27 July 2023
It’s no longer a secret: developing a B2B marketplace represents a financial opportunity many companies are considering to improve their performance, enhance their reputation and increase their sales. For buyers, it also means better product access and shorter delays. A win-win situation for everyone? Yes, especially for salespeople who want to focus on their core business: selling!
Starting a marketplace requires the integration of a solution that automates several commercial processes. It means time and efficiency savings for your sales team: no more tedious tasks and time-consuming administrative tasks with little added value. Your teams have more time to focus on complex sales, advise prospects or maintain customer relations. In a nutshell, the B2B marketplace model enables sales reps to invest more time in high-added-value tasks that contribute to your sales growth.
Having a B2B marketplace opens the door to a new era. It gives you access to more commercial partners, buyers, and suppliers, making it possible to create a large database of prospects to whom you can send proposals or personalised offers. Building up such a portfolio without a marketplace takes up much more time and energy for your sales teams!
A new era means opening up to the European market and even internationally. The marketplace greatly facilitates worldwide expansion and growth. The result is a huge number of potential customers and the opportunity to make (many) more sales.
Note that your marketplace’s product catalogue is also important: if the sales team realises that a customer need is not covered, they can report it so the market can list a seller who meets that need. This improved responsiveness means more customers can be satisfied and loyal, so more orders can be finalised! At the same time, the increase of offers encourages buyers to try out more products. Ultimately, this means lower management costs and higher margins.
On a B2B marketplace, you can place an order at any time, day or night, on weekdays or weekends, during public holidays… 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The marketplace is open! This is particularly useful for international trade, which sometimes involves dealing with different time zones. And thanks to your marketplace’s back office, you can offer preferential rates, display the status of orders, etc. At the same time, automating certain tasks means you can limit the risk of errors and order cancellations by having a real-time overview of the situation. And when sales processes are more efficient, your customers benefit too: your marketplace improves your salespeople’s turnover and boosts your profitability. Two birds with one stone!
A real sales aid, the marketplace is like a “super” salesperson. It responds to customer needs by providing the right information and offering the possibility of ordering anytime, under pre-negotiated conditions.
It’s always essential to keep an eye on the competition. Analysing product ranges, the quality offered, and the prices charged… Your sales staff can easily access their direct competitors by tapping into the Internet to carry out a competitive intelligence survey. Practical, but not enough! To stand out from the crowd and remain competitive in the market, the marketplace offers greater analytical capacity: all the sales data is centralised on the dashboard so that sales reps can refine their analysis to adapt their sales strategy better and improve sales efficiency.
Generally, marketplace sellers oversee procurement, stock and delivery while managing the main marketing tasks. This helps to reduce operating costs, improve profitability, and free the marketplace from logistical constraints. As a result, the sales team no longer has to worry about supply chain issues; they can refer to the information provided by the sellers and concentrate on their core business: selling.
On a large-scale B2B marketplace, payment processes must also be fluid and flexible to meet buyer expectations by offering various payment and invoicing options and conditions. These solutions simplify the payment process and make it easier to keep track of accounts. They boost confidence and encourage transactions!
More suppliers, greater appeal to buyers and lower costs… The B2B marketplace is also an effective way to promote your brand and considerably increase your online presence. For your sales teams, it’s an opportunity to “upgrade” their work: they have more time to maintain good relations with their prospects and customers and devote themselves to missions that directly impact your company’s growth.
Lemonway is the ideal partner to help you develop your marketplace through the management of financial flows: an ergonomic purchase path to increase the conversion rate, simplified accounting, as well as a variety of payment methods that combine security and reliability, and an intuitive dashboard…
More than 400 marketplaces trust us, why shouldn’t you? If you want to set up a B2B marketplace open to the European market or offer your sellers efficient, fast, and secure payment solutions, contact one of our experts!
