Engaging in sports these days is not only useful but also a trend. Sports not only keeps people healthy, more organized, and better disciplined, but also keeps them fit. Every year, more and more people who wish to lead a healthy lifestyle, connect with one or the other sports activity.
Consequently, there is a considerable increase in the demand for sports goods. According to a report, the global sportswear market size is expected to reach $479.63 billion by 2025. Therefore, opening an online sporting goods marketplace is an excellent business opportunity.
Challenges Solved by an eCommerce Sports Marketplace
In addition to many other advantages, an online sports goods marketplace also addresses the challenges encountered by a traditional store such as increased competition, lower price demand, and seasonal demand. Let’s see how online marketplaces solve these challenges.
Addressing the Varied Interests of Customers
Customers’ interests may change from time to time due to multiple reasons such as the latest fashion trends, seasons, etc. Offline stores often face problems of outdated stocks and unavailability of the latest supplies. An online sports marketplace can provide the latest and in-trend stock to customers by integrating with the centralized inventory of the brands.
This helps online businesses satisfy customer needs, boost their sales, and achieve higher profit margins.
Facing the Competition
The exponential growth in the sports commerce industry is accompanied by fierce competition. Every other sports business is a competitor, however, owning an online store equalizes the competition or gives a fair chance to every business by allowing customers to reach businesses through different channels bringing good profits.
Decreasing Margins
One of the most important challenges of a physical sports store is the low margins. The overhead costs such as labor, operating, price of goods, rent, and many more add to the prevalent stock issues. Business owners are therefore obliged to adopt online methods and build an online sports marketplace to address this issue.
Leveraging the Marketing Opportunities
Unlike traditional stores, online marketplaces can easily offer both cross-selling and upselling to increase profits from one order. Moreover, online marketplaces can attract a large customer base by leveraging advertising and marketing opportunities.
Essential Features of a Sports eCommerce Marketplace
Here, we present an essential functionality list of what your online sporting goods store should contain.
Image Gallery
Images make a huge impact on your store’s traction, and making the most of that impact is vital. They also serve as an online catalog of products that are quite essential for any apparel store. To make the online experience more real for the customers, businesses can
- Hire a photographer and conduct a photo shoot of the products to display the products in the best way possible.
- Click multiple different-angle shots of the products for the customers to have a better understanding of the product.
- Feature a diverse group of models to make your brand seem more inclusive.
In addition, also add product information for the customers to have a convenient way to learn about the products and speed up the decision making. Products information can include:
- Price
- Available sizes
- Size guide
- Materials
- Care instructions
- Delivery & return policies
- Reviews
Product Image Zoom
A feature to view the enlarged version of a product image will help the customers get a better idea of the product. Customers can view in-depth details of various products with this feature and make informed decisions. Having this feature integrated into the website also reduces the return rate and negative reviews.
Product Reviews
The organic and real product reviews from customers are powerful social proof that helps build trust and confidence in the brand. The genuine reviews from the customers stand as testimonials for uncertain shoppers which are more convincing and fruitful than any sales or marketing strategy. Moreover, product reviews help increase traffic to your product page through SEO.
Social Networking Buttons
The advantages of social networking buttons on an eCommerce website are threefold – brand awareness, product awareness, and consumer-to-brand engagement. These benefits can translate directly into an increase in overall traffic to the online store, increased revenue from online shopping cart checkout conversions, deeper market penetration, and more.
Wish Lists
Most consumers might not be convinced enough to complete the purchase on the very first visit to your store. Any distraction, hurry, or just exiting the website may put off the purchase for the next time. Offering wish lists is an effective way to reduce shopping cart abandonment and fulfill sales from customers who showed intent but didn’t end up purchasing.
Wish lists are mutually beneficial: they give customers an easy way to remind themselves of a product and help merchants measure product interest beyond a clear-cut sale.
Marketing Features
A sports eCommerce marketplace should also have a couple of marketing features to make profits.
- Upselling, to recommend relevant or compulsory items to the customers when they purchase a product. This will increase your average order value and eventually, your profit.
- To inspire customers to complete their pending orders, offer them discounts on the products on their wish list.
- Recommending items based on abandoned items in the cart will remind consumers of unfinished transactions.
Yo!Kart – A Feature-Packed White Label Solution to Build a Multi-Vendor Sports eCommerce Marketplace
Yo!Kart is a multi-vendor eCommerce marketplace solution that has the ability to build a feature-packed sports eCommerce marketplace. Onboarded with eCommerce-critical features and coupled with agile engineering practices, Yo!Kart is a one-stop solution to keep your sports business ahead in this constantly evolving eCommerce landscape.
With features specific to the eCommerce domain, Yo!Kart is perfect and optimum for building a sports eCommerce marketplace. The features include
- eCommerce Features: user management, discount coupon management, CMS, shipping management, payment gateways, tax management.
- UI/UX Features: responsive design, intuitive user panels, manageable webpages, streamlined checkout pages.
- Product Management Features: Import/export, inventory tracker, order tracker, invoice module.
- Marketing Features: PPC advertisement, blog module, product recommendation, rewards & discounts.
- Payment Features: Wallet management, reward points, withdrawal request management, multiple payment options, and secure payments.
- Reporting Features: Sales report, traffic insights, top-selling products, conversion statistics, and non-performing products.
- Security Features: Secure technology, data validation & sanitization, restricted SQL injection, restricted cross-site scripting.
Yo!Kart enables startups and empowers established businesses to build competitive advantage and accelerate the growth of their multi-vendor eCommerce business. The software comes with complete ownership of the source code giving business owners the freedom to customize their marketplace in any which way they want to.
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Author Bio:
Saurabh Thakur
Saurabh Thakur is an eCommerce analyst & blogger, who has been active in the eCommerce industry since 2013. He is passionate about technology and is always looking for new opportunities to help startups to establish their businesses online. He also has a good knowledge of branding & reputation management and has successfully delivered a wide range of projects in the past. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
