Tag: multivendor marketplace

Amazon, Airbnb, and Uber are the three most famous examples of how technology has disrupted entire industries and for a good reason. They have created a new kind of marketplace in eCommerce, from supply to generating demand.

Today, we may take their success for granted. However, the road to success wasn’t easy for them. Imagine convincing consumers to stay or ride with strangers through a mobile app or to shop anything, from staple goods to niche electronic products, from just one website.

Sounds challenging indeed!

There are many types of businesses, but eCommerce marketplaces are the hardest to get off the ground. That’s because one has to acquire two types of users simultaneously – buyers and sellers. And it’s crucial for both parties to scale together for a marketplace to thrive.

As the title suggests, “A Marketing Guide to Market Your eCommerce Marketplace Effectively” specifically talks about the best marketing practices that can be applied by struggling business owners and marketers to boost promotions of their marketplace, and in turn generate more revenue.

If you are also currently in a tight spot, you might find the giveaways in the guide handy.

Have a look:

Eight promotional strategies to take advantage of

1) Create a content plan

In 2018, only 39% of content marketers documented their content marketing strategies. That number, however, jumped to 65% among top performing organizations. [CMI and MarketingProfs]

Make a list of all the platforms you plan on using to reach your potential customers. That could include blog posts, podcasts/webinars or newsletters. Keep in mind the current trends and upcoming events in a year while creating a strategy for your eCommerce marketplace.

You could set targets for each week, month and year and evaluate how the content creation and syndication process is progressing periodically.

With HubSpot and CoSchedule, you can create custom views of your marketing calendar that are interactive and can update in real-time.

Remember: content is of the essence in this age and time. So whatever marketing initiatives you plan must start with content.

2) Strengthen your SEO

72% of online marketers describe content creation as their most effective SEO tactic. [HubSpot]

Start with the basics. Optimize product listing titles and descriptions on your website with SEO keywords to increase traffic. Incorporate frequently-searched terms and phrases into the web content for better search rankings.

Tools like Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner can be used for identifying relevant SEO keywords for your eCommerce marketplace.

Once the web content has been optimized, measure the effectiveness of your SEO strategy with Google Analytics from time-to-time, and check which keywords are the organic reason behind increased traffic and higher sales.

(Image Source – https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*pVhLMfxXmHTtHPCh1_ac_Q.png)

3) Use social media organically

Source: Pew Research Center

Create a social media calendar to post regularly at times your customers are most active on. You don’t need to spread yourself thin and use all the platforms. Instead, focus only on those social networking channels that your customers use. Keep a mix of posts including industry-related trends, product offers, customer testimonials, and company news to enable a consistent social presence.

Buffer and AgoraPulse are user-friendly tools that not only automate posts but also offer a detailed analytics report for tracking the posts’ performance from one central location.

4) Run paid ads on social media

Once the organic social presence of your eCommerce marketplace has become stable, start executing paid campaigns on select social media sites. According to us, these are the most popular platforms that serve ads:

a. Facebook

93% of marketers use Facebook to run social ads on a regular basis. [Social Media Examiner]

Although Facebook’s popularity has taken a dip in recent times, it still has a unique advantage over others when it comes to advertising. You can target your ads on Facebook by age, gender, and interest – which makes it easier for advertisers to narrow down their audience for better results.

(Image Source – https://www.referralcandy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/facebook-dynamic-product-ads.jpg)

Small to midsize businesses opt to run marketplace ads on Facebook as they have better click-through rates and lower cost-per-action numbers.

b. Twitter

72% of the users who follow brands on Twitter are likely to purchase items or services from them. [Simply Measured]

Similar to Facebook advertising, you can target prospective customers by gender, interest, and geography on Twitter. However, the channel has a unique cost-per-action model.

You pay only when a user follows your Promoted Account or when they favorite, retweet, reply or click on a link in your Promoted Tweet. You can decide the metric you want to measure – depending upon what you’d like to achieve from the paid campaign.

Twitter marketing might be worth a try if you are looking to spread awareness about a new service or the latest company development.

c. Instagram

Instagram stories are posted by 200+ million people on a monthly basis, making them an excellent way to reach your target audience. [Statista]

Ads on Instagram are on the rise, and you’ll find businesses, especially from eCommerce, promoting their products and services on it. From running a contest to a sponsored post – Instagram is a great way to boost brand visibility and to ensure higher sales.

Moreover, you can start with a low budget, in the beginning, to test the waters on the channel, and then gradually increase the amount.

Alternatively, you can add products to your Instagram posts and stories and include a direct link for customers to purchase from the app itself.

(Image Source – https://blog.adstage.io/2017/11/07/instagram-ad-cost-report)

Planoly, a visual planner for Instagram and Iconosquare, an analytics and management platform, can help in creating a niche strategy for your eCommerce marketplace’s Instagram.

5) Utilize PPC advertising

PPC stands for pay-per-click which means businesses pay for every click that their ad receives.
The reason PPC advertising is useful is that it enables you to measure whether or not your campaigns are cost-effective by comparing the amount of traffic and sales generated by an ad with the ad costs.

Google Adwords is the most popular PPC feature that works on the auction process. Create a set of adverts before identifying a keyword, related to your eCommerce marketplace, on which you want to bid.

(Image Source – https://searchenginewatch.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2018/06/the-new-adwords-dashboard.jpg)

The ads are then chosen on bid amounts and the ad’s quality score and subsequently displayed to the target customers on their Google feed and relevant publications. PPC ads have to be improved on an on-going basis to ensure the click money is being spent wisely.

6) Leverage your email marketing

Email ranks third amongst the most influential sources of information. [WordStream] 77% of consumers would rather receive promotional content via email than through SMS or social media. [Exact Target]

Since consumers are interested to know how a product or service can benefit them, they are more likely to engage with offers or discounts that serve their needs. And what better than emails for that?

Contrary to popular belief, emails are still considered the most effective eCommerce marketing strategy for influencing consumers and convincing them to buy more.

(Image Source – Google.com)

Set an email marketing plan for every month and make sure you share a mix of content with your subscribers. That could include FAQs, service additions, product discounts, any press release or media coverage of your marketplace, and more.

A Guide to Marketing your eCommerce Marketplace Effectively

AWeber, MailChimp, ConstantContact, GetResponse, and CampaignMonitor are some of the popularly used email software in the market.

7) Collect consumer-generated content

User-generated content is great because it’s organic and honest, and it inspires customers to get involved with your business without any money or time investment from your end. It also ensures a whopping 73% higher click-through rate.

Doritos, for instance, holds a Super Bowl commercial submission contest on an annual basis which means they don’t have to pay the production crew a single penny to design a video. Moreover, the engagement levels of the Doritos fans are at an all-time high around this time, and the brand gets a commercial to air without having to break the bank!

(Image Source – http://videocontestnews.com/2010/01/05/doritos-2010-crash-the-superbowl-finalists/)

User-generated content could be in the form of reviews and ratings. You can choose to do a blog series or an Instagram story – depending upon the nature of your eCommerce marketplace – to highlight a positive review of your product or service.

8) Vendor engagement is key

Absolutely! Without vendors, your eCommerce marketplace cannot function. To enable a smooth working relationship with your vendors, make sure you onboard and train them properly on your operational processes.

At eCommerce marketplaces, vendors are rated by buyers on various parameters like on-time shipment dispatch, unresolved cases, transaction defects and more. Notify them of the poor ratings so that they are well aware of how they are performing on your site, and make necessary amends soon.

Always include the vendors in your marketing when finalizing Black Friday discounts, New Year offers or End of Season deals. They will feel appreciated and heard.

Lastly, vendors could be left unsatisfied with product returns, overdue payments, product returns or unresolved disputes. That’s why it’s best for you to keep asking for feedback continuously.

The key is always to keep them in the loop!

Five sales generation tactics to apply

1) Re-market or remind customers via push

Consumers of today are spoilt for choice and prefer to hop from one online store to another. Therefore, it isn’t surprising to search for a hack that can help you re-engage with your prospective customers.

One way to pique their interest is by sending a push notification (mobile or web) on the product they were browsing through when they were previously on the website.

If they have abandoned their shopping cart and bounced off the website (which is a high possibility), you can send them a push notification to remind them to complete the purchase.

(Image Source – http://puch%20notification/)

To make things interesting, you can even offer them a small discount or an upsell package deal to come back to the website and complete the purchase.

2) Upsell and cross-sell

When the seller encourages consumers to spend more than they had initially planned to, that type of sale is called an “upsell.” It also goes by different terms like “add-on sales” and “bundle sales.”

As of today, 81% of consumers do some sort of online research before a potential purchase. This means they want to assure themselves that when they make a purchase, they get maximum value out of their decision.

To begin with, make a list of all products your marketplace is selling and divide them into two categories – regular ones and expensive ones. Tie the more expensive product with a regular one. 4% of your customers will buy the more expensive product only because it has been positioned that way.

Similarly, cross-sell is a strategy to sell related products with something a consumer is already buying. Cross-sell products should be at least 60% cheaper than the product added to the cart. If you give your customers a complete package – for instance, a camera and batteries at a lower price – they will not think twice before buying both.

3) Make product recommendations

Product recommendations increase revenue by up to 300%, conversion rate by 150% and average order value by 50%. Forrester and Gartner

If you look up “product recommendations” on the internet, there’s one line that will pop up on your feed many times: “70% of Amazon’s homepage is dedicated to product recommendations.”

It is true. The eCommerce marketplace has pioneered the concept of recommending products to its website visitors.

If you are a first-time visitor on Amazon, you will find general recommendations such as “What Other Customers Are Looking At Right Now” or any “Best Seller.”

(Image Source – https://beeketing.com/blog/how-product-recommendation-helps-e-commerce-sites-increase-conversion-rates/)

If you revisit it, you will find personalized recommendations on the homepage that are based on your previous visits’ browsing history.

No wonder Amazon has tapped the potential of product recommendations and so should your eCommerce marketplace.

4) Build a brand community with loyalty programs

It’s a given that discounts and freebies are helpful in not only converting a customer but also nudging him or her to keep coming back for more. However, if you want your eCommerce marketplace to be profitable consistently, then it needs to build a community.

And one way to do so is via loyalty programs.

Take Amazon Prime for example. Those memberships are over 100 million in the US alone, with the eCommerce giant aggressively branching out to other countries like Mexico, China, and Canada.

Amazon Prime means multiple things: faster shipping of products bought on Amazon, access on-demand video and special product discounts. With a membership cost of $119 per year, having Prime is worth it for frequent Amazon users.

You could also start a loyalty program for your eCommerce marketplace. Through the loyalty program, your customers may be given:

• Rewards
• Free merchandise
• Discounts and rebates
• Coupons
• Access to unreleased products

Remember: It costs 5X less to retain customers than to acquire new ones and loyal customers spend up to 67% more than new customers. Therefore, work on creating lifetime customers for your eCommerce marketplace.

5) Increase checkout conversion with A/B testing

When the customers move to the check-out page, they have already conveyed that they are ready to purchase from you and no longer use the cost of the product or service as a parameter to complete the transaction.

However, many businesses lose customers due to a poor checkout experience. The reasons for the same could be many:

• Long contact forms
• Less number of payment options
• Tedious “reset password” process
• Hidden shipping costs
• Unattractive CTAs

Check out SimCity’s checkout page variations. The “Variation” page performed better by 43%.

To ensure that it doesn’t happen to your eCommerce marketplace, make multiple checkout pages to see which one customers respond to best.

Take away

There’s no secret recipe for overnight success. You need to market your business consistently and be open to making improvements along the way.

Remember:

• Always plan your marketing activities. CoSchedule and Smart Insights offer free templates for content, social media, and email marketing.
• Keep aside a set budget to run paid social ads. How you distribute that money across different networking channels depends on the real-time ad performance.
• Study analytics frequently to identify which blog post, social media ad, email or web page is performing well and what’s not. Make amends accordingly.

Questions? Speak to us!

Your eCommerce marketplace deserves all the success in the world, and it is imperative to address any queries regarding the eCommerce Software Solution you may have. The good news is we are a team of eCommerce experts always at your service. Contact us anyhow you like, and we’ll help you at the earliest.

Considering the shift in the online buying habits of customers which is highly forced by technological changes and other factors like change in customer expectation, increased customer value has improvised the demand of online marketplaces. Due to this, online Marketplaces are doing vast growth and driving robust sales.

Ecommerce Marketplaces – Business Models

Business models are identified based on how and with whom the transactions are talking forwards.

• If the consumers are selling to consumers, model is known as C2C Businesses
• If the Business owners are targeting to Consumers, it would be B2C Businesses
• And when Businesses are targeting to other businesses then it would be B2B Businesses

The concept will remain same in the ecommerce marketplace business as well.

If you look around the marketplace platforms you’re using will make you understand how one is different from another.

OLX where the customer is selling product to another customer creates a C2C business platform, Amazon is the example of B2C marketplace where business is selling to customers whereas platforms like Alibaba, Indiamart are B2B marketplaces where the business needs are fulfilled by another businesses.

Here, B2B marketplaces can grow in two directions, Vertical businesses and Horizontal businesses. Industries like plastic, chemicals, automobiles etc. are falling in B2B sectors.

In B2B or B2C, the concept of online marketplace will remain same.In general terms, Marketplace offers a platform to multiple vendors who can sell their products to buyers. Marketplace owner is the middlemen connecting vendors and buyers who offer variety of different brand of products at a single platform.

Key differentiating Factors – B2B and B2C Ecommerce Marketplace

Though the concept is same, business model and the usage differentiates one marketplace with other. There are different buyer segment in each of the business model, customer of B2C model is different from B2B model.

Why it’s not a good choice to interchange B2C ecommerce Marketplace with B2B ecommerce Marketplace?

Customer from B2C and C2C Marketplace requires easy access, quick delivery, easy payment option, quick buying process. They buy the product in low amount.

Whereas customer in B2B ecommerce marketplace segment requires

• Bulk product orders
• Discount based on quantity
• Availability to edit or change and validation of purchase order online
• Quotation for orders
• Custom quotation
• Different payment option acceptability

In this way, the way buyers deal with the seller makes the difference.

Rising B2B Ecommerce Marketplace Trends

Due to shift in the way business buy products, B2B online marketplaces are rising.
“As per the report, today 74% of the B2B buyers do online research at least for half of their work purchases.
Also, the 73% of B2B millennial are involved into purchasing decision that has different mind-set and preferences for buying. (Reference: forrester.com)

So, the merchants need to be there where your customers are. Though the rises of B2C ecommerce marketplaces are high, actual revenue from B2B ecommerce marketplaces are high and touching the sky. B2B online marketplaces are an untapped opportunity; it provides convenience and easy accessibility to large new audiences.

Also, the start-ups have many advantages to tap this market, like-

• Low entry cost
• Easy to set-up
• No burden of making huge inventory

B2B E-catalogues – replacing print catalogues

Online catalogues are helping both entrepreneurs and buyers because of following important features –

• Gives easy access of products to customer
• Reduces labour costs
• Real time integration with suppliers

Easy access, real time integration and link with suppliers enable buyers to look into the details at their own desktop without any transit error along with reducing labour and print cost.

There are various platforms available to build your own ecommerce B2B multi-vendor marketplace. Magento is highly used and advanced ecommerce platform providing full flexibility and scalability.

Magento’s reputation has been built upon its bang for buck and strong digital commerce solution for businesses ranging from small to mid-sized.There are a host of plugins available and supported by Magento that make implementation of an ecommerce marketplace business model on this platform highly feasible. These are those features that are considered to be a must have for a marketplace webstore. And that kind of modularity offered by Magento makes it one of the most user-friendly ecommerce development platform currently available on the market. Additionally, that also makes personalizing your Magento based ecommerce store a breeze.

Personalization is key for Magento multivendor marketplace

We are not talking about the personalization offered that is ironically generalized, i.e., one which is focused on a specific demographic as opposed to individual customer. But with Magento multivendor marketplace, individual consumer centric personalization is possible. No two consumers will be shown same products, categories or prices. But before we delve into how Magento makes it possible we need to familiarize ourselves with multivendor marketplace.

A multivendor marketplace is an ecommerce platform where products from multiple vendors are marketed at a common marketplace, for instance Amazon, eBay.

The need for a multivendor marketplace

So why should one create a multivendor store? an entire new dimension of possibilities is opened up by a multivendor marketplace which the single vendor ecommerce stores just simply can’t beat.
It gives you room to create a webstore to sell virtually anything to a category specific online store that sells products for that one category from multiple vendors, for instance electronics, clothing, etc. We have barely scratched the surface of its potential.

You extend the range of your webstore by offering products from other vendors which you natively can’t provide. The site traffic is propelled higher and the management time for store is also drastically cut down. One of the biggest advantages that the multivendor marketplace offers is the freedom from worrying about the inventory management since there is virtually no inventory to keep, you in fact act as a moderator for suppliers as opposed to being a supplier yourself.

Recommended Blog: A Handy Guide to Pick The Right Multi-Vendor Marketplace for Your Business

To add to above, the personalization offered goes even deeper wherein the vendor can enable or disabled their specific merchandise and the admin can remove or disable individual or multiple products from the seller.

How is Magento marketplace personalizing B2B

The below mentioned factors are key to creating a highly personalized shopping experience

1. Intuitive navigation and search: Ensuring that the consumer navigate your site easily and discover their sought products conveniently is key. Magento multivendor marketplace does that by enabling synonyms, filters, sorting by business rules, and auto suggestions. It is the easiest method that converts customers in the fewest no. of clicks possible.

2. Account personalization: You have the facility of customizing your customer’s account which your consumer seeks as he wants you to understand his business and predict his needs. Account personalization delivers on that with simplified ordering made possible by targeted messaging.

3. Tailored, dynamic pricing: You can dramatically improve your consumer relations via dynamic pricing. It enables you to show through prices the negotiated contract pricing terms and pre- configured business rules. This also boosts the profit earned.

4. Product recommendations:Offering your consumer carefully curated shopping recommendations is another personalizing aspect that is executed with precision by Magento multivendor marketplace. Consumers want the convenience of retail shopping experience provide that with product recommendation based on consumer shopping habits.

5. Quick repeat ordering: B2B customers usually know exactly what they want and will order again. Make purchases easier by highlighting their previous orders and automating re-orders.

6. Loyalty programs: Another way of strengthening consumer relations and personalization, is loyalty program. Each of your consumer can be offered a reward scheme based on their shopping trends on your webstore and encourage them to shop more. This will cultivate a sense of value in the customer.

7. All devices: Personalization is also focused on optimizing your features for all devices and not just desktops. These include smartphones and tablets. You have to realize the essentiality of mobile B2B, the days of solely focusing on desktop ecommerce are passéd.

8. Automatic Payment to Vendors Via Paypal: Further features that have been brought to the Magento marketplace have boosted further the level of personalization. The Marketplace Paypal integration has enabled the admin to transact with vendor who market products in the webstore. Earlier the payment wasn’t automated but now with this feature it is. You have choice of 3 payment options. You can choose from

• Pay instantly whenever a productis purchased on the site.
•You can also make payment when the order is completed, i.e., delivered to the consumer
•You can even pay each vendor in accordance with their admin billing panel rank based on their earnings from sale.

9. Ability to Create Configurable Products: This feature was added solely focusing on the level of customization that can be offered. Earlier that wasn’t possible and the vendors had to get their products configured anywhere else, now it can be done directly from the marketplace itself. Before supplier was only able to upload simple products, and it was only the admin who could categorize those via admin dashboard.

Now, you can very easily create configurable products that too via supplier’s dashboard and you can group them on a page together allowing the consumer the freedom to choose any product from the page of their choice.

Just like major malls and supermarkets, e-commerce has also come to a stage where the giants in the field have brought not one, but several vendors on board in order to attract more fish in the sea.A multi-vendor eCommerce marketplace is a huge virtual shopping mall that offers innumerable types of stuff to buy. Today, people barely even want to move from their comfortable chairs and sofas, out onto the busy streets just to shop for some stuff that allures them. In 2017, the E-commerce market had a whopping 2290 billion dollar sale and is expected to reach 2774 billion sales. E-commerce market has eliminated the need for people to strain their muscles by giving its customers a huge variety of products to keep them busy choosing for a good amount of time. And what’s more? It’s cheaper!

WhyMulti-Vendor eCommerce Marketplace?

Digitalizing the world has come to a point where anything, from vegetables to those little beads on that sofa cover can be bought online at moderate prices. This has been possible due to various kinds of vendors coming together on a common platform to share their products with the customer, thus giving them a wholesome shopping environment. 1.61 billion people chose to buy things online in 2016. The total global sales are expected to reach a whopping 4.06 trillion US dollars in the year 2020.

So what are its benefits over a single vendor marketplace? It keeps all, the business owner, the consumer, and the vendor happy. Let’s find out:

1. A commission can be asked for from the vendor in exchange for giving their products some space in the e-commerce website that the business owner handles. This commission can be based on the number of products sold, the total amount made in the month, etc. depending upon the owner and vendor mutual agreement. This grows the overall profit of the business owner.

2. Consumers can buy directly from the platform as the stock is readily available and prices are mentioned right on the screen. No hustle-bustle, whatsoever!

Recommended Blog: Why Customer Engagement & Retention is Important for Businesses

3. Timing is no more an issue due to the fact that the e-commerce platform is available 24*7.

4. Vendors would automatically get more recognition by attaching themselves with a running e-commerce multi-vendor renowned giant. Even the minor vendors, who cannot start their own websites, can easily approach the bigger e-commerce businesses and start selling their products there and make good profits.

5. Overseas sales, that were once a great deal, have now become a piece of cake!

6. Inexpensive and excellent quality products, with utter variety, are available for the users to look at and choose from.

7. Comparison of products has become oh so simple. All one has to do is open the other website and look at the price of the same product, instead of going shop to shop and confirming prices.

8. Products and their costs are regularly updated and thus the users cannot be blinded or fooled anymore.

9. With the ease of mobile app commerce, the users are given constant updates on the latest deals and can access them anywhere, anytime, even while spending the first few minutes of the day in the washroom.

How to choose the right Multi-Vendor E-Commerce Marketplace for your Business?

Before coming to the final conclusion of picking the Marketplace, one needs to keep in mind a few major factors in order to gain the most from it.

1. Vendor Management and Support
It is important to note that the e-commerce business is giving all sorts of comfortable and required support to the vendors which include the registration of vendors, product picture uploading, management of inventory, costing, delivery, and obviously the commission standards. Make sure it is authentic and easily manageable.

2. Performance Statistics
Going over the history and previous year sales and performance can give a good outlook of how the e-commerce website operates. Look at the customer visitation statistics and build a graph to come to the conclusion.

3. User Interface of the Mobile App
Every other individual is using mobile apps these days to do the simplest of the tasks. It is important to have a catchy, yet easy to use interface, making it more feasible for the user to select from the available products and make one-click payments. The search and filter algorithms must be well refined to cater to the impatience of today’s customers. It doesn’t take long to direct them out of the website/app.

4. Cost Effectiveness
Before finalizing which marketplace to invest your products in, it is a necessity to compare the costs of the shortlisted e-commerce solutions. There might be a good variation in them depending on the platforms used to build the websites, i.e. Magneto, WordPress, etc.

5. Customer Reviews
Customers do not mind giving good reviews to something that satiates them completely. Going through customer reviews and ratings could give a good understanding of how good the e-commerce marketplace is running.

Going through these points should sure come handy in selecting the right e-commerce marketplace for your business. Clearly, there is no reason why this market should fall down in the next few years. However, in order to keep up in the game, one has to be updated and innovative.