B2B e-commerce is a gold mine for opportunities nowadays. It is still growing, so you have all the chances to disrupt the industry by creating an online marketplace for the niche you work in.

In this article, we unveil best practices on developing your own custom B2B wholesale marketplace. You will learn about its concept, types, essential features, and monetization models.

 

Marketplace Concept: What is a B2B Wholesale Marketplace?

B2B wholesale marketplace serves as a platform, that connects wholesale suppliers with bulk buyers in different industries. Its main idea is to automate selling and buying in B2B field, improve customer experience, and make the whole process easy and transparent.

It still has a lot of space for improvement, especially when it comes to managing the process and keeping all the important information in one place.

Giuseppe Lanni, director of business development at B2B ecommerce provider Sana Commerce, said: “A lot of B2Bs have portals out there. The majority of them are just very old, very antiquated.”

B2B companies need to rethink the way they connect with customers and broaden the number of promotional channels. B2B e-commerce platforms remain one of the most effective channels for buyers and suppliers, where they can grow their revenue.

Let’s review the main types of B2B wholesale marketplace platforms out there.

 

Types of B2B wholesale platforms

 

• Customer-oriented

Such platforms are managed by the companies that look for various products or services.They allow buyers compare prices, offers, and choose companies that meet their preferences.

• Supplier-oriented

These platforms are managed by suppliers, who want to extend their marketing channels and reach a wider audience.

• Independent

Marketplaces, managed by a third party, that acts as a mediator between buyers and suppliers.

• Vertical

Platforms, that focus on one particular industry, often at a local level.

• Horizontal

This type of B2B platforms connects businesses from different industries and geographical areas.

 

How to build your custom B2B wholesale marketplace concept

 

One of the reasons of B2B startups failure is a not clearly defined value proposition. To establish long-term relationships with your customers, your platform should provide functionality that brings value to their business.

Here are the main features you can include in your wholesale marketplace concept to hit the mark.

 

Basic features you need for B2B wholesale platform

 

• Detailed product description

Make this section explicit. A description should include product specifications, availability information, shipping options, and ability to upload HD video and images. Look at this great example of product description in B2B wholesale websites for tractor brands. It showcases not only a brief description but also key features, models, versions, virtual 360 view and video.

The product page should include as many details as possible to remove any obstacles in a decision-making process.

• Advanced filtering

Narrow the search results on your marketplace with convenient filter navigation. Add the functionality to filter products by keywords, size, color, type, and compare them with other options. Based on the user behavior, you can also include search suggestions, auto-suggest, and related search.

A great example of convenient filtering is Blake - e-commerce website for selling envelopes. Just look how many options you have to find the exact product you need.

Usually, online platforms in B2B industry contain a lot of different product catalogs, so make sure they are easy to find.

• Product catalogs

Give suppliers an option to upload catalogs where they can showcase their products with the opportunity to order them right from the catalog. Depending on the customer segment, you can include multiple catalog views. For example, you can add fields, where users select the budget, industry, and browse results related to their specific needs.

Usually, the buyers in B2B industry are very picky and spend a lot of time before making a decision. By incorporating e-catalogs you give your users an interactive and visual way to learn about your products.

For example, Nover, B2B wholesale website in the furniture industry, offers additional brochures that include online catalogs with a detailed product description.

Add interactive features to the catalogs such as popups, animations, videos, and forms for lead generation. One more excellent idea is to enable inviting prospects to the product catalog and provide them with custom-made product showcases.

• Automated invoice processing

By integrating an automated invoice processing software into your B2B marketplace concept you give suppliers a chance to quickly process product invoices and fetch necessary data. It can even be used to process credit card payments through your phone.

• Listings traffic reports

B2B wholesale suppliers need analytics tools that will help them to monitor and measure their success. Incorporate real-time report feature into your online B2B marketplace. It gives suppliers the opportunity to see traffic to their listings, number of times their products have been viewed, number of unique visitors, and most popular listings.

• Personalized recommendations

If your B2B platform contains a lot of products, it may be difficult for users to discover those that suit them best. That’s where recommendation algorithms come to help. Personalized product recommendations will help you deliver best experiences for each of customer segment.

• Personalized prices

In most cases, pricing in B2B industry significantly differs from B2C one. If your platform deals with businesses of different sizes and needs, customize your prices to different segments by including price calculators or showing sample prices for a set of typical orders.

According to Gartner report, B2B sellers that incorporate personalization will boost their revenue up to 15%.

Most of the B2B wholesale websites ignore this point and don’t provide or personalize prices on their platforms. In this case, your marketplace lacks transparency and trust, so users will more likely go to your competitors.

• Real-time order reports

Give B2B suppliers access to advanced and detailed order analytics. With real-time order reports, your users can run sales summaries in real time by using templates or creating custom reports. For example, Joor - wholesale fashion marketplace concept - offers advanced order reports, where brands can analyze their performance and track sales metrics.

 

Include the functionality that allows to track information about active, pending or cancelled orders and view order details to analyze and forecast sales.

• Integrations with inventory management systems

Integration with inventory management software will help you to create omni-channel experience, customize customer purchases, manage all the operations remotely, and track important analytics.

 

Profitable and sustainable business model for B2B wholesale marketplace platform

 

Think about creating a solid business model for each group of your customers. Here are some strategies on how you can do it for your B2B wholesale marketplace.

• Find what problem to solve

One of the challenges B2B e-commerce industry faces nowadays is a lack of personalized customer service. I have found an amazing quote in the Digital river report about the personalization and customer experience in B2B field, which aligns perfectly with my search for a Net Promoter Score platform.

The point here is to create a platform that will remove any boundaries between the suppliers and buyers, provide them with efficient communication channels and analytics tools.

• Segment your audience

In comparison with B2C industry, B2B organizations lag behind when it comes to personalizing their services and treating each customer as an individual.

Segmentation - this is a magic word that can make your strategy more targeted and customized.

Source: Openviewpartners

When you carefully choose a different approach to each group of customers, they will reward you with loyalty. Segment your audience and create a strong value proposition for each group. Here is how you can do this:

• By company size

B2B companies need to personalize their approach to customers and include offers for different-size businesses (from small companies to big enterprises). Help your users find products and offers that suit their needs and budget.

• By buying behavior

You can personalize your offers by analyzing the customer behavior on your platform, such as time spent on site, last purchased items, items viewed or items in shopping cart or average spendings.

• By pricing

By customizing your price for different customers and their buying preferences, you will increase the number of revenue channels and get more opportunities to boost profit.

You can segment the audience by order volume, stock levels, location and shipping tariffs. When the product pricing adapts to the customer conditions, it creates more trust and transparency in the buying process.

Based on this data, you can provide them with personalized product recommendations, catalogues, and offers.

• Сome up with different revenue channels

Usually business model includes two types of revenue channels: revenue from one-time deals and revenue from periodic payments. To choose what type of revenue suits your business best, try to answer the following questions:

• What are your clients ready to pay for?
• How do they pay now?
• How would they like to pay?
• What profit do you receive from these payments?
• Can you increase this profit?

Let’s review the most widely used revenue generation activities for B2B industry:

• Transaction fee

This model is very popular as it can be used in any industry. It involves a charge of a commission from the transactions on your platform. Don’t make this fee very high in the beginning. Show the value of your platform first and ensure suppliers and bulk buyers that they will get revenue from it.

• Subscription fee

This revenue depends on the period during which clients use your service. The longer the period, the higher is the fee. You may offer different types of subscription based on the number of products users can list on your B2B platform or a number of features they can use.

• Revenue from advertisement

Another way to generate revenue is to take a fee from advertising companies that register on your website. This monetization strategy should be used only when your marketplace has gained a traction and a large base of users.

• Revenue from value-added services

Let’s review the main value-added elements you can incorporate on your B2B marketplace:

1. Services that generate benefits for buyers and suppliers
2. Access to premium features
3. More delivery and shipment options (land, sea, air shipping)
4. Credits
5. Warehousing services

 

Conclusion

 

I hope that after reading this article you have gained some insights about building B2B wholesale marketplace. What really matters here is to focus on your users, make continuous research and saturate your platform with usefulness. Have something to ask? Let us know what we can do fo you:)