Anton Larin: everyone, without exception, needs to go to marketplaces now!

On September 21, the Forum on the Successful Launch of Children's Shops on Marketplaces: Real Cases, Statistics and Forecasts will take place. It is organized by XWAY, an operational partner of marketplaces. The forum will be moderated by Anton Larin, an expert in retail and ecommerce, co-founder of XWAY.

Are marketplaces a fashion or a necessity? During the pandemic, activity of buyers on websites like Ozon and Wildberries has doubled. Statistics also predicts an influx of sellers who, upon entering the market, will have to face a large number of problems, including analytics and promotion.

An increase in the number of players and forecasts of an increase in profits in this segment make e-commerce attractive for large investments: for example, Ozon received USD 990 million from an investor in November 2020.

Everyone needs to enter marketplaces now, without exception. If you sell spare parts for aircraft, you can still doubt it, but most sellers need large platforms. While only the big three –  AliExpress, Wildberries, and Ozon – remain the top e-commerce players in Russia and take advantage of the situation!

How did XWAY become a market leader and get into Forbes?

In 2016, when I still had an online hypermarket of household goods Mister House, we wanted to enter AliExpress but had to abandon the idea. At that time no one knew how to work on that website. A few years later, when AliExpress became more user-friendly, we tried again and found out that marketplaces were a promising tool not only in terms of product placement but also in terms of B2B services. We decided to learn how to sell on marketplaces ourselves: on AliExpress, Ozon, and Wildberries. On all major platforms in Russia. We started as sellers on AliExpress, and eventually became their operating partner. In China such services had existed for a long time but for Russia it was a new thing. There were no intermediaries between a seller and a platform.

The merger of the two companies providing a full range of services for sellers on marketplaces, AliWay and AliX, was a logical and very successful solution. The scaling of the business began with this merger, and then we attracted USD 1 million in investments, began to actively invest in development, and got into Forbes (and we will get there more than once!).

What does it take to make sales on marketplaces successful and super successful? Many companies mistakenly assume that it is enough to display a product for a stable and successful sales flow but it is not so. There are already hundreds of similar products on each marketplace, and a new brand will be found on the 25th search page (I use the number loosely). Internal promotion is necessary for potential buyers to see and wish to purchase a product. Each platform has its characteristics, requirements, nuances. An incorrectly configured internal advertising will not boost sales. It will only spend the retailer's money on useless clicks and demonstrations.

To solve the tasks of automating business processes, there are many basic tools such as PIM, CRM, ORM, WMS, as well as marketing promotion tools. Each of them can be optimized with the help of artificial intelligence. We will tell you about all the intricacies and nuances of promotion at the forum.

You will be the first to hear about the trends and prospects of online retail and the children's market in Russia. And you will also

• talk to a representative of AliExpress and get acquainted with the features of promoting children's products
• learn life hacks for a successful launch of products on marketplaces, as well as sort out the most common mistakes of sellers
• using real cases, understand why services for product placement on marketplaces are profitable for sellers.

- Why did you decide to participate in the Mir Detstva conference programme of? And how do you assess the prospects for small businesses (and in the children's goods industry almost all manufacturers are IEs, small businesses) in cooperation with marketplaces?

- Often sellers do not know how to enter marketplaces. They are afraid of algorithms, ignorance of how to promote, technical requirements of platforms. XWAY has all the necessary expertise, and we are ready to share it. Mir Detstva brings together professionals with a common mission, ready to learn from each other. It's great to be a part of such a community!

The specific of children's products is that children quickly grow out of things. They get bored with toys, or something breaks, and they have to buy new stuff. More and more parents are going online, which allows them to save both time and budget. One can hit a sale or get a discount coupon.

For those who just want to bring baby products to marketplaces, new opportunities are opening up: operational partners that simplify interaction with platforms and help in onboarding, and superstores, which unite several sellers in one store and allow small and medium enterprises to sell without creating a separate brand shop. For example, on AliExpress we have been running a superstore Kinder for almost four years. We see how the sales of children's goods are changing. We know and understand the specifics of the category. At the forum, we will show that marketplaces for business are an excellent launching pad and a good sales channel that you need to enter right now.

We are looking forward to seeing you on September 21 at the forum. Register at https://xway.ru/mirdetstva-expo#