eBagsPacking a punch on marketplaces

Company Overview

eBags is an online destination for bags and travel-related products, including luggage, accessories and bags for business, backpacking and sports. Launched in 1999 with seven brands and a couple hundred products, eBags has sold more than 20 million bags since its inception. It offers a selection of over 55,000 bags from more than 500 brands, including Michael Kors, Tumi, Kate Spade, Samsonite, The North Face and Patagonia.

The Situation

Although the company had several years of success selling bags of all variations on its website, eBags wanted to test the waters on marketplaces to increase the visibility of its products on other channels. When eBags launched on marketplaces, the company struggled to manage its product listings, inventory and pricing. Given eBags’ strong reputation in the e-commerce world, the company needed to make sure it could uphold those high standards while selling on marketplaces.

Rather than deal with the everyday hassle of managing product listings on marketplaces internally, eBags decided to find an e-commerce solution provider and partnered with ChannelAdvisor. ChannelAdvisor was tasked with developing an effective multichannel strategy that would allow eBags to gain access to more shoppers and sell more products on the web.

The Solution

Once set up with ChannelAdvisor Marketplaces, eBags launched on Amazon, eBay and Rakuten.com Shopping. Using ChannelAdvisor Marketplaces, eBags was immediately able to diversify its inventory and accelerate the process of listing products online. The company could manage its entire online selling process, from product listings to order management, from a single dashboard.

“We’ve had great success integrating to marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and Rakuten.com Shopping,” said Jessica Coffee, eBags partner marketing analyst. “We’ve found that we have a lot more control over our listings when we manage them through ChannelAdvisor.”

eBags found it beneficial to partner with ChannelAdvisor because of the company’s retail expertise and relationships in the e-commerce industry. “We love working with ChannelAdvisor because they’re always ahead of the game and able to tell us about new things coming through in the e-commerce industry,” said Coffee.

The Results

ChannelAdvisor Marketplaces enabled eBags to automate the delivery of product data to each marketplace, which resulted in fewer product listing errors. “We were able to quantify errors and resolve them,” said Coffee. “We were also able to control our pricing so that we have the opportunity to participate in deals and other special promotional events.”

ChannelAdvisor has been a dependable resource for any questions or concerns the company has about its marketplaces strategy. “My favorite thing about working with ChannelAdvisor is the consistent customer support that I always receive,” said Coffee. “Anytime I have an issue, I get contacted and it’s resolved within 24 hours or so. That’s proven to be incredibly helpful, especially when I first came into this position and needed a lot of hand-holding to learn all the systems.”

Because of its success on marketplaces, eBags started using ChannelAdvisor Digital Marketing to help position its products front and center online. With a streamlined strategy across marketplaces and digital marketing channels, eBags has focused its attention on increasing its revenue and achieving other business objectives.

“eBags, in the coming years, is really looking forward to growing our business and taking advantage of the many opportunities out there right now,” said Coffee. “Working with ChannelAdvisor is a huge benefit because they’re always able to point us in some new directions and let us know about upcoming opportunities.”