10 Ways To Localize Your Online Marketplace For Indian Markets

Being the world’s second most populous country, India has become an attraction point for many businesses to sell their products and services.

However, even though the Indian ecommerce market is full of potential, it is not easy to make inroads into the industry.

Wonder why businesses fail even after building online marketplaces for Indian market?  

Well, one reason is imposing traditional business practices and models on the local population. 

Thanks to the internet, brand competition is fiercer than ever. 

To enter an emerging market, brands need to localize their business strategies.  

Confused about how to take that road?

Worry not, we at StoreHippo bring 10 ways to localize your business and build an online marketplace for the Indian audience. 

Let us start by analyzing the growth of online marketplaces in India:

• 300 billion is the estimated market value of the Indian e-commerce market by 2030 
• 71.7% of total payment volume is expected to be digital in India by 2025
• 427 million is the estimated reach of online shoppers in India by 2027
• 80% of ecommerce traffic comes from smartphones
• 80% of consumers expect and desire personalized experiences from retailers.
• $710 billion is the expected reach of mobile retail commerce by 2025

Source: Statista, Grabon

The Indian ecommerce market is witnessing exponential growth in recent years. Factors like increasing internet penetration, the availability of smartphones, the growing influence of online shopping, etc have contributed to the economic splurge. The above statistics suggest that the Indian ecommerce market is poised for continued growth. 

However, with persisting challenges along the way, it becomes essential to look for opportunities to innovate and expand when you build an online marketplace for your enterprise business in India. With the right localization strategy, it becomes easier to establish a customer base.                       

10 Ways to Localize Your Online Marketplace for Indian Markets 

Localizing your online marketplace for Indian markets helps you tap into diverse customer bases, increase sales, and foster long-term relationships. However, to successfully localize and get your cash counter ringing, you need to master the tricks of the trade. 

Here are 10 ways to help you localize your marketplace for Indian markets:    

1. Cater to diverse regions with multiple stores

Creating separate storefronts for different regions within India helps you to cater to specific preferences, dialects, and cultural nuances. For example: you can create a storefront targeting South India focusing on regional cuisines, festivals, and fashion trends. This helps you build an online marketplace and create stronger connections with local customers offerring more relevant products and services. 

You can seamlessly create a network of stores with StoreHippo’s multi store ecommerce solutions in just a few steps. StoreHippo offers a central dashboard to help you operate all your sub-stores efficiently. The inbuilt order and inventory management system from StoreHippo helps you quickly assign different inventories to different sub-stores. You can perform day-to-day activities like product management, sales, order management etc. from a central admin portal to all your sub-stores. 

2. Create website designs with a local touch

To offer a local touch to customers on your online marketplace for Indian markets, the best way through is to create website designs that attract, engage and convert. Incorporating design elements that resonate with Indian culture and offer your customers a sense of familiarity and belonging, is a win-win. This not only helps you create a local touch but also connect with your customers on a deeper level. 

StoreHippo comes with 100+ device optimized themes that enables you to create unique and professional website designs. The easy-to-use drag-and-drop functionality helps even a novice user to completely overhaul the website design within minutes with zero knowledge of coding. You can create unique designs for each store based on the location and preference of the customers. StoreHippo, the best ecommerce platform in India enables you to create an Onam themed website design for South India and a Durga Puja themed design for the sub-stores in North.

3. Create a strong mobile presence 

With 80% of the orders coming from smartphones, mobile commerce is here to stay. Yes, India’s burgeoning ecommerce market is increasingly driven by mobile devices. With a large chunk of people with smartphones, mobile apps help you reach local markets, offer unparalleled convenience and accessibility, allowing customers to shop anytime and anywhere. Many regions in India are only accessible by mobile devices, especially tier II and tier III cities. As you build an online marketplace with a strong mobile presence and connect with your customers across multiple platforms, you can reach local Indian markets seamlessly. 

StoreHippo is built on a mobile-first approach that comes with a built-in mobile app builder. You can seamlessly create multiple mobile apps right from your admin dashboard at zero additional costs and without the need for coding. Stores built on StoreHippo are PWAs, which means these ecommerce websites work, look, and feel like mobile apps, even on entry level devices. With StoreHippo the best ecommerce platform in India, you can easily create separate apps for different sub-stores from the admin dashboard to reach local markets. With StoreHippo’s omnichannel solutions, you can also add new customer touchpoints quickly using the same backend logic and APIs. StoreHippo also helps you centrally control all your sales channels as you localize your online marketplace.         

4. Onboard vendors from diverse regions

Another easy breezy way to localize your online marketplace for Indian markets is to onboard vendors from diverse regions. Imagine having a marketplace with vendors from different corners of India selling products from diverse regions and of unique cultures. This will help you attract customers from diverse parts of the country and build trust within local communities. With vendors from diverse local markets, you also get access to valuable insights into customer preferences. Wonder how will you manage multiple vendors from different regions on your marketplace?

StoreHippo is the best multi vendor platform in India that comes with comprehensive end-to-end vendor management solutions. Its easy self-registration helps even novice sellers register and start selling quickly. Your vendors do not need to be technically advanced to use the StoreHippo platform. StoreHippo also offers a unique seller page to the vendors that helps them get undivided customer attention. The admin, on the other hand, can exercise full control over the vendors, products, orders, commissions, and a lot more. They can approve or reject the products uploaded by the vendors before being displayed on the marketplace. The marketplaces powered by StoreHippo offer a comprehensive admin dashboard which reflects the overview of everyday business.

5. Personalize your inventory for different locations

What could be better than offering a customized inventory to localize your marketplace? Well, think like this: will a red bridal lehenga gain traction in your sub-store in Kerela? To effectively localize your online marketplace for Indian markets, tailoring your inventory to specific regions is crucial. By offering products that resonate with local preferences, you can create a more personalized and engaging shopping experience. You can localize your marketplace by creating dedicated product categories for each region, partnering with local vendors. 

With StoreHippo you can bulk import and export all your products using CSV and then allot products to each sub-store right from the common central admin dashboard. You do not need to spend hours of manual effort on personalizing the inventory. With automated order management solutions, from StoreHippo, one of the best ecommerce platforms in India, you can personalize your inventory in minutes.  

6. Communicate with your audience in their native language

Customers overwhelmingly prefer shopping on websites that communicate in their native language. To localize your online marketplace for Indian markets, it's essential to talk in the language of your customers. By translating your online marketplace into multiple languages, you can not only enhance customer satisfaction but also rank higher on SERPs. As you convert your marketplace in multiple languages, you demonstrate your commitment to understanding and serving your customers, thus boosting their trust.

StoreHippo's built-in multilingual solutions make it easy for you to create language-specific sub-stores and offer seamless shopping experiences to customers. StoreHippo supports 100+ different languages including Right-to-left languages like Urdu. You can seamlessly translate your website in different languages as you build an online marketplace with StoreHippo. You can also use the automatic translation control to translate your website and all of its content into different languages in just a few clicks. StoreHippo also offers better translation control allowing you to choose between automatic and manual modes of translation. 

7. Region-specific marketing

Targeted marketing can help you localize your online marketplace for Indian markets. By segmenting your customers based on their specific preferences, demographics, and buying habits, you can tailor your marketing efforts to deliver personalized offers and deals on your marketplace. This can involve partnering with local influencers, sponsoring regional events, or running targeted advertising campaigns to offer a localized feel on your marketplace. For example, you can market Diwali festival in North, Gudi Padwa in Maharastra, Navratra in Delhi, Durga Puja in Bihar, Bengal, etc. 

StoreHippo, the best ecommerce platform in India, comes with user-friendly marketing tools that help you craft tailored strategies for various geographic locations. With the robust discount engine and coupon code features, you can offer multi-level discounts to your customers in various locations. You can engage your customers in real-time through personalized push notifications or live chat and chatbots. Additionally, StoreHippo's built-in SEO features help you optimize your online marketplace and rank higher on SERPs. 

8. Enable location-specific pricing over ride 

To localize your online marketplace for Indian markets, you can leverage pricing overrides to optimize profit margins across your diverse product catalogs. You can conduct a thorough market analysis to calculate costs, margins, and price elasticity for different regions. This data will enable you to implement differential pricing strategies that maximize ROI for each region. You can adjust pricing based on factors like shipping costs, taxes, and regional market conditions to remain competitive and attract customers from different regions. 

StoreHippo comes with a price-override functionality where you can seamlessly list the same products at different prices depending on the location or the deal offered at each store. You can plan better profit margins by offering custom prices to different customers based on their order volume, order frequency, geolocation, etc.    

9. Local shipping solutions

Incorporating local shipping solutions is crucial for effectively localizing your online marketplace for Indian markets. By partnering with multiple local delivery providers, you can ensure faster and more efficient shipping to customers in different regions. Local shipping providers offer a better understanding of regional logistics challenges and can also offer tailored solutions to ensure smooth delivery. It helps localize your store and further strengthens your brand's reputation and trust among Indian customers. This enhances customer satisfaction, reduces shipping costs, and minimizes the risk of delivery delays. 

StoreHippo ecommerce solutions come with 30+ pre-integrated logistics providers to streamline and automate your delivery processes. You can choose and integrate with the best logistic provider as you build an online marketplace. You also import orders from different sales channels and align them for timely deliveries through the automated logistics module from StoreHippo, the best multi vendor platform in India. As you onboard local shipping partners, you can also use the automated, in-built delivery management solutions from StoreHippo. With the advanced delivery solutions from StoreHippo, your local vendors can automate the entire delivery process. You can also use your fleet of delivery boys to ensure smooth and quick shipping.

10. Regional Customer Support 

Customer support is the backbone of any business. 64% of businesses say they can notice sales growth due to good customer service. And adding regional customer support is an effective way of localizing your online marketplace for Indian markets. By providing customer support in multiple Indian languages and employing agents who are familiar with local customs and preferences, you can significantly enhance the overall customer experience.

StoreHippo enables enterprise brands to seamlessly connect with their customers through automated tools and features like abandoned cart follow-up, SMS, push and email notifications, social media integrations, live chat, chatbot, etc. You can also integrate your online marketplace with your favourite customer servicing software through third-party integrations or AI-based software with StoreHippo. 

Conclusion

You can localize your online marketplace for Indian markets with the above-mentioned strategies and tap into its immense potential. However, you need one of the best ecommerce platforms in India to create a marketplace that resonates with Indian customers.                             

StoreHippo offers a comprehensive set of tools and features designed to help you build, manage, and localize your multi-vendor marketplace. StoreHippo offers a future-ready technology and MACH architecture that helps in creating agile and scalable solutions for fast-growing brands like yours. With 300+ built-in features, you can implement desired features on your Indian marketplace. StoreHippo, the best multi vendor platform in India helps you focus on localization, so you can differentiate your brand, attract a wider customer base, and drive sustainable growth in the competitive Indian ecommerce landscape.

Are you all set to localize your marketplace with StoreHippo, one of the best ecommerce platforms in India? Explore the enterprise-grade features by starting your 14-day free trial now.