Becoming a Digikala seller isn’t the hard part. The hard part is that your product is on the site, it’s visible, and no orders come in. This piece covers why that happens and what you need to do about it.
How is selling on Digikala different from selling on your own page?
When you sell on your own site or page, all of the work is yours. You have to get yourself seen, build the trust, and close the sale. On Digikala the situation changes, because Digikala already has the visitors and the customer came to Digikala first, not to you. So the hardest part of the job, getting people to a place they trust enough to buy from, has been taken off your shoulders. But a different difficulty gets added in its place: you’re no longer the only seller, and right next to your product dozens of other people are selling the same thing.
To see how serious that competition is, look at one number. According to Digikala’s own annual report, the share belonging to sellers like you has reached around 95 percent of total sales in some categories such as digital goods and clothing, and around 80 percent in others such as sports and cosmetics. Which means Digikala isn’t really one big shop, it’s a crowded marketplace of thousands of sellers, and you’re one of them.
So Digikala gives you the being-seen part. Being chosen is still entirely your job, and this is where a lot of sellers go wrong, because they assume that now Digikala has brought the customer, the work is done.
Why is your product visible but no orders arrive?
On Digikala, when several sellers offer an identical product, they all sit on the same product page and Digikala recommends only one of them to the buyer. This position is called the buy window, or Buy Box. Whichever seller Digikala recommends takes most of the orders for that product, because the rest go down into the “other sellers” list, which almost nobody opens.
Imagine you’ve brought in a product with strong demand, your price isn’t bad, but a few weeks pass and you see very few orders. You go to the product page and discover that Digikala has recommended a different seller and your name has dropped down to where an ordinary buyer never scrolls. Your product is on the site and it’s visible, but because Digikala isn’t recommending you to the buyer, it’s as if you weren’t there at all. This is where a person wrongly concludes that “Digikala doesn’t work”, when the problem is one very specific point.
The competition over that one position is no joke either. According to the same report, the number of active businesses on Digikala has passed 61,000. So for every popular product you’re competing with a large group of sellers, and simply having the product guarantees no sales at all.
Which seller does Digikala recommend?
Contrary to the common belief, it doesn’t just recommend the cheapest. Digikala weighs several things together for this choice:
- A competitive price, not the floor of the market. Price matters but it isn’t the only criterion, so you don’t need to throw yourself into a price war that leaves you no profit at the end.
- Your seller rating. Shipping on time, not cancelling orders and keeping returns low raises your rating, and that rating is one of the main things that makes Digikala recommend you.
- Delivery speed. The sooner the product reaches the customer, for instance when it ships from Digikala’s own warehouse, the better your chances, because Digikala puts buyer satisfaction first.
- Stock that doesn’t run out. The moment your stock hits zero Digikala recommends your competitor, and getting that position back is harder than holding on to it.
Imagine two people selling an identical pot. One is slightly more expensive but has a good seller rating and delivers from Digikala’s warehouse by tomorrow. The other is a few thousand tomans cheaper but has shipped late several times and their rating has fallen. In most of these cases Digikala recommends the first seller, because from Digikala’s point of view a satisfied buyer who got their order on time is worth more than a few thousand tomans of discount.
There’s one more thing a lot of people overlook: the content of the product page. An accurate title, proper photos, and above all answering buyers’ questions and reviews is what reduces a stranger’s hesitation. Even when Digikala is recommending you, a weak product page makes people move on without buying, which is the drop-off at the last stage of the purchase.
The risk of depending on one channel
So far this has been about selling more, but there’s a large risk here too. If you gradually reach the point where all of your sales come from Digikala, you’ve handed your business’s entire income to a channel that isn’t yours. A change in the commission rate, a change in the rules, a restriction on your seller account or a heavy price war can cut that income overnight, and you have no control over it.
A healthy business treats Digikala as one of its channels, not its only one. What you should do is use the sales you make on Digikala to build other channels, introduce satisfied customers to your own brand within Digikala’s rules, and make sure that one channel closing isn’t the end of your business.
Wrapping up
Sales on Digikala don’t come from registering or from being the cheapest. Your goal is for Digikala to recommend you to the buyer, and that happens through a sensible price, a good seller rating and fast delivery. After that you have to hold on to the same position. So if your product is on the site but no orders arrive, first go and see which seller Digikala is recommending. Until Digikala recommends you, nothing else you do will make any difference.