Build Your Digital Shelf: How to Drive Product Visibility And eCommerce

Winning the Digital Shelf in 2025 is essential for eCommerce success. Marketplaces like Amazon, Lazada, Shopee, and TikTok are where brands compete for visibility, conversions, and sales. Having a clear, actionable strategy to optimize your listings, content, and sales tactics to dominate on this “digital shelf” is a requirement for success. This guide will introduce you to the importance of mastering the digital shelf, breaking it down into ten actionable steps designed to help you scale your business, increase revenue, and gain market share effectively.

Winning Your Consumers' Hearts: Why Your Digital Shelf Strategy Matters

Think of it like the endcap displays in a brick-and-mortar store—it’s where purchasing decisions are made, and owning this space can dramatically increase your sales and brand presence. According to a report by McKinsey, over 70% of retail growth now stems from online channels, with marketplaces accounting for most of this growth. Failing to optimize your digital shelf doesn’t just mean forfeiting sales opportunities—it also leaves you vulnerable to competitor encroachment.

Previously, as Director of a luxury skincare business and now as Founder of a Consulting company, I’ve regularly been faced with the numerous challenges of dealing with marketplaces in Southeast Asia. The good news? There are proven strategies to refine your presence, optimize listings, and capture more market share on these platforms. Below, we’ll unpack the 10 most effective ways to outsmart competitors on marketplaces.

1. Harness the Power of AI across the board

Staying competitive in 2025 means adopting AI tools capable of automating critical tasks like pricing, keyword optimization, and ad spend adjustments. AI provides insights and efficiency that manual efforts simply can’t match. The following tools are indispensable for businesses targeting Southeast Asian platforms like Amazon, Lazada and Shopee:

• SellerMetrics helps Amazon sellers optimize their Pay-Per-Click campaigns through automation, advanced analytics, and tailored strategies. It leverages AI-driven bid management, keyword optimization, and real-time data insights, offering a competitive advantage by reducing wasted ad spend and maximizing RSOI through precision-targeted ad performance improvements.

Image 1: SellerMetrics dashboard give you an overall view of how your ads perform on Amazon

• Repricer.com is an automated repricing platform designed to help online retailers optimize their product prices across multiple marketplaces, such as Amazon and eBay. By monitoring competitor prices and adjusting listings in real-time, Repricer.com ensures competitive advantage by increasing Buy Box ownership and driving profitability through dynamic pricing strategies.

Image 2: Repricer allows to create competitor rules to reprice automatically your products and boost your competitiveness

• Epsilo and Split Dragon provide tailored tools to optimize advertising and streamline operations on Southeast Asian marketplaces like Shopee and Lazada. Epsilo offers a unified dashboard for ad automation and optimization, giving sellers a competitive edge with multi-marketplace visibility. Split Dragon enhances product visibility and sales through powerful features like keyword research, market analysis, and automated product boosting, allowing sellers to outperform competitors in crowded marketplaces.

Image 3: Split Dragon's keyword search feature will enable you to ensure your listings always land on page 1

AI-powered tools aren't an option—they’re a necessity to streamline marketplace management while still effectively tracking your competitors and maximizing profitability.

2. Driving the Path to Purchase with Effective Product Pages

Your online storefront deserves the same attention to detail as a physical shop. Well-curated product pages, paired with a polished store setup, improve both discoverability and conversion rates.

Each market will have its own specifics to this process. Let’s illustrate the concept by having a look at Sulwhasoo’s Lazada store. Take note these concepts apply to Shopee, Tiktok, and many other marketplaces.

Image 4: Sulwhasoo Lazada store page

Sulwhasoo’s Lazada store page fully reflects its brand image and positioning, inspiring luxury. It immediately captures attention to on-going campaigns, discounts, and best-sellers products. A marketplace store page should be updated on a regular basis, following your marketing calendar.

However, a customer is unlikely to search your brand name specifically on a marketplace and would more likely search for a product feature. Simulating a typical customer journey, my visible wrinkles are currently obsessing me. I am currently on the lookout for an anti-aging serum and used the search feature.

Image 5: Sulwhasoo's effective SEO management landing its product in top searches

The skincare market is oversaturated and it’s hard to distinguish your product from masses through natural search. Yet it merely took two thumb scroll gestures to reach Sulwhasoo’s product. This is enabled by effective SEO management on both the product title and the product’s text description. Let’s look into the product page itself.

Image 6: The product's high-quality video and images tell the whole story

The moment you open the page, the product is presented with an impressive video. The high quality images summarize the product and the store’s main selling-points. Most customers will have already made their opinion on their purchase at this stage.

However, it is important not to neglect the rest of your product page:

Image 7: The detailed description improves SEO the visuals provide full details of the product

The text description provides further details and list of ingredients, helping with the product’s SEO rankings. The additional images integrated in the description cover the specifics: skincare is a difficult industry as it combines science, customer education & statistics in its marketing to differentiate products and convince buyers. Sulwhasoo covers all the necessary here: 10/10

3. Optimize User Experience for Mobile Buyers

Mobile shoppers now account for roughly 60% of marketplace traffic, with numbers climbing even higher in Asia.

Below are a few key points to ensure:

• Titles: Use shorter product titles optimized for mobile visibility. Lazada, Shopee, Tiktok will show between 15 & 50 characters on their search page. 
• Images & Videos: Ensure images and videos are legible without zooming. You will be limited by the marketplace in terms of image and video size, so page load is generally not a concern. Ensure your videos are compressed properly. Vertical format is a must.
• Ads: Certain ads formats such as Lazada flash sales are more heavily promoted on the app, you may want to optimize your ads campaigns if you want to target specific user profiles.
• Promotions: Some discount vouchers on Lazada and Shopee are only given to app users, ensure you understand the differences and work based on your strategy.
• Descriptions: Keep descriptions compact and rely on visuals to convey the product's essence, as seen for Sulwhasoo above.

Test your product pages across devices to confirm they’re clear, responsive, and visually appealing on screens of all sizes.

4. As Marketplace Promotions Drop, So the Rush Begins 

Over the past decade, platforms like Lazada and Shopee have pioneered a constant stream of sales events to drive marketplace traffic and consumer spending. Beyond traditional seasonal promotions, they have introduced monthly shopping festivals (1.1, 2.2… 11.11, 12.12) and adopted internationally inspired events like Queen’s Day or 520 (China’s Valentine’s Day).

Image 8: On average, marketplaces hold 20 campaigns per year to take advantage of

Shoppers anticipates these campaign days and planning a strategy is vital to your success:

• Select the right campaigns – focus on high-impact sales events relevant to your niche.
• Strategically allocate ad spend – increase budgets ahead of peak traffic periods.
• Leverage platform tools – Lazada self-reports its Sponsored Discovery feature drives a 26% average traffic uplift and a 35% average sales uplift for participating sellers. Some Shopee and Lazada top-sellers report. A report by Nestify attests a 35% expected revenue increase from participation in Lazada or Shopee flash-sales.

Finally, bundle & price smartly: test different discount strategies such as flash sales, vouchers, tiered pricing. This is very market-specific, however here are some guidelines to follow:

• Flash Sales: Best for driving urgent, high-volume sales during peak shopping periods (e.g., 11.11, 12.12). Focus on high-demand products and offer deep discounts to create urgency.
• Discount Vouchers: Ideal for customer retention and encouraging repeat purchases. Use targeted vouchers for specific customer segments, like first-time buyers or loyal customers, to increase conversion rates.
• Bundle Deals: Effective for increasing average order value and moving slower-selling products. Create product bundles that make sense together, offering a perceived discount when buying multiple items.
• Livestreaming: made a requirement in recent years, is ideal to boost engagement through real-time interactions, exclusive offers, and product showcases. Collaborating with influencers can further enhance reach and credibility, driving higher sales. However, it will require either your brand or the influencer to have an existing audience to be fully efficient.

Image 9: Market places offer a variety of mechanics to improve your visibility and revenue

Tailor your approach based on local consumer behavior and preferences. Most markets in Southeast Asia would for example consider free shipping a must-have. Monitor campaign performance and adjust discounts or deals based on region-specific trends.

5. It's A Battle to Grab Market Share: How Can You Perform Dynamic Pricing

Dynamic pricing is an AI-driven pricing strategy that automatically adjusts the price of products in real-time based on demand, competitor prices, inventory levels, and other market conditions. It ensures that sellers remain competitive while maximizing profitability.

On platforms like Lazada, sellers with competitive pricing will also benefit from additional visibility. How it works:

• If competitors lower their prices, your price automatically adjusts to stay competitive.
• If demand spikes (e.g., during sales or low stock availability), your price increases to maximize revenue.

Dynamic pricing ensures you’re never underselling your products—or overpricing and losing potential buyers.

Some examples of tools include:

• Prisync: A competitor price tracking and dynamic pricing tool that automatically adjusts prices based on market conditions and competitor activity across platforms like Lazada and Shopee.
• InstaPricer: A dynamic pricing solution that helps businesses optimize prices in real-time by analyzing factors like competition, demand, and customer behavior on Southeast Asian marketplaces.

6. Use A/B Testing the same way you would for your Shopify

A well-known practice on Direct-To-Consumer websites. Creating one listing and hoping for the best isn’t enough. Continuous improvements via A/B testing allow you to test headline variations, image sequences and product descriptions.

While marketplaces don’t offer built-in A/B testing tools, you can still implement manual testing:

• Create two variations of your listing: changing one key element (e.g., product title, images, or price) in each. Make sure the two variations are distinct enough to potentially affect performance but similar enough to compare fairly.
• Monitor performance using the platform’s analytics: sales data, traffic, and conversion rates. While you can’t segment traffic by variant on the platforms, you can track which version gets more clicks and purchases by monitoring metrics like daily sales, traffic spikes, or conversion rates.
• Switch between variations and compare results: Run each variation for a set period (e.g., 1-2 weeks, over comparable time periods) and then swap them. Avoid running any active campaigns (e.g., flash sales, ads, or promotions) during the A/B test, as these could skew traffic and sales numbers. If you must run campaigns, ensure both variations are equally exposed to them.After enough time has passed, compare the performance of each version to determine which one resulted in higher sales or engagement, then repeat the process as needed for optimization.

Image 10: A/B testing must be done manually by creating 2 variants and testing them over different time periods

Results are interpreted using KPIs such as Traffic, AOV, Sales and Conversion rates, available on most marketplaces reporting extracts. Higher values will indicate the better performing variant of your product listing.

Image 11: Product performance reports from marketplaces allow you to analyze AB testing performance

Finally, some tools such as Split Dragon, mentioned in the first hack, can help simplify your A/B testing experiments as well.

7. Invest in Sponsored Product Ads & In-Platform affiliates

Marketplaces are increasingly pay-to-play environments. Allocating a portion of your ad budget specifically for marketplaces is increasingly important. Sponsored product ads improve visibility and drive traffic to your listings. Certain platforms like Shopee also have in-platform affiliates program. From personal experience, marketplace advertisement can provide a ROAS of 2x to 11x dependent on the timing of advertisement, and affiliates were an affordable source of additional sales in exchange for a small commission. Both activities matter even more during campaign timings.

8. Customers are King: Strengthen Your Ratings, Reviews and Customer Service

Social proof is king. A survey commissioned by Reputation found that 54% of consumers prioritize online reviews when making purchasing decisions. You’ve likely spent hours capturing reviews on Google, Shopify and all your other platforms. Apply the same logic to marketplaces. Encourage verified buyer reviews by sending personalized post-purchase emails or offering bonus perks (like discounts) when reviews are submitted. Seller ratings and customer service speed are often visible to all buyers on marketplaces, neglecting these will directly impact your performance.

Image 12: Customer Service KPIs are visible on marketplaces. Maintain high standards or customers will know!

The following processes can be put in place to improve your customer service quality and score points with your customer base:

• Respond Quickly to Inquiries: aiming for a response time under 5 min. during peak shopping hours. Chatbots or pre-set responses for common questions (e.g., shipping times, return policies) can help tremendously reach this KPI.
• Optimize Order Fulfillment & Shipping: fast processing times and proactively informing customers of any delays are a requirement of marketplace business. Working with a third-party logistics company your stocks for you or syncing inventory and automating order management with tools like Anchanto can improve your service quality and reduce your workload.
• Handle Complaints & Returns Professionally with clear return & refund policies and communicate it transparently. When issues arise, offer solutions quickly—a replacement, refund, or discount can turn a frustrated buyer into a repeat customer.
• Monitor Reviews & Ratings regularly check and respond to reviews (especially negative ones) to show engagement.
• Use Live Chat & Livestreaming in Shopee, Lazada, or TikTok Shop’s messaging tools to engage directly with customers. Conducting livestream Q&A sessions to address concerns in real-time will also boost trust.

9. Simplify marketplaces operations management with Aggregators

In fragmented markets like Southeast Asia, where dozens of marketplaces live side by side, managing many of them can be a daunting task for your team. Multi-channel SaaS tools help you streamline operations by allowing you to manage all your marketplace listings, inventory, orders, and pricing from a single dashboard, enabling your business to scale its marketplace activities. They sometimes integrate with your existing finance systems or OMS out of the box as well. Some prominent tools in the region include Channelengine, Tradegecko and Anchanto, enabling businesses to manage their operations and focus on scaling, while ensuring smooth and consistent experiences across all their sales channels. Many more exists which may fit your needs.

The table below offers a quick comparative view of these three solutions:

Aggregators offer powerful out-of-the-box features, and most can automatically detect your existing listings, integrating them seamlessly into a centralized interface. However, based on my experience managing such projects, these platforms rarely allow customization unless you’re a major client. Like any IT implementation, selecting and integrating an aggregator is not a decision to take lightly. Your team must thoroughly analyze your needs, actively participate in implementation, learn the tool, and coordinate with the software vendor. Unexpected challenges—such as compatibility issues with your existing tech stack—may arise, requiring process adjustments. This is where expert guidance can make all the difference. At Moonswing Advisory, we can help businesses navigate the complexities of aggregator selection and implementation, ensuring the right fit and a smooth transition.

10. Capture Marketplace traffic and convert it into loyal customers

Marketplaces are powerful channels to attract new customers. By selling on these platforms, you benefit from their built-in traffic, expanding your reach. It’s crucial to develop a strategy that captures this traffic and redirects it to your own website, improving your customer retention and increasing profits by reducing reliance on platform commissions over time. At the same time, be mindful of how you price across different channels to avoid undercutting your own site. It’s important to plan how your marketplace presence and self-owned platforms complement each other to create a seamless customer journey.

While marketplace data privacy regulations prevent full access to customer information, you can still implement clever tactics to take advantage of this traffic. Your most useful point of contact with the customer through marketplaces will be the unboxing of their order. With a simple insert / thank you note, you can convey many marketing tactics to your marketplace customers and attempt to convert them into your own ecosystem:

• Branded Packaging & Inserts – QR codes linking to your website/IG/Tiktok or exclusive loyalty program invites in your marketplace orders.
• Exclusive Product Bundles & Discounts – Offer special bundles or limited-edition products only available on your website to encourage direct purchases. Discount codes for your DTC websites are also an option and allow you to track conversions.
• Community Engagement – Create and advertise a VIP group on Telegram, Facebook, or Discord for early access to deals, giving marketplace customers a reason to join your ecosystem.
• Subscription & Membership Programs – advertise loyalty points / VIP memberships / early access to sales for customers who shop directly on your platform through your thank you note. 
• Live Shopping & Webinars – Invite marketplace buyers to live demos or Q&A sessions hosted on your website or social media, showcasing exclusive content and deals.

Image 13: The unboxing is a key lever to push marketing tactics to your marketplace buyers and create loyal customers

Future-Proofing Your Digital Shelf Strategy

Mastering the digital shelf involves continuous optimization. Far from a one-time effort. Your success on these platforms depends essentially on leveraging cutting-edge tools, thoughtful strategies, and maintaining a commitment to adaptation. Don’t hesitate to spend time analyzing what your competition is doing, as the market moves incredibly fast and new practices appear regularly. Putting in place these 10 hacks should already enable you to refine your marketplace presence and outsmart competitors with confidence. Start applying these strategies today and you will promptly be reaping benefits of your enhanced marketplace presence across your entire business.

Join Michael McCarthy at eTail Asia 2025 as he presents his ideas in the Marketing Leaders' Lightning Talk on Expanding Your Retail Footprint with cross border expansion opportunities as brands hope to gain market share and capture a solid and expanded customer base!