According to Statistica, ecommerce sales are increasing across the globe. And it is expected to continue growing over the years.
Let’s look at the numbers as they speak it all.
And “Marketplace platforms” are driving this growth in a huge way. The success of giants like eBay, Amazon, Airbnb proves that starting a multi-vendor marketplace is a great idea to prosper in the online world.
“Did you know that 35 of the current top 75 online marketplaces have been launched between 2010 to 2015, including the physical stores that have moved online” – A research by Internet Retailer.
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Why start an online marketplace?
Considering the growth of the online marketplace, it is just the perfect time to leverage the marketplace business model. Some of the key benefits of starting your own marketplace are:
- Multiple revenue streams like commissions, subscriptions, listing fees, advertising, lead generation, and additional services
- Higher degree of automation for majority of the business processes
- Better business efficiency by catering to the specific needs of multiple vendors
- Less financial risk because you need not invest in inventory
- Increased customer interest as the marketplace business model brings a broad range of options on a central platform
If you want to leverage all of these benefits, your one-stop solution is a SaaS-based ecommerce marketplace platform. This ready-to-use solution powers up your online marketplace and makes it scalable and long-term business growth.
Building a marketplace business may seem like a Herculean task but it is actually not if you consider a ready-to-go ecommerce platform.
But at the same time, achieving your exact requirements is supercritical. After all, you cannot afford to have site downtime, disjointed customer experiences, data breaches, even increasing business costs, and many other hassles.
What is a SaaS ecommerce platform?
SaaS-based ecommerce marketplace platform makes you free from all these business concerns and lets you focus on your business profits. It is not only a hosted and managed ecommerce platform on which your online business runs...!! But it takes care of your end-to-end online business, from streamlining business processes, managing vendor relations, handling logistics, orders, payments, customers, and a lot more.
If you still have questions about the difference between SaaS platforms and legacy software. Let us check what makes SaaS ecommerce platforms the right choice for your business.
SaaS Application vs. Legacy software
There are multiple ways of starting your multi-vendor marketplace. It falls in two broad categories:
- On-premise solutions (A legacy software to build your online marketplace from scratch)
- SaaS ecommerce platforms (A turnkey solution to build your online marketplace with a ready-to-use platform)
Now when we have understood what a SaaS platform is, let’s understand the difference between SaaS and legacy software.
On-premise software
It works on the local infrastructure of your business. In this setup, the team of software developers is required to work on the local computers and servers. The infrastructure cost, development expenses, and maintenance have to be managed by the business owner. This is the conventional way of developing any software for your business but in recent years, businesses prefer cloud-based services and pay-as-you-go models.
SaaS (Software as a service) software
It is a bundled service including software, hosting, automatic backups, maintenance, and support to provide a ready-to-use marketplace solution. Building a multi-vendor marketplace solution gets way too easier and better with this solution. The business owner just has to subscribe for the service and start working on it without incurring any expenses on physical setup. All it requires is a computer/laptop and an internet connection to roll out your online store.
What makes a SaaS-based ecommerce marketplace the best option for your business
1. Faster implementation
Do you want to spend weeks and months building and testing your multi-vendor online store or do you need to get it up and running in just a few weeks? Obviously you choose the latter. SaaS service providers like StoreHippo understand your business well and have the solution ready for implementation.
It's here that you see the clear cut benefit of SaaS ecommerce marketplace platform over a legacy software.
- Establishing your high-end, scalable, and secure infrastructure can be very costly for your business. Whereas, a SaaS solution offers a cloud infrastructure for all your online marketplace needs.
- Launch your multi-vendor marketplace without any worrying about server performance and downtime. SaaS platform helps you to access your data and applications anytime, on any device.
2. Affordable
The agility of your business is directly proportional to money. A SaaS-based ecommerce marketplace platform provides a high-quality marketplace platform at an affordable cost.
Unlike legacy software, you only pay for the service you need and not for the whole IT infrastructure of an online marketplace. It eliminates direct business costs of purchasing and installing hardware, software development, customizations etc. The simple and easy-to-use solution with point-and-click configuration is all that you need to boost your online marketplace.
3. Mobile-friendly
The recent mobile penetration for users as well as businesses clearly indicates the need for a mobile ecommerce solution today. We agree that building a large-scale enterprise business is not an easy job but the SaaS concept makes it easier and adapted to the new needs of users. Mobile-friendliness is surely one of them.
With StoreHippo, you can build your multi-vendor marketplace to run smoothly on mobile and other devices. Its SaaS offerings include mobile apps and PWAs for the best of your customers mobile experience.
4. Automatic upgrades
The time-consuming hassles of maintaining and upgrading systems have gone with the SaaS ecommerce platforms. Don’t let yourself get stuck with the rigidity of legacy software by choosing SaaS software and automate all your system updates.
You can save a lot of your precious time with the automatic upgrades with SaaS platforms to take your business growth to the next level.
5. Customized solution
With the flexible setup and easy-to-use configurations, you can customize your online marketplace for unique flows and other business requirements. SaaS is your one-stop customization platform and adopting them is just a piece of cake. You need not install anything while customizing everything.
A SaaS-based ecommerce marketplace platform like StoreHippo is a go-to solution to customize your online marketplace just the way you want.
6. High security
This might seem a simple feature but holds the utmost importance in the ecommerce industry since you have all your business online. A SaaS platform conforms to all the necessary security standards, guidelines, and compliances to build a secure marketplace platform for your business.
Choosing StoreHippo as your ecommerce platform provider ensures best security practices like SSL enabled websites, PCI DSS compliant payment channels, cybersecurity norms etc.
Why Choose StoreHippo for your ecommerce marketplace platform?
“The SaaS-based ecommerce marketplace platform is one of the biggest changes that has happened in ecommerce.”
There was a time when enterprise businesses would not have considered a SaaS approach for their online marketplace but that has changed dramatically over the years. If everyone in the industry is adopting this innovation for their good, why not you?
We have evaluated the two most popular models – On-premise and SaaS, and it is evident that the SaaS-based platforms are the future of ecommerce. However, not every SaaS solution is meant to handle the enterprise-level online business. Take time to consider the features and service offerings before you decide your enterprise ecommerce platform.
StoreHippo is a full-fledged enterprise ecommerce solution and takes complete care of the functionalities required by wholesale business owners. The quick go-to-market time, rich set of 300+ inbuilt features, low upfront and ownership costs makes it highly popular among the industry. Check out the multi-vendor marketplaces powered by StoreHippo to learn about our expertise and experience in the industry. Start your 14-day free trial to explore the future-ready features of StoreHippo.
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