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.
How to Start a MultiVendor Marketplace in 2020
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.
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Multi-Vendor Marketplace Models
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.
Features for a Multi-Vendor Marketplace
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.
Supplier/Admin Dashboard
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.
Listing/Inventory Management
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.
Auction Management
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
Ratings and Reviews
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?
To excel in the competitive industry with Amazon, Etsy, the multi-vendor Marketplace should be developed to target the hyper-local market. Start by understanding the audience’s needs and then expand it in different regions. Building a multi-vendor marketplace from scratch can cost you thousands of dollars. It is easy to start a multi-vendor Marketplace ready to launch platforms like IdyaFlow Plus.
Some of the Key features of IdyaFlow Plus Enterprise Marketplace Software are:
- Different Supplier and Admin Dashboard by configuring different settings for the smooth flow of both entities.
- Custom Domain name to reflect your brand.
- Escrow Accounts to streamline transactions
- Inventory Management to help suppliers Max number & Min numbers at the order level, workflow around restock levels.
- Ratings & Review system allows making two-way (suppliers and customers rate each other) ratings
Learn more about the IdyaFlow Plus Features here.
IdyaFlow Plus is the enterprise marketplace platform that’s intuitive, secure, and scalable. You’ll find everything you need for your perfect marketplace.
IdyaFlow is filled with feature-rich capabilities, made especially for you