Marketplace

Technology has evolved tremendously in recent years, and the majority of activities now take place online. Romanians have become accustomed to purchasing various products online, from clothing to food and appliances. Therefore, all those who own a store should make a business plan to operate online as well, to maximize profit and increase visibility.

Famous marketplace platforms have come to the aid of Romanians and are increasingly appreciated.

What is a marketplace?

A marketplace platform is a new method of selling products, allowing entrepreneurs to promote their goods in a marketplace that already has an established audience. This platform facilitates sales and connects sellers with buyers.

For instance, if an entrepreneur conducts business online, selling products on their own website often requires a significant investment in online marketing, platform promotion, and optimization. However, selling products on a marketplace can be much more cost-effective. Why do we assert this? Such a platform already has a dedicated audience and can stand out through attractive offers and a wide range of products without investing heavily in online promotion.

Why sell on a marketplace?

In the current competitive landscape, where competition is increasing every day, marketplaces represent a growth opportunity that you should not miss. There are numerous advantages to joining an online platform, including:

1. As mentioned earlier, a marketplace already has a large and quality audience that you can rely on. You don’t need to invest in SEO and PPC to drive traffic to your online store platform. The traffic you need is already on the marketplace.
2. It is performance-oriented, both economically and in terms of the fact that the platform’s traffic arrives with the clear intention to make a purchase. The buying intent is often higher on a marketplace compared to other online channels.
3. Selling on a marketplace can be much cheaper than on an online store. For example, if you want to expand abroad, where you have no online presence, the best option for selling is on a marketplace, rather than creating a website from scratch and investing in SEO and PPC.

Does this business model appeal to you? Then, this article is exactly what you need if you want to establish your own marketplace where other entrepreneurs can sell their goods.

Determine your value and business model

Before venturing online with a marketplace, it is essential to ensure you have a viable idea to work with. After all, how can you build such a platform that works if you don’t represent a real interest for online commerce entrepreneurs?

Building a customer base

Market research is essential to precisely understand how you can effectively focus your marketplace for success. For example, what type of users will the platform cater to, and how will it differentiate itself from the competition?

Choose a business model

In addition to organizing the customer base, you will need to decide on the business model for your marketplace. Will you charge a commission for each sale made on this platform, or will you offer subscriptions to entrepreneurs? You need to know exactly from the beginning in which direction you want to focus your attention and what benefits you provide to users.

Marketing

The main challenge is that, of course, buyers won’t use the marketplace without sellers and vice versa. Suppliers and customers should come to the platform simultaneously. How do you achieve this? At this stage, you should spend some money on advertising. Many platforms of this kind invest in online and offline marketing to attract clients. You can collaborate with bloggers/vloggers to become ambassadors for your brand.

We advise you to involve marketing specialists in the development of such a platform to successfully attract the target audience, both in terms of buyers and sellers.

Design process

The correct choice of software technology for developing the marketplace platform defines whether the virtual business will be sustainable or fail on the day of Black Friday sales when the site will be crowded with buyers.

Other features for success with a marketplace

After overcoming the initial stages, your platform will be a stable and growing business unit. Later on, you will need to expand with new features to attract a large number of both suppliers and customers.

Product Images and Videos

If you follow the example of Amazon, you must pay special attention to product presentations, which need to be of high quality. Visual content is a proven technique to generate a large number of customers, and your suppliers will certainly appreciate the impact on sales.

• One-click ordering is one of the most wonderful options for the buyer. By adding this button, the marketplace shows its interest in giving the customer a short order completion time.
• Mobile applications are a costly pleasure, but they can increase your visitor flow. You can create a mobile app for a marketplace, as people spend hours on their mobile phones every day.

In conclusion, a marketplace is a real help for the growth of entrepreneurs’ businesses and for customers as well, as they will be able to compare market offers and make the best choice. In the current situation and in the future, shopping from such platforms will undoubtedly be appreciated by a considerable number of people.