7 Multi vendor marketplace trends you need to know in 2024

Multi vendor ecommerce websites have emerged as a game-changing business model in the realm of ecommerce.

If you look at the top ecommerce sites, you will find most of them to be multi vendor marketplaces - Amazon, Flipkart etc.

Yes, with no signs of stopping, the number of online marketplaces is growing leaps and bounds.

Wonder what makes them so popular?

To start with, let's attribute it to a large number of products with multiple sellers and its cost-effectiveness. 

Impressed by the buzz around the marketplace business model?

Well, if you are planning to build a marketplace website is quite a strategic move towards accelerated growth.

Don’t take our word for it, have a look at the top ecommerce trends for 2024 and beyond and decide for yourself:

• $8.7 trillion of sales forecasted via multi vendor marketplaces by 2025
• 62% of global online retail sales come through online marketplaces
• 48% of retail buyers begin their purchase journey directly on a marketplace website
• 35% of online businesses have switched to a multi vendor marketplace by 2023
• 75% of frequent online buyers wish their favorite retailers had marketplaces 
• 94% of B2B buyers use online marketplaces to source products/services
• 75% of B2B procurement spending expected to take place on the online marketplace within the next five years

Source: Statista

Trend 1#   “$8.7 trillion of sales forecasted via multi vendor marketplaces by 2025”

If you are ready to accelerate your growth full-throttle, pivoting to the marketplace should be the top agenda on your list. After all, it’s where the intense action is happening. Buyers are conditioned by their experiences on Amazon-like websites and they want nothing less from their favourite brands. 

Trend 2#   “62% of global online retail sales come through online marketplaces”

It’s no surprise that the pandemic has pushed stay-at-home orders and forced merchants to reinvent how they do business. Surprisingly to reach new markets, you don't necessarily need to build a brick-and-mortar store across diverse geographies. Given the global ecommerce trend and the growing adoption of global brands by local customers, you can target global customers and expand your business in international markets.   

Trend 3#   “48% of retail buyers begin their purchase journey directly on a marketplace website”

For the great convenience and choice of products it provides to the customers, multi vendor marketplace has undoubtedly become the go-to channel for retail buyers. You can diversify your catalog by adding new sellers and attract even more buyers when you choose to build an online marketplace website. You can also set up new new revenue streams and attract more customers with a wider choice of products and services. 

Trend 4# “35% of online businesses have switched to a multi vendor marketplace by 2023”

Enterprise brands are harnessing the inherent benefits of the multi seller model by adopting the multi vendor marketplace model going ahead in 2024 and beyond. The proven way to engage customers is to offer them a wide variety of products to choose from and means to buy conveniently with a simple and reliable return policy, free shipping, etc.

Trend 5#   “75% of frequent online buyers wish their favorite retailers had marketplaces” 

Online shoppers have a stronger preference to shop on multi vendor marketplaces. Wonder why? For better product selection, better delivery options, and seamless shopping experiences, customers prefer ecommerce sites that sell products from multiple sellers. Now isn't this the input you needed to hack growth for your brand.

Trend 6#   “94% of B2B buyers use online marketplaces to source products/services”

B2B marketplaces are revolutionizing the way enterprises do business. With the shift from in-person meetings to online modes of conversations and negotiations, B2B buyers choose to buy from brands that offer multiple products/sellers to choose from.

Trend 7#   “75% of B2B procurement spending is expected to take place on the online marketplace within the next five years”

With 3/4th of B2B buyers preferring to source goods and services online, having a marketplace is an efficient way to digitize and modernize an enterprise brand for changed buyer expectations.

7 Must-have features to build a marketplace website 

Inspired to build a marketplace website for your business?

You can make the most of the ecommerce trends and boost your revenue by building conversion-oriented white label marketplace websites. However, you need robust multi vendor ecommerce solutions to emulate the customer's expectations and offer a seamless buying experience. 

Here are 7 must-have features you need to build your ecommerce marketplace website:

Comprehensive vendor solutions      

When you build a multi vendor marketplace, you need a turnkey solution that makes it easy to onboard multiple vendors and manage them without any challenges and hiccups. It sure is a daunting task to manage multiple vendors and ensure smooth day-to-day business operations. However, with the right solutions, you can seamlessly manage your vendors and offer a transparent and seamless onboarding process.

StoreHippo ecommerce solutions come with an end-to-end multi vendor solution that helps you build conversion-oriented multi vendor marketplaces. You can onboard multiple vendors on your marketplace with StoreHippo’s quick and easy vendor registration process. StoreHippo offers a separate vendor account to each of your sellers so they can manage their businesses seamlessly. The admin teams can also manage the vendors, payouts, commission rates, vendor-based taxes, discounts, etc. from their dashboards. StoreHippo also comes with an adaptive payment feature that helps you easily divide a single payment made by a customer into multiple sellers as well as admin. 

M-commerce ready platform

63% of mobile users prefer to buy from brands that own a mobile app. With smartphones becoming the primary sales channel for brands of every scale and size, you need a mcommerce ready platform to build a marketplace website. As you offer your customers the ease of buying on mobile devices, you retain them for life. Yes, customers love brands that make shopping easy for them, enabling them to shop on the go. 

StoreHippo is built on a mobile-ready technology that comes with a built-in mobile app builder. You can build Android and iOS mobile apps directly from the admin dashboard at zero additional costs and without the need for coding. The online stores powered by StoreHippo are PWA multi vendor marketplaces that look, feel, and work like mobile apps even on entry-level devices, and poor network connections. StoreHippo also offers a variety of mobile solutions for different users like admin, delivery boys, vendors etc to help them handle their business on the go. 

Omnichannel solutions

Well, 95% of the customers look for consistent omnichannel interactions, and around 79% of people shop on their mobile devices at least once in 6 months. Customers love marketplace websites that have a multi-channel presence and engage buyers across all these sales channels. With an omnichannel presence in your marketplace, you can boost your growth potential manifold. 

StoreHippo comes with easy-to-use omnichannel solutions to fulfill all your multi-channel selling needs. You can add new customer touchpoints using the same backend logic and APIs with StoreHippo. You can create consistent buyer journeys and experiences across all channels and centrally control all the sales channels with StoreHippo. The omnichannel solutions help you experiment with product-market mixes for faster growth and increased customer engagement in your multi vendor marketplace. As you get rich customer insights, you can also plan data-centric marketing strategies to boost conversions on your marketplace. 

Easy to personalize and customize 

Did you know that 80% of customers like to purchase from brands that provide personalized experiences? Yes, it is the age of hyper-personalization. Your customers look for brands that treat them special with personalized product recommendations and customized buyer journeys. Your customers will come flocking to your white label marketplace websites when you offer a personalized shopping experience to them across channels. 

StoreHippo platform is built on a decoupled headless architecture and enables brands to tweak the platform inside out. You can seamlessly customize and implement multi-level personalizations like building multiple storefronts/sub-stores for different locations, audiences, or different categories. You can also customize your shipping solutions and digital payments, offer localization with multilingual content and personalized pricing, create different store designs, personalize the discounts etc. with StoreHippo.

End-to-end marketing solutions

93% of online shoppers use some coupon or discount code year-round when shopping on marketplace websites. Yes, you need powerful marketing solutions to capture the market. It is important to strategize and execute your marketing strategies in ways that yield results. A good marketing strategy helps you position your brand higher on SERPs and carve a niche for your brand across multiple customer touchpoints. 

StoreHippo ecommerce solutions come with a wide variety of marketing tools. With the built-in powerful SEO tools, you can easily create unique URLs for pages, meta titles, meta descriptions, meta tags, keywords, and more right from your admin dashboard. It helps you rank your multi vendor marketplace higher on SERPs and boost your organic traffic. StoreHippo also comes with a powerful built-in discount engine and promotion tools to help you implement multi-level discounts and create personalized coupon codes. You can also recover abandoned carts with real-time personalized email and push notifications from StoreHippo. 

Multiple payment options

No buyer likes a long and complex checkout process while buying online. Would you like to shop again from a website that made you wait during the checkout process? We bet you won’t. As you offer multiple payment options when you build a marketplace website, your customers can pick and choose the payment method of their own choice and feel confident in making an online purchase. 

StoreHippo ecommerce solutions offer a host of digital payment solutions. It comes pre-integrated with 60+ domestic and international payment gateways to integrate with and offer frictionless payment methods to your customers. You can also implement multiple payment gateways based on the location or device of your buyers. 

Streamlined delivery 

41% of the customers will pay more just to get same-day delivery. Yes, customers love it when their orders get delivered in just a day or two. The ecommerce trend of quick deliveries helps you retain customers for life. If you notify your customers about their delivery details like your order has been approved, processed, shipped, and/or ready for delivery, and help them track their orders, your customers feel happy and satisfied. 

StoreHippo helps you create a seamless shipping and logistics process for your marketplace. It comes with 30+ pre-integrated logistics partners to help you look after your delivery solutions. You can also integrate with the shipping solution of your choice to offer a quick and seamless delivery. StoreHippo helps you centrally control all the orders from different platforms and manage them seamlessly with the order management system. StoreHippo also comes with a built-in delivery management solution that helps you handle your fleet of delivery boys on your marketplace website.  

Conclusion

As we move ahead in 2024, enterprise brands like yours need to be on top of the ecommerce trends that will be shaping the online shopping experience for good. To sustain the tectonic shifts in the ecommerce industry, brands need access to a robust ecommerce solution that makes it easy for them to adapt and grow. 

StoreHippo multi vendor ecommerce solutions help you build a marketplace website that is equipped to offer your customers exactly what they are looking for. Built on headless architecture, StoreHippo gives you complete control and flexibility to expand your business innovatively. The 300+ inbuilt features and 120+ API endpoints help you create, manage, and grow your white label marketplace website to markets far and wide.

Are you all set to build your multi vendor marketplace with StoreHippo? Explore the wide range of enterprise-grade features by starting your 14-day free trial now.