How to build a white label Dealer Distributor B2B Marketplace

Interesting things are happening in the B2B marketplace ecosystem. 

For starters, building a distributor marketplace website has become a norm for B2B companies.

Secondly, securing a brand presence in the staggering $20.9 trillion B2B market where B2B ecommerce is forecasted to grow at a jaw-dropping 20.2% CAGR from 2023 to 2030 is imperative for businesses aiming to thrive in the digital era.

Thirdly, B2B buyers are increasingly asking for B2C-like experiences and B2B brands have to comply by making B2B buying simpler.

In this ever-evolving landscape, adaptation and innovation are key to staying ahead of the curve.

And building a white label dealer distributor marketplace enables enterprise brands to differentiate themselves, establish stronger connections with their distributors, and cater to the evolving needs and preferences of their B2B buyers.

Let us learn more about it and the steps needed to build, market and scale a dealer network-powered B2B website.

How Buyers Interact With B2B MArketplace Websites

The pandemic-induced disruptions and rapid changes in brand-distributor-buyer behavior reshaped the way business-to-business transactions, services and relations were perceived and executed. 

Sample some data that illustrate the magnitude of these changes:

• 90%+ of B2B organizations have moved to sell through digital channels
• 94% of B2B buyers use online marketplaces to source products/services
• 74% of B2B buyers find buying from a B2B website easier than buying offline 
• 89% B2b buyers say consistent experience across channels is essential to their loyalty
• 90% of B2B buyers would switch to a competitor website if their supplier/manufacturer’s website fails to keep up with their needs
• 72% B2B buyers expect personalized experiences across all channels
• 250% increase in mobile B2B orders from 2020 to 2024
• 70% customers expect their B2B marketplace to offer self-service

Source: Forbes, McKinsey & Company, Digital Commerce 360, Gartner, LinkedIn 

The message for B2B companies is loud and clear. They need to build a strong multi-channel digital presence and create a B2B marketplace that stands out by offering personalized experiences to its clients in a self-serviced distributor marketplace environment. 

Sounds like a lot to do.

Let’s negotiate the challenge step-by-step.

How to align your B2B Distribution Marketplace with changing buyer expectations

Well, the answer is simple.

By building a white label dealer distributor B2B marketplace. 

Wonder why and how this singular decision can be a game changer for your B2B company.

Let us delve deeper and evaluate everything associated with building a branded B2B marketplace to manage your dealer distributor network. 

To begin let us start with understanding what a white label distributor marketplace is and how it is different from a regular marketplace. 

What is a white label distributor B2B Marketplace

A white label distributor B2B marketplace is a branded marketplace website where your brand’s products and services are sold to other businesses ( retailers, wholesalers, and other manufacturer’s that use your products or service to create new products or services) using your brand’s distributor network located at different places. 

The distributors can directly receive orders from other businesses on the marketplace website and fulfill the orders using their preferred fulfillment channels. Alternatively, you can set up a chain of branded sub-stores for different distributors based on their product lines, services, geolocation etc. and control these substores from a common central admin. 

Setting up multi-location vendor stores goes a long way in streamlining operations and paves the way for faster and hassle-free hyperlocal fulfillment.

How does a  white label distributor B2B Marketplace work

A distributor based marketplace website is designed to receive and fulfill orders through its network of distributors. These distributors can either help in procuring products, offering additional services, reselling manufactured products by the marketplace brand, create new products using the manufactured products of the parent brand or come together as a B2B2C unit selling products to the end buyers.

This is how a typical distributor marketplace works:

• Enterprise Brand onboards its distributors onto the white label B2B marketplace, including their product catalogs.
• Buyers ( other businesses) request a quote from various distributors and choose the best-fit proposal. Clients then place orders directly on the marketplace website through the chosen distributor.
• Built-in marketplace ordering system notifies respective distributors of the orders placed for their products.
• Distributors fulfill orders using their preferred fulfillment channels, updating order status on the platform.
• Buyers receive deliveries and can access post-sales support through the marketplace platform.

In a  white label B2B marketplace, the front end, backend, notifications etc will be customized and rebranded with the B2B company’s logo, color schemes, messaging etc. 

This simple customization and branding goes a long way in offering brands branding control and tailored user experiences across channels. With the flexibility for customizations, B2B brands can create a tailored ecosystem using their preferred software and service providers and expand their brand presence across digital channels.

Why B2B Enterprises should build a white label marketplace for their distributor network 

B2B enterprise brands should consider building a white label marketplace to onboard and manage their distributor network for several compelling reasons:

Improved Brand Presence and Visibility

Building a branded white label marketplace enables enterprises to showcase their brand in a better and strategic manner through their main and distributor websites/pages on the marketplace. This singular change in turn reinforces brand identity and credibility among buyers.

Better Control and Customization 

By building their own white label distributor B2B marketplace, enterprises can get the control to tweak their software solution and align their marketplace with the specific business goals and the needs of their distributors. Opting for a white label marketplace website for their distributors enables brands to build tailored marketplace software and integrate preferred software to build a unique ecosystem. This set-up gives brands full control over branding, use of built-in features, and user experience. 

Streamlined Operations

 When brands build their marketplace website and bring their complete distributor network onboard they get centralized visibility and control over their business. With centralized control, marketplace brands can standardize and modernize their processes and introduce multi level efficiency (ordering processes, inventory management, and communication between enterprises-distributors-clients) in their business. Such a set up greatly reduces administrative efforts and automates the processes.

Improved Partner Relationships

Giving a digital channel to your distributors through your white label marketplace fosters stronger brand-distributor relationships. Your vendors can use the freedom and flexibility offered by digital sales channels to grow their business. By leveraging the marketplace brand’s branding they can bolster client relationships and go a, enhancing collaboration, transparency, and trust between enterprises and their distribution partners.

Increased Sales Opportunities

By building a white label marketplace for a dealer-based set up your enterprise brand can showcase its full product catalog to distributors and buyers in one place. By offering multiple products and services to choose from, you will be able to engage and convert buyers better. With improved sales, each distributor and the marketplace brand will have better growth  opportunities.

Data Insights and Analytics

Onboarding and facilitating your distributors to do business digitally through your marketplace website gives you access to a variety of data about buyer behavior, preferences and shopping patterns. You can integrate analytics and leverage this data generated to gain valuable insights and strategically plan your growth.

Adaptability and Scalability

By offering a distributor marketplace set up to your vendors you standardize and modernize your processes and help your sellers adapt to the changing market conditions. Opening up digital sales channels paves the way to scalability and reach beyond geographical boundaries. With an easy-to-use marketplace, your business becomes agile in adopting and aligning with the changing market dynamics, scaling operations and accommodating future growth.  

Competitive Advantage

By offering the best dealer distributor marketplace to your vendors, you can easily differentiate their enterprise  brand from competitors. This gives your business and associated distributors an added USP and enhances their market position.

Bringing your business online through a distributor-based marketplace website has many benefits. However, to achieve your goals you would require cutting-edge enterprise marketplace solutions that are designed to keep up with your current as well as future requirements. 

8 features to look for in your white label Distributor-based B2B Marketplace 

To leverage the full potential of your white label marketplace setup you need to ensure that the solution powering your marketplace website comes with a host of features to enable strategic growth.

Here is what you should be looking for in your enterprise marketplace solutions and a detailed analysis of how the feature will help your marketplace brand:

Gives your B2B marketplace Technological Edge

You are not building a marketplace just for your current requirements. The primary goal of going digital is to have better growth, visibility and ease of doing business. So your B2B dealer-distributor marketplace should be powered by a platform that is built on headless architecture and gives you better creative control to build tailored solutions as per your requirements.

Takes your Brand Omnichannel

Gone are the times when having a put-together website and a strong offline presence did the trick for you. Modern B2B buyers want to interact with enterprises across 4-6 touchpoints. The enterprise marketplace builder of your choice should therefore come with omnichannel solutions that enable you to add multiple touchpoints quickly and without the need to rewrite the whole backend logic afresh.

Makes M-commerce Easy

Mobile is the most lucrative digital sales channel across industries.

• $18.77 trillion is the forecasted B2B m-commerce market size by 2027 
• 70% of B2B purchase journeys begin on a mobile device

Source: Statista

With mobile being the most preferred sales channel of business-to-business buyers it becomes imperative to go with an enterprise ecommerce solution that is built on mobile-first principles. While you should have a B2B marketplace app for your buyers you should also be able to convert your marketplace into a PWA store for dealers and buyers situated in different areas in India/globally who might be using a slow internet connection.

Also having a mobile admin for admin teams, distributors/sellers and delivery boys will be a plus as then the complete business could be handled on the go.

Scales to Accommodate Growth 

 Assess well the white label marketplace platform's ability to handle the growth in distributors, their catalogs, geolocations and the subsequent traffic and transactions growth due to a better product offering on your B2B marketplace. 

Make sure you are getting elastic scalability and 99.99% uptime so your business runs smoothly at all times and there are no issues during peak load.

Has room for quick and Easy Customizations

The primary reason for opting for a white label marketplace is to build a tailored solution for unique business needs. So it is of utmost importance to ensure that your chosen platform is flexible enough to accommodate multi-level customizations. 

From branding the frontend to branding the backend, your brand messaging and other channels and also customizations to implement personalisation and internationalization, all should be available and possible with your chosen enterprise marketplace builder.

Seamless Integration Capabilities

When you have a distributor-based business set up your marketplace infrastructure needs to deal with a variety of ERP, accounting, marketing, shipping and payment solutions used by your sellers. When you digitize your sales channels your supporting enterprise marketplace software should be capable of integrating all the existing and new software and services used by your distributors and other teams.

Ensure that your B2B marketplace platform offers seamless API-based integrations with third-party systems and tools, payment gateways, CRM software, warehouse management systems etc. to carry out business smoothly.

Robust Multi-Level Security

When dealing with multi-levels of vendors and their sub-vendors along with a huge product catalog and clients from diverse geographies it becomes utmost important to have a super-secure system in place. While your white label B2B marketplace teams and distributors work in tandem to achieve your brand goals, each participant and your clients should have the trust that their critical information and business details are safe.

To ensure this, look for a white label marketplace website builder that comes with built-in security features and is powered by a PCI-DSS-compliant platform. Also, make sure there are security features like user roles, audit logs etc to identify, control and revert damages if any.   

Cost-Effective Solution

You are entering into a long-term relationship with your distributor marketplace solution provider, hence it is important to ensure that the pricing and any other expenses are transparent and within your budget.

Look for an enterprise marketplace solution that has plans for your budget and does not snowball your costs by adding additional paid apps, extensions or plugins. Also, check if you get free-of-cost updates and upgrades of software in the coming years.

StoreHippo comes with comprehensive features and solutions to build the best dealer distributor marketplace for enterprise brands across the globe. With 300+ enterprise-grade features and support for diverse business models, StoreHippo is the go-to marketplace builder for enterprises looking to build tailored software for managing and growing their distributor network.

Why Choose StoreHippo To Build White Label Dealer Distributor B2B Marketplace

Deciding to digitize your entire business along with your sellers businesses is not a mean feat. To accomplish your goals and create a smooth onboarding process for your distributors, you need to rely on the experience and expertise of an industry leader marketplace solution provider that has experience in handling enterprises across industries.

StoreHippo, the leading white label marketplace solution provider has all the features, tools and expertise needed to create advanced marketplace websites for a distributor-based business. 

Here are the top reasons why StoreHippo is the first choice of enterprises planning to disrupt the market:

1. Future-Proof Enterprise Marketplace Solutions

The world of ecommerce is changing at a speed like never before and to keep your business ahead of the curve you need future-ready technology that can adapt to the changing market dynamics and give you the agility to make quick changes.

Powered by MACH architecture (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-Native Headless) StoreHippo gives enterprises the flexibility to create unique white label marketplace environments that are aligned with brand tonality and pitch. 

Brands can easily build innovative marketplace websites and sub-stores for their distributor network and tweak the backend and frontend without causing disruptions in flow or business operations.

2. Complete B2B Ecommerce Solutions

When your distributors adopt the digital sales route they need to have a variety of B2B features needed to run the business as they were doing online. StoreHippo comes equipped with a host of B2B features like multi-pricing, RFQ, MOQ, form builder, bulk order processing, credit management, customized invoices and many more.

Also, the distributor’s admin dashboard can be customized in multiple languages to enable doing business in the native language of your sellers.

3. Designed For Success

Gone are the days when Your marketplace website’s design is your most valuable asset and your invisible salesperson. 

StoreHippo comes with built-in design themes and a rich, device-optimized themes library that helps you design well-crafted, engaging, and conversion-oriented marketplace websites to captivate and convert visitors.  

You can use the drag-and-drop design feature, use old designs to mix and match and create new templates, get multilingual support in themes (including RTL languages) and customize existing themes according to the unique requirements of your white label marketplace. 

4. Ace Mobile Commerce 

Mobile is our lifeline, from searching to connecting with sellers and eventually buying, customer journeys have shifted to mobiles. Be it your distributors or the buyers, everyone prefers a mobile channel to do business with your brand’s B2b marketplace. 

Since already 73% of orders are placed via smartphones, it is essential to have the right tools and solutions to leverage the channel. StoreHippo  is built grounds up on mobile-first principles. With a built-in mobile apps builder, features to convert stories into PWAs and admin apps for internal teams, distributors and delivery boys, the B2B solution provider takes care of all the requirements of your enterprise brand. 

5. Tailored B2B Marketplace website

Well, the main reason opting for white label solutions is to create a unique brand presence. And to achieve this you need a solution provider that gives you the flexibility, scalability and integration capabilities to build your unique marketplace software. 

StoreHippo's scalable cloud-native solutions and decoupled headless platform give your distributor marketplace the freedom and agility to implement changes without worrying about scalability. Grow your business to any number of distributors, buyers, products and verticals, StoreHippo B2B marketplace solutions have you covered. 

6. Distributor Management Solutions and Seller Pages Functionality

Onboarding, training and enabling digital selling for your vast distributor network is quite a task. But with comprehensive solutions from StoreHippo, it becomes easy, streamlined and transparent. You can easily onboard your distributors to your marketplace and help them learn the ropes using the intuitive seller admin panel given to each distributor. 

While your vendors can manage their catalogs, inventory, orders and shipping the admin teams can easily handle distributor commissions, discounts, promotions, payouts etc.

The built in seller ledger and adaptive payments further simplify managing commissions and distributing  multi seller orders’ payment among different sellers.

What’s more you can even give separate sub-stores or unique seller pages to each distributor on your distributor marketplace website.

7. Take your B2B Marketplace Omnichannel 

B2B buyers connect and evaluate your brand across 4-6 channels on an average before finalizing the purchase. If their favorite brand is not on their preferred channels buyers do not hesitate in switching brands and exploring new enterprise marketplaces.

But with StoreHippo powering your enterprise business, you can easily create an omnichannel  brand presence. Using the same backend logic and APIs you can create new frontends and connect with your buyers on your distributor marketplace website, mobile apps, PWA store, drive traffic from social channels to your site and even add new-age sales channels easily.

8. Make Integrations Easy

Bringing a huge distributor network to your B2B marketplace implies integrating their existing software to ensure smooth business operations. Your marketplace website powered by StoreHippo can easily integrate the existing ERP, accounting, CRM, delivery partners, payment solutions or any other software and services used by your sellers. 

With 300+ API endpoints integrating existing and new software becomes easy and helps you and your distributors to introduce efficiency in the system. You can also use 120+ built-in integrations of StoreHippo to create your unique white label marketplace ecosystem. 

StoreHippo comes with 60+ pre-integrated payment solutions and 30+ integrated shipping partners to make selling and fulfillment easier for your distributors. You can also leverage the built-in delivery boy management solutions to streamline and optimize the delivery boys network of your sellers and ensure seamless fulfillment. 

9. One Platform for Multiple Business Models

StoreHippo comes with inherent support for a variety of business models and hybrid businesses. You can run both B2B and B2C businesses ( or any hybrid models like B2B2C, B2B+D2C, B2B+ hyperlocal etc) from the same platform and have a centralized control.

What’s more you can use the built in global solutions like multilingual and multi currency support along with a powerful tax engine to smoothly build and run an international distributor marketplace website. 

10. Hack growth with Built-in MArketing Tools

Growing your business becomes easy when you have access to built in marketing tools that enable you to make strategic marketing plans. Using StoreHippo’s gamut of marketing tools like SEO features (unique product page URL, meta tags, canonical url, etc), discount engine, blog engine, unified notifications and automated abandoned cart follow-up features you can create personalized and conversion-oriented buyer journeys easily. 

StoreHippo’s powerful reporting engine gives you a complete snapshot of your business right in your admin dashboard. You can also integrate with analytics and marketing software of your choice to build data-driven growth strategies.

11. Future-Proofing with Updates and Upgrades 

StoreHippo is dedicated to being your partner as you grow your business. To support your growth Storehippo keeps adding new features aligned with current market dynamics. StoreHippo PCI-DSS compliant enterprise marketplace solutions also ensure the safety of your business by offering multi level security through data encryption, SSL certificate, PCI-DSS compliant payment gateways, and secure user access trails.

StoreHippo is a complete package and one-stop solution for enterprise businesses looking forward to building a modern, standardized and efficient distributor B2B marketplace for their brand.

10-step process to build a distributor B2B marketplace for Enterprises

With StoreHippo's enterprise marketplace website builder, building and launching your distributor-based multi-seller store is an easy breezy process.   

Here is how you can get started with your launch and secure a foothold in the competitive B2b market:

Step 1: Choose your subscription plan with StoreHippo

• Explore StoreHippo 14-day free trial and experience the features and capabilities of the platform first-hand. 
• Connect with a Storehippo expert to get more details and scope and costs of the proposed customisations for your white label marketplace. 
• Choose the most suitable subscription plan ( Enterprise or Platinum), pay for it and get started.

Step 2: Begin White Labeling and Customisations

• Customize and whitelabel your marketplace using built-in design and white labeling tools
• Add your logo, color schemes, and layout.
• Whitelabel your notification channels.

Step 3: Set up hierarchical Categories

• Decide different categories and subcategories based on the catalogs of your distributors offerings.
• Test the marketplace using various dummy categories.

Step 4: Onboard Distributors and add commission/payout rules

• Onboard your vendors and ask them to upload their catalogs.
• Set up commission and payout rules for different distributors.
• Give separate dashboards and seller stores/pages to each distributor on your white label B2B marketplace.

Step 5: Go Multichannel with Marketplace Apps and PWA website

• Build Android and iOS B2B apps to make buying easier.
• Turn your marketplace into PWA and add more customer touchpoints ( if planned) to connect with buyers across channels.

Step 6: Assign Different user roles

• Set up different user accounts, roles and access levels for your distributors and their sub-sellers.
• Add authentication and verification for different buyer and seller accounts. 

Step 7: Integrate Your Chosen Software and Service Providers

• Seamlessly integrate your and you're distributors’ ERP, accounting or any other software.
• Offer frictionless checkouts using StoreHippo’s 60+ payment gateways and digital payment options.
• Ensure hassle-free deliveries using 30+ pre-integrated StoreHippo delivery partners or use delivery boy management solutions to leverage your distributors’ delivery agents network.

Step 8: Ensure Security

• Build a multi-level security by implementing SSL, authentication, OTP based login and more. 
• Leverage authentication and authorisation features to authenticate logins and deliveries.

Step 9: Plan SEO and Marketing for your Distributor Marketplace

• Optimize your marketplace website using built-in SEO tools features like meta tags, descriptions, canonical URLs etc.
• Leverage the built-in marketing tools to implement strategic multi channel marketing to add more sellers and buyers to your white label marketplace.
• Offer personalized discounts and coupons with the powerful discount engine.
• Integrate best marketing and analytics software, social media channels etc to build a strong brand presence and recall. 

Step 10: Test go live with your Distributor Marketplace 

• Test your marketplace thoroughly at each step of ordering and user access.
• Send some real test orders to ensure smooth operations flow.
• Launch your white label B2B marketplace and publicize its launch through digital and offline marketing channels.
• Monitor the performance of your distributors across markets and channels using built-in reports.
• Review and improve your marketplace to adapt to changing market dynamics.

StoreHippo offers comprehensive features and tools needed for launching a distributor-based white label marketplace for your brand. Go to market in record time using the battle-test white labeled enterprise marketplace solutions by StoreHippo.

Conclusion

B2B ecommerce is going through changes like never before and brands are doing everything possible to engage and keep their buyers. The decision to build and launch your distributor marketplace and onboard digitize your sales channels can prove to be the best decision for your enterprise when executed strategically.

To unleash the full potential of your white-label distributor marketplace it is essential to power your brand with a flexible, scalable and feature-rich enterprise marketplace builder that has a proven track record of powering enterprise B2B brands across industries. 

StoreHippo the best enterprise marketplace solutions makes your brand’s digitisation and modernisation a breeze with its 300+ built-in enterprise-grade features and support for a variety of business models (B2B, B2C, D2C, B2B2C, Hyperlocal commerce etc.). Right from understanding your requirements to tweaking the platform and planning your successful onboarding or replatforming, the expert team of StoreHippo is there to guide and assist you every step of the way. 

B2B, B2B2C or any other hybrid model, whatever you choose StoreHippo has the expertise and features to build your white label dealer distributor B2B marketplace.  

Ready to explore the white label enterprise B2B marketplace solutions of StoreHippo? Book your free demo right away.