Business-to-business marketplaces bring businesses together to enable online wholesale purchases, distributions, imports, exports, and other commercial transactions. Even though the substantial size and volume of B2B transactions, there are many benefits for sellers participating in these marketplace environments:
Find and conduct new business :
Marketplaces bring businesses together, contributing to the meeting of new partners and the conduction of new trade. The extensive reach offered by marketplaces also minimises the costs of finding and promoting new customers.
Improve liquidity :
To the wide potential customer base, marketplaces include the ability for businesses to present their entire product catalogues to interested viewers, a part form dynamically responding to requests for bids and quotes, and anchor inventory.
Reduce costs on purchasing :
Up to 15% of waste and supplier margin reductions are possible by using B2B e-commerce solutions, whereas search costs and price transparency become achievable goals within this environment.
Lower transaction costs :
The standardisation and automation of the agreement, inquiring, ordering and paying processes that B2B marketplaces favour help reducing transaction costs.
Monitor spending :
B2B marketplace solutions enable business to gather information about their buying patterns, allowing the improvement of resources and the reduction of corporate spending. In addition, suppliers find a way to better provide the needs of their customers.
Increase efficiency :
Automated procurement processes and workflows allow companies to increase the efficiency of their supply chain.
Forecast transactions :
Marketplaces allow business to analyse their transactions data, enabling sellers to better match their products and services, as well as the time their production schedules, to fit customers' needs.
The advantages of B2B marketplaces for buyers are mainly focused on the increase of efficiency and the reduction on costs. By decreasing manual processes, cycle times between order and fulfilment, and individual acquisitions in favour of line item purchase orders, buyers can easily increase the efficiency of their procurement. Likewise, by automating the procurement function they can drastically lower the costs of process transactions by nearly 70%, as well as monitor their spending and reduce maverick buying.
Business-to-Consumer marketplaces are platforms allowing businesses to directly transact with end-users of their products, prompting customer service and a deepest communication between the retailer and the end-consumer. Amongst the several benefits of participating in B2C online markets the e-retailer can take advantage of:
Increased responsiveness :
Marketplaces give brands and retailers empowering information about the market trends, the competitors' strategies, and the views and opinions of their customers, which allows them to better position themselves within the market.
Enhanced interaction :
The ability to interact more directly with customers gives marketers and retailers the chance to educate the consumer in order to prompt increased, conscious and satisfied purchases. Interactive retailers win in return greater authority in the marketplace.
Improved customer service :
Marketplaces are websites which prompt feedback from customers to retailers, and informative response from marketers to their end-users. Customers receiving a much more robust service raises the retailer's value.
Refined analysis and messaging :
Data about customers provided by marketplaces allows retailers to refine their service, and to identify when customers are more receptive to receiving advertising messages and marketing campaigns.
Despite the socialization street-shopping consumer habits, online marketplaces are increasingly popular, not only since the explosion of social networking, but also because of the many advantages customers receive from participating in them. The awareness of the benefits of B2C marketplaces makes online shopping a growing trend which prompts new behaviours and values. Amongst these benefits, there are ten remarkable advantages:
- 1.24/7 facility
- 2.Self-service shopping
- 3.No space or time limitations
- 4.Accurate orders
- 5.Accurate and prompt payments
- 6.Transaction security and buyer protection policies
- 7.Lower costs
- 8.Quicker order amending and cancelling facilities
- 9.Larger catalogues
- 10.More customised service
Innovative ways to allow consumers to interact with each other, C2C marketplaces facilitate secure environments for customers to trade goods and services to each other. The online interface eases the straightforward exploration for buyers and the rapid listing and selling of items. However, there exist many other advantages to the use of C2C marketplaces for both buyers and sellers:
Convenience :
The marketplace enables anyone to advertise a product in the convenience of their home, without the need of hiring expensive professional marketer services or promotional spaces.
Easiness for start-ups :
The convenience of sale that C2C marketplaces favour eases the way for start-up companies to begin promoting and selling their goods or services with minimal economic risks.
Access to wide markets :
C2C marketplaces allow small sellers and individuals to reach both national and international customers, thus greatly increasing their market.
Reduction of costs :
The reduction of search, distribution and inventory costs add up to the reduction of intermediaries, which helps both buyers and sellers participating in C2C marketplaces.
Simplification of processes :
Online markets prompt the simplification of the search, order, payment, distribution and inventory processes, favouring sales while reducing costs which affects to the sellers' gains as well as to the products' price.
Variety :
C2C marketplaces, especially auction-based markets, favour the trade of a large variety of products, including handmade, collectables and second-hand goods, which would otherwise remain geographically inaccessible for a large part of the buyers.
Consumer interaction :
More direct interaction between seller and consumer, as well as between consumers, enabled by C2C marketplaces, contributes to the creation and improvement of products, services and brands.
Feedback.
Most C2C marketplaces are based on consumers' comments, which aid both sellers building their reputation and other potential customers with the decision-making process.
Connectivity and trust :
Marketplaces build connectivity between sellers and buyers and help build trust – which allows the transaction processes – through the feedback comments received by customers and other sellers.
New values :
Most C2C marketplaces favour personalisation, collaborative consumption and co-creativity, prompting new acquisition values – such as the purchase of useful, long-lasting, quality and/or ecologically conscious products – and empowering the consumer role.
