Scaling up: How do you get even more users on your platform?

8 Tips to grow your platform

The basis of every successful platform and marketplace is having sufficient supply and demand. Once the foundation is in place, how do you ensure that you can continue to grow in the longer term as well, and what are the most important tips for growing your platform?

Tip 1: Make it super easy for your users!

Internet users are like people. And people want convenience. They have an enormous choice in where they spend their time and money. And every action they have to take to reach their goal is one too many. So once you have them on your platform, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to find what they want to find there and do what they want to do. The threshold to make a transaction should be as low as possible. This applies to sellers just as much as it does to buyers.

Tip 2: Make sure the user experience is maximally aligned with the user

The user experience is crucial to win over more users to your platform and to stimulate transactions. Therefore, keep looking critically at who is primarily trading on your platform and whether the design and features on your platform are still aligned with these users. Take a look, for example, at the options you offer for payment and shipping. Do you offer all the desired payment methods? If you are mainly active in the Netherlands, then the option to pay via iDEAL is indispensable. In Germany, this applies to Sofort and in Belgium it is a must to ensure that customers can pay with Bancontact. Also monitor what new methods are available to make the experience even better.

Tip 3: Monitor the quality of the offering

It is, of course, the basis for the success of any platform. If you want people to come back and keep using your platform, you have to make sure users find what they expect, and preferably even more. For buyers this can be done with positive surprises and by making sure they always find what they are looking for, quickly found and quickly delivered. Preferably with a bit of fun thrown in as well, or a certain degree of ‘feel-good’.

Want to know more? In our whitepaper you'll find a detailed explanation of these tips and 5 more tips to grow your platform!