How To Build A B2B Marketplace Website
You can choose to build your B2B marketplace website from scratch or use a turnkey online marketplace software to get a readymade solution. Whatever be your choice you will have to go through the following process:
Step 1: Decide the core idea you want to focus on
Step 2: Work on the name of your business and get it registered
Step 3: Get all your paperwork done to comply with the law of the land where you would be operating your business
Step 4: Buy a domain for your business
Step 5: Choose the solution provider(development company, turnkey solution or a combination of both) to build a B2B marketplace website
Step 6: Onboard distributors, suppliers and manufacturers on your multi-vendor ecommerce store
Step 7: Set up a support team to help your customers with their orders
Step 8:Get your site live and roll out a marketing campaign to create a buzz about your business
Step 9: That’s it, get ready to earn commissions on every order!
How Much Does It Cost To Build A B2B Marketplace Website
Depending on how you build your multi-vendor online store your cost can range anywhere between $25,000 to $180,000. It totally depends on the complexity of your project, the type of solution you chose. Also, it would require anywhere around 6-12 months for a dedicated team of developers to build, test and get it live.
Also, if you want to go for Android and iOS mobile apps, that would cost a few hundred thousand bucks additionally. Top this up with the cost of maintaining and upgrading which would be a regular recurring cost.
Is There Any Cost-Effective Way To Build A B2B Marketplace Website
With StoreHippo you can roll out your B2B multi-vendor ecommerce platform for less than $500. We offer a cost-effective and feature-rich online marketplace software for B2B businesses. With over 300 inbuilt features we offer a complete solution where you can easily manage your end-to-end business without the need to pay for additional apps.
What’s more, you can build your Android and iOS apps right from your admin at ZERO additional cost. You don’t need to do any coding either to build these apps. Also, all stores built on StoreHippo are PWA( Progressive Web Apps) that look, feel and function like mobile apps on all devices. This helps you in getting more mobile orders without having to build a mobile version of your website.
How Do I Attract Distributors And Manufacturers To A B2B Marketplace Website
Following are a few steps to get you started in onboarding sellers, merchants, distributors and manufacturers to your B2B marketplace:
- Choose an area of focus(industry, geography etc.) and invite merchants
- Offer them some early bird offers like preferred merchant status or positioning
- Do some hand-holding to acclimatize them to your online marketplace software
- Assure a steady flow of traffic that attracts customers with discounts, promotions and free shipping
- Assist them with a streamlined supply chain and customer support services
Along with this ensure that when you build a B2B marketplace website, you go for a feature-rich platform like StoreHippo that takes care of user experience. A user-friendly multi-vendor store tends to be a customer magnet and eventually helps your distributors and manufacturers get more orders.
StoreHippo marketplace software also offers features like 360-degree product display, easy search and navigation, automatic abandoned cart follow up etc. as they help in getting faster conversions for your vendors.
Why StoreHippo Is the Best Choice To Build A B2B Marketplace Website
The Business to business model has evolved a lot and along with its complexity now it requires to have many B2B elements as well. This change has been necessitated by the conditioning of business to business customers by their everyday B2C purchases.
StoreHippo’s comprehensive B2B marketplace software offers a mobile-ready solution which is flexible and scalable to any number of users, vendors and products. We have taken care to incorporate advanced search and quick navigation to make the ordering process smoother. Along with this, you get customizable entities and the option to create new entities as per your requirements.
By adding features like request a quote, wholesale and retail pricing, location-based pricing we have taken care of the unique pricing structure of business to business model. Also, when you build a B2B marketplace website with StoreHippo you get a host of inbuilt and customizable forms, customized invoicing, tax engine to implement multi-tier taxation, and 40+ payment gateways to handle the payments of vendors, distributors and clients. We also allow integration with custom ERP to offer streamlined revenue management.
Business to business marketing strategy requires a set of strong and flexible tools. We offer a powerful discount engine along with an SEO friendly platform that helps in offering a variety of personalized discounts and promotions. Also, unified notification can be used to keep the clients engaged in real-time. You also get a blog engine to promote your marketplace with targetted content for your users.
Build A B2B Marketplace Website And Expand It To Global Markets
Sooner or later you will want to expand your business to global markets as well. StoreHippo has you covered here also. We offer a host of go-global features which include multilingual website and multicurrency payments. You can even plan to set up a multi-store B2B marketplace that has multiple storefronts for various product/service lines, distributors, geo-location etc.
We recommend you to check our B2B Multi-vendor ecommerce platform and explore StoreHippo by starting your 14-day free trial now.