What Is A B2B Marketplace?
A B2B marketplace is an online marketplace website that allows merchants and businesses to sell their goods and services to other businesses digitally. Various distributors, wholesalers, dealers or other businesses can register themselves on a B2B marketplace to reach out to a wide range of other businesses in the domestic or international markets.
By registering on a B2B marketplace, wholesalers and other businesses can leverage the high traffic of the marketplace website to grow their business. Selling through a B2B marketplace platform takes away the burden of setting up a digital platform from the seller businesses.
Some popular examples of B2B marketplace are IndiaMART, Udaan and Alibaba. The global B2B e-commerce market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18.7% from 2021 to 2028 and be worth $25.65 trillion by 2028. The B2B online marketplaces are going to play a pivotal role in this growth by facilitating the digital adoption of traditional brick and mortar businesses.
Benefits Of Building A B2B Marketplace?
Building a B2B marketplace has many benefits for wholesale businesses looking to grow quickly. Here are some of the most important benefits of having a B2B eCommerce marketplace:
Tap a huge and growing market without geographic limitations
Boost revenue by reaching more sellers and buyers
Reduce manual involvement with automated and centralized products and sales management
Improve and enhance brand visibility through multiple digital channels
Efficient management of dealer/seller networks across multiple levels
Faster sales and order fulfilment cycles
Cost-efficient at multiple levels like CapEx, staffing etc.
Easy to create personalised buying journeys and offers for customers
Thanks to the modern B2B marketplace builders, it has become very easy for brands to go digital and roll out their own marketplace website.
What Are The Different Types Of B2B Marketplaces?
Based on their business model B2B marketplaces can be categorized into the following categories:
A wholesale online marketplace for a single product category is categorized as a niche or vertical B2B online marketplace. For example, a pharma wholesale marketplace where sellers and distributors can be onboarded as vendors. Online customers can compare, choose and buy in bulk from the seller of their choice.
Similar vertical B2B online marketplace can be built for construction material business, paints business, auto parts business etc.
Horizontal B2B Marketplace
A horizontal B2B eCommerce marketplace sells an assortment of different kinds of products. Vendors and sellers from diverse industries can be onboarded on a horizontal B2B marketplace to sell a variety of products (from household items to industry-grade products) to other businesses.
The most popular examples of horizontal B2B marketplaces are IndiaMART, Udaan, Amazon business etc.
B2B Service Marketplace
A service-based B2B marketplace offers a digital platform for selling and buying services to different businesses or each other. for different industry verticals. For example, a marketplace connecting human resource providing agencies to different businesses like hospitals, construction companies, industrial workers etc.
Hybrid B2B Marketplace (B2B+D2C)
Hybrid B2B marketplaces are becoming a popular business model with a focus on offering personalized buyer journeys. A hybrid B2B online marketplace caters to other businesses and also sells directly to retail customers. For example, a construction material marketplace that sells to large builders/property developers as well as individual buyers looking for construction materials. A hybrid B2B marketplace can be a combination of any other business model along with B2B.
While these are the most common type of B2B marketplaces, a variety of hybrid B2B online marketplaces can be built to disrupt the market.
How To Build A B2B Marketplace?
To build a B2B eCommerce marketplace business can take one of the two routes:
While one can always choose to go with custom solutions it is rather a time taking and resource-intensive proposition. With customizable turnkey online marketplace software, it has become easy for wholesale brands to launch their B2B eCommerce marketplace in no time.
What Features To Look For In A B2B Marketplace Solution?
The best online marketplace software is one that gives you the flexibility to tweak the platform for your unique requirements. It should also offer a wide set of features to help you build, run and grow your B2B marketplace in a hassle-free manner.
To build a modern marketplace website your online marketplace software should have the following features:
Complete vendor management solutions to onboard and manage different levels of vendors, distributors, affiliates, resellers etc.
Easy customizations which enable building a tailor-made solution for your brand
Easy to use online marketplace software with separate dashboards for the vendors, admin(s) and delivery agents
Inherent scalability to grow to any number of users, products, geographies etc.
Next-generation technology to build the best B2B ecommerce platforms
Host of B2B specific features like RFQ, differential/multi pricing, customizable forms, tiered pricing, credit management, MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity), tax engine etc.
Customizable themes to create different landing pages based on location, user groups, product lines etc.
Capabilities to build Android and iOS apps and PWA stores to leverage mobile commerce
Seamless integrations with the chosen ERP, CRM, accounting, logistics, payments provider etc.
Multiple payment options to accept payment from diverse businesses and remit payments to the vendors
Multi-level security to build a secure and trusted B2B marketplace
Integrated logistics solutions to automate and streamline bulk order deliveries
StoreHippo customizable B2B marketplace platform has 300+ built-in features and 150+ integrations to help online businesses build the most innovative online solutions. Built on the MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture StoreHippo helps wholesale brands build out-of-box B2B solutions that help with disruptive growth.
Why StoreHippo Is The Best Ecommerce Platform To Build Your B2B Marketplace?
StoreHippo offers a comprehensive solution to build a marketplace website for B2B brands. The inherent flexibility of the platform helps brands build tailor-made solutions for their wholesale business. Built on the MACH ( Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture, StoreHippo makes it easy to add multiple customer touchpoints and go omnichannel.
StoreHippo’s host of native features makes it easy to build the best B2B ecommerce platforms which can have location or product based multi-store setup. The comprehensive hyperlocal solution, multilingual capabilities and multi-currency feature make it easy for brands to build an international B2B marketplace that can be easily personalized for the local buyers.
StoreHippo also offers features like single sign-on, order and product management, easy search and navigation, buyer-seller admin chat etc. The features make it possible for brands to close their sales cycle faster and keep the vendors, buyers and admin informed at every step of the buying process.
The fully integrated StoreHippo marketplace software offers seamless integrations with other third-party software and services providers of your choice through APIs. We also have complete D2C solutions and brands can manage their B2B and D2C business lines from a single marketplace platform. You can build your mobile apps right from your admin dashboard and offer separate apps for vendors. Admin, customers, delivery boy etc. StoreHippo PCI-DSS compliant ecommerce platform along with FREE SSL ensures you also get a marketing engine, blog engine, tax engine to help you manage your enterprise business better.
Want to modernize your B2B business? Be ready to grow to new markets and users by offering a modern and personalised buying experience. Explore StoreHippo next-gen B2B marketplace platform by starting your 14-day free trial.
