Neteven: Retailing in France and across the EU

With eBay about to give access to free listings across Europe for their sellers there’s never been a better time to review the countries and marketplaces that you target. Many sellers already make use of Amazon European accounts to make selling into France and Germany easy, but what about other marketplaces?

France is a much more fragmented ecommerce landscape than the UK, with companies such as La Redoute, Priceminister (Rakuten), Fnac and Rue du Commerce. Unlike the UK where eBay and Amazon rule the roost, in France you need to spread your net in order to get your products in front of French consumers.

One company that aims to help you attack European marketplaces is Neteven. Their Even Marketplaces marketplace management application enables you to sell on eBay, Amazon, PriceMinister, Fnac, Pixmania, Rue du Commerce, La Redoute, Cdiscount, Brand Alley, Atosho and OneWorldAvenue in France and in Europe. They’re also adding new marketplaces and have partnered with Zalando to launch in France and the latest addition is support for the HMV marketplace in the UK.

Neteven recognise that you probably already work with a third party marketplace management platform and they’re not expecting you to switch over night. They are more than happy to work with you to give you access to the European marketplaces that your current provider doesn’t already support.

Greg Zemor, founder of Neteven tells me that they’ve already got retailers up and running on the French marketplaces who also use the big UK multichannel partners. Whilst there are many channel partners who support eBay and Amazon there are relatively few choices that cover all of the French marketplaces, so Neteven is well worth a look. They’re also the first multi-channel partner that I’m aware is supporting the UK’s HMV marketplace, which is still in closed Beta.

If you’re worried about the logistics of selling into Europe with language and shipping hurdles to jump you don’t have to worry. Neteven have shipping partners in place to outsource delivery/returns, and integrated translation solutions. If you want to you can outsource part or all of your European distribution to Neteven’s team.

Neteven have just been recognised for their expertise in facilitating the delivery of products sold on the internet, by e-commerce magazine winning the bronze award in the Logistics category.

Christmas is almost upon us, but once that’s out of the way Tamebay are predicting that in 2013 cross border trade will become even more critical for marketplace retailers future growth. Whilst the UK economy recovers, the easiest way to dramatically increase sales is from overseas and to do so you’ll want a channel partner experienced in the territories you want to target.

To find out more about selling on French and EU marketplaces visit the Neteven website in English, French, German, Italian or Spanish. As well as French and EU marketplace Neteven can of course be used to manage retailing on UK marketplaces.