What is an online marketplace platform?
An online marketplace platform is an ecommerce site or portal that brings multiple sellers with buyers on a common platform. The sellers register themselves on the online marketplace portal to sell products and services to customers. The multi vendor ecommerce model is known to be a win-all model as it benefits all the parties involved, namely the sellers, buyers as well as business owners.
The admin or the owner manages the portal and gets a commission on every sale. Different vendors can register on the multi vendor platform where they can upload, showcase and sell their products. The vendors or sellers pay a commission to the marketplace admin or owner for using the ecommerce marketplace platform.
All the guidelines, payment terms, online transactions, policies etc. are controlled by the admin. Customers prefer online marketplace platforms as they can shop for a variety of products at competitive prices.
The most popular and successful ecommerce marketplace platforms are Amazon, Flipkart, Alibaba, eBay, Firstcry, Nyka etc. An online marketplace platform is an excellent idea to generate revenue and build your brand if you're selling online.
What are the different types of online marketplace platforms?
There are various types of online marketplaces running successfully. These marketplaces can be categorized based on types of customers, industry, target audience and management approach. Here are the popular types of marketplaces:
1. Multi-product online marketplace (Horizontal)
The horizontal marketplace serves different types of customers. It is focused on diverse categories of items to sell almost everything thus reaching a broader audience. Businesses operating horizontal marketplaces seek demographics not really going with niches.
Best Examples: Amazon, Flipkart, eBay
2. Vertical marketplace
Vertical online marketplace platform do not offer a wide variety of products but only focus on niches to offer specific products. A vertical market is a market containing a group of companies and customers that are interconnected around a specific niche. This multi vendor marketplace sells products from several sources. However, the category of the product remains the same.
Best Examples: Nyka, Pepperfry, Uber, Airbnb, Task Rabbit
3. Online rental multi vendor platform
This is similar to the online product marketplace however the main difference is the product is not bought but are listed on websites to rent them.
Best Examples: Rentomojo, Mahindra construction, Turbo, Chegg, Uber, Furlenco.
4. Online service marketplace
A service marketplace is a platform which procures various types of services such as food services, household services, car repair, maintenance services, laundry services, personal care and healthcare service.
Best Examples: Urban Company, Yelp, GoMechanic, Upwork, Freelancer and Fiverr.
5. Hybrid Marketplace
As the name suggests hybrid is a combination of 2 services or business models. Here in the first scenario, the customer is a buyer and seller. They can list their products as well as buy products listed by other customers. In the second use case, both B2B and B2C products can be sold from the same ecommerce marketplace platform.
For example, Amazon.
6. Hyperlocal Marketplace
The hyperlocal marketplace is set up in order to provide products and services within 24 hrs. This is within a particular geographical range from the location of your delivery. It works on two factors time and geographical area.
Examples: Zomato, Swiggy, Bigbasket, UrbanClap.
7. Custom Marketplace
A custom marketplace is when the enterprise brand builds a multi vendor marketplace website using a unique business model, expansion plans and brand growth. The owners have full control over the design and other aspects.
Enterprise brands of every scale and size can choose from any of the above marketplace types to get started with their own online marketplace platform. such StoreHippo comes with battle-tested online marketplace solutions for different industry verticals. With comprehensive solutions to build the marketplace website, manage the vendors and their payments and mobile-ready solutions for the vendors as well as the admins, StoreHippo enables brands to get started with their multi vendor marketplace in record time.
What are the features needed for a good online marketplace platform?
Opting for the right multi vendor marketplace platform is the first step toward making your business successful. For this, you need to look for a marketplace solution that offers a gamut of features like:
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Built on advanced technology to make it easy for brands to make changes as per market dynamics
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Complete control over vendors, products, payments, commissions etc to business owners or admin
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Quick and easy vendor registration and onboarding
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Separate dashboard for all the vendors as well as the admin
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Easy product management for vendors and comprehensive vendor ledger to manage payouts, commissions etc.
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Feature to add vendor-specific discounts and shipping
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Easy approval flow where admin can approve and reject the products uploaded by vendors
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Adaptive payments to distribute payments between sellers of multi-order products
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Unified notifications to notify vendors and admin regarding shipments and orders
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Inbuilt SEO and marketing tools for promotions and business growth
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Seamless integrations enable enterprise businesses to build solutions by integrating any software of choice
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Integrated logistics to help vendors with fast and quick deliveries without errors
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Global solutions to help businesses operate expand to global markets
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A powerful tax engine to simplify multi-tier taxation depending on product category and geolocation
StoreHippo ecommerce marketplace platform comes with 300+ features and 120+ built-in integrations to help enterprise brands build their own custom marketplace. The mobile ready StoreHippo marketplace solution also comes with an inbuilt mobile apps builder to create marketplace apps. There are other apps like vendor apps, admin apps and delivery boy apps to run the complete marketplace on the go.
Why StoreHippo is the best way to build your online marketplace platform
StoreHippo is a flexible and scalable online marketplace software that offers comprehensive marketplace solutions to horizontal, vertical and service aggregator marketplaces of different sizes.
StoreHippo's online marketplace platform comes with a complete vendor management solution with a separate vendor dashboard for each seller. The process of onboarding, managing sellers and their payouts is completely automated. With integrated payment gateways and COD, brands can offer multiple payment options on their multi vendor marketplace. StoreHippo’s integrated shipping solution helps enterprise marketplaces to automate their supply chain and helps in optimizing shipping costs gives by using 30+ logistics partners.
Built on pure headless architecture, StoreHippo makes it easy for brands to implement personalization on their marketplace website. StoreHippo also offers complete omnichannel solutions to help create multiple touchpoints for a multi vendor marketplace.
With its inbuilt features like multistore, multilingual and multicurrency etc. brands can take their ecommerce marketplace platform to international markets. StoreHippo is integrated with both domestic and international payment gateways which supports a variety of payment options such as store wallets, digital wallets, UPI, net banking, debit cards etc. It also comes with mobile-first software which helps to leverage mobile commerce and allows it to sell more through applications. The cutting edge technology makes it possible to build unique multivendor solutions for enterprise brands.
Ready to start your own multi vendor marketplace platform? Explore StoreHippo’s online marketplace platform’s extensive features by starting your 14-day free trial now.
