Multi-Vendor Marketplace is a platform offering listings from different suppliers in one place. Suppliers pay commission for listing/selling their listings on the marketplace. Suppliers have their own accounts where they manage their inventories.
Multi-Vendor Marketplace is a platform offering listings from different suppliers in one place. Suppliers pay commission for listing/selling their listings on the marketplace. Suppliers have their own accounts where they manage their inventories.
In simple words, starting a multi-vendor marketplace is the same as creating a marketplace like Amazon or eBay of your own. The biggest players are eBay, Amazon, Aliexpress, Walmart, Jet. These are the ‘one-stop-shop’ selling everything to everyone.
But, today’s trend is niche marketplaces platforms focusing on a single niche market, a single category of listings, customers, or businesses with specific needs.
The most common model for multi-vendor marketplaces is B2C, where businesses act as suppliers who sell their listings directly to the customers. For example, BookMyBoat, Australia’s first boat rental platform supports both P2P and B2C listings.
Some multi-vendor stores work mainly as a B2B model where businesses buy/sell from/to businesses, like Ellect.biz, KindredSquare.
In C2C or Peer to Peer marketplaces, customers buy/sell/rent to each other like in TravelMunchkin, BoxBnb.Often, an eCommerce marketplace can successfully combine these business models, like Etsy, eBay and Amazon do. There are product listings from both businesses and customers on these eCommerce websites.
Multivendor Marketplace websites offer more options as compare to single vendor counterparts. They have multiple ranges of products, are cost-effective, and have a greater web presence.
For all these advantages to be utilized in the most effective manner, a multivendor marketplace should be feature-rich from admin, vendor, and buyer point of view.
Each entity involved in the Business needs a separate account where they will manage their listings, create special offers, add shipping methods, manage shipping cost, get sales reports, process payouts, ratings and review. Suppliers might not be techies so the interface has to be User-friendly.
The Vendor should be able to list the products and services that they sell, rent or auction on the marketplace. Also, the supplier should have the capability to monitor and access all the listings of the marketplace.
The Multi-Vendor marketplace should have the ability to set products as auctions if their listings are unique and niche. Create new auctions and view auction histories for each product
Customer ratings and reviews are an essential part of a converting multi-vendor marketplace. A review system provides credibility to the marketplace. This is a good way to foster a competitive environment among the sellers. This can help in improving order fulfillment rates and better product listings which in turn will promote goodwill and bring in more users.
How to start a Multi-Vendor Marketplace?