Choose between seller software and a managed service

Seller software and a managed service answer different needs. Software gives your team data and automation. A managed service gives you people who do the weekly work. The right choice depends on who in your business has the hours and the knowledge to act on what the software shows.

What seller software does well

Marketplace software covers product and keyword research, repricing rules, profit dashboards, stock alerts and advertising reports. It fits when someone on your team already runs the account every week and wants faster answers.

Software does not decide for you. It shows which search terms waste spend, which offers lost the Buy Box and which products will run out of stock. Someone still has to read that, choose what to change and make the change in the seller account.

What a managed service adds

A managed service takes on that weekly work: reading the reports, drafting the changes, and following up on claims and listing problems. It suits a business where nobody has the hours, or where the range has grown past what one person can check.

A good service still leaves the decisions with you. You own every account, you agree the margin floor for each product, and a person approves changes to prices, listings and ad spend.

Questions to answer first

• Who opens the seller account every week, and how many hours do they have for it?
• Does that person know each marketplace's fees, claim windows and listing rules, or are they still learning them?
• How many products, marketplaces and countries do you sell in? Each one adds work that software reports but does not do.
• Do you know the margin on every product after every fee? If not, work that out before you choose either. The marketplace fee calculator is a place to start.

You can use both

The two are not exclusive. You can keep your software and hand the weekly routine to someone else, or start with a service and bring the work in-house once the routines are written down. If you change, keep your account history and reports, so the next person starts from what you learned.

Where to start

Write down the weekly routine first: the reports you read, the changes you make and who approves them. The weekly marketplace review covers that page. If the routine fits in your team's week, software may be all you need. If it does not, that gap is the work a managed service takes on.

Marketplace management is the managed route on this site. A Channel audit is a fixed-scope first look at one account.