’t sure why they weren’t seeing more traffic and conversions.

George Pitchkhadze, CMO, Thrive Cuisine tried a new approach. Instead of focusing on getting more backlinks he decided the site need a bigger variety of backlinks. Pitchkhadze stopped outreach efforts that were targeting the same kind of website over and over again and spent two months creating a completely new link-building and outreach strategy. This time, the team specifically focused on websites in adjacent niches instead of the vegan blog’s own niche. They started the outreach effort in May after spending two months creating more diverse content to link back to.

The new out outreach targeting more diverse websites increased the number of referring domains by more than 50%. This resulted in traffic going from about 30,000 to more than 50,000 monthly visits from unique visitors and increased “traffic value” by more than $10,000.

“If you’re looking to get ecommerce traffic, focus on backlink variety and quality; not only quantity. This will massively improve your results. Where possible, create new content on your own website to really showcase your own expertise across diverse subjects,” Pitchkhadze said.

Mini Case Study #5: Footwear store increases conversion 21.5% with clearer communication on website

KURU Footwear places a high emphasis on customer service and ease of experience by offering free shipping, free exchanges, and free returns. While this messaging did exist on the footwear brand’s website in various places, the team launched a test exploring four options that inserted those value messages higher in the customer experience.

Creative Sample #3: Control homepage for footwear brand

The top-performing treatment had a black bar with simple white text at the top of nearly all pages outside of the checkout funnel. It increased conversion 21.5%.

Creative Sample #4: Top-performing treatment for footwear website

Other treatments that included the customer service message but added in a message to reassure customers that Kuru was open and operating during COVID-19 did not perform as well. “We found simplicity performed best,” said Kelly Stanze, Manager, Marketing & Communications, Kuru.

Creative Sample #5: Lower-performing treatment for footwear website

“Making sure potential new customers know just how much we prioritize customer satisfaction can be difficult. While the proof is in the shoes, we're constantly seeking ways to elevate just how passionate about our customers we are as a company. This was just one step in that never-ending effort,” Stanze said.

Mini Case Study #6: Facebook Live show quadruples online orders for gourmet deli and marketplace

Big Bottom Market is a gourmet deli and marketplace in the heart of Sonoma Wine Country. In addition to its retail presence, the team also manages an Etsy Shop where they sell Big Bottom Market-branded products and the work of local artisans.

“We've been in the e-commerce game since 2016 when we were designated one of Oprah's Favorite Things and had to use the Amazon platform for national sales,” said Michael Volpatt, owner, Big Bottom Market. “From orders and shipping to returns and everything in between, Amazon was a great partner at the time. That changed when our sales volume slowed down so we crunched the numbers and realized that Etsy would be a better partner as we ramped up our growing product line with items that we created or partnered with someone to create for us…My point in this is that being flexible at all points in your e-commerce journey is important.”

Volpatt would be forced to be flexible once again. On March 18 th , the county of Sonoma locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the in-person retail market closed. All of a sudden, ecommerce became a much more important component of Big Bottom Market’s sales

“As a chef and cookbook author, I decided to continue engaging with our customers and launched a Facebook Live cooking show called Cooking In Place,” Volpatt said.

Volpatt cooked and showcased local wines for fans along with other products that the market sells, encouraging viewers to buy them online.

In addition, after each show he posted the video replay across all of its social media channels and shared recipes and details about the food he cooked and wine he tasted on the show.” I would broadcast on Facebook Live and save the video feed. Then I would repost a link to the video on my personal page, on Instagram TV, and then also on YouTube,” he said.

Creative Sample #6: Facebook Live cooking show from gourmet deli and marketplace

In addition to customer engagement and increasing social media followers, the goal was to drive ecommerce sales as a way to augment lost revenue from in-store foot traffic.

“We used to see three to five orders per month in our Etsy shop. In the first week of doing the show we saw three to five per week and that increased to five to ten orders per week. To some, those numbers may seem low, but for a small business located in a tourist town, these numbers were great. Our sales ended up paying for our monthly fixed expenses, which was very helpful for a business that relies on foot traffic,” Volpatt said.

Mini Case Study #7: Retail company increases revenue 311% with website redesign

The Barbecues Galore website had a low conversion rate due to technical, usability and value communication issues. For example, when a product was added in different product categories the URL slug of the product itself would change. “This presented us with issues we needed to address immediately, as a product that constantly changes in URL is not SEO friendly and would present with unwanted 301 redirects and in some cases 404s,” said Andres Aguero, Senior SEO Specialist, Barbecues Galore.

The new site fixed those technical issues, and also did a better job of communicating value to the customer. For example, the product listing page on the old website had very few pictures and did not prominently feature reviews.

Creative sample #7: Previous product listing page on retailer’s original website

“We ended up figuring out that when people are making a large purchase online they want to feel safe and secure that their money is being well spent,” Aguero said.

The team invested in adding additional photos to the product listing and reached out to previous customers from both the online and brick-and-mortar locations to request a product review.

Creative sample #8: Product listing page on retailer’s new website

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the team had to push the live date of the website to April 2020. “This was a big risk at the time as we were at the peak of COVID-19 and all of our brick-and-mortar locations had been closed. Our only source of income at that time was our online revenue,” Aguero said.

The redesign paid off. Revenue from April to August 2020 increased 311% compared to the same time frame in the previous year and revenue from organic traffic increased 172%. (Much of that increase likely has to do with the site improvements, however this reporter questions if increased demand for backyard products due to COVID-19 lockdowns may have also played a role in the revenue increase.)

“My advice for other marketers would be to focus on your website’s existing traffic first before you make any other investments. Our PPC specialist was spending a crazy amount of money on a monthly basis only to see low conversion rates. If your conversion rate is low then try to figure out why. Take a look at your competitors and see what they are doing. After you’ve done that, then you can start making investments into PPC or SEO,” Aguero advised.

Mini Case Study #8: 3D models platform increases clickthrough 12% with A/B testing

Sketchfab operate a 3D content marketplace where people can buy and sell 3D models. It features some of these designs on its landing pages. The team decided to test the effect of different background designs for the header block, which contains a search bar and other navigation menus.

The background of the landing pages consisted of colorful, contrasted 3D models of animals and characters.

Creative Sample #9: Control landing page for 3D content models platform

The team tested less prominent backgrounds to provide more emphasis to the search bar and rest of the page’s user interface. Here is the highest-performing treatment, which produced a 5.3% increase in page engagement and 12.4% increase in clickthrough rates when compared to the original version.

Creative Sample #10: Treatment landing page for 3D content models platform

“Backgrounds [with] a low contrast image that blends with the rest of the page tend to perform much better than vivid, more contrasted ones. In our case, rather than wowing customers with a spectacular image or video, having a more modest graphic allowed them to take action and flow to other internal pages,” said Guillermo Sainz, Digital Marketing, Sketchfab.

Mini Case Study #9: Automating organic Pinterest postings generates $56,000 per month for women’s clothing store

This next example may not work for every company, but it was successful for a niche brand with a very visual product.

“We used to post manually on Pinterest every now and then and didn't attract any customers/visitors to our ecommerce portal. A few months ago, we installed a Shopify plugin to automatically push product images to Pinterest,” said Akram Tariq Khan, CTO, YourLibaas .

Creative Sample #11: Automated Pinterest post from women’s clothing store

“The results were unexpected,” Khan said.

The women’s clothing store now has about 930,000 monthly Pinterest viewers with 26,000 followers and average monthly sales directly attributable to Pinterest of $56,000 within the last quarter without spending a penny on Pinterest.

YourLibaas is based in India and offers international shipping. Most of the Pinterest customers are located internationally, primarily within the US, UK and Canada with a sizeable number in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

“The majority of our international orders are customers who discovered our brand through Pinterest. We have a significant presence on Instagram and Facebook too, but the user base at these platforms is primarily located domestically within India,” Khan said.

Mini Case Study #10: Female wellness product overcomes ad ban with SEO-focused content creation and attracts 9,248 organic visitors in latest month

As digital advertising platforms work to improve their image by banning industries and products deemed harmful, some less nefarious brands are getting caught as well.

For example, Chiavaye sells an all-natural, vegan personal moisturizer. Kaylyn Easton started the company because she has endometriosis.

The company was making approximately $14,000 per month in revenue by promoting the product with paid ads. However, about two years ago its ad account was shut down for “adult content.”

“Paid ads was a strategy that worked well for us until it didn’t. Meaning, the moment we got shut down, we lost more than 90% of our monthly revenue,” said Kaylyn Easton, CEO & Founder, Chiavaye.

At the time, organic traffic from Google was only about 20 visitors per month, and 98% of its was branded searches like “Chiavaye lube.”

The company decided to pursue a strategy of SEO-focused content creation. “We wanted to implement a strategy that would build our brand long-term so that after we turn off the investment, it could still bring in value. If we were to stop writing SEO articles today, we’d still get the benefits from what we’ve done for years to come. Versus, if we turn off a paid ads strategy, we immediately see a huge negative impact,” Easton said.

The primary focus of the content is not the promotion of the product, but instead helping the target audience overcome key pain points.

“We've been creating four SEO-focused pieces of content per month targeting endometriosis-related queries. Things like ‘endometriosis diet grocery list.’ We found that women with endo are craving any type of information to help them. And, if the info is good, they'll trust that person – and even buy their products,” said Joey Randazzo, Founder and CEO, Portland SEO Growth .

After 18 months of creating four pieces of content per month, the site went from about 20 visitors per month to, in the most recent month, 9,248 organic visitors.

Every piece of content has two CTAs (calls to action). The first is to buy the product. The second CTA is for a free e-book, which is generating 250 downloads per month – building the email list.

Creative Sample #12: Email signup form for e-book from female wellness product company

“We discovered that [competitors] have salesy email campaigns – every other email is a 30% off coupon. [Chiavaye's] is designed around adding value more than anything,” Randazzo said.

The team discovered the top burning questions the target audience is asking around endometriosis, like “is dairy okay to eat with endo?” Easton answers these questions in text and video in a clear, straightforward way. The email body is succinct in answering the question linking to articles on the company’s website for more information.

“Figure out who your target audience is and then create content that adds value to them and their lives. We’ve discovered that 95% of the content we create should be adding value to the reader. The final 5% should pitch us as a solution. It builds trust and entices them to opt in for our free e-book, which consequently builds a super valuable email list for us,” Easton said.

Related resources

Research-based Ecommerce Swipe File

Ecommerce Marketing Research: To be truly successful, you must step out of the ecommerce bubble

Ecommerce Research Chart: What makes customers more likely to buy online?

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17 Ecommerce Case Studies to Inspire You

• May 16, 2024

Table of Contents

We’ve spent hundreds of hours analyzing the world’s most successful DTC companies and ecommerce brands, including Sephora, Dollar Shave Club, Casper, Warby Parker, and Allbirds, to create ecommerce case studies you can use as inspiration for your own online store.

Today, we’ll share with you the 17 best ecommerce case studies that you can use to help drive more visitors to your website and convert more customers.

Let’s get right into it!

1. The Farmer’s Dog marketing strategy: 6 tactics that you can apply in your own business

The Farmer’s Dog was founded in 2014 by two dog lovers. 6 years later, they’re delivering millions of meals monthly. 

How did they do it?

We analyzed their sales funnel and boiled it down to 6 lessons you can apply in your own business to generate more sales.

Read the full The Farmer’s Dog case study .

2. The secret behind the Care/of marketing strategy

Every small ecommerce site owner dreams about a success story like Care/of’s. They achieved a $225 million valuation and were acquired by Bayer in just 6 years.

In this case study, we analyze the marketing strategies that Care/of used, including:

• Quiz funnel
• Content marketing
• Social media
• Paid advertising

Get inspired by these strategies to grow your own online sales. 

Read the full Care/of case study .

3. Dollar Shave Club marketing success

Dollar Shave Club is one of the most talked-about DTC brands, and with good reason. Their famous “our blades are f***ing great” video went viral in just a few days. The video went on to collect 4.75 million views in the first 3 months and has over 27 million views today.

This launch video gave them a killer head start, and their witty brand voice, strong content marketing campaigns, and direct-to-consumer business model enabled them to grow further. They were so successful that Unilever bought the company in a billion-dollar cash acquisition in 2016.

In this case study, we cover everything you need to know about Dollar Shave Club’s marketing game plan to build your own billion-dollar empire.

Read the full Dollar Shave Club case study .

4. How Casper took the mattress industry by storm and reached a $1.1 billion valuation

In this case study, you’ll get a sneak peek into how Casper was able to build unprecedented trust and convince people to purchase mattresses online.

We look at their well-rounded content marketing strategy, which covers  topics of interest  for visitors at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

We also discuss how they utilize social proof to build trust, their unbeatable guarantee, and their referral marketing strategies . Don’t miss this one!

Read the full Casper case study .

5. How Glossier became a $1.2 billion company

Glossier is one of our favorite ecommerce case studies. If you have a beauty brand, you’ll want to read it.

We’ve studied Glossier’s entire customer experience to find 5 lessons you can use for your own brand:

• Know your target audience and build relationships with them
• Use (micro-) influencer marketing
• Focus on branding
• Publish engaging content
• Provide an amazing user experience

Click the link below for all the juicy details.

Read the full Glossier case study .

6. How Happy Box 10x-ed their online store revenue during Covid

Happy Box is not as well-known as some of the other ecommerce stores on this list, but its growth is bound to inspire you. 

The company started as a side project and grew into a full-time ecommerce business during the Covid pandemic. In fact, they were able to achieve a 10x growth rate in 2021!

In this case study, we look at the marketing blueprint behind their astounding success.

Read the full Happy Box case study .

7. How Warby Parker reached a $3 billion valuation and became an ecommerce giant

The idea of buying eyeglasses online was uncharted territory for consumers a decade ago. But Warby Parker’s phenomenal marketing helped to overcome that challenge.

Their website crashed just after its official launch, their top 15 most popular styles sold out within 4 weeks, and they collected a waitlist of 20,000 customers during that time.

In this post, we share the key strategy Warby Parker used to reach its target audience so quickly and went on to become the $3-billion giant everyone knows.

Read the full Warby Parker case study .

8. 4 steps for growing your brand organically using ColourPop’s marketing strategy

In this case study, we share 4 key takeaways from ColourPop’s winning social media strategy:

• Give freebies in exchange for authentic reviews
• Build meaningful relationships with your influencers
• Get your hashtag trending
• Host Instagram giveaways

Check out the tips that you can easily copy for your own ecommerce company.

Read the full ColourPop case study .

9. Replicate Urban Outfitters’ marketing strategy with these 4 tips

Urban Outfitters is different from a lot of the ecommerce brands on this list because they didn’t start online and grow into a global retail giant… instead, they started as a brick-and-mortar business (back in 1970) and managed to make the successful transition to online sales.

It’s worth talking about them because they’re fantastic at keeping in touch with their target audience (Millennials and Gen Z). They also succeed in strengthening customer loyalty with a rewards program.

Check out this case study to learn how you can do the same with your business to drive sales.

Read the full Urban Outfitters case study .

10. How Gymshark bulked up into a $1 billion+ brand

Gymshark is well known for its influencer marketing strategy. In fact, the company was one of the early adopters of influencer marketing.

In this case study, we cover how Gymshark managed to build its fan base, and we spill the beans on what they’re still doing today to delight customers. Check out our 6 key takeaways below!

Read the full Gymshark case study .

11. How Allbirds went from a small startup to a billion-dollar sneaker brand in 4 years

Allbirds is among the most popular ecommerce businesses, especially among circles of professionals in Silicon Valley, including Google co-founder Larry Page. The company differentiates itself from competitors by focusing on three important principles: 

• Simple design
• Sustainable shoes, made from nature

Check out this case study to learn how they fight with their competitors, how they use PR campaigns and word-of-mouth marketing to get people talking about the brand, and more.

Read the full Allbirds case study .

12. How Lunya achieved $25M revenue

Lunya was able to disrupt the women’s sleepwear industry quickly by creating products that bridge the gap between style and sensibility. According to Lunya co-founder Ashley Merrill, the brand was able to grow by putting customers first and never losing sight of the customer’s perspective.

We analyzed the steps Lunya took to build their brand and create a successful customer-centric strategy.

Read the full Lunya case study .

13. 6+1 tips from Rituals to create meaningful moments online

Rituals, founded in 2000, has an impressive product line including skincare, body care, makeup, and scented candles.

They really care about their customers and focus on creating an engaging customer experience online. We wanted to find out how they do it, so in this case study, we explore 6+1 tips from the marketing masters at Rituals.

Read the full Rituals case study .

14. 13 solid tips for mastering the art of personalization like Sephora

Sephora is a cosmetic behemoth that we can all learn from. What’s the secret behind their worldwide success?

In this case study, we share 13 tips they use to delight customers and create loyalty, including:

• Driving sales through personalization
• Helping customers make informed purchasing decisions
• Using YouTube to drive conversions
• Nurturing long-term customer relationships

Read the full Sephora case study .

15. How Alo Yoga scaled to $247M in revenue

Alo Yoga is an athleisure brand known for its “studio-to-street” clothing, making it perfect for both yoga sessions and everyday wear. Founded in 2007 in Los Angeles, Alo Yoga has grown steadily, now boasting an annual revenue of $247.1M and 3 million Instagram followers.

In this ecommerce case study, we’ll share the key marketing strategies that have fueled Alo Yoga’s success.

You can discover their community-building tactics, how they leveraged user-generated content, created personalized experiences for visitors, and more.

Read the full Alo Yoga case study.

16. Bloom & Wild’s marketing strategy to become the 2nd fastest-growing startup

Bloom & Wild, an online florist operating in the UK, Austria, France, Germany, and Ireland, has become one of the fastest-growing online stores in its category. In 2021, the company raised $102 million in investment capital.

Bloom & Wild achieved this impressive business growth by focusing on:

• Caring about their customers
• Increasing on brand awareness with TV campaigns and dominating search results
• Customizing content for each social media channel
• Encouraging referrals
• Building loyalty with a subscription model

Read the full Bloom & Wild case study.

17. How SNOW® Teeth Whitening achieved $100M in online sales

SNOW® Teeth Whitening is a DTC oral care brand focused on delivering professional-level whitening with an at-home kit.

Founded by Josh Elizetxe (a.k.a. Josh Snow) in 2017, SNOW® has quickly gained millions of fans. Over 13 million people shopped SNOW® products in 2021 alone, and by 2020, the company hit $100 million in sales after just three years online.

So, how did SNOW® achieve such significant growth?

In this ecommerce case study, you’ll learn how:

• They focus on creating and continually improving a product that meets customer needs.
• Each ad SNOW® puts out highlights the pain points that their product solves.
• They diversify channels.
• They leverage owned media for customer engagement.
• They collaborate with A-list celebrities to build brand awareness and credibility.

Read the full SNOW® case study.

Final thoughts

Well, that’s it—these are the best ecommerce case studies we’ve found during our extensive research! Hopefully you’ve found plenty of inspiration on this list.

No matter how big (or small) your company is or what industry you’re in, you can use tips and strategies from these ecommerce case studies in your own store.

Which ecommerce case study is your favorite?

What should you do next?

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The prevalence of the online marketplace model and its impact on e-commerce.

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President and COO of  Avalara , a cloud-based compliance solutions provider that helps businesses of all sizes get tax compliance right. 

2020 accelerated the use of e-commerce at a pace never seen before. While the adoption of online shopping has been steadily climbing for years, the pandemic pushed more consumers and businesses online for all types of transactions. This rapid shift has had a direct impact on consumer behavior , creating a demand for convenience, personalization and options when shopping online.

As consumer behavior has changed, e-commerce retailers have had to shift their approaches accordingly. Due to the demand for convenient online shopping experiences that provide ample options, we're in the midst of another shift where traditional e-commerce sellers are adopting the marketplace model.

This isn't to say that retailers are trading traditional e-commerce methods for marketplaces completely. In fact, more e-commerce sellers are moving toward an omnichannel model where they sell through multiple in-person and online sales channels. The shift to marketplaces should be thought of as an expansion strategy for many established and existing e-commerce retailers.

In recent years, we've seen the growth of existing marketplaces skyrocket, while more traditional e-retailers have partnered with marketplaces or launched their own. For example, popular denim retailer Madewell established a partnership with online consignment marketplace thredUP to sell a selection of pre-owned jeans.

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While new partnerships and marketplaces have sprung up, existing marketplaces have seen ample growth. Walmart's marketplace, for example, reported that the number of sellers on its platform more than doubled in July 2020, adding more than 50,000 new sellers since July 2019. Further, some experts predict that B2C marketplace sales worldwide could reach an estimated $3.5 trillion by 2024. 

So, what are the factors driving the expansion and adoption of the marketplace model?

Digital-First Consumerism

Even before the pandemic, shoppers were turning to digital commerce in droves because of its always-on nature. Beyond convenience, expectations for intuitive experiences, seamless checkout and quick deliveries, coupled with consumer desire for one-stop shopping, finding the best deals and personalized shopping, are driving marketplace sales at a rapid rate.

In the world of digital consumerism, marketplaces have become the first stop for product searches and discovery. According to eMarketer, 53% of U.S. adults said they began product searches on Amazon when planning to make a digital purchase. The breadth and depth of product options on marketplaces make it easier for consumers to find the products they're looking for and uncover the best prices before making a purchase.

Additionally, as digital shopping has increased, so has the need for consumer reviews as part of the purchasing journey. Marketplaces make it easy to read the opinions and experiences of other consumers before making a purchase. Given the amount of purchasing options available through marketplaces, consumers can leverage reviews to learn more about the product, customer service and other factors before making the decision to purchase.

Shifting Omnichannel Priorities

The modern consumer has the world at their fingertips. This unparalleled access to goods and services has shifted most, if not all, of the power to the consumer, prompting retailers to go where the consumers are. As retailers expand into new sales channels, marketplaces continue to grow in appeal with greater reach, access to a range of tools and services and insights into customer data and analytics.

With the pandemic pushing more retailers online, the ability to meet customers where they are has become increasingly important. The reach that marketplaces provide offers ample opportunities for retailers to not only reach new customers but also glean insights into what potential and existing buyers are thinking.

Data and analytics have become top priorities for retailers as they look to deliver against growing consumer expectations for personalization, convenience and relevance. Most marketplace platforms give sellers access to data and analytics tools that provide in-depth insights into the shopping behaviors of customers on the platform. These insights not only help retailers optimize their marketplace strategy but also adapt their entire omnichannel strategy to best reach their customers.

The changes in consumer behavior that we've witnessed in recent years are here to stay. That means the importance and influence of marketplaces will only continue to grow with time.

For e-commerce as a whole, the marketplace effect will increase the importance of omnichannel strategies to meet and exceed the expectations of consumers. We can expect to see more retailers join the ranks of thousands of other sellers on popular marketplaces in an effort to reach more customers and derive critical insights. At the same time, more big-box retailers may embrace the marketplace model by creating their own platforms and establishing partnerships with existing marketplaces to drive customer loyalty and expand product options associated with their brands.

Whether your business just recently got started in e-commerce or has been a tenant of digital shopping for years, retailers with the most effective marketplace strategies will stand out as the winners in this new era of global commerce.

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Amazon.com marketing strategy 2023: E-commerce retail giant business case study

What goes into the Amazon marketing strategy secret sauce? Our business case study explores Amazon's revenue model and culture of customer metrics, history of Amazon.com and marketing objectives

In the final quarter of 2022, Amazon reported net sales of over $149.2 billion. This seasonal spike is typical of Amazon's quarterly reporting , but the growth is undeniable as this was the company's highest quarter ever.

There is no doubt that the e-commerce retail giant continues to lead the way in e-commerce growth. The Amazon marketing strategy we are familiar with today has evolved since it was founded in 1994.

I've highlighted the Amazon marketing strategy case study in my books for nearly 20 years now since I think all types of businesses can learn from their digital business strategy. Their response to the pandemic is impressive but not entirely surprising for a brand that is ' customer obsessed '.

From startups and small businesses to large international businesses, we can all learn from their focus on the customer, particularly at this time, testing market opportunities made available by digital technology, and their focus on testing and analysis to improve results.

Their focus on customer experience put Amazon in the role of a thought leader in e-commerce experience. However, whether due to diminished customer service, or increasing customer expectations, or a mixture of the two, fulled by a global pandemic - notably, 2020 was the first time Amazon's ACSI customer satisfaction rating dropped below 80 since launch, to 65%.

With customer satisfaction now measuring at 79% in 2022 , customer satisfaction in Amazon has risen again, but is still not as high as it once was.

Currently, Forbes gives a consensus recommendation to buy Amazon stock, giving a return on assets (TTM) of 1.73%. The stock performance is not as high as we saw in 2020 and 2021, but it did show some growth in late 2022 - early 2023.

I aim to keep this case study up-to-date for readers of the books and Smart Insights readers who may be interested. In it, we look at Amazon's background, revenue model, and sources for the latest business results.

We can also learn from their digital marketing strategy, since they use digital marketing efficiently across all customer communications touchpoints in our RACE Framework :

• Reach : Amazon's initial business growth based on a detailed approach to SEO and AdWords targeting millions of keywords.
• Act : Creating clear and simple experiences through testing and learning.
• Convert : Using personalization to make relevant recommendations and a clear checkout process that many now imitate.
• Engage : Amazon's customer-centric culture delights customers and keeps them coming back for more.

Looking to optimize your marketing strategy? We've got marketing solutions for your e-commerce business. From startups to retail giants, our bespoke marketing training empowers e-commerce marketers to plan, manage and optimize their marketing strategies, with marketing tools proven to generate growth. Find out more.

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Amazon's growth and business model evolution

Forbes credits Amazon's success to 3 rules which it breaks, but we 'probably shouldn't'!

• Strategy is about focus - although Amazon has an incredible number of strands to the business today.
• Don’t throw good money after bad - with criticism in particular of Amazon's investment in groceries.
• Your core competencies determine what you can and can’t do - developing the Kindle with no hardware manufacturing experience.

In this way, Forbes outlines a 'risky' approach to marketing strategy which, for Amazon, paid off in dividends. So, there is plenty to learn from studying this company, even if we decide not to replicate all tactics and strategies.

Amazon.com mission and vision

When it first launched, Amazon’s had a clear and ambitious mission. To offer:

Earth’s biggest selection and to be Earth’s most customer-centric company.

Today, with business users of its Amazon Web Service representing a new type of customer, Amazon says:

this goal continues today, but Amazon’s customers are worldwide now and have grown to include millions of Con-sumers, Sellers, Content Creators, Developers, and Enterprises. Each of these groups has different needs, and we always work to meet those needs, by innovating new solutions to make things easier, faster, better, and more cost-effective.

20 years later, Amazon are still customer-centric, in fact, in the latest Amazon Annual report , 2021, Jeff Bezos of Amazon explains customer obsession.

"We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric company and believe that our guiding principle of customer obsession is one of our greatest strengths. We seek to offer our customers a comprehensive selection of products, low prices, fast and free delivery, easy-to-use functionality, and timely customer service. By focusing obsessively on customers, we are internally driven to improve our services, add benefits and features, invent new products, lower prices, increase product selection, and speed up shipping times—before we have to."

Amazon business and revenue model

I recommend anyone studying Amazon checks the latest annual reports, proxies, and shareholder letters. The annual filings give a great summary of eBay business and revenue models.

The 2020 report includes a great vision for Digital Agility (reprinted from 1997 in their latest annual report) showing testing of business models that many businesses don't yet have. Amazon explain:

"We will continue to measure our programs and the effectiveness of our investments analytically, to jettison those that do not provide acceptable returns, and to step up our investment in those that work best. We will continue to learn from both our successes and our failures".

They go on to explain that business models are tested from a long-term perspective, showing the mindset of CEO Jeff Bezos:

We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions.

The latest example of innovation in their business model is the launch of Amazon Go, a new kind of store with no checkout required. Boasting a "Just Walk Out Shopping experience",the Amazon Go app users enter the store, take the products they want, and go with no lines and no checkout.

More recently, there have been a range of business model innovations focussed on hardware and new services: Kindle e-readers, Fire Tablet, smartphone and TV, Echo (using the Alexa Artificial Intelligence voice-assistant), grocery delivery, Amazon Fashion and expansion to the business-oriented Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon Prime, an annual membership program that includes unlimited free shipping and then involved diversification to a media service with access to unlimited instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV episodes.

AWS is less well-known outside of tech people, but Amazon is still pursuing this cloud service aggressively. They now have 10 AWS regions around the world, including the East Coast of the U.S., two on the West Coast, Europe, Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, Brazil, China, and a government-only region called GovCloud.

Amazon marketing strategy

In their 2008 SEC filing, Amazon describes the vision of their business as to:

“Relentlessly focus on customer experience by offering our customers low prices, convenience, and a wide selection of merchandise.”

The vision is still to consider how the core Amazon marketing strategy value proposition is communicated both on-site and through offline communications.

Of course, achieving customer loyalty and repeat purchases has been key to Amazon’s success. Many dot-coms failed because they succeeded in achieving awareness, but not loyalty. Amazon achieved both. In their SEC filing they stress how they seek to achieve this. They say:

" We work to earn repeat purchases by providing easy-to-use functionality, fast and reliable fulfillment, timely customer service, feature-rich content, and a trusted transaction environment.

Key features of Amazon include:

• editorial and customer reviews;
• manufacturer product information;
• web pages tailored to individual preferences, such as recommendations and notifications; 1-Click® technology;
• secure payment systems;
• image uploads;
• searching on our websites as well as the Internet;
• browsing; and the ability to view selected interior pages and citations, and search the entire contents of many of the books we offer with our “Look Inside the Book” and “Search Inside the Book” features.

The community of online customers also creates feature-rich content, including product reviews, online recommendation lists, wish lists, buying guides, and wedding and baby registries."

In practice, as is the practice for many online retailers, the lowest prices are for the most popular products, with less popular products commanding higher prices and a greater margin for Amazon.

Free shipping offers are used to encourage increase in basket size since customers have to spend over a certain amount to receive free shipping. The level at which free shipping is set is critical to profitability and Amazon has changed it as competition has changed and for promotional reasons.

Amazon communicates the fulfillment promise in several ways including the presentation of the latest inventory availability information, delivery date estimates, and options for expedited delivery, as well as delivery shipment notifications and update facilities.

This focus on customer has translated to excellence in service with the 2004 American Customer Satisfaction Index giving Amazon.com a score of 88 which was at the time, the highest customer satisfaction score ever recorded in any service industry, online or offline.

Round (2004) notes that Amazon focuses on customer satisfaction metrics. Each site is closely monitored with standard service availability monitoring (for example, using Keynote or Mercury Interactive) site availability and download speed. Interestingly it also monitors per minute site revenue upper/lower bounds – Round describes an alarm system rather like a power plant where if revenue on a site falls below $10,000 per minute, alarms go off! There are also internal performance service-level-agreements for web services where T% of the time, different pages must return in X seconds.

The importance of technology and an increased focus on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

According to founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, technology is very important to supporting this focus on the customer. In their 2010 Annual Report (Amazon, 2011) he said:

“Look inside a current textbook on software architecture, and you’ll find few patterns that we don’t apply at Amazon. We use high-performance transactions systems, complex rendering and object caching, workflow and queuing systems, business intelligence and data analytics, machine learning and pattern recognition, neural networks and probabilistic decision making, and a wide variety of other techniques." And while many of our systems are based on the latest in computer science research, this often hasn’t been sufficient: our architects and engineers have had to advance research in directions that no academic had yet taken. Many of the problems we face have no textbook solutions, and so we — happily — invent new approaches”… All the effort we put into technology might not matter that much if we kept technology off to the side in some sort of R&D department, but we don’t take that approach. Technology infuses all of our teams, all of our processes, our decision-making, and our approach to innovation in each of our businesses. It is deeply integrated into everything we do”.

The quote shows how applying new technologies is used to give Amazon a competitive edge. A good recent example of this is providing the infrastructure to deliver the Kindle “Whispersync” update to ebook readers. Amazon reported in 2011 that Amazon.com is now selling more Kindle books than paperback books. For every 100 paperback books Amazon has sold, the Company sold 115 Kindle books. Kindle apps are now available on Apple iOS, Android devices and on PCs as part of a “ Buy Once, Read Anywhere ” proposition which Amazon has developed.

Some of the more recent applications of AI at Amazon are highly visible, for example, the Amazon Echo assistant and technology in the Amazon Go convenience store that uses machine vision to eliminate checkout lines.

In their 2017 report, they describe the increased use of machine learning and AI ‘behind the scenes’ at Amazon:   "much of what we do with machine learning happens beneath the surface. Machine learning drives our algorithms for demand forecasting, product search ranking, product and deals recommendations, merchandising placements, fraud detection, translations, and much more. Though less visible, much of the impact of machine learning will be of this type – quietly but meaningfully improving core operations".

Amazon Customers

Amazon defines what it refers to as three consumer sets customers, seller customers and developer customers.

There are over 76 million customer accounts, but just 1.3 million active seller customers in it’s marketplaces and Amazon is seeking to increase this. Amazon is unusual for a retailer in that it identifies “developer customers” who use its Amazon Web Services, which provides access to technology infrastructure such as hosting that developers can use to develop their own web services.

Members are also encouraged to join a loyalty program, Amazon Prime, a fee-based membership program in which members receive free or discounted express shipping, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan.

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As we know, e-commerce marketing is all about the customers. Our RACE Growth System down your customer journeys into a simple 5-step structure of plan - reach - act - convert - engage. Create a winning retail e-commerce marketing strategy with Smart Insights, to acquire and retain more customers, and accelerate your ROI. Get started today.

Competition

In its 2017 SEC filing Amazon describes the environment for our products and services as ‘intensely competitive’. It views its main current and potential competitors as:

• 1) online, offline, and multichannel retailers, publishers, vendors, distributors, manufacturers, and producers of the products we offer and sell to consumers and businesses;
• (2) publishers, producers, and distributors of physical, digital, and interactive media of all types and all distribution channels;
• (3) web search engines, comparison shopping websites, social networks, web portals, and other online and app-based means of discovering, using, or acquiring goods and services, either directly or in collaboration with other retailers;
• (4) companies that provide e-commerce services, including website development, advertising, fulfillment, customer service, and payment processing;
• (5) companies that provide fulfillment and logistics services for themselves or for third parties, whether online or offline;
• (6) companies that provide information technology services or products, including on- premises or cloud-based infrastructure and other services; and
• (7) companies that design, manufacture, market, or sell consumer electronics, telecommunication, and electronic devices.

It believes the main competitive factors in its market segments include "selection, price, availability, convenience, information, discovery, brand recognition, personalized services, accessibility, customer service, reliability, speed of fulfillment, ease of use, and ability to adapt to changing conditions, as well as our customers’ overall experience and trust in transactions with us and facilitated by us on behalf of third-party sellers".

For services offered to business and individual sellers, additional competitive factors include the quality of our services and tools, their ability to generate sales for third parties we serve, and the speed of performance for our services.

From Auctions to marketplaces

Amazon auctions (known as zShops) were launched in March 1999, in large part as a response to the success of eBay. They were promoted heavily from the home page, category pages and individual product pages. Despite this, a year after its launch it had only achieved a 3.2% share of the online auction compared to 58% for eBay and it only declined from this point.

Today, competitive prices of products are available through third-party sellers in the ‘Amazon Marketplace’ which are integrated within the standard product listings. A winning component of the Amazon marketing strategy for marketplaces was the innovation to offer such an auction facility, initially driven by the need to compete with eBay. But now the strategy has been adjusted such that Amazon describe it as part of the approach of low-pricing.

Although it might be thought that Amazon would lose out on enabling its merchants to sell products at lower prices, in fact Amazon makes greater margin on these sales since merchants are charged a commission on each sale and it is the merchant who bears the cost of storing inventory and fulfilling the product to customers. As with eBay, Amazon is just facilitating the exchange of bits and bytes between buyers and sellers without the need to distribute physical products.

Amazon Media sales

You may have noticed that unlike some retailers, Amazon displays relevant Google text ads and banner ads from brands. This seems in conflict with the marketing strategy of focus on experience since it leads to a more cluttered store. However in 2011 Amazon revealed that worldwide media sales accounted for approximately 17% of revenue!

Whilst it does not reveal much about the Amazon marketing strategy approach in its annual reports, but there seems to be a focus on online marketing channels. Amazon (2011) states “we direct customers to our websites primarily through a number of targeted online marketing channels, such as our Associates program, sponsored search, portal advertising, email marketing campaigns, and other initiatives”.

These other initiatives may include outdoor and TV advertising, but they are not mentioned specifically. In this statement they also highlight the importance of customer loyalty tools. They say: “while costs associated with free shipping are not included in marketing expense, we view free shipping offers and Amazon Prime as effective worldwide marketing tools, and intend to continue offering them indefinitely”.

How ‘The Culture of Metrics’ started

A common theme in Amazon’s development is the drive to use a measured approach to all aspects of the business, beyond the finance. Marcus (2004) describes an occasion at a corporate ‘boot-camp’ in January 1997 when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ‘saw the light’. ‘

At Amazon, we will have a Culture of Metrics’, he said while addressing his senior staff. He went on to explain how web-based business gave Amazon an ‘amazing window into human behaviour’.

Marcus says: ‘Gone were the fuzzy approximations of focus groups, the anecdotal fudging and smoke blowing from the marketing department' - the Amazon marketing strategy was reborn!

A company like Amazon could (and did) record every move a visitor made, every last click and twitch of the mouse. As the data piled up into virtual heaps, hummocks and mountain ranges, you could draw all sorts of conclusions about their chimerical nature, the consumer. In this sense, Amazon was not merely a store, but an immense repository of facts. All we needed were the right equations to plug into them’.

James Marcus then goes on to give a fascinating insight into a breakout group discussion of how Amazon could better use measures to improve its performance. Marcus was in the Bezos group, brainstorming customer-centric metrics. Marcus (2004) summarises the dialogue, led by Bezos:

"First, we figure out which things we’d like to measure on the site", he said.

"For example, let’s say we want a metric for customer enjoyment. How could we calculate that?"

"There was silence. Then somebody ventured: "How much time each customer spends on the site?"

"Not specific enough", Jeff said.

"How about the average number of minutes each customer spends on the site per session" someone else suggested. "If that goes up, they’re having a blast".

"But how do we factor in the purchase?" I [Marcus] said feeling proud of myself.

"Is that a measure of enjoyment"?

"I think we need to consider the frequency of visits, too", said a dark-haired woman I didn’t recognize.

“Lot of folks are still accessing the web with those creepy-crawly modems. Four short visits from them might be just as good as one visit from a guy with a T-1. Maybe better’.

"Good point", Jeff said. "And anyway, enjoyment is just the start. In the end, we should be measuring customer ecstasy"

It is interesting that Amazon was having this debate about the elements of RFM analysis (described in Chapter 6 of Internet Marketing), 1997, after already having achieved $16 million of revenue in the previous year. Of course, this is a minuscule amount compared with today’s billions of dollar turnover. The important point was that this was the start of a focus on metrics which can be seen through the description of Matt Pounds work later in this case study.

Amazon marketing strategy experiments!

Amazon have created their own internal experimentation platform called a “Weblab” that they use to evaluate improvements to our websites and products. In 2013, they ran 1,976 Weblabs worldwide, up from 1,092 in 2012, and 546 in 2011. Now many companies use AB testing, but this shows the scale of testing at Amazon.

One example of how these are applied is a new feature called “Ask an owner”.  From a product page, customers can ask any question related to the product, Amazon then route these questions to owners of the product who answer.

From human to software-based recommendations

Amazon marketing strategy has developed internal tools to support this ‘Culture of Metrics’. Marcus (2004) describes how the ‘Creator Metrics’ tool shows content creators how well their product listings and product copy are working. For each content editor such as Marcus, it retrieves all recently posted documents including articles, interviews, booklists and features. For each one it then gives a conversion rate to sale plus the number of page views, adds (added to basket) and repels (content requested, but the back button then used).

In time, the work of editorial reviewers such as Marcus was marginalised since Amazon found that the majority of visitors used the search tools rather than read editorial and they responded to the personalised recommendations as the matching technology improved (Marcus likens early recommendations techniques to ‘going shopping with the village idiot’).

Experimentation and testing at Amazon.com

The ‘Culture of Metrics’ also led to a test-driven approach to improving results at Amazon. Matt Round, speaking at E-metrics 2004 when he was director of personalisation at Amazon describes the philosophy as ‘Data Trumps Intuitions’. He explained how Amazon used to have a lot of arguments about which content and promotion should go on the all important home page or category pages. He described how every category VP wanted top-center and how the Friday meetings about placements for next week were getting ‘too long, too loud, and lacked performance data’.

But today ‘automation replaces intuitions’ and real-time experimentation tests are always run to answer these questions since actual consumer behaviour is the best way to decide upon tactics.

Marcus (2004) also notes that Amazon has a culture of experiments of which A/B tests are key components. Examples where A/B tests are used include new home page design, moving features around the page, different algorithms for recommendations, changing search relevance rankings. These involve testing a new treatment against a previous control for a limited time of a few days or a week. The system will randomly show one or more treatments to visitors and measure a range of parameters such as units sold and revenue by category (and total), session time, session length, etc. The new features will usually be launched if the desired metrics are statistically significantly better.

Statistical tests are a challenge though as distributions are not normal (they have a large mass at zero for example of no purchase) There are other challenges since multiple A/B tests are running every day and A/B tests may overlap and so conflict. There are also longer-term effects where some features are ‘cool’ for the first two weeks and the opposite effect where changing navigation may degrade performance temporarily. Amazon also finds that as its users evolve in their online experience the way they act online has changed. This means that Amazon has to constantly test and evolve its features.

With the latest announcement from Google to sunset their Google Optimize A/B testing , digital marketers will do well to look out for new technology to assist in their testing efforts. We'll keep our members updated with announcements

Amazon.com technology marketing strategy

It follows that the Amazon technology infrastructure must readily support this culture of experimentation and this can be difficult to achieved with standardised content management. Amazon has achieved its competitive advantage through developing its technology internally and with a significant investment in this which may not be available to other organisations without the right focus on the online channels.

As Amazon explains in SEC (2005) ‘using primarily our own proprietary technologies, as well as technology licensed from third parties, we have implemented numerous features and functionality that simplify and improve the customer shopping experience, enable third parties to sell on our platform, and facilitate our fulfillment and customer service operations. Our current strategy is to focus our development efforts on continuous innovation by creating and enhancing the specialized, proprietary software that is unique to our business, and to license or acquire commercially-developed technology for other applications where available and appropriate. We continually invest in several areas of technology, including our seller platform; A9.com, our wholly-owned subsidiary focused on search technology on www.A9.com and other Amazon sites; web services; and digital initiatives.’

Round (2004) describes the technology approach as ‘distributed development and deployment’. Pages such as the home page have a number of content ‘pods’ or ‘slots’ which call web services for features. This makes it relatively easy to change the content in these pods and even change the location of the pods on-screen. Amazon uses a flowable or fluid page design unlike many sites which enables it to make the most of real-estate on-screen.

Technology also supports more standard e-retail facilities. SEC (2005) states: ‘We use a set of applications for accepting and validating customer orders, placing and tracking orders with suppliers, managing and assigning inventory to customer orders, and ensuring proper shipment of products to customers. Our transaction-processing systems handle millions of items, a number of different status inquiries, multiple shipping addresses, gift-wrapping requests, and multiple shipment methods. These systems allow the customer to choose whether to receive single or several shipments based on availability and to track the progress of each order. These applications also manage the process of accepting, authorizing, and charging customer credit cards.’

Data-driven Automation

Round (2004) said that ‘Data is king at Amazon’. He gave many examples of data driven automation including customer channel preferences; managing the way content is displayed to different user types such as new releases and top-sellers, merchandising and recommendation (showing related products and promotions) and also advertising through paid search (automatic ad generation and bidding).

The automated search advertising and bidding system for paid search has had a big impact at Amazon. Sponsored links initially done by humans, but this was unsustainable due to range of products at Amazon. The automated programme generates keywords, writes ad creative, determines best landing page, manages bids, measure conversion rates, profit per converted visitor and updates bids. Again the problem of volume is there, Matt Round described how the book ‘How to Make Love Like a Porn Star’ by Jenna Jameson received tens of thousands of clicks from pornography-related searches, but few actually purchased the book. So the update cycle must be quick to avoid large losses.

There is also an automated email measurement and optimization system. The campaign calendar used to be manually managed with relatively weak measurement and it was costly to schedule and use. A new system:

• Automatically optimizes content to improve customer experience
• Avoids sending an e-mail campaign that has low clickthrough or high unsubscribe rate
• Includes inbox management (avoid sending multiple emails/week)
• Has growing library of automated email programs covering new releases and recommendations

But there are challenges if promotions are too successful if inventory isn’t available.

Your Recommendations

Customers Who Bought X…, also bought Y is Amazon’s signature feature. Round (2004) describes how Amazon relies on acquiring and then crunching a massive amount of data. Every purchase, every page viewed and every search is recorded. So there are now to new version, customers who shopped for X also shopped for… and Customers who searched for X also bought… They also have a system codenamed ‘Goldbox’ which is a cross-sell and awareness raising tool. Items are discounted to encourage purchases in new categories!

See the original more detailed PDF article on Amazon personalization / recommendation collaborative filtering system .

He also describes the challenge of techniques for sifting patterns from noise (sensitivity filtering) and clothing and toy catalogues change frequently so recommendations become out of date. The main challenges though are the massive data size arising from millions of customers, millions of items and recommendations made in real time.

Amazon marketing strategy for partnerships

As Amazon grew, its share price growth enabled partnership or acquisition with a range of companies in different sectors. Marcus (2004) describes how Amazon partnered with Drugstore.com (pharmacy), Living.com (furniture), Pets.com (pet supplies), Wineshopper.com (wines), HomeGrocer.com (groceries), Sothebys.com (auctions) and Kozmo.com (urban home delivery). In most cases, Amazon purchased an equity stake in these partners, so that it would share in their prosperity. It also charged them fees for placements on the Amazon site to promote and drive traffic to their sites.

Similarly, Amazon marketing strategy was to charge publishers for prime-position to promote books on its site which caused an initial hue-and-cry, but this abated when it was realised that paying for prominent placements was widespread in traditional booksellers and supermarkets. Many of these new online companies failed in 1999 and 2000, but Amazon had covered the potential for growth and was not pulled down by these partners, even though for some such as Pets.com it had an investment of 50%.

Analysts sometimes refer to ‘Amazoning a sector’ meaning that one company becomes dominant in an online sector such as book retail such that it becomes very difficult for others to achieve market share. In addition to developing, communicating and delivering a very strong proposition, Amazon has been able to consolidate its strength in different sectors through its partnership arrangements and through using technology to facilitate product promotion and distribution via these partnerships. The Amazon retail platform enables other retailers to sell products online using the Amazon user interface and infrastructure through their ‘Syndicated Stores’ programme.

For example, in the UK, Waterstones (www.waterstones.co.uk) is one of the largest traditional bookstores. It found competition with online so expensive and challenging, that eventually it entered a partnership arrangement where Amazon markets and distributes its books online in return for a commission online. Similarly, in the US, Borders a large book retailer uses the Amazon merchant platform for distributing its products.

Toy retailer Toys R’ Us have a similar arrangement. Such partnerships help Amazon extends its reach into the customer-base of other suppliers, and of course, customers who buy in one category such as books can be encouraged to purchase into other areas such as clothing or electronics.

Another form of partnership referred to above is the Amazon Marketplace which enables Amazon customers and other retailers to sell their new and used books and other goods alongside the regular retail listings. A similar partnership approach is the Amazon ‘Merchants@’ program which enables third party merchants (typically larger than those who sell via the Amazon Marketplace) to sell their products via Amazon. Amazon earn fees either through fixed fees or sales commissions per-unit. This arrangement can help customers who get a wider choice of products from a range of suppliers with the convenience of purchasing them through a single checkout process.

Finally, Amazon marketing strategy has also facilitated formation of partnerships with smaller companies through its affiliates programme. Internet legend records that Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon was chatting to someone at a cocktail party who wanted to sell books about divorce via her web site. Subsequently, Amazon.com launched its Associates Program in July 1996 and it is still going strong.

Here, the Amazon marketing strategy has created a tiered performance-based incentives to encourage affiliates to sell more Amazon products.

Amazon Marketing strategy communications

In their SEC filings Amazon state that the aims of their communications strategy are (unsurprisingly) to:

• Increase customer traffic to our websites
• Create awareness of our products and services
• Promote repeat purchases
• Develop incremental product and service revenue opportunities
• Strengthen and broaden the Amazon.com brand name.

Amazon also believes that its most effective marketing communications are a consequence of their focus on continuously improving the customer experience. This then creates word-of-mouth promotion which is effective in acquiring new customers and may also encourage repeat customer visits.

As well as this Marcus (2004) describes how Amazon used the personalisation enabled through technology to reach out to a difficult to reach market which Bezos originally called ‘the hard middle’. Bezos’s view was that it was easy to reach 10 people (you called them on the phone) or the ten million people who bought the most popular products (you placed a superbowl ad), but more difficult to reach those in between. The search facilities in the search engine and on the Amazon site, together with its product recommendation features meant that Amazon could connect its products with the interests of these people.

Online advertising techniques include paid search marketing, interactive ads on portals, e-mail campaigns and search engine optimisation. These are automated as far as possible as described earlier in the case study. As previously mentioned, the affiliate programme is also important in driving visitors to Amazon and Amazon offers a wide range of methods of linking to its site to help improve conversion.

For example, affiliates can use straight text links leading direct to a product page and they also offer a range of dynamic banners which feature different content such as books about Internet marketing or a search box. Amazon also use cooperative advertising arrangements, better known as ‘contra-deals’ with some vendors and other third parties. For example, a print advertisement in 2005 for a particular product such as a wireless router with a free wireless laptop card promotion will feature a specific Amazon URL in the ad. In product fulfilment packs, Amazon may include a leaflet for a non-competing online company such as Figleaves.com (lingerie) or Expedia (travel). In return, Amazon leaflets may be included in customer communications from the partner brands.

Our Associates program directs customers to our websites by enabling independent websites to make millions of products available to their audiences with fulfillment performed by us or third parties. We pay commissions to hundreds of thousands of participants in our Associates program when their customer referrals result in product sales.

In addition, we offer everyday free shipping options worldwide and recently announced Amazon.com Prime in the U.S., our first membership program in which members receive free two-day shipping and discounted overnight shipping. Although marketing expenses do not include the costs of our free shipping or promotional offers, we view such offers as effective marketing tools.

Marcus, J. (2004) Amazonia. Five years at the epicentre of the dot-com juggernaut, The New Press, New York, NY.

Round, M. (2004) Presentation to E-metrics, London, May 2005. www.emetrics.org.

By Dave Chaffey

Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here . Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice . In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary . Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question .

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Case study: e-commerce.

Increase in Revenue

30 – 60%

Improvement in Product Performance

The Challenge

With an ad-based revenue model in place, the client grew their profitability and market share through their ad description pages and upgrade products. Although the client realized strong pricing growth over the past few years in both revenue and marketplace traffic, attempts to raise price points for their main upgrade products were met with challenges from customers. As a result, the client wanted to:

• Revise geographic segmentation to reflect the value provided to customers
• Revise the pricing model for two main upgrade products
• Train the sales force to better execute their pricing strategies.

Despite the fact that shoppers do at least half of their e-commerce spending through marketplaces, digital platforms still find it challenging to align increasing visitor traffic with profits. Online retailers often find themselves pressured by tough competition from e-commerce giants: Amazon, eBay and Alibaba on one side, and constantly emerging niche competitors on another.

This is the challenging position one of our clients found themselves in. A local division of an international niche e-commerce platform, they sold millions of items through their website and app online marketplace from third-party sellers.

The client believed the value being generated for their targeted customers had grown and shifted in the last two years. They asked us to re-evaluate their geographic segmentation and pricing strategy. The Pricing Solutions team built Revenue Impact Model that identified  a 3% increase in revenue  from targeted price increases.

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Building a custom solution for this client involved a number of strategies:

• Data Gathering
• Conducted a Business Review Workshop to gain a very deep understanding of the client’s products, customers, competitors and market conditions.
• Gathered two to three years of relevant information from the client including:
• Transactional data
• Customer data
• Product data
• The past year’s geographic segmentation
• Conducted cross-functional interviews
• Geographic Segmentation Revision
• Conducted reassessments of the geographic distribution of value by territory today vs. previous years
• Reviewed and assessed current prices for each territory, in light of new geographic segments
• Quantified customer churn based on transactional data analysis and existing insights gathered by client
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• Revise prices for each territory and improve the approach to setting a price for geographic segments;
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• Implement a new package bundling strategy and discount strategy for both upgraded items.

Above: As penetration increases, the upgrade product has clear diminishing returns.

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How to Build a Marketplace Website in 16 Steps: The Ultimate Guide

Any idea needs a strategy to put it into action. So, planning how you build a marketplace is crucial to making your idea a reality and managing risks. Starting from research, design, and development to launch and running, you make your marketplace a delightful spot for buyers and shoppers.

With our deep expertise in building marketplaces, you can overcome notorious challenges and build a marketplace for your business. This comprehensive guide covers the benefits, features, development strategy, problem solutions, and other intricacies to build a rewarding marketplace. Read on to discover them and pave your way to success.

Definition and main types of marketplaces

Before starting an online marketplace development , let’s discuss what a marketplace is and how specific types of such platforms differ.

A marketplace is a medium for sellers and buyers to exchange goods. Several terms define online platforms that offer ecommerce or online selling services. You can encounter terms like an online marketplace, ecommerce platform, marketplace app, wholesale directory, and ecommerce website. They all refer to how buyers and sellers interact on a marketplace website.

As there are many marketplaces today, we give you a brief classification. Knowing it, you can see what options are available when choosing the business direction for your marketplace.

By business model

Generally, marketplaces can target one or more niches. Based on this aspect, they are called vertical and horizontal marketplaces .

Vertical marketplace

These focus on one niche and target an audience interested in a specific product or service category. As a one-sector platform, a vertical marketplace helps win audiences and focus marketing efforts in one direction. Examples of niche marketplaces include StockX, TrueFacet, Chegg, Zillow, Uber, and Etsy.

Horizontal marketplace

These selling platforms focus on several niches. Therefore, such marketplaces cover different industries and diverse audiences under one roof. For example, Poshmark offers several categories of products in fashion, beauty, and more.

By target audience

The next aspect is which sides make deals on the marketplace website. The types of this criterion are as follows.

B2B marketplace

Business-to-business (B2B) platform is an intermediary between companies that sell products, services, or data to other companies. For example, Alibaba.com and Amazon Business connect suppliers and wholesalers with companies that need relevant products. Since B2B marketplaces serve companies of different sizes, they care about robust features and security. This helps marketplace users manage small to big deals.

B2C marketplace

Business-to-consumer (B2C) means selling products and services directly to customers. The B2C marketplace takes a commission for this. For example, LoveCrafts is a successful example of a B2C platform. It connects crafters and people buying their embroidery, knitted items, paintings, and more.

C2C marketplace

Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) platforms help you sell products or services to other customers. Often, sellers are also buyers on such platforms, and the marketplace is an intermediary between these two categories. Examples of C2C platforms are Poshmark, eBay, Etsy, and Craigslist.

P2P marketplace

Peer-to-peer ( P2P ) platforms appeared with the rise of the sharing economy that promotes using your assets or collaboration. In this case, a P2P marketplace becomes a selling environment between customers with something to sell or provide. Uber and Airbnb are prominent examples of P2P marketplaces.

By selling strategy

Depending on how many vendors use the platform, there are online and multi-vendor platforms.

Online marketplaces

These websites serve the needs of particular companies that sell their own products or services. The company owns the website and stock sold on the marketplace. Also, marketing and management operations are on the owner’s side.

Though this definition is valid, the term online marketplace can refer to any marketplace website, including multi-vendor marketplaces.

Multi-vendor (ecommerce) marketplaces

This is a platform where sellers offer goods, and buyers can shop for items they need. A marketplace owner coordinates sales on the platform and earns commissions for transactions. Inventory management is on the sellers’ side, while the marketplace owner manages operations and promotes the platform. Shopify is an example of a multi-vendor marketplace .

By offer types

Marketplaces can be a place for selling goods or providing services. This defines the following two types.

Product marketplaces

These offer physical or virtual products you can ship or download from the platform. Such marketplaces also deal with inventory management, shipment, returns, and replacement management.

Service marketplaces

Such platforms help customers find service providers. These marketplaces reshaped service industries by allowing service providers to reach broad audiences. Successful examples of online service marketplaces include Fiverr, Uber, and Lyft.

By location coverage

Geographical coverage also splits ecommerce platforms into two types: local and global.

Local marketplaces

Online platforms that provide products or services for specific locations are called local marketplaces. They offer diverse listings with geographic focus and community engagement. For example, Gumtree and Depop focus on local products and services.

Global marketplaces

Such platforms suggest unlimited product categories and unite sellers and buyers globally. Examples of marketplace giants include Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress.

To sum up, marketplaces differ in several aspects, and the exact selling platforms can fall into different categories simultaneously. For example, Etsy is a C2C multi-vendor vertical marketplace.

Read also: Top 15 Online Marketplace Trends to Watch Out for in 2024

Key benefits of building a marketplace website

Whether you have outlined your marketplace idea or just start creating the e-commerce website , knowing marketplace benefits will encourage you to get the development done. Let’s see what they are in detail.

Efficiency for business

What is business efficiency? It is the capability to get higher revenue quickly with fewer resources and effort invested. The following are the online marketplace benefits that lead to better business outcomes with less expense:

• Wider audience reach: the website is a connecting point for local and global users;
• Abundant catalogs: the online marketplace presents customers with a wide range of items;
• Swift transactions: marketplaces allow users to pay for the goods online;
• Streamlined operations: you can automate routine processes, such as inventory management and shipment, for quicker service.

In short, you can improve your business processes with a marketplace website for quicker operations and enhanced user experience.

Revenue growth

The financial benefits of ecommerce come as a result of marketplace business efficiency. As an online marketplace attracts more buyers and sellers and has automated processes, it is easier to gain higher profit. Marketplace owners typically win from fees after transactions. With a broad audience that an online marketplace can cover and automated trade operations, getting more such transactions and relevant commissions is easier.

Business automation

Online marketplaces tune up many processes essential for trading. Product search, filtering, arranging in catalogs, checkout process, payments, and shipping are automated to make the buying process quick.

Also, providing chatbots for customer services and using inventory management systems help speed up marketplace operations and enhance consumer experience. These B2C and B2B ecommerce benefits will keep your online marketplace running.

Clear value proposition

Are you connecting drivers and passengers, retailers and buyers, hosts and guests? These and many more options come as a vivid value proposition for customers. You can choose one niche at the start of your marketplace business.

As your marketplace evolves, you can expand your specialization coverage and target a broader audience. By covering one or more niches, you provide a clear value to your customers and get tangible benefits of ecommerce for a business.

Scalable business model

The top popular business models for online marketplaces are commission, subscription, freemium, listing fee, and lead fee. You do not choose one model once and for all. As your marketplace grows, you can select one that suits your business needs. You can mix these models and change them as your marketplace business evolves. Thus, you will get revenue and other ecommerce business benefits.

To sum up, an online marketplace is a versatile tool to make your customers happy and receive positive business outcomes. Check out our detailed article on marketplace development benefits for your business and customers.

Challenges of creating a marketplace website

Starting and running a marketplace is not a piece of cake in today’s saturated market with big players at the forefront. So, let’s see what marketplace problems you may encounter and how you can overcome them to drive your business forward.

Selecting the right development strategy

When selecting a building approach, you must consider technical, financial, and collaboration aspects. Choosing tech stack and scalability planning must ensure your marketplace website meets industry standards and your customers’ needs. Also, the development process must be optimized. So, you plan and use time and resources in the best way to build an ecommerce website .

A reliable development team or company can help you select the correct technical approach and feature feasibility analysis. It will help you understand what technologies, professionals, budget, and timeline you need to develop your ecommerce marketplace solution . Thus, you mitigate the risk of marketplace issues upfront.

Dealing with the chicken and egg problem

At the start, a marketplace needs help attracting an audience. Buyers won’t explore the platform because there is a lack of sellers. On the other hand, vendors do not have the audience who would buy from them. So, which side do you choose first to help your marketplace evolve?

Companies have successful examples of solving the marketplace chicken and egg problem . The primary approach is to start with the side that is more valuable to you and is more challenging to get. For example, Outdoorsy’s founders directly called RV owners and spoke in person to attract the supply side, which was more difficult. As soon as they got RV owners to their platform, renters also joined it.

Low knowledge of the brand

Another point in the list of marketplace challenges is low brand awareness, which means people need to become more familiar with your company. The better the brand awareness is, the more loyal customers become to your marketplace. They value your platform over other websites and will likely make repeat purchases.

To raise awareness of your marketplace, you can create a recognizable brand identity and build your marketing effort around it. Communicating a consistent brand message to your prospects through social media, influencers, and partnerships is a powerful tool to raise brand awareness. Showing your values and mission as a company can resonate with your audience and pull the balance in favor of your marketplace.

Low rate of client acquisition

Customer acquisition means attracting new clients to your platform to keep your business evolving. Poor customer acquisition rate affects your brand’s visibility and the flow of newcomers.

How do you solve these marketplace issues? Several remedies will help you. First and foremost, provide value that satisfies your customers’ intent and needs. To support that value and communicate it to your audience, use the following methods:

• Create content that is relevant and helpful to your customers and is optimized for search engines (SEO);
• Express your company values on social media;
• Produce videos, podcasts, and ads to improve your marketplace’s visibility on the web;
• Reach out to your customers with personalized emails at different stages of their journey.

High cart abandonment rate

This issue is widespread in the marketplace industry. Shoppers do not finish buying for various reasons, such as required account creation, tricky checkout process, and hidden costs.

You can optimize the cart feature to reduce this rate by making the cart experience smooth and engaging. Basically, you can add a guest checkout option, be straightforward on the final price, include product thumbnails, and highlight the steps of the checkout process. The goal is to highlight the critical price parameters, security of payments, and flexibility in refunds and returns.

Later on, we cover this aspect in the section on marketplace features in greater detail. Check it out.

Monitoring vanity metrics

These statistics look fascinating, yet they do not bring tangible results to business. Vanity metrics can be video views on social media or the number of followers. These data do not reflect the key parameters, such as engagement and leads, and do not outline how these indicators relate to broad business goals.

The trap of vanity metrics is that they can make you feel optimistic but do not give you the foundation for actionable decisions. Examples of vanity metrics are the total of customers, registered users, social media followers, and number of users gained per day.

Regarding metrics, measure what you need for your marketplace growth, paying attention to quality over quantity. Such metrics should be auditable and understandable to different teams in your company.

Also, remember that every element of your marketplace’s user experience needs testing with real people. What seems to you as consistent and convenient might be frustrating to your customers. You can obtain the results that matter for your growth by approaching these online marketplace challenges.

Essential features to build a marketplace website

Functionality is at the core of your marketplace website. The well-thought-out marketplace features ensure that your customers find what they want and get help during their interactions with your website.

Below, we discuss the primary marketplace website features that help customers reach their selling and buying goals.

Simple signup process

Coming to your marketplace and searching for products takes customers’ time and effort. At last, they are ready to buy that specific product on your marketplace. The next for them is the signup process.

Try to keep it simple, clear, and prompt. This way, you will retain a customer who is willing to buy on your platform. How can you achieve it? The following are best practices to make your signup feature frictionless and engaging:

• Include a compelling headline, a short registration form, and a vivid call to action;
• Aim to a one-step registration process, such as entering email and password;
• If your signup process takes more than one step, highlight the steps with a progress bar;
• Give the option to sign up with Google, Facebook, X (Twitter), or similar accounts;
• Define the signup and sign-in processes with separate buttons;
• Validate your signup versions with A/B tests to check which option is best for your customers.

Additionally, you can highlight the benefits of an account and how you secure customers’ personal information.

For example, Macy’s, a department store company, offers a separate signup form. It is short and requires basic details. A thoughtful headline outlines that the signup is secure. Also, users can read what benefits they get by creating an account. The incentives include easy checkout, tracking orders, and access across different devices.

Depending on the marketplace type by engagement, profiles include buyers' data or buyers’ and sellers’ information. You can join both in one account. Typically, a profile contains personal information, preferences, order history, and payment methods. Also, you can suggest notification settings to personalize user experiences.

For example, Udemy provides an opportunity to be a student or teacher and switch between these roles with marketplace features. Profiles on Udemy are customized to users' goals. Students can save courses, add wishlists, see archived courses, and add learning reminders.

On the other hand, instructors are provided with communication tools to connect to students and software tools for course creation. Also, teachers can view their performance and track crucial indicators, such as reviews, course engagement, traffic, and conversions.

Easy custom search

The primary aim of people coming to your marketplace is quickly finding the desired products. That is why a swift search is a must-have for your marketplace. Following the best practices, make your search as convenient as possible. Today, the following search enhancements are available:

• Give a placeholder in the search bar to highlight the feature for your customer;
• Provide similar search options while a customer types the word for a product in a search bar;
• Give suggestions with featured or trending products or listings;
• Provide search based on price, shipping, and delivery types;
• Optimize search with filters;
• Provide recommendations based on past searches;
• Ensure cashing to show search results quickly;
• Foresee synonyms, acronyms, and misspellings in search;
• Include proper indexing based on product categories and descriptions.

For example, Udemy , a leading education platform with over 210,000 courses, highlights featured courses when you type words in the search bar. Along with popular searches, you get a grasp of featured or top courses available per your search.

This marketplace feature helps shoppers narrow their search by specific criteria. Thus, buyers can select specific properties to find the best match for their preferences.

Basic filters include ranking by price and product type. Depending on the category, your marketplace will suggest additional filters. For example, the Vinterior marketplace for vintage furniture provides comprehensive filters in a drop-down menu.

Advanced product page

This feature shows the product’s properties and helps shoppers find and select desired items. Key components of the advanced product page include the following:

• High-quality images;
• Detailed product description;
• Information on availability;
• Product variants;
• Customer ratings and reviews;
• Price and discounts;
• Shipping and delivery information;
• Related or complimentary products.

The product page enhances the user experience with options to buy now or save the product for later. Also, sharing the item on social media helps get exposure to a broad audience.

Shopping cart

According to the Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate is 70.19% . So, around 3 shoppers out of 10 do not complete buying. As the reality of online buying, the abandoned cart affects marketplace revenue. The good news is that you can improve your shopping cart design and make buying easy and delightful. That means better conversions and more transactions.

We have prepared a list of best practices to design your shopping cart to help customers finish their purchases. Here is the list:

• Suggest free shipping for orders above a specific amount;
• Show your trust badges to prove the security of your platform;
• Outline logos of popular payment solutions in the shopping cart that highlight an easy payment process;
• When a customer adds items to the cart, offer them to continue buying or proceed to checkout;
• Display the number of items in the cart;
• Make the cart icon accessible from any page of your marketplace;
• Allow for checkout as guests;
• Keep the checkout process on one page or show a progress bar for several steps;
• Provide autofill for details in the checkout form;
• Keep shipping costs, taxes, and other fees transparent and give a clear and accurate total.

For example, Etsy provides a well-thought-out shopping cart design. When you add an item to the cart, the relevant page outlines the payment options, total, discount, and shipping price. Also, the page highlights purchase safety and protection against delivery risks. These e commerce marketplace features ensure that customers will enjoy buying.

Guest checkout

When visiting your marketplace for the first time, customers are unsure if they will buy again on your platform. So, enabling guest checkout is a straightforward way to engage more visitors and increase sales.

This feature also supports your adding items to the wishlist as a guest. Thus, your one-time buyers receive advanced experience. So they are likely to make repeat purchases.

Transparent navigation

Your customers’ primary goal is to explore your marketplace website and find specific products. If your navigation is easy, customers will get a positive experience and will likely buy. The result is higher conversions and cart totals. Otherwise, cluttered or unclear navigation leads to bouncing when customers do not finish their intended action on your website.

To make navigation convenient, follow these simple and efficient techniques:

• Plan out your website navigation structure and look;
• Guide a user from significant categories to one-layer subcategories or pages;
• Use recognizable signs for the menu, such as three horizontal stripes or three dots;
• Create a menu with simple words concisely depicting menu points;
• Create a mobile-first navigation that will look nice on screens of different sizes.

For example, Basset, a platform that offers furniture and other home products, provides a combined navigation style. It helps you view categories and subcategories with horizontal and side menus. This approach keeps navigation smooth and clear.

Messaging and chat

Marketplace provides a place for many interactions. Buyers ask sellers questions about specific product or service details, arrange delivery, track shipment, and resolve issues. For such diverse interactions between buyers and sellers, messaging and chat are a must-have to keep your marketplace running.

Technologies can help you enhance the messaging feature. Thus, you can personalize this feature for specific user preferences in the following ways:

• Schedule push/email campaigns;
• Personalize messages based on user behavior;
• Send reminders and notifications;
• Use targeted messaging to deliver tips, promotions, and updates;
• Leverage messaging to highlight deals closed in direct messaging between a buyer and a seller.

For example, Shopify released an app to help sellers contact buyers on many issues. With Shopify Inbox, buyers can monitor conversations from their admin. Moreover, the app helps see what items shoppers have in their carts during conversation and which chats will likely lead to sales.

Advanced vendor dashboard

This comprehensive feature is mainly used with multi-vendor marketplaces . A vendor dashboard helps sellers manage orders, payments, and shipments and check performance indicators and other crucial sales data. Also, a dashboard allows vendors to provide feedback on marketplace work and get support if needed.

The dashboard brings to sellers the following essential elements:

Product management to add, update, and edit item listings, including price, quantity, description, images, inventory, and stock. You can enhance it with intelligent data incorporation for consistent descriptions of the same products from different vendors.

Order management to manage and track incoming orders, update order statuses, and manage invoices and shipping labels. Make it customizable to help sellers choose the features they need for their business.

Inventory management to receive notifications of shortages in stock and manage stock replenishments. This feature helps vendors to save money, streamline cash flows, and improve shoppers’ experiences.

Bulk import to import product data. This feature improves vendors’ experiences as they can import product descriptions in bulk without adding items one by one. For example, vendors can import product details to a marketplace from their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Sales reports and analytics to optimize sales strategies based on performance indicators. These data help vendors monitor sales, customer behavior, conversion, and retention rates.

Communication tools to help customers with product details, resolve issues, and provide customer support. With these features, vendors can understand the sources of questions and problems and help shoppers quickly find what they need.

Commission and payment tracking to view earnings and commissions from the online marketplace. Keep the commission and payment policy clear for vendors so that they can understand their revenue gain and deductions.

Vendor dashboards can be even more sophisticated for larger marketplaces. Let’s take Amazon as an example. They provide a platform for sellers with essential B2B online marketplace features. Check out the video below for what their Amazon Seller Central vendor panel includes.

Ratings and reviews

BrightLocal’s recent research shows that 76% of customers read reviews before buying. Ratings and reviews help buyers get handy information and encourage sellers to improve their products and services. Thus, these online marketplace features promote customer engagement and make your platform trustworthy.

It is helpful if you provide several options to give a rating and review:

• General rating with stars or similar points;
• Rating for specific parameters, such as product quality, order processing, and seller’s response to queries;
• Open-text responses with specific questions;
• An option for users to edit and remove their reviews and ratings;
• A feature for sellers to respond to ratings and reviews.

For example, Etsy allows buyers to assess the item quality and shipping time and give a rating. Also, buyers can give a thumbs-up assessment to other shoppers’ reviews and show that a review is helpful. This way, the marketplace makes users’ feedback more accurate and promotes helpfulness.

Customer support and chatbots

An excellent customer experience is crucial to customer retention and conversions. As Salesforce shows that 80% of customers say that their experience with the platform is as vital as the product or service quality. Also, 88% of respondents admit they would buy again after the positive customer service.

So, how can you provide better customer support in your marketplace? In fact, you have plenty of channels for that. You can use classic tools, like email, phone, or in-person support, along with online chat and social media engagement. Check the image below from Salesforce research to see how else you can set up customer support on your marketplace.

A self-service chatbot is another helpful tool among product and service marketplace features. Powered with AI (artificial intelligence), chatbots provide users with answers to queries on products, services, bookings, orders, shipments, and other common issues.

Chatbots can provide a human-like experience and process queries from many customers in one go. Thus, they drive your customer satisfaction.

Marketplace integrations

Today’s fast-paced ecommerce world provides sellers and brands with various opportunities to expand their audience reach. Online marketplace integrations are such a method. In a nutshell, it is software that connects your service platform with a marketplace. The integration tools provide versatile features to track your products, stock, orders, shipment, and more.

Let’s discuss popular integrations that you can use in online and multi-vendor marketplace development .

Product feed management

As marketplaces thoroughly check product data before listing them, keeping your product feed accurate and up-to-date is vital. Product feed management means collecting, optimizing, and spreading product data across selling channels.

Well-organized and explicit product data help marketplaces like Amazon or eBay understand product descriptions correctly and display them effectively.

For example, ChannelEngine, a platform for ecommerce, connects brands and retailers to various marketplaces. Its comprehensive set of tools includes product listing control in the following aspects:

• Product data import, including descriptions, images, and attributes, across various marketplaces;
• Optimization of product data with an intelligent content and attribute mapping method;
• Stock and order synchronization and delivery across multiple channels;
• Creating virtual product bundles with AI technology for enhanced user experience.

One more example is Jungle Scout, a softwareas-a-service platform offering marketing and sales technologies and analytics to sell on Amazon. The suite includes Product Tracker, which is a tool with the following product management services:

• Tracking real-time sales, revenue, and best-selling products;
• Custom organization of groups of similar products;
• Observation of critical metrics, such as daily product sales, prices, and more;
• Writing product notes;
• Exploring recommended product ideas.

Order management

The order journey starts when a shopper clicks the buy button. An order management tool helps with receiving, tracking, and fulfilling orders. Ensuring timely deliveries, easy replacements, and frictionless returns is necessary.

The following are the benefits for your marketplace from this integration:

Keeping the right level of stock. The order management system helps you keep your stock in line with the orders you get.

Streamlined fulfillment of orders. Thanks to process automation, the system lets you narrow your focus to quick order delivery.

Making informed decisions. The integration provides necessary data on order distribution, splits inventory depending on locations, and identifies real-time issues.

Better focus on strategic activities. You can focus on sales and other business improvements and strategies with automated routine tasks.

A prominent example of an order management app is Order Desk. Being on the market since 2014, it helps sellers optimize their operations with orders. The app provides a vast pool of features and integrations, including the following:

• Order automation with Rules Engine to split orders, add data before fulfillment, and filter orders by country;
• Organization of order workflow in custom folders;
• Tracking payments and processing full and partial refunds;
• Building customized receipt templates;
• Generating reports by SKU for easy pick-and-pack.

Shipment tracking

As online marketplaces operate on a different scale, from local to global, shipment tracking integrations should meet the relevant requirements. Thus, shipment tracking software offers tools to see transit times, real-time updates on shipment supply, delivery status updates, automated billing, and order management. With those tools, such online marketplace integrations bring the following benefits:

• Strengthened trust in the marketplace platform;
• Peace of mind for sellers managing their shipments;
• Lower traveling and transportation costs thanks to outlined routes;
• Tracking shipment statuses and precise delivery schedules;
• Enhanced security with instant notifications on shipment status;
• Superior customer service with easy shipment tracking.

For example, ShippingEasy, a convenient platform for shipment tracking, boasts an intuitive interface, automated workflow, seamless integration, and unlimited support. As proof of those benefits, the platform offers the following functionality:

• Automated shipment with delivery preferences, mapping rules to order management, and adding insurance to particular shipment types;
• Integrations with unlimited marketplaces, unlimited shopping carts, accounting, listing engines, and other services;
• Support of various labels and barcode scanning;
• Reports on shipments, orders, and unshipped products.

Inventory management integrations

Proper inventory tracking helps sellers optimize stock flow. It brings positive results for managing products and optimizes other essential aspects of the sales process across many channels. Thus, sellers get streamlined operations, which means more transactions for a marketplace and enhanced customer experience.

In particular, inventory management integrations in a marketplace bring the following benefits:

Optimizing inventory tracking and replenishment to keep inventory just enough without over or understocking; Reducing costs thanks to accurate stock monitoring and improving inventory turnover; Providing better service for customers with on-demand product supply.

For example, SellerChamp is software that provides tools for retailers, resellers, dropshippers, and more. It includes the following features:

• Inventory synchronization across different sales channels, such as Amazon, Walmart, eBay, or Etsy;
• Bulk lister to list thousands of products with an intelligent system;
• Order fulfillment by connecting with partners via built-in integrations;
• Repricing based on competition and sales speed.

Payment processing integrations

Flexibility in payment options encourages shoppers to buy and benefits sellers and marketplace owners in more transactions. Choosing the proper payment tools is vital when considering and testing marketplace integrations.

The most popular payment integrations for marketplaces include the following:

For example, Poshmark, a fashion and decor marketplace, highlights the payment option on the product description page. The website outlines PayPal as a swift payment gateway. Also, it suggests PayPal payment in installments. So, you can get a product at once and split payment for it, which makes the buying process more convenient.

At Codica, we know that proper payment integration is essential for smooth marketplace operation. So, it is no surprise our clients often ask for PayPal or Stripe integration. The gateways provide a wide coverage of currencies, follow the best security practices, and ensure flexible payment options.

Detailed analytics dashboard

This feature covers processes of sellers’ and buyers’ activities and provides marketplace owners with valuable data. Based on the dashboard analytics, you can view where your marketplace performs excellently and which aspects you can improve.

Dashboard features can vary depending on the marketplace’s services and needs. At the same time, specific features define the foundation of marketplace analytics. They are as follows:

• Number and trends in marketplace visits;
• Unique visitors during a selected timeframe;
• New, retained, and churned customers.

Among essential metrics you can include to measure marketplace performance are the following:

• Number of active buyers and sellers that use your platform;
• Number of transactions - successful matches of buyers and sellers;
• Total order value - the revenue and growth of the marketplace;
• Cost per acquisition (CPA) - the cost of winning customers through a particular channel;
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC) - marketing costs relative to engaging new users;
• Average order value - the average value per transaction;
• Buyer-to-seller ratio - the number of sellers who are also buyers;
• Quick ratio - the percentage showing if growth outpaces churn;
• Abandoned cart metrics - the data showing patterns and statistics in cart abandonment.

For example, Bonanza takes care of its sellers by implementing helpful features. Analytics dashboard is one such function. The essential aspects sellers can analyze with the dashboard are as follows:

Sales graph. It includes total views, sales, revenue, revenue change, and days of high traffic, all in one graph. You can view these statistics for the last 60 days, 30 days, or the previous week.

Views graph. It helps to track views of the items, high traffic, and sources of the item views, specifically advertising. If you want to improve your views, the graph features prompt links that will help you boost sales.

Specific reports. This feature allows sellers to check out the most viewed items, traffic sources, and most viewed categories, graphs, and reports. Detailed reports show popular categories and traffic-driving channels.

Top Search Terms. Bonanza offers members an advanced report to review successful categories, revenue results, and channels that drive the most traffic. These advanced reports help sellers make informed decisions and optimize their stock and marketing resources.

Marketplace payment solutions

In addition to payment integrations, you can simplify operations with several marketplace payment solutions for a better service. They are as follows.

Escrow payment system

This payment method means that funds to be paid are held and will be released when the contractual conditions are met. Typically, a neutral third party keeps the escrow and releases it when the conditions are fulfilled, or instructions are given.

Sectors with different amounts, including big-ticket sums, such as real estate, selling high-value jewelry or art, or bulk supplies, use this method.

Why is the method helpful in transactions? That is because escrow secures against fraud. For example, BlaBlaCar uses escrow to protect its passengers. So, the funds are kept on deposit. A driver receives payment after reaching the destination, and a passenger confirms that everything is fine. Thus, passengers receive excellent service and do not have to carry cash.

Split payment

When the sum for a product or service is divided into parts, it is a split payment. This approach means paying for the product with different credit cards. Also, you can use various payment methods, or people can jointly pay for the order, product, or service.

How does that work for a marketplace? For example, Indigo, a leading Canadian book retailer, automatically deducts debit, plum points, and Gift Cards from the payment. Also, the platform allows users to use several Gift Cards to pay for an order.

Mass payout

This marketplace platform payment solution means sending payments to many recipients. A recipient gets a link by email and claims the amount. On the other hand, a sender can log such payments in spreadsheets and accounting applications.

Mass payment is enabled by tech services and saves significant time and expenses. You can use mass payments for different currencies and cover recipients worldwide.

Marketplaces that process gig payments, affiliate commissions, customer rebates, and subscriptions benefit from mass payments.

Digital wallets

These online marketplace payment solutions are handy because they speed up and ensure the safety of transactions. You can input your payment details once and then enjoy swift shopping across various marketplaces. Leading trading brands have created digital wallets to streamline user experience with online selling and buying, such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Alipay, and Walmart Pay.

Digital wallets help marketplaces avoid friction during the checkout process. Also, e-wallets secure payments with reliable authentication and enhance authorization rates from card issuers.

16 steps to build a booming online marketplace

Building a marketplace is a versatile process that requires strategic planning, thorough execution, and adaptation to changes. Below, we provide a guide on how to develop a marketplace from idea validation and launch to continuous iteration.

Let’s dive into it!

Research and choose your niche

Why is starting with a niche marketplace better than trying an all-in-one option? The niche approach simplifies entering the market and finding customers. Regarding how saturated today’s market is, the specific option saves you time and funds to win your place in that environment.

When you research niche opportunities, narrow down your focus gradually. If you aim to target the fashion industry, you can narrow your niche to specific items and demographics. For instance, Threadless focuses on apparel with designs from artists. Sneakerjagers targets those who specifically appreciate sneakers. Meanwhile, UNTUCKit offers shirts designed to be worn untucked.

As you can see, focusing on a narrow niche empowers you to provide a high-quality service. Also, you will acquire customers who are loyal to your brand because they share your values and are inclined to come to your marketplace.

After your marketplace has attracted loyal customers and improved your value, you can scale your platform.

When choosing your niche, other factors are crucial for building a marketplace with validated benefits to customers. To learn about such factors, you need research. That is why, at Codica, we start projects with product discovery . The stage is essential as it brings up vital specifics in the marketplace’s success, such as product-market fit, value proposition, target audience, competitors, timeframe, and budget.

Check the video below to see how discovery sessions help development and what you get as a result of the product discovery.

Learn your target audience

Define your target user category for your marketplace. Understanding your audience is crucial for effective marketing. Tailor your value proposition based on customer needs to address specific problems. When creating an online marketplace, focus on meeting consumer expectations for a positive user experience and emotional satisfaction with your product.

For example, Etsy primarily targets buyers who are women aged 25-40 supporting small companies. Sellers are also mostly female, aged 39. These data come from Etsy’s surveys on the top categories that brought the most sales.

With data on your target audience, you can understand what value your marketplace can provide to those people. To learn details about your customers, you can do the following:

• Research the size, demographics, and pain points of your target audience;
• Use surveys and interviews to get insights and feedback by asking open-ended questions;
• Create personas and scenarios to understand how people would use your marketplace;
• Observe what customers say about your platform on social media;
• Review how customers use your platform through user testing.

To help you coin your surveys, we offer the following methods. Use Steve Blank's customer development approach to survey user pain points, motivations, and habits at product inception, post-commercial use, and consistently over time.

Also, you can apply Rob Fitzpatrick's Mom Test principles to create questions revealing genuine thoughts, ensuring accurate and valuable insights into your product.

Select a business model

Your marketplace website should bring you a stable profit. For this reason, you have to choose a suitable revenue model. Remember that it should offer reasonable conditions for your potential vendors. Also, it needs to help grow your marketplace.

Let’s take a closer look at the best monetization strategies used by the ecommerce giants, such as Amazon, eBay, and others:

• A commission cuts a part of each transaction made through your platform.
• A listing fee is charged when vendors publish their items on the marketplace. The higher the product or service cost, the higher the listing fee.
• A subscription fee is a marketplace business model when a seller pays a charge to get access to your ecommerce platform. It contains monthly or yearly fees for a definite set of benefits.
• An advertising fee is about promoting items on your marketplace by third-party advertisers.
• Lead fees enable users to pay for access to detailed information about the desired item.
• Premium membership gives users access to extra features and exclusive content.

Below are examples of monetization strategies and well-known companies that use them.

To wrap up the topic, choosing suitable revenue models is crucial for making a profit on your platform. Starting with one monetization strategy, you can progress to complex models. This way, you will help vendors make the most of your marketplace.

Write a business plan for the marketplace launch

Creating a business plan is crucial before starting online marketplace development. It outlines goals, tracks progress as the platform grows, and reduces risks by anticipating issues. Also, it serves as a must-have document when seeking third-party investors and demonstrating the viability of your marketplace idea for long-term success.

These are the main points your business plan should include:

• Review of your enterprise as a whole;
• Your marketplace description, including your goals and objectives;
• Description of products and services your vendors provide;
• Information about your target audience, the niche you chose, and competitors;
• The online marketplace strategy and ways of its implementation;
• Your team’s organizational structure;
• Financial plan with a revenue model and projections.

Here is a quick tip from our team. You can describe these general points as a business model canvas . This approach is helpful as you can involve your entire team in discussions and modify it whenever your business needs changes.

Search for compatible investors

Successful startuppers recommend looking for investors when you are ready to move your business to the next level. In this case, you have a strong base, and scaling your business is a real opportunity for you and investors. Thus, you can make it to the next investment round.

What is it that you can bring to the table and attract investors? These are problems that you solve, proven customer traction, an executable business plan, clarity about financial goals, and your marketplace’s trajectory compared to the competition. In return, you get investors’ networks, ideas, and advice.

Trusted platforms that offer investments for online marketplace startups include AngelList, Crunchbase, Kickstarter, and Y Combinator.

You may also like: Market Networks: The Future of Service Marketplaces

Define the required functionality

Your marketplace’s features are the core to ensure that buyers and sellers reach their goals and will return to your platform. Thus, defining functionality is a crucial step in planning your marketplace website.

Here is how you can select the features for your platform:

• Think of your marketplace’s goals and prioritize functionality accordingly;
• Add features based on your audience’s needs;
• Choose the primary features that would make your platform workable and marketable;
• Take into account costs and limitations when choosing third-party integrations and plug-ins.

Choose the best tech stack

The right technologies ensure your marketplace is robust, stable, and scalable. So, when choosing programming languages, frameworks, and integrations, remember the following crucial points. The technologies must ensure the following aspects:

• Compatibility with existing or future systems to ensure the proper work of your marketplace;
• Scalability to stand high traffic loads as your marketplace evolves;
• Performance for smooth user experiences;
• Affordability of licenses and paying for developers’ skills;
• Optimization of development processes;
• Security to protect your marketplace against vulnerabilities;
• Support with documentation and community;
• Flexibility with a view of improvements in your marketplace and emerging technologies;
• Long-term maintenance to keep your platform up-to-date over time.

Below is an overview of the technologies we use at Codica when building a marketplace. This tech stack ensures that the created platform meets the best development standards, aligns with the current trends in the market, and delights customers.

At Codica, we have selected a list of tools assisting us in developing scalable, secure, and high-quality online marketplaces. Now, we will share with you which tech stack we use. Also, you will learn what integrations we recommend for your future successful marketplace.

Frontend tech stack

The frontend is the visual part of your web platform. Visitors see and interact with this part of your solution. So, developing this part for an online marketplace website demands a deep understanding of users’ needs. For the frontend side, we use:

• JavaScript;
• TypeScript;

Backend tech stack

The backend is the software part responsible for functioning as the internal part of a web solution. Of course, high-quality software should have a solid ‘backbone’ to perform smoothly. When creating a marketplace website, for the backend, our experts use:

• Ruby on Rails ;

DevOps tech stack components

Companies use the DevOps tech stack for continuous integration of operations. DevOps tools automate many recurring tasks. Thus, they improve overall performance. Also, these tools decrease the likelihood of manual faults during the development lifecycle. Our choice of DevOps tech stack when creating a marketplace includes the following tools:

Databases tech stack

Databases are a significant part of the backend ecosystem. In brief, the database is accumulated data specially organized for fast search and removal from a computer. They deal with maintaining and processing a lot of data points. Here are the databases we use for building a marketplace:

• PostgreSQL;
• ElasticSearch.

Infrastructure software stack

At Codica, we prefer the following application deployment, provisioning, and configuration management tools:

• Digital Ocean;

Integrations

In general, integrations enhance the functionality of the existing system. Thanks to their features, it becomes possible for the system to automate and complete a broad range of tasks. In brief, with the following integrations, we will help you create a marketplace website of high quality:

• Google Analytics;
• Uptime Robot;

The process of picking a tech stack can be quite challenging. It requires careful discussion with stakeholders and thoughtful planning. Also, your development team should have vast practical experience.

Select the right development team

Your IT vendor ensures your platform is developed within the set timeframe, optimized, and secured. You can check reliable platforms for ratings and reviews to find such a team. Prominent portals are GoodFirms, Owler, and Clutch.

When you discover a company or team that seems reliable and experienced to you, review their portfolio. Their works should be relevant to your marketplace’s goals and show the needed expertise.

Another vital point when choosing a development team is how they communicate with you. If you can reach them out via different channels when needed, this is a sign of fruitful cooperation.

At Codica, we promote open communication and a collaborative approach to development. We are happy that our expertise, effort, and experience help companies connect with their customers. Our clients' success inspires us to refine our skills and innovate in further projects.

UI/UX design

Your marketplace website is a starting point where your customers discover your brand. Design is the first thing they see on your page. If the design elements and visuals help your customers buy and sell, you get more chances that they return to your platform.

Keep your marketplace design appealing, simple, recognizable, and accessible. Buyers and sellers with different preferences and capabilities should easily find their needs. Also, make your logo, colors, and fonts consistent on the website. This way, you will make interaction with your ecommerce website enjoyable.

When providing UI/UX design services , we follow the company’s brand guidelines and technical requirements. In addition, we review what would improve user experience with your marketplace and make relevant suggestions.

Further reading: The Ultimate Guide to Ecommerce Website Design

Develop an MVP first

Turning to minimum viable product development services helps you save resources and reach your goals faster. MVP is a version of your marketplace with the prioritized features. Thanks to the minimum of features, you develop and launch quickly. Also, as it is a marketable product, you can collect customer feedback and iterate as needed.

When startups turn to us with their marketplace projects, we recommend setting off with MVP development . The marketplace MVP development includes product discovery, UI/UX design, development, and quality assurance services .

This approach has helped our clients check their assumptions, reduce time to market, and see what must be improved. As a result, MVP projects brought positive business outcomes.

Read also: How to Build Online Marketplace and Not Fail

Acquire users

So, you have built your MVP marketplace. How can you attract users to your platform? It relates to solving the chicken and egg challenge that we discussed above. The main point is to start from the side that is hard to gain and will bring value to your marketplace.

As Andrew Chen, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, puts it, the supply side is king. This opinion comes from his analysis of Uber for X potential and why it failed.

Your marketplace should start by acquiring the supply side and nurturing it. Then, the demand part of buyers will join the platform as the value will be obvious.

Build trust between sellers and buyers

Nurturing buyers and sellers is essential for your marketplace growth. Thus, applying particular strategies for building trust between buyers and sellers will strengthen your marketplace. They are as follows:

Transparent policies. Be clear about return, refund, and dispute resolution policies. This approach instills confidence in buyers and sellers about the platform’s fairness.

Verified profiles. Add a verification system for sellers and buyers. It will reduce the risk of fraud.

Ratings and reviews. Enable buyers to leave feedback for sellers, and vice versa, so vendors could respond to negative reviews. This communication will be a valuable source for other platform users.

Secure payments. Ensure that payments are safe on your platform with due encryption.

Prompt customer support. Provide efficient customer support to resolve issues between sellers and buyers. Such commitment to customer satisfaction builds trust in your platform.

Quality assurance. Include measures that ensure quality checks. Enforcing high-quality standards maintains trust.

Reference materials. Provide guides for sellers and buyers. Thus, they will be able to resolve common issues themselves. Also, such materials will help sellers and buyers navigate the platform and use it in their best interests.

Regulatory compliance. Highlight that your platform follows the latest quality and security standards and complies with regulations.

For example, Amazon provides several common categories that people often search for. Customers can contact the support service if they need specific help with other issues.

Source: Amazon.com

Platform promotion

We have discussed a strategy to build an online marketplace. The next question is how you can promote your brand-new ecommerce platform.

An efficient marketplace marketing strategy helps attract vendors and buyers to your online marketplace and makes it more visible on the web. Use the following tips to gain sellers' and buyers' attention:

• Promote your platform via ads on social media, including Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
• Become a part of workshops or educational meetups. Attend these events to connect with your potential vendors and buyers.
• Visit trade fairs to search for sellers. Find a subtle way to get their contact information. Thus, you will be able to reach them afterward.
• Organize live events and collaborate with celebrities.
• Create joint promotions with complementary brands and influencers.
• Offer discounts.
• Provide affiliate and referral programs.

For example, Shopify offers affiliate opportunities for content creators, influencers, course educators, and review sites. To be eligible for an affiliate program, you should have an established audience and experience with Shopify.

Find tools to monitor different aspects of your marketplace

Starting a new business is always tricky. However, the working process will be well-organized with the right tools, and your enterprise will run smoothly.

So, below are examples of such applications and tools:

• Google Analytics is used to analyze your marketplace traffic. This tool helps you better understand your audience, perform search engine optimization (SEO), and monitor marketing parameters.
• Salesforce is a powerful CRM (customer relationship management) tool. It allows you to connect to your users and organizes your clients' pipeline from the first contact to making a deal.
• Mention is a great social media management tool for showing mentions of your project on different resources.
• Buffer is an excellent assistant for scheduling posts on social media. This marketplace app development solution makes your promotion campaign as smooth as possible. You only need to buffer a blog post, and the service will publish it automatically.

Protect your intellectual property

Now, it’s time to protect your business legally. Define if you need to set copyrights, patents, trademarks, or special licenses. Why is it important?

Other people can make a profit from your idea if you do not protect your concept. So, you should have the documentation that proves you own the assets mentioned.

Here are the ways that will help you make your product idea safe and sound:

A patent is a set of exclusive rights. It is granted to an inventor for a restricted period in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention.

A trademark is used to represent a company or product. It can be a symbol, word, or several legally registered words. For instance, you need it to protect your project name.

A copyright is a collection of exclusive rights granted to an inventor and spread over a literary work, song, movie, or software. For example, you can protect your website content, including articles, descriptions, etc.

A domain name is the part of a network address that identifies it as belonging to a particular domain.

Applying these methods, you can ensure that your marketplace is highly protected. Additionally, your web project will be recognized by the courts and competitors.

Costs to build a marketplace website

You know the technical side of building an online marketplace. Now, let’s talk about money. Below, we give you an overview of possible development spending and tips to keep your costs modest.

Ready-made vs. custom development

Simply put, a ready-made website is fast to develop. Meanwhile, custom development requires effort, time, and, thus, higher costs. At the same time, the template-based website is tricky to adapt to specific business needs, and custom software development services help you get tailored features that you need for growing your business.

The table below is a more detailed overview of the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches. You can consider the costs of building a marketplace website and choose a method that suits best your current business needs.

Feature set

When you create a marketplace website from scratch, your chosen features will define the development cost. The more features you get, the higher the cost. On average, marketplace price ranges between $40,000 and $80,000, reaching $100,000 - $150,000 for websites with complex architecture.

When you partner with an IT agency, they will calculate prices based on the feature-by-feature estimates. For example, an Eastern European developers’ rate of $50 per hour gives a feature price range between $3,000 and $8,000.

Developers’ hourly rate

Today, you can hire a specialist from around the globe via different platforms and communication technologies. It makes professional help accessible. Nevertheless, it is necessary to consider that geographical location influences time zone differences and, more importantly, defines developers’ hourly rates.

Below is a helpful guide by Accelerance for 2024 developers’ hourly rates for outsourcing companies.

Source: Accelerance

As you can see from the table, another crucial factor is developers' expertise and experience level. While simple marketplace websites can be done at the middle level, development is more costly when it involves senior specialists for sophisticated solutions.

According to Arc, senior professionals charge $101 - $120 per hour in North America, $81 - 100 hourly in Western Europe, and $61 - 80 hourly in Eastern Europe. The rates of middle specialists in the same regions range between $61 - $100 per hour.

Examples and costs of building a marketplace

For your convenience, we have prepared a collection of prominent marketplaces to give you a quick peek at possible expenses for crafting a similar website. Check them out below.

As Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, states, the marketplace’s success stems from a sharp focus on customer experience. That is what keeps Amazon among the prominent marketplaces.

Key features that make the marketplace stand out include the following:

• Order management;
• Returns and refund;
• Payment management;
• Checking carrier info;
• Accessibility features.

The table below shows the cost of features for an Amazon-like MVP.

Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky started their marketplace with three core parameters:

Signup/login process; An option to be a traveler or host; An option to monitor new listings.

More features were added to this base to improve and expand the platform. They help connect guests and hosts, choose flexible dates, and manage the hosting process.

Check out the table below with an estimated cost of building a marketplace website like Airbnb .

Rob Kalin, Chris Maguire, and Haim Schoppik started this marketplace to connect people selling handmade items with buyers online. In the first year of their website, the traffic boomed as they added new features to improve sellers’ exposure.

Today, Etsy has a $3.5 billion valuation. Thanks to its versatile functionality and care for product diversity and quality, Etsy stays among the major players in the ecommerce world.

Check the table below for a rough estimate of building an Etsy-like platform.

The Alibaba.com project started in 1999 to serve wholesale traders. Along with essential features for buyers and sellers, this wholesale platform adds more services for a better user experience. For example, Alibaba.com supports safe operations with suppliers. Also, it provides secure payment options with ongoing support and protection against product and shipping issues.

The table below gives rough numbers for building a website like Alibaba.com.

It was started to support small Chinese businesses. Today, this marketplace boasts over 150 million buyers. The platform provides quick and secure payments, convenient order management, and prompt customer support. Its distinguished feature is that it supports 18 languages and 38 local payment channels.

To build a website like AliExpress , check the table below for an estimate.

Pierre Omidyar started this online auction website as a hobby in 1995. As of the third quarter of 2023, eBay generated around $2.5 billion in revenue.

The marketplace’s functionality serves buyers and sellers with relevant support, provides returns, and encourages users to build affiliate partnerships. The platform includes listing management, shows item conditions, offers convenient payment systems, and allows for tracking the shipment.

The table below presents the cost of creating an online marketplace like eBay.

This marketplace helps employers and job seekers find each other based on specific criteria. Indeed provides employers and job seekers with advanced search thanks to integration with 200+ applicant tracking systems with free synchronization.

Indeed’s rich functionality helps recruiters and companies streamline the hiring process. At the same time, the platform benefits job seekers who can showcase their skills to a vast pool of companies.

If you plan to build a website like Indeed or Glassdoor , view the table below to learn the preliminary cost.

Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger founded the company in 2010. They created a micro-job website using marketplace techniques. Thus, they resolved challenges when freelancers and businesses try to connect. The features, like project dashboards, advertised gigs, gig packages, gamification , and clear communication, serve this purpose best.

Below, we prepared a table with the cost overview for a micro-job website.

Udemy or Coursera

These websites make education accessible to millions of people. Their approaches are different, yet they serve the same purpose. Thus, Udemy and Coursera help people get an education and grow professionally.

The platforms’ distinguished features include the following:

Personalized recommendations; Specific categories covering various disciplines; Resources for course creation; Certificate programs; Refunds; Feedback and rating systems.

We give a table below with the cost of building an e-learning platform for a convenient review.

The cost of building a marketplace app

Along with a website visible for desktops, consider building a marketplace app. It is a version of your marketplace that provides your buyers and sellers with all the features on mobile devices. Regarding how widespread mobile devices are, you gain an increase in audience engagement with an app.

The features you include define how much it costs to build a marketplace app. The cost of marketplace app development ranges between $20,000 and $60,000, making $35,000 the rough average.

Our proven expertise in building a marketplace

When you turn to us to build a marketplace, be sure our hands-on experience will benefit your business. With our qualifications and knowledge of different industries, you get cost-effective development of a technically optimized platform. Our approach ensures the marketplace’s smooth operation and a delightful customer experience.

Be it an MVP or an expanded website, we use the best practices to make your online marketplace accurate, robust, and scalable. Our tech stack ensures your platform will evolve with changing customer feedback, technologies, and industry trends.

So far, we have helped our clients build a marketplace from scratch, redesign a platform, optimize SEO, choose the right integrations, and more. Our enhancements bring tangible results in improved marketplace performance and help businesses thrive.

Let examples of successful online marketplaces from our portfolio speak for us and inspire you to build one.

Domains marketplace Dan.com

As a platform with 17 million domains listed, Dan.com turned to us with the need to revamp its Portfolio core section. Our task was to build the new Portfolio from scratch, redesign the user interface part, and make the user experience on this domain sale website more delightful.

As a result, we made foundational changes to make the customer experience with the platform enjoyable and convenient. The following are the improvements we have made to the marketplace Portfolio:

• Enabled bulk changes to help sellers renew thousands of domain names with just one click;
• Improved speed so a page with 1000 domains loads in less than 2 seconds;
• Optimized search by adding filters and sorting options, as well as an infinite scroll feature;
• Improved import and export of domains;
• Redesigned the navigation bar and made it take up less space in the marketplace;
• Enabled creating domain categories on buyers’ public page so sellers can filter domains by such categories;
• Revamped mobile design so you can manage domains on the go.

The video below explains how the platform works after our enhancements.

Boat selling website Trade A Boat

This marketplace for boats is Australia’s favorite place to sell and buy boats and marine equipment. This platform has also been a place for publishing news, reviews, and ads for 40 years.

The platform needed more sophistication as its MVP stage was already in the past. Our challenge was redesigning the platform and making it more appealing and accessible for users. Also, the task was to improve lead generation and select integrations that matched current inventory management systems of the Australian marketplace .

The outcomes are brilliant:

• The platform received better rankings and, consequently, more visits;
• Lead generation performance grew 480% compared to the previous platform;
• The mobile version that we built as a progressive web application brought an increase in conversions;
• New integrations help with inventory management across Australia;
• UI/UX redesign brought user delight and engagement with the marketplace.

The video below is valuable feedback from our client that we are happy to share.

Online service marketplace for PlanMyKids

This online service marketplace helps parents find and plan after-school activities for their kids. David Watkins, founder of PlanMyKids , is a parent himself. Having struggled with planning their kids’ leisure, he soon discovered many parents were in the same situation. This is how the marketplace idea appeared.

The task was to create a minimum viable product to help David test the idea with the least effort. The platform should work perfectly on desktop and mobile devices. Also, it should provide personalized suggestions based on user criteria.

Our cooperation with David led to a beautiful platform that helps parents and their kids find activities based on interests, age, location, and time. We have provided progressive web application services to make the user experience native-like on any device.

The children’s leisure online planner includes kids’ interests, family preferences, and budget. Parents get an itinerary with suggested leisure opportunities by filling out a simple questionnaire. Thus, the itinerary highlights location, price, age, camp type, and a brief description of activities.

We helped David remove fancy features and include those that serve customers best. Based on the focus groups’ feedback, we narrowed down the functionality and ensured that development would be within a planned budget. This was important for David’s bootstrapped company.

Check out the video below to see how the marketplace works on mobile devices.

Back to you

Building a marketplace is a comprehensive task. It involves product discovery, UI/UX design, development, testing, and maintenance. UI/UX design, features, technologies, and third-party integrations define the technical side of your marketplace. They help you make your marketplace a convenient and enjoyable place for your customers.

It is vital that your platform runs continuously and is protected against security risks. Thus, it would be best to have a reliable team of qualified professionals to help you build a marketplace within a set timeframe and budget.

As an experienced online marketplace development company, we will use our expertise to ensure the robust and smooth operation of your selling platform. Feel free to contact us . We will discuss your project and give you a free quote.

Frequently Asked Questions

Choose an industry for your future online service marketplace, and determine your unique value proposition. Then, decide how to look for service providers and customers. Eventually, find a reliable web development firm and order the platform development from scratch.

First, you need to decide on the software development provider to build your marketplace website. If you opt for Ukrainian web developers, you will get the average web developer rate of $50 per hour. Thus, you can anticipate the cost of developing a marketplace website to start from $68,400.

The primary features your marketplace needs are guest checkout, simple signup, user profiles, search with filters, a shopping cart, and a separate checkout page. Also, you need integrations, such as product feed, order and inventory management, payment processing, and an analytics dashboard.

A marketplace native mobile app usually costs around $35,000 to build. However, the total cost can be as low as $20,000 or as high as $60,000. A marketplace app with fewer features will be more affordable than an app with all intended functionality.

Common practices for marketplaces are commission, subscription, listing fees, transaction fees, sign-up fees, and ads. For example, Etsy charges $0.20 per listing. Amazon applies referral fees of 12%-45%, selling fees, and subscriptions of $0.99 per item sold or $39.99 per month.

An online marketplace is a digital platform that connects multiple third-party purchasers and vendors, and simplifies the purchasing and selling of services or goods between them.

The fastest way to develop a marketplace fast is using a website builder with ready-made templates. Nevertheless, we recommend creating a marketplace from scratch to build quality, scalable, and profitable web solutions.

To attract vendors, do marketing of your marketplace platform. You should find vendors and connect with them. Use the email marketing technique to convince vendors to register on your site. Write blogs to attract sellers. You need to know what vendors want and create a perfect offer.

In a marketplace, sellers offer a variety of goods and services across categories, earning money through a commission on each sale. Then, ecommerce platforms focus on specific product categories, like electronics or fashion, and make money through product sales, subscription fees, or a mix of both.

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Creating a first-to-market one-stop digital marketplace

Accenture helped Telkom Business transform the ecommerce experience for merchants and consumers through the Yep! digital marketplace platform.

10-minute read

Call for change

Doing more than digital service.

South Africa has some of the lowest startup success rates in the world, with 75% of new businesses failing within 36 months.* Telkom Business caters to this community, offering small enterprise voice, data, and broadband services, along with the Yellow Pages directory. Digitization of the Telkom Business model focused on finding a convenient way to serve small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and help them beat these discouraging odds. Telkom Business teamed up with Accenture to launch a user-friendly online commerce site in early 2020, where SMEs could easily shop the full range of offerings: connectivity products and plans; software, hardware, and devices; and marketing solutions.

Accenture delivered the front-end experience for Telkom Business’s ecommerce site but also saw the opportunity for a digital marketplace where merchants could more easily buy and sell their own products and services, and get the advice they need to build their businesses. Many of South Africa’s SMEs are run by small business owners who don’t have the acumen or time to create their own ecommerce offering. Telkom Business was uniquely positioned to provide such a service through its existing relationships with SMEs.

*Expert Journal of Business and Management,  “Fortifying South African Small Medium and Micro Enterprise Sustainability through a Proposed Internal Control Framework: The Sustenance Framework,”  2020.

When tech meets human ingenuity

From paper registry to growth platform.

The marketplace project began with a fresh reimagining of the company’s printed Yellow Pages into a platform, app and community proposition named Yep!, a play on the popular South African phrase “yep” and a shortening of the Yellow Pages name.

Accenture worked with local vendors whose insights informed blueprints for user journeys and the platform experience. It had to be simple for a small business to create a mini-storefront, upload a company logo and contact details, and communicate and transact with customers—ideally within a few quick steps. To shorten the learning curve, Accenture incorporated UX from familiar apps, like WhatsApp, and gave it a sleek and colorful look.

Merchants can set up a storefront, manage appointments and schedule bookings via the Yep! dashboard. The app alerts business owners to new customer requests for quotes. Customers can find a vendor, ask for a quote and chat with the merchant inside the app.

Because much commerce in South Africa is handled in person, Yep! can help SMEs bring business to their stores as well. In-person agent visits from the Yep! team provide digital guidance and business advice in a familiar and relatable setting. In the future, merchants may tap into an online academy on the platform to learn how to set up a great storefront and edit their service and product images.

SMEs can also use Yep! to quickly buy and sell services to other merchants. A forthcoming feature enables SMEs to bid for supply contracts offered by larger firms, furthering the Yep! platform as an integral part of the fabric of the South African economy. 

Yep! is changing the way small and midsized businesses link up with customers by offering a suite of products and services they can use to drive in-store traffic and online sales. Telkom is on a path to fulfill our mission to help businesses create sustained growth. It took a commitment to a digital transformation at Telkom to get us there.

Kenneth Kayser / Executive of Digital Channels and E-Commerce, Telkom Business

A valuable difference

Thriving through scale and growth.

In less than a year, Accenture and Telkom Business conceived, designed, and implemented the company’s ecommerce site, as well as the Yep! online marketplace platform and app.

By May 2021, an impressive 280,000 stores had been set up on the Yep! online marketplace, more than half of the 500,000 listed SMEs in the Yellow Pages, and it had attracted 320,000 people actively using the service.

Yep!’s appealing and user-friendly design inspires South African SMEs to rely on the one-stop platform to drive sales, increase reach, and build valuable business relationships.

By partnering with Accenture, Telkom Business reimagined the ecommerce experience for merchants and consumers, establishing a vast ecosystem of thriving businesses on the Yep! marketplace. Together, Accenture and Telkom Business helped set the stage for large-scale digital transformation and innovation across all of Telkom.

Eclipse AI rated #1 in Proactive Customer Retention for SMEs by G2®

Eclipse AI helps an Online Marketplace increased transactions by 13%

Our client achieved.

Address issues 80% faster and connect the dots on both sides of our marketplace

Provided real-time actionable insights to prioritize product enhancements and customer service improvements

Increase transactions by 13%, boosting revenue and driving growth

Client Overview

Online marketplaces have become essential to the modern digital economy, enabling buyers and sellers to connect and transact seamlessly across borders and platforms. However, with increased competition and changing consumer preferences, it can be challenging for online marketplaces to maintain transaction volumes and grow their customer base.

To address this challenge, businesses are turning to AI-powered platforms like Eclipse AI to help them collect and analyze customer feedback from both sides of the marketplace, identify opportunities for improvement, and drive growth through targeted product enhancements and customer service improvements. In this case study, we’ll explore how Eclipse AI helped an online marketplace increase transactions by 13%, boosting revenue and driving growth.  

Problem Statement

Our client, a leading online marketplace, was facing stagnation in transaction volumes despite multiple attempts to identify the root cause. The increased competition had stalled transactions, and the client was struggling to understand and address its customers’ needs and pain points in real time. The client needed a solution that could unify customer feedback from different channels and provide real-time insights to help identify and prioritize product enhancements and customer service improvements.

Eclipse AI’s purpose-built generative AI platform was the desired solution to unify fragmented multichannel customer feedback data and analyse customer sentiments in real time.

Eclipse AI’s helped provide real-time insights into customer needs and pain points, enabling the client to identify and proactively address areas for improvement. With Eclipse AI, our client was able to increase transaction volume by 13% year on year, boosting revenue and driving growth. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how Eclipse AI can help your online marketplace increase transactions and revenue, don’t hesitate to  book a demo  with us today. Our team would be happy to walk you through our platform and answer any questions you may have. Let’s work together to drive growth and success for your business!

The client Reached Out to Eclipse AI

The client reached out to Eclipse AI for a solution that could help them better understand the needs of its customers on both sides of the marketplace and increase transaction volume.

We demonstrated how Eclipse AI, a Generative AI platform could help unify omnichannel voice-of-customer data and provide real-time actionable insights to prioritize product enhancements and customer service improvements.

How Eclipse AI Helped

Eclipse AI helped the client consolidate customer feedback from different channels such as phone, chat and ticket logs, enabling real-time analysis of customer pain points on both sides of the marketplace.

The platform’s generative AI helped the client pinpoint and prioritize product and customer service improvements proactively. Furthermore, the platform’s real-time stream of improvement actions ensured that customer needs were efficiently and effectively addressed resulting in higher CSAT and NPS. 

Eclipse AI helped us flag and address issues 80% faster and connect the dots with customers on both sides of our marketplace

Director of business intelligence, turn omnichannel voice-of-customer into insights.

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JSmol Viewer

Automatic eligibility of sellers in an online marketplace: a case study of amazon algorithm.

1. Introduction

1.1. literature review, 1.2. related work, 2. materials and methods, 2.1. datasets and features, 2.2. proposed classification problems, 2.2.1. classification algorithms, 2.2.2. performance evaluation.

• TP: which corresponds to the number of instances correctly classified as +/ A .
• FN: which corresponds to the number of instances +/ A misclassified as −/≠ A .
• FP: which corresponds to the number of instances −/≠A misclassified as +/ A .
• TN: which corresponds to the number of instances correctly classified as −/≠ A .
• Recall = T P T P + F N , the proportion of correctly classified +/ A instances from the total number of actual +/ A instances, aka Sensitivity.
• Precision = T P T P + F P , relates to the ability of the classifiers to identify +/ A instances.
• Specificity = T N F P + T N , proportion of correctly classified −/≠ A instances from the total number of actual −/≠ A instances.

2.3. Predictor Importance and Rule-Based Classification

3. results and discussion, 3.1. predictor importance, 3.2. rule-based classification, 4. conclusions, 5. disclaimer, supplementary materials, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Gómez-Losada, Á.; Asencio-Cortés, G.; Duch-Brown, N. Automatic Eligibility of Sellers in an Online Marketplace: A Case Study of Amazon Algorithm. Information 2022 , 13 , 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/info13020044

Gómez-Losada Á, Asencio-Cortés G, Duch-Brown N. Automatic Eligibility of Sellers in an Online Marketplace: A Case Study of Amazon Algorithm. Information . 2022; 13(2):44. https://doi.org/10.3390/info13020044

Gómez-Losada, Álvaro, Gualberto Asencio-Cortés, and Néstor Duch-Brown. 2022. "Automatic Eligibility of Sellers in an Online Marketplace: A Case Study of Amazon Algorithm" Information 13, no. 2: 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/info13020044

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How Ada helped an online marketplace drive better customer experiences using AI

The brand is a mobile payment platform that helps consumers earn instant cashback and save money with sales and coupons from 4,000+ brands on its marketplace.

The challenge

The online marketplace brand was only providing customer support through phone and email with a poor turnaround time that lagged between 12-24 hours. In the last few years, as the ecommerce industry experienced unprecedented growth, the brand’s support team became overwhelmed. Morale was low, turnover was high, and the customer experience was driving shoppers away.

The brand needed to find an automated solution that would provide instant, 24/7 support to customers at scale.

The opportunity

The brand was looking for a solution that:

• Decreases customer support response turnaround times
• Creates meaningful interactions with customers to drive customer engagement, loyalty, and revenue, without increasing costs
• Can be easily built and managed by non-technical CX teams

Simply put, they needed a solution that would allow them to quickly connect with and provide exceptional support for customers at an affordable cost. They were able to do this with the help of Ada.

“Ada helps us achieve our goals every day by increasing efficiency for our agents, by decreasing turnaround time for our members, by allowing us to quickly get any new information in front of them. Next, we’re hoping to use it as a marketing and revenue-generating tool to increase brand awareness.”

The successful outcome

As a result of implementing Ada, the brand was able to quickly expand the ways they interact with customers.

Rapid time-to-value Ada’s no-code platform made it easy for the brand’s non-technical CX team to build and deploy conversational AI as a frontline for support in less than two weeks. Customers now have new digital channels to interact with the brand and receive instant support 24/7.

Boosted agent impact The brand leveraged Ada’s out-of-the-box integration with Salesforce Live Agent, which has allowed the conversational AI chatbot to escalate interactions when human support is needed. Ada collects customer information and routes the interaction to the right agent. What’s more, Ada gives agents a full transcript for context as well as an AI-powered summary or the prior conversation, setting agents up for success and reducing resolution time.

Scaling interactions on social messaging In addition to Ada’s web-based chat and mobile app chat support, the brand deployed Ada on Facebook Messenger to easily connect with customers who prefer to interact via social media.

The results are in...

• An 85% containment rate
• 2.8x ROI in 6 months
• A 45% decrease in support phone calls

In addition to day-to-day demands, Ada helps the brand adjust to hectic seasonal shopping periods. With an increase in web traffic and sales during Black Friday Cyber Monday and the rest of the holiday season, Ada is able to service customers and instantly resolve questions. Plus, the brand can easily update their bot content and communications as needed, without the need for engineering. As a result, the brand no longer needs to hire seasonal agents and their support teams don't experience overwhelming interaction volumes.

“We were able to make sure all our information was up to date and correct. We’re able to have a large containment rate within the bot. That’s the kind of agility Ada allows you to have during a holiday push or your busy season.”

Looking to automate your CX? Here's what you should consider:

It’s important to create a customer experience strategy across the entire customer journey. By including support in existing marketing and sales customer journeys, you can deliver a comprehensive end-to-end customer experience that reduces costs and generates revenue.

While any ecommerce company can increase the number of support agents to meet the demands of its customers, it can often become expensive. Using the right conversational AI platform can enable companies to service more customers while maintaining costs.

Customer service powered by conversational AI

Experience the benefits of generative AI for customer service with Ada, and resolve more inquiries — across channels and languages — with less effort.