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It is 2024 and launching an e-commerce site is easy and profitable now. The e-commerce industry recorded a sharp spike after the Covid-19 pandemic. The sector is lucrative and you can excel by adopting the best practices. You need to maintain product range sincerely to increase your sales in this sector.
An e-commerce site contains a wide range of products so maintaining product range is crucial here. Opening an e-commerce business is easy but maintaining a robust product range is the challenge of e-commerce. You need to use proper keywords in your product list to rank them up in the search results. The process is quite complex and needs proper techniques in doing so.
Do you want your products to rank at the top in the search results? If yes, then you need to prepare the product range with robust measures. Companies across the globe prefer to outsource eCommerce Product Data Entry Services to maintain product range efficiently. However, delegating the task not only makes the e commerce catalogue strong but also makes your eCommerce venture a success.
The blog aims here to provide a detailed inspection of the product range and its benefits. You will also find some practical tips in this piece for making your product range effective.
A. Definition and Understanding of the Importance
Let's take aside eCommerce businesses, product range is an essential aspect of any business tactics. The product range is nothing but a combination of products that a business offers to its customers. Businesses address different needs of customers with the help of product range. By having a wider product range, businesses build customer loyalty while offering them choices.
Have you understood what a product range is? Well, with the example of any clothing brand you can understand the concept pretty easily. When you open the website of a clothing brand you can see a wide variation of clothes. You can find clothes in different sizes, colors, and variations. Almost all clothing brands build their website using product range tactics.
To maintain product range efficiently, you need to add categories for your products. Also, you need to add complementary products that can be sold along with the main product. For instance, you sell makeup products under different categories. Therefore, you need to add products such as foundation, blush, concealers, etc under one category.
B. Types of Product Range
Developing a product range strategy for a robust e-commerce platform needs proper assessment. You need to know the types of product range strategies first to have your e commerce catalogue building strategy. Here are the best types of product range strategies that you can adopt.
I. Narrow Product Range
Having a narrow product is helpful when the size of the business is small. A small business usually attracts a limited number of people and wants customers to focus on the limited products. Therefore, offering them a short list of products meets their demand efficiently. A narrow product range makes businesses focus on their customers' needs.
II. Broad Product Range
Unlike a narrow product range, broad product range strategies help big companies to maintain their products. Under broad categories, businesses offer a wider variety of products to customers. This strategy benefits those businesses that target a wider audience for their products. Broad product range strategies help businesses maintain product range for a large audience. However, these strategies are a little more complex than narrow product range strategies.
III. Product Line Extension
Through product line extension, businesses expand into another segment from one market segment. Companies usually apply the method of product line extension to expand their customer base. For example, if a company sells clothes for babies then it can start selling clothes for mothers. Therefore, the company can easily hit the target audience by extending its product line. Nowadays, companies outsource e-commerce data entry services for product line extensions.
Capturing a different niche is the challenge of e-commerce at present. Product line extension is the best strategy for product range when it comes to expanding into another market segment. However, this method is somehow costlier than other methods. The method helps businesses reduce their reliance on a single market. Despite depending on a single market, this method expands the market horizon for better outcomes.
IV. Product Line Filling
Product line filing as a strategy adds more products to the existing product line. This strategy is quite popular among e-commerce businesses. For example, a brand that sells phone cases can add other phone accessories to its e commerce catalogue using this strategy. This strategy helps businesses to catch new customers as well as retain existing ones. This is one of the best strategies to maintain product range when businesses want to add little changes.
V. Product Line Modernization
As the same suggests this technique modernizes the existing product range. This technique helps businesses to distinguish their products from that of competitors. Thus, a business can attract new customers and retain the existing ones with the right process. Businesses can modernize their products with this product range strategy. With outsourcing e-commerce data entry, the modernization of products would happen faster.
Modernization or upgrading the system includes various factors like changing the design, adding new features, etc. By incorporating modernization, businesses can stay ahead of their time. This makes the products more appealing to buyers and insists them for a purchase.
Overall, all these types of product range strategies help solve different cases. However, choosing the right approach is more vital than applying these strategies. These strategies help businesses to maintain product range efficiently and ultimately increase sales. By applying the right type of product range, businesses can grow faster in the competitive market.
C. Product Range vs Product Line vs Product Mix
The product range is different from the product line or even the product mix. However, it shares some elements in common with all these product listing strategies. Sometimes companies apply all these methods altogether to frame their product strategies. To avoid confusion, you need to know the differences between these methods if you want to for a mixed method.
I. Product Range VS Product Line
Marketers often face confusion when working on product range and product line strategies. The very reason for this confusion is the similarities between these product listing strategies. Although there is a very thin difference you need to understand to find out the dissimilarity. For product lines, you can show different variations of products a specific product only. Companies prefer to outsource e-commerce data entry for maintaining product lines.
But, on the other hand, the product range is much broader as you can include complementary products also. Suppose a company uses product line strategies to compile a product list consisting of shampoos. Therefore, it would add different variations of shampoos in the same category. But in the product range, it can show other complementary products including conditioners, hair masks, etc.
II. Product Range VS Product Mix
Product mix strategies are wider than product range and they reflect the entire product list of the company. Whereas, to maintain product range, you just need to add complementary products along with the main products. If you asses a company's product mix then you will have the list of products that the company offers. To overcome the challenge of e-commerce, businesses must implement the right product mix strategies.
For example, a brand's product mix can consist of hair care, body care, makeup, and other sections. However, the product range will have a detailed inspection of each section of the product list. The hair care section can have a set of complementary products through product range strategies. Nowadays, most businesses outsource eCommerce data entry services to maintain their product range.
D. Advantages of Expanding Product Range
Product range also means having more products on the list, including complementary products. Expanding the product range also refers to expanding the product list. In a competitive e-commerce market, expanding the product range can benefit businesses from multiple angles. Some of the key advantages that businesses can have by expanding their product range have been discussed here.
I. Target More Audience
Expanding the product range helps your business to target a wider demography than usual. The horizon of your business will expand and it will include more people than your regular customers. However, you need to maintain product range efficiently if your target is to increase the audience capacity.
Suppose you are selling cosmetic products, specifically foundation for dusky-skinned people. Therefore, to expand the product range you might add concealers along with your makeup foundations. Also, you have another option, which is expanding your products. In this case, you can more shades to your foundation for different skin-toned people. Both ways you can target more audience through your products.
II. Increase Average Order Value
What the product range does is add more complementary products in the product section. Therefore, when customers look for a product then they can see other complementary products along with the searched product. For example, when a customer searches for a shampoo bottle then the webpage also suggests conditioner, hair cream, etc. With this, your business can have the advantages of expanding product range.
In sum, customers will explore different variations of products on the same go when they shop. Hence, it would automatically increase the average order value of your products. But for that, you need to maintain product range efficiently with all complementary products. Recommending customers with complementary products with the help of product range will push them to buy more.
III. Increase Brand Loyalty
With the growing demand if you expand your product range then it will make your customers happy and loyal. They would prefer to wait for new product launches rather than purchasing your competitors' products. Increasing customer loyalty is another key area where expanding the product range helps businesses.
Moreover, expanding your product range will also inculcate repeat purchasing habits among your customers. Loyal customers will stay with your brand and purchase the new products whenever you launch. Also, these tendencies of your customers will increase connections for a lifetime, which ultimately increases your brand value.
IV. Increase Profit Margin
Dropshipping is a popular method of increasing revenue for e-commerce businesses. By having an extended product range, you can increase the revenue percentage even more. With this, the Long Tail Business Strategy has complimented the product range strategies for increasing profitability.
To maintain product range, you need to include niche products in your product list. You can include complementary products in your product catalog for better market growth. Besides that, dropshipping also cuts down storage costs and increases revenue percentage. Altogether, expanding the product range will increase business opportunities with a minimum value of investment in marketing. You can realize advantages of expanding product range faster.
E. Steps to Follow for Maintaining Product Range
Do you want to have an efficient product range strategy for managing your products? If yes, then you need to follow these basic steps for the best results. Having a robust product range not only increases business value but also helps you to retain customers. To maintain product range in the best way, let's check out the following steps;
I. Collecting Customer Feedback
Customer satisfaction is the main motto of creating a robust product range. How do you check whether your product range is satisfying your customers or not? Well, you can do that with the assessment of their feedback. Sometimes product range looks great but it cannot perform well in real. Therefore, assessing the product range periodically becomes crucial at this point.
Therefore, you need to include points from customer feedback when you maintain product range. Besides that, you need to check whether the complementary products are going well with the main products or not. If not, then you need to inculcate a detailed inspection of why things went wrong. With this method, you can easily get the benefits of product range.
II. Use Time Metrics
Calculating the return on investment (ROI) is a must when you expand your product range. You must know how much time your products have taken to get sold to understand the algorithm better.
III. Track Sales
Tracking the sales percentage is essentially important for you to maintain an efficient product range. Why do businesses prefer product range? Obviously to increase sales therefore you need to track sales to know whether you are going the right way or not. A decrease in sales will need your immediate attention while an increase in sales will reflect the best.
Lastly, implementing all these methods to maintain product range needs quality data. You can outsource eCommerce data entry experts for your business to adopt such techniques better.