How to Create a B2B Multi-Vendor Website Easily

Building a B2B marketplace website is no longer a choice for enterprise brands. 

Wonder why?

Well, our world as we knew it, changed radically as a response to the pandemic. B2B buyer preferences followed suit and wholesale enterprise businesses gravitated further towards digital channels.

Also, a noticeable trend was a preference for buying on B2B marketplace sites.  

Here are some trends for B2B online buying:

• 80% of B2B sales will be done on digital online channels by 2025
• 5.3X growth in sales on B2B online marketplaces from 2020 to 2022
• 7.2X faster growth on B2B multi vendor websites than overall B2B ecommerce
• $31.19 billion is the estimated GMV of global B2B online marketplaces 
• 4X increase in the number of B2B marketplaces in the past 3 years

Source: Statista, McKinsey & Company, DHL Express

Well, the trend is visible loud and clear! 

B2B marketplace is the key to enterprise success. The sooner brands decide on building one for their brand the better they are aligned for growth and profitability.

Why Building a B2B marketplace is a good business move

Business-to-business customers are all-in for buying online using digital self-serve models. Also, buyers love to have choices and yet want to avoid the fatigue of searching for products and services on multiple platforms.

Building your B2B ecommerce platform and onboarding vendors, manufacturers, and distributors across the spectrum of products and services your business offers a solution to all the above needs of your customers. Also, it improves your business at multiple levels.

Let us give you some more reasons to start your B2B marketplace. 

• Modernize your business making processes standardized and automated
• Shorten sales cycles with self-service and informative, personalized content
• Grow your reach to new audience segments and markets 
• Cost-efficient as saves costs on multiple heads like the lesser cost of staffing, less CapEx, cost-effective digital marketing etc.  
• Streamlined and easy vendor onboarding across diverse industries and geographies
• Pivot to disruptive business models by creating hybrid B2B ecommerce models 
• Sell omnichannel by adding new-age digital customer touchpoints like B2B marketplace app, PWA stores, marketplace website etc.
• Improve brand visibility with a presence on multiple digital platforms
• Add new revenue channels and networks like vendor subscriptions, ads for vendor/brand placement on your website, tie-ups, affiliate network etc. along with commissions on every order
• Efficient vendor management with transparent processes and control over vendor activities 

Building a B2B multi-vendor website is definitely a win-win solution. However, for decades, wholesale brands have been doing good business offline. The vendors are teams have a set way of doing business in the offline environment and transitioning to online mode oftentimes meets with a certain degree of resistance from various stakeholders in the B2B company. Sellers and internal staff who are not well-versed in online selling might find the idea of shifting to ecommerce rather daunting. 

However, all such apprehensions and doubts can be cleared by powering the business with an easy-to-use B2B ecommerce platform like StoreHippo.

Why choose StoreHippo to build your B2B multi-vendor website 

While wholesale brands have the choice to build their B2B software from scratch, this approach can be considerably time and resource-consuming. Alternatively, opting for a turnkey marketplace builder is a smarter option as it reduces the go-to-market time and also offers a cost-effective solution.

The fully-hosted and managed StoreHippo enterprise ecommerce platform comes with a host of B2B features and an easy-to-use dashboard for admins as well as vendors. Designed for scalability and growth, the flexible StoreHippo B2B ecommerce solutions enable enterprise brands to build their tailor-made solutions. 

Here is a list of reasons that make StoreHippo the best B2B marketplace builder for taking your wholesale enterprise business online:

1. End-to-End B2B ecommerce solution

StoreHippo offers 360-degree solutions with 300+ enterprise grande features and 120+ integrations to help wholesale brands build their custom marketplace stores. From building a B2B marketplace website to running and growing it, and streamlining your fulfillment, StoreHippo comes with a gamut of features for managing every aspect of your wholesale ecommerce business.

2. Plug-and-Play solution

Unlike other turnkey B2B ecommerce platforms, StoreHippo does not rely on third-party apps or extensions to build the end-to-end functionality of a business-to-business multi vendor website. StoreHippo comes with built-in  B2B and multi-vendor features that do not require additional plugins or paid extensions. 

3. Cutting Edge Technology

StoreHippo is built on MEAN stack and has MACH ( Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture that makes the platform inherently flexible, scalable and agile enough for the unique requirements of enterprise brands. The decoupled headless architecture and 300+ API endpoints make it easy to build B2B marketplaces that can be easily personalized for diverse audience segments.

4. Support For Different Business Models

StoreHippo not only has built-in solutions for B2B ecommerce and multi-vendor but it also supports a variety of business models like B2C, D2C, B2B2C, hyperlocal ecommerce etc. You can also take your business beyond borders using the go-global features like a multilingual website, multi-currency payment and invoicing etc. StoreHippo also offers multi-store features which can be used to build location-based, brand or seller based or any other type of sub-stores. Enterprise brands can also build their custom or hybrid marketplace website with StoreHippo.

5. Omnichannel Mobile-First Solutions 

Built on mobile-first principle StoreHippo builds PWA stores that look, feel and work like mobile apps. The built-in mobile apps builder creates B2B marketplace apps without the need for a single line of coding. StoreHippo also offers admin and vendor mobile apps to run the business on the go. There is also a separate delivery boy app to help the fleet of delivery agents for the B2B brand and its sellers.

Using the decoupled headless commerce solutions enterprise wholesale brands can add new customer touchpoints quickly with the same backend logic and APIs.

6. A gamut of B2B Ecommerce Features

The prime aim of building a B2B marketplace is getting more customers, orders and profit by modernizing, streamlining and automating the B2B processes. StoreHippo comes packed with a host of B2B features like RFQ, MOQ, multi-pricing, form builder to add forms at strategic points in the customer buying journey, bulk order processing, tax rule engine to implement multiple taxes along with GST, tiered pricing for quick bulk order purchases, pricing comparison to decide between the best buyers and many more to facilitate faster buying and selling on your multi-vendor marketplace.

7. Quick seller registration 

StoreHippo offers a well-defined and easy seller registration module to enable your vendors to enter into online business without any hassles. Your vendors can easily register themselves on your B2B marketplace website with a few clicks and start uploading their products. The vendor details like company name, address, and payment details are captured in one go. 

8. Easy Vendor Management

StoreHippo comes with a comprehensive vendor management solution which includes features to set up a flexible commission system for vendors depending on their respective product categories or hierarchies. The admin(s) can fix percentage-wise or flat commission rules and add further tax rules to get an automated calculation of the total commission on each order. 

9. Separate Vendor Dashboards and seller page

Each vendor on your business-to-business marketplace website gets their own admin dashboard wherein they get  easy product management features, order and inventory management solutions, features to manage their shipping, returns and refunds, adding taxes and much more. The admin(s) can still remain on top of all vendor activities and see and control all vendors.

Sellers also get a separate seller page on the front end of your B2B marketplace wherein they can display their products or services and get the undivided attention of their clients.

10. Seller Ledger 

Managing your vendors’ payments is easy with StoreHippo's built-in seller ledger and adaptive payments features. The seller ledger gives complete details of transactions, payables, pending orders, invoices etc. Admins on the B2B marketplace can set up ledger rules and manage the payouts and payment history of sellers easily.

11. Adaptive payments

StoreHippo is dedicated to offering maximum flexibility to the vendors with the automated payment processes. When the customer places orders from multiple vendors, the order amount gets split automatically. The seller amount and admin commission also get paid in their accounts directly from the payment gateway of the customer. 

12. User and role-based security

With StoreHippo’s built-in security measures you can implement granular security on your B2B online marketplace by setting up different user roles. The PCI-DSS-compliant platform also offers audit logs to help identify and fix errors quickly. StoreHippo helps you to create a multi-vendor website that can handle multiple levels of user roles and keep your business as well as clients’ data safe and secure. 

13. Broad Spectrum Payment Solutions

Business-to-business payments are pretty different from regular B2C payments which are done in one go. Payments for bulk purchases are usually done in parts and hence enterprise wholesale brands need a variety of payment solutions ranging from offline to digital and also including wallets and store credits to streamline their payment processes.

StoreHippo's B2B ecommerce platform has 60+ pre-integrated payment gateways and also has the provision for B2B wallet and credit management wherein your customers can manage their credit points ( from refunds, rewards, cash back etc.) and redeem them. Also, you can set different wallet rules for adding wallet credit or refunds.

14. Integrated shipping

Usually vendors on a B2B online marketplace are responsible for managing their shipping. However, if the marketplace brands facilitate their sellers with fulfilment solutions, the chances of reaching new customers and geographies become much better.

StoreHippo offers 30+ pre-integrated shipping partners to help you streamline your supply chain. The automated shipping solutions also help your sellers view and manage their orders easily. Some of the features that help your vendors manage their shipments better are order details, real-time order status, pick-up scheduling, generating and printing invoices, cancellation of orders etc. Your vendors can also  manage shipping of multiple products and orders without any hassles. 

15. Marketing Tools and Unified notifications

Building and managing a B2B marketplace is just half the job done. To grow to new markets your business also needs powerful marketing tools to hack growth. StoreHippo has you covered here too!

The B2B ecommerce solutions from StoreHippo come with a gamut of built-in marketing tools. The SEO-friendly platform has a powerful blog engine, discount engine, abandoned cart recovery solutions, dynamic forms, dynamic marketing pages and unified notifications (email, SMS, web and push notifications) to keep you connected with your customers in real time.

Along with these, StoreHippo also integrates easily with the best marketing and analytics tools like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, various mailing software, chatbots etc. 

With such extensive and rich features, building a B2B marketplace website and apps using storeHippo becomes easy for enterprise brands of any scale or industry.

How to build your B2B multi-vendor website easily (And launch it in record time)

Traditionally, enterprise brands were more inclined towards building custom B2B marketplace software. This entailed long development and testing cycles and the monolithic software was difficult to change quickly with changing market and customer requirements. 

Of late, scalable and flexible B2B ecommerce platforms built on the decoupled headless architecture have become the go-to solution for enterprise B2B brands planning to quickly and easily build their online marketplaces. StoreHippo combines the goodness of a custom B2B ecommerce software with the agility and speed of a turnkey solution and enables marketplace brands to build their own tailor-made B2B marketplace solutions.

10-step process to build your B2B marketplace

Here is how you can build your very own B2B multi vendor marketplace in 10-easy steps with StoreHippo:

Step 1: Choose a brand name and book a domain for your business

Step 2: Define possible circumstances and use cases for your business and go for a StoreHippo subscription plan that best suits the requirements of your B2B ecommerce business

Step 3: Define unique business flows and customize different entities like vendor payments, commissions, and other ledge rules as you create B2B ecommerce website with StoreHippo

Step 4: Choose an appropriate theme for your B2B marketplace from extensive themes library and customize it using drag and drop features to create a multi-vendor website

Step 5: Get your existing and new vendors, i.e; manufacturers, retailers, brands, distributors, and sellers onboarded on your marketplace website.

Step 6: Give your vendors their separate dashboard so they can upload their products and manage their online business

Step 7: Integrate key functionalities like shipping, payment gateways, custom CRM, and ERP in your ecommerce business to streamline your online business

Step 8: Build your mobile apps on Android and iOS without any additional cost. Also, get the look and feel of native apps with PWA functions.

Step 9: Optimize your marketplace website with inbuilt SEO features to get top search engine rankings and digital marketing integrations

Step 10:  Go live with your new B2B ecommerce business and start promoting your site using inbuilt marketing tools

That is it! You have your tailor-made B2B multi-vendor website up and running. Do some test orders to make sure all features and functionalities are working as expected.

With StoreHippo building a custom B2B marketplace is not only easy but you are also going to market in record time. With the experience and expertise of building marketplaces across industry verticals, StoreHippo is well-equipped to handle any use-case of a B2B online marketplace.

The Road to success

Building successful marketplace websites is all about choosing the right platform and strategies that enable you to disrupt the market. With the right B2B ecommerce platform like StoreHippo you get 360-degree solutions to build, run and grow your business in domestic as well as international markets. 

StoreHippo’s multi-vendor marketplace solution is loaded with best-in-class ecommerce functionalities and helps you make future-ready marketplace portals to modernize your wholesale business. Ready to begin your exciting online journey? Get started with StoreHippo and  create your B2B multi-vendor website without any hassles. 

Schedule a Free demo now to explore the amazing B2B features.