1. Enhance Efficiency in Operations

It is essential to succeed in B2B development at any stage, and the best way to do this is to utilize a marketplace. Your B2B sales operation may be dispersed and disconnected across channels and departments, but a marketplace will tremendously improve your B2B efficiency.

eCommerce platform should be able to integrate orders and inventory across all your channels. Thus, you can offer consistent experiences to your customers across all your channels. Regardless of how they place an order—on your eCommerce website, in your marketplace, or your physical store—they'll receive the same level of service. By using a marketplace, you can optimize delivery and fulfilment processes, keeping customers happy and saving you money.

2. Gaining New Customers

An effective customer acquisition strategy is a crucial element of B2B eCommerce success, and it is another area in which a marketplace can assist you. In a HubSpot study, 73% of marketers said acquiring new customers was their top social media goal for 2021, and 49% of companies said increasing customer acquisition was the top objective. Therefore, customer acquisition is essential to the success of any eCommerce business.

What can a B2B marketplace do to improve its customer acquisition efforts? B2B buyers are generally accustomed to clunky websites and the time-consuming in-person buying process. With a well-built market, it can be a godsend for them. If the marketplace software is user-friendly and the website is beautifully designed, it will attract B2B buyers much more than their bread and butter.
Thus, prospective buyers have a lower entry barrier by using a marketplace. Signing up should take a few minutes if your signup procedures are straightforward (and they should be).

3. Improving Vendor Management

"If you want something done correctly, do it yourself", goes the old saying, but sadly, it's not always possible with B2B eCommerce. Many B2B organizations use marketplaces to source their goods and services from multiple partners and vendors because managing the complexities of different relationships can be frustrating. Thus, an effective B2B marketplace should have various features, including numerous vendor order management, multiple vendor inventory management, efficient logistics, and many more.

Final Thoughts

Importance of scalability.

Many businesses aim to profit from economies of scale, but for B2B eCommerce to work, you need a system to scale up with your company. You can't have more orders and interest in your products and services than your technology can handle; a scalable platform is needed where a marketplace comes into its own, as scalability is baked into a good marketplace. In the right hands, you can even gain a huge competitive advantage if you master the business fundamentals that assure your marketplace scales.

Ensure the buying and procurement process is as simple as possible by building trust with B2B buyers and ensuring enough sellers and buyers. Previously, breaking offline buying habits was also a key consideration. Even though this may still be an issue for some buyers, more decision-makers in B2B are ordering online to avoid the pandemic. Research has shown that in a B2B setting, 44% of millennials prefer not to interact with sales representatives at all. Thus, your B2B marketplace should be able to shine once those fundamentals are in place.

You will enjoy immense growth opportunities if you partner with the right service provider. Get a better start with Zooloo. Our team is happy to assist you with your journey towards digital transformation. Please contact us at sales@zooloo.asia.

• Find some tips on B2B Sales Strategies
• Looking closer at Marketing Strategies
• Read about The Digital Transformation Journey
• Learn more about our “Digital Backbones”

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