Why sellers are going multichannel

 

The days of uniform e-Commerce journeys are gone, if they ever existed at all. Today, consumers have multiple ways to initiate their shopping journey, including conducting a Google search, browsing one or several marketplaces, social commerce platforms, or single webstores, or even prompting an AI assistant to search for them.

 

Find out how AI transforms e-Commerce!

 

This means that many brands and sellers can’t be happy to just post their products on Amazon and be done with it. Indeed, an increasing number of merchants opt to go multichannel, which means that they offer products on different sales channels simultaneously. These include online marketplaces, single webshops, social commerce sites, and physical stores as well.

 

According to a 2025 report, an average merchant is active on six marketplaces. A usual line-up includes large global marketplaces like eBay or Amazon, social commerce platforms like Facebook and TikTok, but also local marketplaces, e.g., Trendyol in Turkey.

 

Discover how Turkish consumers shop online!

 

Some sellers may take it even further and invest in an omnichannel strategy, which ensures that their marketing, sales, and customer service efforts are all integrated and synchronized to provide a perfectly seamless customer experience. The main difference between the two approaches is this complete synchronization of data: while the touchpoints in multichannel remain separate, omnichannel integrates them all.

 

 

The reasons behind going multichannel

An average consumer visits four marketplaces before buying a product. 63% of them prefer marketplaces over brand webstores, which indicates that brands indeed have to be present on major e-Commerce platforms if they want to maximize their exposure.

 

Another reason to adopt this approach is the prevalence of algorithms in e-Commerce. Brands and sellers need to optimize their content to keep being favored by algorithms and remain findable by prospective buyers. The more marketplaces they’re featured on, the better chances they have of an algorithm picking up their product listing and placing it in front of a customer.

 

| An average consumer visits four marketplaces before buying a product

 

A multichannel approach thus helps reduce sellers’ dependence on a single platform, which also comes in handy for risk management. Should a marketplace fall into difficulties, significantly alter its policies, or raise its prices, sellers can simply drive focus toward another sales channel, thus mitigating the risk of lost sales.

 

 

An illustration of a multichannel sales approach with little icons representing various forms of sales surrounding the image of a shopping cart

 

 

And let’s not forget the added perks that many marketplaces now offer to their sellers. Built-in marketing and analytics tools, native ads, and customizable storefronts allow brands to boost their visibility and strengthen their image on various platforms. Why not take advantage of it?

 

 

Advantages of going multichannel

The advantages of going multichannel are obvious. More exposure to consumers means more data collected, which contributes to a better understanding of shoppers in general, and your target market in particular.

 

Data collected this way is beneficial for marketing, sales, and even the protection of your IP rights. After all, learning about potentially infringing listings is the first step to putting a stop to their appearance.

 

In addition, more exposure tends to also improve your conversion rates, i.e., the percentage of visitors that turn into buyers. This can positively affect the speed of selling through your inventory, as well as increase your ad efficiency.

 

 

The rise of local marketplaces in Europe

The trend of going multichannel is clearly visible in Europe, where local marketplaces have gained significant growth in the past few years. After Amazon and eBay (1 billion and 370 million monthly visitors respectively), Polish marketplace Allegro is the third most often visited (185 million per month) e-Commerce platform on the continent.

 

In the UK, where e-Commerce accounts for 38% of all retail revenue, local marketplaces Sainsbury's and Tesco.com take up the second and third spots on the list of the most popular platforms, beaten only by Amazon.

 

In Germany, the situation is similar. Local marketplaces OTTO and Zalando follow Amazon, and these three platforms are responsible for over 40% of all transactions of the top 100 e-Commerce marketplaces in the country.

 

And finally, at the time of writing, the domestic marketplace bol.com is ranked as the most popular platform in the Netherlands, pushing Amazon to the third place behind another local e-Commerce hub, marktplaats.nl.

 

| The trend of going multichannel is clearly visible in Europe

 

The list goes on. It’s easy to see that local marketplaces have become essential for your brand’s sustainable success in Europe. However, entering a local marketplace requires adjustments, including providing quality translations of all your content, offering customer service in the local language, adjusting to custom payment options and delivery expectations, as well as satisfying local trust markers, i.e., reviews and returns policies.

 

 

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The challenges of going multichannel

Along with the obvious advantages, the multichannel approach also provides considerable challenges for brands and sellers alike.

 

First of all, maintaining a consistent brand image while also adapting to the specifics of each marketplace may be more difficult than you’d think. Add to that the problems of eventual pricing conflicts - what if one channel decides to run a significant discount?

 

 

An illustration of pricing conflicts where different discount rates are displayed together

 

 

Distributing your stock across several channels causes its own issues of stock fragmentation and keeping on top of your inventory in real-time.

 

Finally, with your attention divided between several channels, it’s harder to ensure that those channels are clear of damaging content (i.e., fraudulent listings, lookalikes, counterfeits) and display your product listings in the way they’re intended to.

 

Find out how globaleyez ensures a clean marketplace for your brand!

 

 

The role of automation

As you can imagine, the operational complexity of going multichannel comes with a significant amount of administrative work. Think of a constant stream of updating prices, stock, listings, and much more. Keeping on top of that with purely manual methods would be very difficult, in some cases, downright impossible.

 

This is why automation and smart data management are crucial to keep the complexities of multichannel on a manageable level. Software tools can do most of the heavy lifting in that department, freeing up your time and resources for other pressing issues.

 

| Automation and smart data management are crucial to keep the complexities of multichannel on a manageable level

 

Including, but not limited to, how to protect your IP rights while pursuing a multichannel approach. Luckily, this is another area where tailor-made solutions are readily available.

 

 

Multichannel and online brand protection

As we mentioned earlier, selling your products across multiple channels increases the likelihood of IP-infringing product listings appearing on these channels as well. Counterfeit and lookalike product listings can crowd around your genuine ones, stealing would-be customers and damaging your bottom line.

 

Online marketplaces usually have some kind of IP protection methods, including takedown procedures in place. However, since these tend to differ from each other, going multichannel also means that your online brand protection efforts become more complex. At least if you’re doing them alone.

 

globaleyez’s online monitoring services are designed to free you from that workload. With our marketplace monitoring service in place, you can rest assured that potentially infringing product listings are detected on over 150 marketplaces worldwide.

 

Discover how we integrate the latest innovation into marketplace monitoring!

 

Our social media monitoring service does the same, except with social media content (pictures, posts, product listings, etc.) on the most popular platforms. To round this out, we often suggest adding image monitoring to the mix to ensure that no infringing pictures can harm your reputation and your bottom line on the internet.

 

Not all fraudsters cause an equal amount of harm. This is why we developed our marketplace sales tracking service. We examine the sales figures of fraudulent merchants to determine which ones sell the most - and consequently, cause you the most harm. Prioritizing them for takedown ensures the maximum efficiency of your online brand protection program.

 

Finally, once we have all the data in place, we enforce your rights and request the removal of the infringing content from circulation.

 

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Conclusion

Going multichannel is a sensible option for many brands. However, keeping up with the challenges of multichannel may not be something you wish to do by yourself. Especially where your invaluable IP rights are concerned.

 

Contact us and let’s set up a comprehensive online brand protection strategy for your brand!