Multi Vendor Marketplace is a platform offering listings from different suppliers at one place.Suppliers pay commission for listing/selling their listings on the marketplace. Suppliers have their own accounts where they manage their inventories.
In simple words, starting a multi vendor marketplace is the same as creating a marketplace like Amazon or eBay of your own. The biggest players are eBay, Amazon, Aliexpress, Walmart, Jet. These are the ‘one-stop-shops’ selling everything to everyone.
But, today’s trend is niche marketplaces platforms focusing on a single niche market, a single category of listings, customers or businesses with specific needs.
The most common model for multi vendor marketplaces is B2C, where businesses act as suppliers who sell their listings directly to the customers. For example: BookMyBoat, Australia’ first boat rental platform supports both P2P and B2C listings.
Some multi vendor stores work mainly as B2B model where businesses buy/sell from/to businesses, like Ellect.biz, KindredSquare.
In C2C or Peer to Peer marketplaces, customers buy/sell/rent to each other like in TravelMunchkin, BoxBnb.Often, an eCommerce marketplace can successfully combine these business models, like Etsy, eBay and Amazon do. There are product listings from both businesses and customers on these eCommerce websites.
Must Have Features for a Multi Vendor Marketplace
Supplier/Admin Dashboard: Each entity involved in the Business needs a separate account where they will manage their listings, create special offers, add shipping methods, manage shipping cost, get sales reports, process payouts, ratings and review. Suppliers might not be techies so the interface has to be User-friendly.
Listing/Inventory Management:The Vendor should be able to list the products and services that they sell, rent or auction on the marketplace.Also, the supplier should have the capability to monitor and access all the listings of the marketplace.
Auction Management: The Multi Vendor marketplace should have the ability to set products as auctions if their listings are unique and niche. Create new auctions and view auction histories for each product
Ratings and Reviews:
Customer ratings and reviews are an essential part of a converting multi vendor marketplace. A review system provides credibility to the marketplace. This is a good way to foster a competitive environment among the sellers. This can help in improving order fulfillment rates and better product listings which in turn will promote goodwill and bring in more users.
How to Start a Multi vendor Marketplace?
To excel in the competitive industry with Amazon, etsy, the multi-vendor Marketplace should be developed to target the hyper-local market. Start by understanding the audience needs and then expand it in different regions. Building a multi-vendor marketplace from scratch can cost you thousands of dollars. It is easy to start a multi vendor Marketplace with ready to launch platforms like IdyaFlow Plus.
Some of the Key features of IdyaFlow Plus Enterprise Marketplace Software are:
- Different Supplier and Admin Dashboard by configuring different settings for the smooth flow of both entities.
- Custom Domain name to reflect your brand.
- Escrow Accounts to streamline transactions
- Inventory Management to help suppliers Max number & Min numbers at the order level, workflow around restock levels.
- Ratings & Review system allows making two-way (suppliers and customers rate each other) ratings