How to start selling on Miravia, the marketplace of Alibaba in Spain

In the month of December, the official presentation of Miravia, Alibaba’s new high-end marketplace, was held in Madrid. This event, which had some exclusive guests, represented the entry of a new player in a seemingly exploited sector such as marketplaces, but in which, undoubtedly, there is still room for proposals as powerful as that of the Asian multinational.

Miravia’s niche proposal Miravia is a high-end marketplace focused on the sale of all kinds of products. As we have mentioned, its owner is Alibaba, the Chinese company that owns other brands such as AliExpress. However, unlike the latter, Miravia prioritizes quality over price. That is, while AliExpress is focused on lower ranges, this ecommerce covers a much more demanding market share, distancing itself not only from AliExpress, but also from the rest of the platforms that prioritize affordability above all.

This attractive and powerful niche proposal by Miravia makes it an important player within the map of marketplaces in Spain.

Choose your account type in Miravia

The first step to selling on Miravia is to decide on the type of account you will operate with. Unlike AliExpress, on this marketplace, you can choose between two options:

• Mall or Official Store: This account type is intended only for brands, as its objective is to help control the official stores of registered brands. Therefore, if you are not the owner of a brand or do not have the exclusive distribution rights, this option is not for you.
• Marketplaces: This is the traditional mode followed by the rest of the platforms. With this account type, you can access multi-brand sales or individual brand sales, but you do not have control over them. However, there is a key difference compared to other marketplaces: operating on Miravia under this account type does not have a monthly cost. You will only pay based on what you sell, with lower commissions than the rest of the competitors that range from 15% to 6%.

Mall accounts: greater customization and better user experience

We have already seen the main differences between the two types of accounts with which we can operate in Miravia, but there is more!

When we talk about Mall accounts, that is, official stores for registered brands, the marketplace makes many more customization options available to sellers. This way, it allows us to take our store to another level and improve the user experience. One of the features that Miravia focuses on to differentiate itself from the rest of the low-cost platforms, where brands are not allowed to have their own branded space (not even on Amazon).

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However, unlike “Marketplace” accounts, where anyone can register, to start selling within the “Mall” modality, it is necessary to first pass a filter established by Miravia. These are the options you have to register:

If you are lucky, the marketplace itself will contact you to offer you an invitation to start being part of its catalog of sellers.
If the previous is not your case, don’t panic! You can be the one who knocks on Miravia’s door. To do this, you will have to apply through an official Miravia partner, such as Tandem Up, and they will take care of managing your request. In addition, you can also count on their help for the documentation to be delivered and during the brand registration process.

Requirements to start selling on Miravia

First of all, you will need to provide certain documentation about your business. In the case of Mall accounts, Miravia will ask us to provide documentation of the registered brand. It is important to keep in mind that the marketplace only allows one brand per Official Store, so if we have control of more than one, we will have to register them in different accounts or, in that case, give up the customization options and manage all brands under a “Marketplaces” account. Remember that in this last case, the multi-brand selling option will allow you to work with all of them under a single account.

Once you have provided the brand documentation, as is the case with other marketplaces such as Amazon, it is time to upload all the necessary documentation. In this regard, you will be asked for:

Data of the person responsible for the account. Fiscal data of the company. KYC (Know Your Customer) related data. That includes proof of the real distribution of the company’s ownership and its actual beneficiaries. Banking information. If you want to operate with a Marketplace account, the first thing you will have to provide to Miravia will be the aforementioned company information. Once this is done, we will have to go to the list of brands validated by Miravia and request the sale of those with which we want to work, providing, yes, proof that we are authorized distributors. It is worth noting that although this express authorization will not be necessary to sell products from certain brands, in most cases, especially when it comes to better-known brands, this will be an essential requirement.

And that’s it! We have now created our account on Miravia.

The first steps within Miravia

Once we have decided on the type of account we want to operate and have provided all the necessary documentation, the next thing to do is:

• Register your warehouses: At the moment, Miravia offers free shipping management through GSL, the official partnership of the marketplace. However, to take advantage of this offer, you must first indicate where orders should be picked up or where returns should be sent. Additionally, if you wish, you also have the option to manage all of this on your own, but why put in the extra effort when it’s offered without additional costs?
• Publish your products: This may seem simple, but sometimes it takes more time than we think. Although Miravia does not have a very long publication template, a learning process for data management and error correction will be necessary. This will be the most effort-intensive part of the publishing process.
• Customize your store: We have already mentioned that the customization offered by Miravia is one of the strengths of this marketplace compared to other platforms. Take advantage of it to make your products stand out! You can edit the design of your Mall account through a block editor system; all you have to do is drag the module you want to insert (image, video, title, etc.).