Every business needs an online presence to make it ahead of their competitors. As a retail brand, an online marketplace is an essential part of your strategy.

Whether you are a “bricks and clicks” company or entirely a clicks company, the methods you adopt will determine how successful your business will be. While some companies focus on SEO alone, others adopt the more robust strategy of an SEO and PPC mix.

In this post, we shall be discussing the major characteristics of a successful online marketplace and how you can apply them in your business.

1. The have a tight knit community of users

One way to excel in any business is to have extremely loyal customers. As they say, you are better off with one or two loyal customers than 10 potential customers. The idiomatic “bird in the hand” scenario. When you build a community, you are growing your customer base. This reduces costs of marketing or promotion because when you announce the new products on your blog or forum, your community will buy/promote them for you.

2. The have a strong social media presence

Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to engage your audiences. For one it is cheap, and it humanises your brand. According to a recent survey, 69% of marketers admitted that social media helped them develop loyal customers. Yet many businesses have not keyed into this vision. Successful online marketplaces have an active social media account and use it to link followers to the newest products on their website, as well as their protected retail shops. It is a laid-back strategy that guarantees increased organic traffic and good conversion rates.

3. They have unique product offerings

Good marketers may adopt all the successful strategies in the world, but if their products are of poor value, nobody will return. There is only so much you can do with a great online marketing strategy. To keep the flames on, back up your activities with a product that is worth the value. A popular marketing mantra says, “a sales person sells products, but a great product sells itself.” Again, you can reduce marketing expenses if you have a valuable product. Consider diversifying the benefits for more rewarding outcomes.

4. Provide a good online UX

Successful online marketplaces have an enriching platform. A place that is easy to use with good navigable UX. It prevents delay and provides much needed results in record time. Today’s online consumers are impatient and a slow performing website or a complex web page will send them to your competitors. You can avoid this by reducing irrelevant bits of code on your web page, optimising the image sizes and testing it regularly.

5. They appreciate their customers

Finally, a good loyalty or reward scheme endears customers to increase their loyalty. People love to feel appreciated. While it is not a written rule, rewarding your customers certainly helps to keep them loyal. Sometimes, it takes more than a good product or service to win hearts, an emotional connection can make all the difference.

Successful online marketplaces are great emotional communicators and best their competitors with a variety of emotionally-driven loyalty strategies.

As a startup, take advantage of these points and build your online business. Create a process that ensures online authority in your niche and you will have a successful marketplace.