Multivendor Marketplace is a place, physical or virtual, where trades are made between buyers and sellers.
A marketplace platform is an online market where sales of products of various types and from different sellers are managed.
This kind of online stores stands out according to two criteria.
Based on the products sold, a Marketplace platform can be:
- horizontal if it sells products of different categories (such as Amazon and Ebay);
- vertical if it specializes in only one category (for example BestBuy).
Based on the type of sellers and buyers, Marketplace platforms can be distinguished:
- B2B (business to business) if transactions occur between companies;
- B2C (business to consumer) if companies sell to private individuals;
- C2C (consumer to consumer) if the sale takes place between private individuals.
Marketplace or E-Commerce: why prefer a Multivendor Marketplace?
When a company evaluates the opportunity to sell its products / services online, the first question that needs to be asked is: do we develop a proprietary E-Commerce site or create our showcase on a Marketplace?
Marketplaces are online commercial brokerage platforms that bring retailers and buyers into direct contact.
They are therefore real meeting places that favor online commercial transactions, without forcing retailers to have a proprietary E-Commerce.
Marketplace have the following features:
Visibility
Marketplace platforms are “collectors” of brands and products and enjoy high visibility on search engines.
Think of the major marketplaces, such as eBay and Amazon, which are known websites and among the results on search engines always appear among the top positions.
For those who want to sell their products online, it is certainly an excellent promotional showcase.
Competitiveness
A large number of resellers compete on a Marketplace platform, offering many identical or similar products.
In this way they thus determine an often very high level of competition.
When a buyer searches for a specific product on a Marketplace, all the offers from the different retailers are grouped in the results.
Management
The main management activities, such as billing, shipping and logistics, returns, sponsorship, are carried out by the marketplace itself.
A seller must manage the products, update the sheets, prices and check availability.
However, this is a fundamental activity, for this reason it is necessary to pay close attention to how the products are presented on your corner.
Detailed descriptions, useful and clear information, an attractive price, well-selected images are all aspects that contribute to making a company more visible within the Marketplace platform.
Variety
A Marketplace platform is an aggregator of products / services of different product categories, which may be unrelated.
A Marketplace platform can represent an opportunity for a reseller because it allows you to reach users who may also find interesting products that they did not need or had not researched.
Marketplace: benefits for sellers and buyers
Marketplace platforms allow millions of products to be made available to users that can be accessed through simple search engines.
The “typical” user searches for the object x and compares the different solutions proposed, compares the prices and through a credit card, PayPal or digital currency purchases the product which will then be delivered to the requested place.
The marketplaces are real business drivers because they allow producers to access a large number of potential customers.
To increase traffic on your product catalog, within the marketplace, it is important that the pages are present among the first search results on Google through the use of tags (keywords).
In order to obtain good indexing levels in marketplaces, it is essential to include specific tags for each product in the description.
Through a Marketplace, sellers can eliminate the costs of running their own website and the costs of advertising and marketing.
Thanks to a Marketplace platform it is possible to test the types of products that have more appeal to consumers and to evaluate the goodness of the market in which it operates.
In addition, Marketplace platforms offer interesting guarantees such as that of collecting the payment for the seller and of delivery for the buyer.
In addition, these platforms allow you to increase the quality of service and improve customer satisfaction.
Membership in a Marketplace increases online visibility and reputation.
In any case, from the merchant’s point of view, the decision to sell through a marketplace must be consistent with the commercial objectives to be achieved.
For this, it is necessary to carry out a preliminary analysis of the costs, benefits and any risks related to this decision.
On a Marketplace platform, the cost of the single sale is given by the cost of the commission paid on the single sale increased by a percentage of the fixed cost – monthly subscription / fees.
While in the case of a proprietary E-Commerce site the cost of the individual sale is equal to the cost of the visit weighted by the conversion rate of the site.
Marketplace: how to sell?
The first reason to sell on marketplace platforms is to touch a different audience.
There are two possibilities:
- sell to an audience who exactly look for that product and find it easily in the marketplace,
- sell to an audience that was perhaps not potentially interested in your product, but who ends up buying it for browsing the marketplace.
Selling on the marketplace platform allows merchants to sell inventory and generate large sales volumes.
Selling on the marketplace platform allows you to increase sales volumes, not necessarily profit.
An increase in volume creates economies of scale and collects more margin points on the products.
Multivendor Marketplace Plugin: Features
Selling products on marketplaces is interesting for your business. However, this opportunity is particularly profitable if you define a strategy.
WooCommerce Multi Vendor Marketplace Plugin converts your E-Commerce store into a fully functional marketplace having multiple sellers with separate seller profile.
Using this plugin the seller can view and edit his profile information.
This plugin allows you to make your E-Commerce as a Marketplace.
Thanks to the WooCommerce Multi Vendor Marketplace Plugin it is possible:
- upgrading and downgrading Vendors in admin panel;
- setting Standard Vendors to Exclusive by different percentage;
- choosing if display social share buttons in single product page;
- paying directly by PayPal.
For more information contact us!