Why Marketplace Solution is Essential for Growth of Multi Vendor eCommerce Platform
A multi-vendor eCommerce platform like Amazon seems straightforward from the outset. Consumers log on and buy the listed items. The payment gets transferred―and the sellers and the business earn some profit margins.
But is a multi-vendor marketplace just this?
On the contrary, a multi-vendor marketplace business is a complex mix of business functions. For the success of the business, these business functions have to be managed. For that, you need purpose-built tools. This is where marketplace solutions come into play.
Let’s learn why a marketplace solution is essential to the growth of the marketplace business.
How Marketplace Solution Aids in Managing Business Functions
To better understand this, you will need to analyze what is needed within various business functions in an eCommerce marketplace business, and further how eCommerce marketplace solutions can help in managing these eCommerce business functions.
Vendor Management:
Websites like Amazon have third-party sellers. These vendors must be seamlessly onboarded, their performance is monitored, the quality of deliverables is ensured, and there are communication channels to foster vendor relations.
→ Modern marketplace solutions come with a vendor management suite with features to onboard and manage vendors. Moreover, there can be communication channels such as messaging.
Product Management:
There are multiple products on a multi-vendor marketplace platform. If these are not managed, the end user experience is negatively impacted. So there needs to be an efficient system to manage these products.
→ Marketplace solutions can feature a Product Catalog Module. These help organize listings, maintain product inventory, set and change prices, and make it easier for marketplace operators to gauge product quality.
Order Management:
From the time the checkout is completed by the buyer to the point when the return window is closed, there is a need for the order to be managed seamlessly.
→ Order Management functionalities in marketplace solutions aid in order statuses, generating invoices, managing returns, and more.
Payment processing:
This is the process starting from the buyer adding the order to the cart, to the time sellers and the marketplace get their profit margins and commissions respectively.
→ Leading marketplace solutions offer pre-integrated popular payment gateways. These facilitate the secure handling of buyer payments. Moreover, vendor payouts are managed, and fraud is prevented, ensuring smooth financial operations.
Marketing and Promotions:
Every eCommerce business needs to be visible to potential new buyers and sellers, as well as existing buyers.
→ In a rich-featured marketplace solution, there are multiple tools available for enhancing traffic, augmenting sales, improving brand visibility, running discounts, and orchestrating campaigns that attract and retain customers.
Gathering business intelligence:
How do you evaluate the health of the business? This is a critical aspect that lays the groundwork for future business decisions.
→ Result-oriented marketplace solutions have inbuilt analytics and reporting tools. These help in tracking sales, monitoring sellers’ performance, and analyzing customer behavior, to allow the marketplace operators to make data-driven decisions for business growth.
To Conclude
The best marketplace solutions give entrepreneurs comprehensive capabilities to start, manage, and grow their online marketplace businesses. While we have mentioned some important aspects, there is even more to an eCommerce business, these solutions cover that. And what’s even better: most of these functionalities are available as modules or some even offer included. So a marketplace solution is essential to the growth of a multi-vendor eCommerce platform. The top 5 such marketplace solutions are
- Yo!Kart: Self-hosted leading multi-vendor marketplace solution for retail marketplaces with industry-leading features.
- Growcer: eCommerce marketplace solution with inbuilt hyperlocal marketplace functionalities.
- Convictional: Popular eCommerce solution with good features.
- Shuup: eCommerce marketplace builder for both SaaS and Self-hosted solutions.
- YoRent: Robust eCommerce marketplace solution for rental and retail operations.
To make an informed decision, we recommend you to read the complete details on the top 20 eCommerce marketplace solutions.
