What is a B2B marketplace India
A B2B marketplace India is an ecommerce website where businesses or sellers come together to buy and sell their goods and services. Various merchants, enterprise businesses, dealers, distributors, etc can create a marketplace for their products and connect with other businesses in the Indian ecommerce market.
With many B2B businesses taking the ecommerce route, marketplaces like IndiaMart, Udaan, etc, have become popular and inspired other enterprises to create their own B2B marketplace website. By building a B2B ecommerce marketplace, businesses can tap a huge market beyond geographical barriers and grow their user and seller base. With less manual involvement and automated management of products and orders, B2B businesses can improve their operational efficiency.
What are the different types of B2B marketplaces India
There can be various types of B2B marketplaces based on the businesses' needs and requirements. Here are the types of B2B online marketplace India that the brands can create for their unique business needs:
- Vertical or niche marketplace: A wholesale B2B marketplace that is created to cater to a single line of products is categorized as a vertical marketplace. For example, an apparel wholesale marketplace where multiple wholesalers can onboard on the marketplace and clients can compare and choose clothes as per their requirements.
- Horizontal marketplace: A marketplace that sells an assortment of products is a horizontal B2B wholesale marketplace India. Multiple vendors and sellers can be onboarded to sell a variety of products from household to industry-grade items. For example, Amazon's wholesale marketplace has something for everyone.
- B2B service marketplace: A service-based B2B marketplace is an online platform where services are sold to different businesses and to different industry verticals. For example, Urban Company offers various services like cleaning to other businesses.
- Hybrid B2B marketplace: A hybrid marketplace combines the goodness of both B2B and D2C businesses. A hybrid B2B India website with multiple sellers can cater to other businesses and also sell directly to retail customers. It can combine any business model along with its B2B business operations. For example, a pharma wholesale business can also sell in bulk to hospitals and cater to individuals with bulk requirements.
The above-mentioned are the most popular marketplace models built by B2B brands across India. However, brands can also create multiple other hybrid B2B models for their unique business needs. StoreHippo marketplace solution comes with built-in support for different marketplaces and also allows you to create tailored business solutions.
How to build a B2B marketplace India
There are two ways to build a B2B wholesale marketplace India. Enterprise brands can take either of the following two ways:
- Build a marketplace website from scratch by deploying a team of experienced IT professionals
- Use a turnkey ecommerce solution provider that comes with built-in features and tools
B2B businesses can choose to build their website from scratch, however, it is a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. The quick and easy way is using an online marketplace platform that helps go to the market in record time. B2B ecommerce solutions like StoreHippo come with 300+ enterprise-grade features to build, run, and grow the business seamlessly.
What are the must have features in a B2B marketplace India
To seamlessly run a B2B marketplace India, brands need a host of features and tools at their disposal. The complex requirements of the business model call for a unique set of features.
Here are a few must-have features in a B2B marketplace
- End-to-end vendor management solutions to help you easily onboard and manage multiple levels of vendors, distributors, affiliates, resellers etc.
- Easy to personalize the buyers’ journey like personalized offers, product recommendations, etc
- Build tailor-made ecommerce solutions with quick and easy customizations
- Easy-to-use and a separate vendor dashboard for each of the sellers to easily manage their B2B businesses
- Inherent scalability to grow to any number of users, vendors, and products
- Multiple device-specific design themes for B2B India websites based on location, user groups, product lines etc.
- Other B2B-centric features like RFQ, differential/multi pricing, customizable forms, tiered pricing, credit management, MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity), tax engine etc.
- Mobile-first technology to support and build mobile apps and PWA stores
- Next-gen ecommerce technology to build conversion-oriented ecommerce platforms
- Multiple payment solutions to offer seamless B2B checkout processes
- High-end security to build a secure and trusted marketplace for B2B enterprise brands
- Integrated logistics partners to automate bulk deliveries
StoreHippo B2B ecommerce solutions are built on MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture that helps wholesale B2B brands to build the most-engaging solutions. StoreHippo comes with 300+ enterprise-grade features and 150+ integrations to help build, run, and manage complex B2B operations seamlessly.
How does StoreHippo help build a B2B marketplace India
StoreHippo helps build B2B wholesale marketplace India with its feature-rich software. The StoreHippo ecommerce solution is an easy-to-use platform for owners, dealers, distributors as well as clients. StoreHippo is easily customizable for the brand's unique business needs and can be tweaked at the front end and the back end.
StoreHippo helps build B2B online marketplace India for enterprise businesses with features like single sign-on, order and product management, easy search and navigation, buyer-seller admin chat, etc. Brands can build multi vendor, multistore, hyperlocal B2B solutions with StoreHippo in just a few simple steps. StoreHippo also offers a host of business-to-business features like pricing overrides, IP or location-based pricing, RFQ, inquiry generation forms, etc. It helps brands engage better with their clients and fastens the sales processes. The native features from StoreHippo like the multilingual, hyperlocal solutions, etc help reach audiences from across the country.
StoreHippo is a fully integrated software that offers seamless integrations with various third-party software and service providers with its API-based architecture. Built on mobile-first technology, the StoreHippo B2B wholesale marketplace India helps build mobile apps in just a few clicks without any coding required and at zero additional costs. The online stores built by StoreHippo are also PWA that look, feel, and work like mobile apps even on entry-level devices. It also offers built-in apps for vendors, admin, customers, delivery boys etc. to manage the business on the go.
StoreHippo offers a free SSL certificate and is a PCI-DSS-compliant platform that provides additional security layers by offering restricted login and audit log features to all B2B India websites. The customized invoicing and a powerful tax engine make for easy and streamlined accounting. StoreHippo offers 60+ payment gateways to create a frictionless checkout process for large-volume orders by B2B clients. To help brands streamline logistics and manage bulk deliveries, StoreHippo also comes with an in-built delivery boy management system that helps streamline fleet management.
With its host of features, StoreHippo enables enterprise businesses to build B2B marketplaces seamlessly. Are you ready to take your wholesale business online and build the best B2B marketplace India? Start your 14-day free trial now.
