The increasing demand for the digital channel is compelling business enterprises to look beyond their traditional sales channels and identify new avenues to sell their products & services.
In this context a B2B Marketplace has gained significance from both suppliers and customers globally. Industry trends and preliminary findings indicate that this marketplace is going to witness a surge in membership in the near future; and with this rise in the number of players, the business volumes are expected to go up as well.
What is a B2B Marketplace?
So, what exactly is a B2B Marketplace?
As the name suggests, a B2B marketplace is an eCommerce site to facilitate trade between business enterprises of all forms and sizes. Products & services are offered for sale in bulk (wholesale basis) and on regular trade terms. Items are not for sale on retail basis.
B2B marketplaces fall into two main categories – niche players and market leaders. Niche players comprise business enterprises that are focused on a particular niche in the market. It could be a specific industry, product, or a community of users.
Market leaders comprise those businesses that already have a large customer base, broad-based organic web traffic and the potential to grow even bigger by offering new products and services.Most well-known examples of such a B2B Marketplace are Amazon Business and Alibaba.
Why are business enterprises building B2B marketplaces and why it makes sense to be in it?
If you are already having an eCommerce site build by a Magento Development Company, then you are all set to join a B2B Marketplace in simple easy steps. For business enterprises that are unsure of taking the plunge, below are some justifications:
- Getting ahead of the competition
It allows eCommerce companies to move ahead of their competition by gaining from the “first mover” advantage. Certain industries such as manufacturing, wholesale trade &distribution that have been slow to adopt digital strategies stand to gain the most from B2B Marketplaces.
- Fulfilling customer demands
As a business owner you are able to retain your existing customers and acquire new customers by fulfilling their demands and offering them customized as well as standardized products & services as per their needs and within their price points and delivery timelines. And what’s more they are able to transact in a safe, highly secure and easy-to-use business environment.
- Transparent pricing
You are able to do business transparently with other businesses and need not spend long hours and days working offline with sales reps to get custom quotes from multiple vendors for similar products which is a time-consuming activity. B2B Marketplaces facilitate price comparisons at the click of a mouse.
- Facilitating channel sales
With a B2B marketplace, you are able to set up channel partners to act as your sellers. Visitors to your website can enter your marketplace, compare offerings of other partners and make a purchase. In this way, you can easily turn interested website visitors into actual buyers.
As a result, your channel partners sell more and there is a higher demand for your products & services and this turns out to be a win-win situation for you and your channel partners.
- Make incremental sales
In case your product range is narrow and limited, you can work with other sellers on complementary products & services that would be convenient for your customers who will have a choice to buy along with yours. In this way you can earn a commission on every sale. Your sellers will be responsible for their own product listings and fulfillment logistics.
- Test the B2B Marketplace with new products & services
The B2B Marketplace is the best place to test new products & services based on the market trends and analysis. If there is demand, you can prepare a product roadmap and introduce new and improved versions later on over the medium and long term.
Conclusion
As a business enterprise keen to be successful in a B2BMarketplace you will need to ensure that your eCommerce site functions well. For this it is recommended that you engage a Magento development company to carry out ongoing development of your eCommerce site.
