Competence centre eWings focuses on developing Magento websites, digital marketing and supporting clients in onboarding and maintaining their marketplaces. A recent project with BLOX, a brand selling earplugs for various situations such as sleeping, festivals and motorcycling, shows how those services can be successfully applied. BLOX used to sell its products mainly through pharmacies, but in 2023 the company decided to change course and create its own online sales channel. After contacting competence centre Us for their content marketing, they were introduced to eWings for the rest of their strategic reorientation.
Challenge and strategy
BLOX initiated a rebranding and built a new Shopify webshop to sell their products directly to consumers. The rebranding was done by an external party, but it soon became clear that just building a webshop would not automatically lead to success. Therefore, BLOX wanted to strengthen their sales by investing in a Google Shopping campaign while expanding their presence on various online marketplaces, such as Bol.com, Amazon and Decathlon. To do this, competence centre Us introduced BLOX to competence center eWings, who became responsible for implementing and optimising the marketplace strategy.
eWings used Channable, a feed management tool that can combine data from different sources, such as a web shop or Google Sheets. In BLOX’s case, most of the data came from their Shopify webshop. Since that webshop did not contain sufficiently detailed product information to meet the requirements of the various marketplaces, eWings worked with Us to enhance the product content and add additional data via an additional Google Sheet. All required product information such as colour, height and weight were collected, making the product feed for the marketplaces complete.
Implementation of marketplaces
The process started with the configuration of the marketplaces in Channable. Set up for BLOX included Amazon (multiple countries), Bol.com and Decathlon. Selecting and adding those marketplaces in Channable is easy, but the next step, correctly categorising the products, was crucial to the success of the project. For larger clients with thousands of items, it can be challenging to classify products correctly based on complex rules. Fortunately, this was relatively easy for BLOX, as its range included only earplugs. Nevertheless, eWings had to create around 20 rules to optimise the product data for the specific requirements of each marketplace. For example, the colour ‘red’ in the webshop had to be converted to ‘carmine red’ for Bol.com, to meet their standard.
Optimisation of content and attribute mapping
After categorisation, attribute mapping followed, linking all relevant product attributes to the right fields of the marketplaces. That data was then forwarded to the back offices of the various platforms. This was sometimes a process of trial and error, where error messages had to be resolved, but eventually the data successfully arrived at the marketplaces. Thanks to improved content and a well-thought-out pricing policy, BLOX managed to secure the coveted buying block on Bol.com. This means that when a customer searches for ‘earplugs black’, for example, BLOX is displayed as the first seller. Maintaining this buying block is essential for visibility and sales on the platform, and many eWings customers employ complicated pricing strategies to ensure this.
Results
The success of this strategy was quickly evident in the results. From its launch in May 2024, BLOX saw an impressive 62% growth in sales and orders, and a 117% increase in units sold compared to the previous year. That rapid growth was a direct result of the combined efforts of eWings and Us, which managed to optimise both BLOX’s content and pricing strategy on its marketplaces.
Moreover, to further accelerate its success, eWings launched a number of sponsored product campaigns within Bol.com. This allows BLOX to have their products appear at the top of search results when customers search for related products such as earbuds. Although these campaigns are still ongoing, this is expected to further boost sales. For both eWings and BLOX, this is the first time they have run such campaigns, and the results are being watched with great interest.
Future co-operation
All in all, the project was a great success. BLOX is pleased with the outcome, which resulted in a monthly maintenance contract with eWings for ongoing support and further optimisation of their marketplace activities. This project demonstrates not only the power of co-operation within the Xplore Group, but also eWings’ expertise in onboarding, optimising and managing marketplace sales. The successful integration of product data through Channable and BLOX’s improved visibility on platforms such as Bol.com and Amazon have led to significant growth within a short period of time. Thanks to these results, BLOX looks forward to further collaboration with eWings to further expand and strengthen their online sales channels.
Xploration
BLOX, after launching their own webshop, wanted to strengthen its sales by investing in a Google Shopping campaign while expanding its presence on various online marketplaces.
Our solution
eWings used Channable, a feed management tool that can combine data from different sources, such as an online shop or Google Sheets.
Integration
- Channable
Result
The success of the strategy was soon evident in the results. From its launch in May 2024, BLOX saw an impressive 62% growth in sales and orders, and a 117% increase in units sold compared to the previous year.
