APS

Successfully scaling into new markets and marketplaces

There is a world of digital marketplaces far beyond Amazon. Analysing the variety of opportunities, audiences and options is the first step to effectively expand your reach.

As the largest producer of consumer batteries, Advanced Power Solutions (APS) offers high quality, reliable and sustainable mobile energy solutions to consumers around the world. With an already significant presence in the global battery market, APS wanted to expand their foothold in the digital marketplaces sphere.

As a part of this expansion, the APS team was sure they wanted to move into the Dutch and German markets, but didn’t know where or how to start. They then began collaborating with DEPT®’s marketplaces team to analyse the European battery market. Together, we evaluated each of these markets, profiled the target audience, determined promising product types, and identified relevant marketplaces beyond Amazon.

Establishing a foundation

Our consulting team launched an in-depth market research and analysis, specifically for the e-commerce platforms Otto, in Germany and bol.com, in the Netherlands. These markets, while not as globally known as Amazon, are extremely important, especially for certain categories. We performed in-depth market analyses to develop appropriate market entry strategies.

With the short- and long-term goals of APS in mind, we evaluated the structures and significance of each market as they relate to the brand’s potential for growth. We aimed to develop a market entry strategy built with consideration of three core pillars:

Marketplace target audiences
Marketplace comparison
Market insights

Based on this data, we built a reliable and actionable go-to-market recommendation for APS, which was primed for success from its inception.

Our approach to understanding and analysing the potential of APS within a given marketplace cohesively accounts for all of the fundamental pillars.

Understand and maximise potential

Audience

The foundation of any strategy is a thorough understanding of the audience. We aim to understand them not only as a customer, but as a whole person. What are their motives? What are their preferred browsing channels and methods? What are their purchasing habits?

Answering these questions gives us necessary insight into who our audience is, how they make purchase decisions and ultimately what influences them to make a purchase and why.

Marketplaces

We assess dynamics of different marketplaces and their relevance for APS. Every marketplace has a unique set of circumstances and factors that make it either a suitable fit or not. We must consider simultaneously who our target audience is and what our product is, and if these meet logically within a given marketplace environment.

Market

Diving into the structures and dynamics of the battery industry helps us develop a comprehensive understanding of the market. We identify the competitive landscape, the most relevant types of battery products and their corresponding pricing levels to determine the positioning of APS within the market.

Audience deep dive

Using a series of research and statistical tools, we conduct market research to determine who exactly makes up our target audience in both Germany and the Netherlands. Who are the people using batteries in each of these markets? How many people are shopping online? How many unique users are using both Otto and bol.com?

We then break down the demographics, consumer attitude and marketing touchpoints of Otto and bol.com as well as surveys. We therefore gain an understanding of the age, gender and socioeconomic distribution of shoppers, their general attitude and shopping behaviours. We also gain an understanding of the social media platforms using, their interests and their general perception of their own money management, brand loyalty and technology usage.

Our prior market knowledge combined with a reliable set of analysis tools to answer any open questions about our audience. We gather information on consumer preferences, media usage, population and economy statistics. We can use this information to make informed and actionable decisions about marketing and advertising efforts moving forward.

Building an audience profile

When performing this research for APS, we asked: when does our audience decide he or she needs batteries? We then identified three specific purchase moments for our target audience.

Purchase is part of a bigger basket – Battery purchases are often part of purchasing other items, such as electrical devices. Therefore, being present among the recommendations is key when cross-selling opportunities arise
Critical purchase – The need for new batteries often arises quite suddenly when old batteries die or a consumer realizes they have none at home. The buyer often needs to receive the batteries as quickly as possible, making fast delivery essential
The restocker – Some of our audience keeps a supply of batteries at home for emergency situations. He or she is maybe purchasing a larger variety of batteries at once and does not necessarily require fast delivery

Using analytics tools and survey answers, we derived two key characteristics for our target audience as a whole: they’re not doing tons of research and price is their main concern. This information is key when determining if and how to use these platforms to scale up market entry.

Understanding marketplaces

In addition to the audience, we take a look into the performance and presence of different marketplaces in different countries. For Germany, Otto.de is the most visited marketplace after Amazon while bol.com is the top visited marketplace in the Netherlands.

We evaluate the USPs of each, like delivery and return options, product variety and payment options as well as the respective ecosystems. We take a look at on-site metrics, how people are accessing the marketplaces and traffic sources for each.

Market overview

Finally, we break down the market landscapes for Otto and bol.com. We gather market insights for visibility, price and product for both marketplaces to round out the basis for building an insight-driven strategy. We find visibility, price and product benchmarks of primary and secondary battery types and chargers on both Otto and bol.com to build a strong starting point for strategy building.

Benchmarking allows us to determine the highest performing keywords, average order and unit prices and the highest performing product types. By plotting the performance for the top players on each marketplace in Germany and the Netherlands, we are able to find exactly how APS fits into the market on each respective marketplace.

Visibility– determining the competitor landscape based on a comprehensive analysis of Otto’s traffic and marketplace size. We projected the total market volume for the year of 2022, weighing various factors to arrive at the estimate
Price– examining pricing structures and strategies
Product– identifying relevant product types and characteristics

Analyses into actions

We built an executive summary of our findings and presented APS with an insight-driven go-to-market strategy for Otto and bol.com. We presented outlooks and recommendations for each battery type and chargers on both marketplaces respectively.

Our team successfully assisted APS in conducting a comprehensive evaluation of various marketplaces. Taking the fundamental pillars of product, price and visibility into account, we helped develop appropriate market entry strategies to accomplish their goal of getting into the Dutch and German markets.

The next critical step is now implementing these strategies to penetrate the markets. Our operational marketplaces team works together to ensure excellence in the areas of retail, content and advertising to make informed decisions and carry out the essential actions for success.