Why Multi-Vendor Website Is The Best Business Idea
When you create a multi-vendor website you host third-party vendors(sellers, manufacturers, distributors and brands) on your marketplace portal. You do not produce or sell products, instead the vendors sell products or services. You own and manage the website and also provide customer support. You may or may not choose to offer shipping services as well.
The winning edge of this unique model is that your prime concern is to offer an online marketplace website while the vendors take care of all the inventory and products. You earn by getting a fixed percentage commission on every order without having to bother about inventory. Vendors benefit by getting a readymade platform and traffic and are free from the burden of managing the IT and technical requirements.
The Beginner’s Guide To Create A Multi-Vendor Website With StoreHippo
The success of global marketplace websites like Amazon, Alibaba and the other popular marketplaces in India like Flipkart, Nykaa etc. has inspired many entrepreneurs to create multi-vendor websites of their own. However, from deciding on the business idea to finally getting your online marketplace up and running needs some planning and precise execution.
You have a business idea and to help you get started here is the A-to-Z plan to build your marketplace website. Let’s begin:
1. Choose Domain Name
Keep it small, relevant and memorable so it is easy to search and find.
2. Decide Your Ecommerce Platform
Build your marketplace with StoreHippo fully-hosted and maintained, turnkey multi-vendor marketplace solution.
3. Go With A Beautiful Theme
Choose a beautiful theme from 100+ free theme templates and tweak using drag and drop tools or mix- match to create a new theme altogether.
4. Ensure Site Security
Get your FREE SSL from your admin panel and give a secure site to your customers and vendors.
5. Get Ready For M-Commerce
Build your Android and iOS apps and turn on PWA setting to make your marketplace accessible on mobile phones.
6. Multiple Payment Gateways
Add a variety of payment channels to accept payments from customers and send payouts to your vendors.
7. Add Vendors
Register and vendors to your marketplace who can then upload products to be sold on your platform. Set up tax, payment, commission and other rules for them.
8. SEO Optimization
Start SEO optimization right when you create your multi-vendor website. This would help with SERP ranking and organic traffic.
9. Marketing Activities
Make a marketing plan to promote your business and start registering customers and sending out coupons and discounts before the actual launch.
10. Test And Go Live
Test your flows and go live in less than a month with StoreHippo multi-vendor marketplace solution.
Never thought it is going to be so easy. Well, StoreHippo comes with 300+ inbuilt features to make your online journey a cakewalk. Be ready to create the next Alibaba, Amazon or Flipkart by finding the right problem/ solution fit for the ever growing online market.
How To Create A B2B Multi-Vendor Website Easily
B2B ecommerce has long outpaced the growth of B2C model. If you are a wholesale business owner and think of adding a new sales channel to your business by taking it online, an online marketplace can prove to be your best bet.
StoreHippo offers comprehensive multi-vendor marketplace solutions to give a competitive edge to traditional wholesale businesses. The future-ready technology, mobile-first approach and a host of enterprise grade B2B features makes it possible to create a multi-vendor website for large-volume business.
Here are a few additional modules incorporated in StoreHippo that will enable you to add unique features needed for a B2B marketplace. Let us get started with building your wholesale marketplace:
Step 1: Register a domain name
Step 2: Choose the design template and customize it
Step 3: Complete your marketplace set up by adding the following modules;
- Seller Module: Onboard sellers, distributors, retailers using the seller module.
- Buyer Onboarding: Add your buyers by adding custom forms that offer them personalized landing pages.
- Pricing Overrides: Set up unique pricing for various clients based on their past history and order size.
- Tax Matrix: Manage the complex manage multi-level tax structure for sellers, buyers, suppliers and distributors using powerful tax engine.
- Order Quantity: You can easily set limits for minimum and maximum order quantity.
- Request A Quote:Inbuilt module for request a quote feature which forms the core of B2B ordering process.
- Order Management & Splitting: Manage your orders and split them between vendors/distributors using automated flow.
- Accounts & Ledger: Set up ledger rules and various user accounts and their permission
Step 4: Add multiple payment channels to your multi-vendor ecommerce site.
Step 5: Get ready for M-commerce by building mobile apps right from StoreHippo admin.
Step 6: Optimize your site for SEO and start the marketing process.
Step 7: Test your newly created multi-vendor website and get it rolling.
Starting your B2B marketplace can open up new sales avenues to help you grow rapidly.
Why StoreHippo Is the Best Software Solution To Create B2B + B2C Multi-Vendor Website
StoreHippo comes with inbuilt features to manage the B2B as well as B2C multi-seller online store. The inherent flexibility and scalability of our platform makes it the best fit of any business model. The turnkey solution can be easily tweaked to add unique entities or tweak the existing one as per the requirements.
We have built horizontal marketplaces like Amazon and Alibaba, vertical marketplaces like Nykaa and Firstcry as well as service aggregator marketplaces like Zomato and Swiggy for our clients. Apart from these most popular marketplace models, Storehippo has also helped create multi-vendor websites for out of box models.
Our fully hosted and managed solution makes it possible for business owners to focus on business growth rather than worrying about the technological and IT aspect of the business.
Check out the various types of Multi-Vendor Use Cases built on StoreHippo multi-vendor platform and explore our features by starting your 14-day free trial.
