The future of eCommerce: why multichannel retail is indispensable

Selling via Amazon, eBay, Kaufland.de and the like has long been part of day-to-day business for many retailers. If you look at the figures and analyses, it quickly becomes clear that this is a smart, strategic move, as online business is still booming. For you as a retailer, this offers the opportunity to generate additional sales and rapidly increase the reach of your products. In this blog post, we take a look at the current developments in online business and show you why it’s worth getting into multichannel retail.

Quo vadis, online business?

The days of spending hours strolling through shopping centers seem to be numbered: In 2023, online business is expected to turn over a whopping 89 billion euros. Customers are not only having their purchases conveniently delivered to their homes, but are also increasingly using the click & collect model, where products can be ordered online and then picked up in-store. In this way, bricks-and-mortar retail and online business are merging to create a convenient shopping experience for customers thanks to fast processing and fewer waiting times at the checkout.

The triumph of online business is particularly noticeable in the electronics and fashion sectors. While these sectors have long been firmly in the hands of eCommerce, the food sector is also growing steadily in online business – not least thanks to listings such as Amazon Fresh, which delivers weekly groceries to your doorstep.

Marketplace retail is also on the move and is facing competition. In addition to the global top dogs Amazon and eBay, other players such as bol.com in the Netherlands and Allegro in Poland are now also asserting themselves among our European neighbors and expanding the range of shopping options.

Incidentally, the B2B sector in particular holds enormous growth potential for online business. Surprisingly, more than 25 percent of B2B companies only generate a meagre 5 percent of their turnover online. This is a great opportunity for you as a company to expand your presence in the digital space and benefit from the growing opportunities of online business.

More sales, fewer headaches

Online business is therefore booming and the ability to sell via several channels at the same time offers various advantages:

• Easy integration
  Integration into various marketplaces is quick and can be managed centrally with little technical effort thanks to integrations such as JTL-eazyAuction and its deep integration into JTL-Wawi.
• Reach and new customers
  Retailers can generate an enormous reach and millions of potential new customers by selling on various marketplaces.
• Increase sales
  Increasing the reach of well-maintained listings can lead to an increase in sales relatively quickly.
• Avoid wastage
  The specific focus of the individual marketplaces makes it easier for retailers to find the right target group for their product range and avoid wastage. For example, fashion enthusiasts flock to Zalando, electrical goods are often bought directly from MediaMarktSaturn and anyone looking for tools will find a large selection at voelkner.
• Save resources
  Less manual effort, more time for the essentials: Thanks to the efficient management of sales channels via JTL-eazyAuction, margin losses incurred due to fees when selling via marketplaces can be compensated by savings in the area of marketing activities.
• Transparency and cost control
  Interface solutions not only help with the organization of sales, but also provide reliable data through analysis and controlling functions, which retailers can use to monitor their business and make data-based decisions. The statistics functions in JTL-Wawi are also helpful tools here.

JTL-eazyAuction with new marketplaces in the starting blocks

Since the release of JTL-Wawi 1.8, you benefit from a variety of marketplaces that can be integrated into JTL-Wawi: Kaufland Global Marketplace, OTTO Market, MediaMarktSaturn and voelkner are available in JTL-eazyAuction in addition to the already established marketplaces Amazon and eBay. Further integrations to CHECK24, limango, Cdiscount and many other marketplaces are provided as extensions by our partners. In addition, various marketplace connections are currently in the closed beta program, for which you can log in to the customer center.

Thanks to its generic API, the new version of JTL-eazyAuction also supports the integration of marketplaces that are not natively integrated, thus offering full flexibility for even more growth. The seamless integration of the new marketplace interface into the ERP JTL-Wawi ensures smooth operation and easy scalability in the familiar JTL ecosystem.

Good news: with the new centralized and standardized sales channel management for all marketplaces, selling is now even more fun!

Multichannel sales - a strategy that pays off

Our conclusion: Marketplaces are a useful addition to your online business portfolio. It is worthwhile to serve several channels in order to be able to cushion sales slumps on one platform or unforeseen account closures. JTL-eazyAuction in JTL-Wawi offers you simple and centralized control to make it easier for you to get started and gain full control over multichannel commerce. This workflow, tailored to the mail order business, optimizes your business processes, increases your efficiency and creates room for sustainable growth.