If the Sale of products When people talk about the Internet, the first sales channels they think of are their own online store and then marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay. Only rarely are other marketplaces, such as Otto and addressed. This often leads to a distorted assumption, as there are marketplaces that play a more dominant role in certain categories than the aforementioned marketplaces Amazon and eBay.
In today's blog post, I discuss the sale of products via the Otto marketplace and how this can be implemented. Otto not only plays a role as Online sales channel increasingly important role, but also as a Marketing platform on which innovative advertising placements are offered.
Selling on Otto: What role does Otto.de play in German eCommerce?
Otto.de was the second most popular brand in 2019 Online store / marketplace in Germany with a turnover of 3.56 billion euros. Since Otto, unlike Zalando, does not exclusively sell clothing items, but is considered a generalist, a comparison of sales is not always really meaningful.
Otto itself defines the categories 1. fashion 2. living & furnishings and 3. technology and accessories as the main categories. Compared to Amazon the categories are very limited, so that sellers of pet food or food supplements cannot place their products on Otto.
In addition to the sales figures, however, the monthly Website visits of Otto can certainly be seen. For the month of August 2019, Similarweb reported a number of visitors of over 58 million to.
Visitor numbers from comparable stores:
Amazon.de: 500 million monthly website visits
Zalando.de: 23 million monthly website visits
Mediamarkt.de: 24.4 million monthly website visits
Real.de: 26.6 million monthly website visits
Otto.de itself also provides some figures to prove the attractiveness of the marketplace. For example, Otto says that 10 orders are placed every second and that there are over 7 million active users.
What are the minimum requirements for selling on Otto.de?
Unlike Amazon, Otto.de is a partially closed marketplace. In order to sell on Otto, you have to register as an interested party with Otto-Market: https://www.otto.market/de/registrierungsformular.html.
Requirements that you should fulfill:
- German company legal form & German tax ID
- German-speaking customer service
- Shipping from a German warehouse
- Your company acts as a seller to the customer
Which categories must your products be in?
- Home & Living
- Fashion & Lifestyle
- Technology & Media
- Sport & Leisure
- Garden & DIY
In addition, your product should not just be a pure Me-too product but must either have an established brand or a new product. Otto.de is certainly not interested in bringing a run-of-the-mill seller who sources their products from Alibaba onto the platform.
It may well take a few months before you receive a successful message from Otto for the sales launch. There are currently still under 1,000 sales partners on the Otto marketplace. But you should definitely be patient!
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It may well be worthwhile: We already support several customers with the Otto.de has risen to become the second most important online sales channel in just a few months!
The big advantage of closed or semi-closed marketplaces is that Otto carries out a pre-selection here in order to maintain product quality on the marketplace. This is a major problem with Amazon, for example, and leads to annoyed customers and retailers who are annoyed by the unfair competition from the Far East.
Sell on Otto: What happens after the sales launch invitation?
You have now received the sales invitation from Otto.de and want to get started right away? The central contact point for this is the OTTO Partner Connect (OPC) which is the equivalent of Amazon's Seller Central. Here you can upload your products, make changes, analyze sales and start advertising campaigns.
Sell on Otto
How do I create products at Otto.de? (Quick-Guide)
After you have OPC registered you will find the menu item "Product" in the left sidebar. Here you will find a complete overview of the products you have created and you can also add a product immediately by clicking on "Create new product".
First we have to Product category in which our offered product is located:
After the right Category selection the basic data is requested, this includes the product name, Model names and the brand. If the brand of the product has not yet been registered with Otto, we must first register the brand (+ create new brand) with Otto. This process can take a few hours.
In the next step, we can now Product variants by defining a differentiating characteristic (size, color, material, etc.). Important: even if you want to create a single product without variants, you must define a characteristic here.
Once a characteristic has been created, a SKU, EAN and an Selling price be deposited.
Now, similar to Amazon, we have to check all further Product informationsuch as product title, bullet points, product description, images, etc. This step is self-explanatory, as can be seen in the screenshot.
Important: Unlike Amazon, Otto does not have a field in which you can enter "general keywords". For this reason, the optimal alignment of the title, the Bullet points and the Product description but also the storage of all basic data, such as size and color, plays an important role in organic visibility in the Otto SERPs.
Advertising opportunities on Otto: What works and what doesn't currently work?
First Things First: The current advertising opportunities on Otto are still very limited and cannot really be compared with the advertising opportunities on Amazon.de. However, this also means that the current competition for advertising space is nowhere near as fierce as on Amazon. We have already been able to achieve extremely good results with some customers (ROAS = Return on Advertising Spend was sometimes 20. 1€ in advertising expenditure led to 20€ advertising turnover). Of course, such results cannot be guaranteed.
With the current advertising options, we have to choose between self-service and Managed service advertising options differentiate. In the managed service, Otto Key Account Managers take over the placement of the advertising campaigns. With the self-service solutions, these can be played out directly via the OPC.
What self-service advertising options are currently available on Otto.de?
To do this, we click in the OPC on "Services" → "All services" and find the current advertising opportunities in self-service.
The following advertising options are currently available:
- Otto Display Network
Via the Otto Display Network Display ads of the products offered on partner sites such as Zeit-Online, Watson or t-online.
The campaign creation is kept very simple, as an advertiser you only define the products to be advertised, the budget and the time period. Unfortunately, the rest is and remains a black box, which is why I'm not a big fan of the Otto Display Network.
Brief presentation of the managed service advertising options on Otto.de:
- Sponsored Product Ads (similar to Amazon: Currently completely automated without precise reporting: minimum budget is €2,500)
- InStore Promotion (Advertisements are not only displayed on Otto.de, but also on other online stores belonging to Otto, e.g. AboutYou, MyToys etc.).
- Audience Extension (Reach campaign via the display network with dynamic display of ads, segments can be created based on socio-demographic characteristics, etc.)
- Dynamic Creative Optimization: (real-time playout with personalization function of display & video ads to the target audience)
- Engagement campaigns: (Addressing new customers as retargeting campaigns: On & off-Otto)
What costs do I have to expect when selling on Otto?
Otto charges monthly costs of 39,90€ toto gain access to the OPC incl. Authorization to sell. Other fees are variable and depend on the product category. The following is a commission table showing the sales fees.
Today's article serves as the start of a series of articles to delve deeper into the Topic Sale on Otto.de to enter. For this reason, I have only shown a small section. In the following weeks and months, certain topics will be covered in greater depth. illustrates.
Is Otto an online marketplace?
Otto has had an eCommerce marketplace on which companies from Germany can offer their products for several years.
Who can sell on Otto?
In principle, any company based in Germany is eligible for the first time. In addition, a registration or application must be completed. Otto is a closed marketplace on which not every seller can sell.
