Support Services for Sellers on E-commerce Marketplaces: Here is What You Need to Know

04/08/2021

What are Support Services?

Support services are add-on internal services that e-commerce marketplaces usually provide sellers to support their main business. Internal Services are groups of related activities and resources that are administered to support the needs of programs and other corporate obligations of an organization. These online selling support services are usually provided for HR, Finance, IT, Logistics and Administration. Such services do not generate revenue but are required for successful operation of business.

Support services for seller on ecommerce marketplaces - here is what you need to know

How can these Services Help SMBs?

Support services can help improve a seller’s efficiency by covering the tasks on their behalf that would have otherwise incurred huge costs and involved wastage of time. Since support service experts handle the internal processes of companies, more time is available to focus on growing the business. This also reduces the burden of completing repetitive tasks like data entry, calculating payroll, bookkeeping and similar activities. These services can also help smoothen the onboarding for new sellers and guide them throughout their seller journey.

Types of Support Services Available for Sellers on E-commerce Marketplaces

Registration Guides

Online selling can be an entirely new and different experience for many sellers. It is quite likely that they face hardships during their registration process on e-commerce marketplaces. In such scenarios, quick registration guides can help them to launch and kick start their business. These guides provide all information needed for GST registration, product listing, activating seller account, fulfilling the basic legal criteria and other technical issues.

Free Workshops and Training Sessions

Global and local selling can be easily simplified with workshops and trainings organized for sellers wherein experts:

- Give more insights and tips to succeed in selling on online marketplaces
- Explain about best practices and benefits of selling online
- Provide training to get started with online selling
- Teach about strategies to increase sales and boost product visibility.

Delivery, Pickup and Storage of Products

Fulfillment services by marketplace operators (one such services like FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) can help sellers in:

- Storing inventory
- Picking, packing and shipping orders all over India

Other services (for instance Amazon Easy Ship) can also help sellers with end-to-end delivery by managing their logistics and customer service.

Product Listing and Cataloguing

These services help sellers to list their products easily on e-commerce marketplaces after scanning and matching them with the existing product lists using custom inventory templates.

Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is extremely important for sellers as it helps them understand the reasons for the success or failure of their products. Based on customer feedback, sellers can understand what exactly is being appreciated by the customers and how they can improve the performance/ quality of their products and services. Customers are usually given the opportunity to review and rate sellers based on their overall purchasing experience. Positive reviews and rating can serve as a tool to boost sales, increase brand awareness and popularity of the products.

Returns and Refunds

Since online sales cannot always provide the customers a real life look and experience of the product, there are instances when customers may return the products and ask for refunds. Tackling such requests can often be a nuisance for sellers. Sellers should have a transparent and well-drafted return and refund policy as well as the ability to track and fulfil such requests.

Marketing and Advertising

Considering the fact that there is excessive competition among sellers in the e-commerce sector, marketing and advertising play a very important role. However, keeping the cost of advertising low while reaching out to the target audience is a prime concern for many sellers. Several factors like lack of adequate budget, expertise and experience quite often lead to failure of marketing campaigns. Such gaps can easily be met with the support services offered by certain online marketplaces.

Payments

Most of the customers do not prefer buying online because they are apprehensive about sharing their payment information on third- party apps. In order to tackle this issue many e-commerce marketplaces have come with their own payment methods. For example, Amazon Pay is one of the payment options available on Amazon.in that enables the customers to pay for products without having to re-enter payment information on third-party apps or websites. Such support services encourage customers to buy products online by increasing the faith they place on such apps.

Conclusion

Seller support services can prove instrumental in positively shaping your online business and ensuring its better survival chances in the longer run. Therefore, ensure that you register as an online seller on reliable marketplaces that can provide you with the best seller-support and ease your transition to the digital marketplace.

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