Grow your sales channels with a marketplace

There is no denying that e-commerce is an important sales channel for an organisation, be it B2B, B2C or a combination. This includes marketplaces: a platform or retail chain that allows external parties to sell on its website. E.g Amazon, bol.com, Airbnb, but also Galeria Inno, Brico, Obelink or Decathlon.

Our Xplorers can help you with:

Strategy: is it interesting to set up your own marketplace? Or is it better to sell on existing marketplaces? Which marketplaces are interesting for me?
Connecting to an existing marketplace
Setting up your own marketplace from scratch
Optimisations that can lead to more sales
All connections between your system and marketplaces

“Connecting demand and supply in a digital world”

B2C: Selling on an existing marketplace

When you choose to start selling on an existing marketplace, you can offer completely new products or sign up as a seller of already existing products. The vendor with the best offer (price, delivery time, etc.) is then set as the default seller. The platform on which you sell will always receive a commission on what you sell there.

When you sell on an existing marketplace, there are several options, in terms of logistics, for example: either you take care of it yourself, or you opt for fulfilment by the marketplace (when they offer it, of course).

The market share of marketplaces in online purchases is very large – and still growing every year. This makes it a very interesting sales channel, but it can certainly be overwhelming at first. Our Xplorers are happy to help you on your way. We can help choose the right tools and channels, set up the accounts and make sure you meet all the sales requirements. With our experience, we’ll make sure you avoid rookie mistakes.

B2C: Start your own marketplace

Do you have your own webshop, but would you like to offer your customers more products? Then starting a marketplace might be a great solution.

The advantages:

You can offer your customers a bigger assortment of products, without having any of the logistical challenges that come with offering a bigger assortment
You wont miss any selling opportunities
You’ll get free insights into what works and what doesn’t, by monitoring the sales of other vendors on your platform

B2B marketplaces

For B2B, no marketplace existed until recently. (Amazon, Bol, Decathlon, Zalando, etc have a strong B2C focus!) So to sell your products to resellers as a wholesaler, brand or distributor, you had to invest in expensive showrooms, (foreign) agents or your own B2B webshop. A few years ago, this changed with the introduction of B2B marketplaces.

On such B2B marketplaces, as a wholesaler or brand with your own products, you open a shop page (digital showroom) and the many connected resellers can purchase not only from you, but from all connected players with one click. This offers some great advantages:

A digital showroom usually is free of charge, only commission is charged
Your collection can be seen and ordered from anywhere in the world in an instant
You can benefit from ‘on platform tools’ such as analytics, email marketing and even shipping services if you prefer not to do the logistics yourself
Most of these marketplaces can now be automated via API connections with, for example, Magento, Shopify, Shopware, Odoo and/or an integrator such as Channable

At Xplore Group, we have helped several companies with the selection of the right B2B marketplace(s), onboarding on the platform, automation, training and sales optimisation. So we are happy to help you.