Creating your own marketplace is a trend that has been accentuated since the health crisis: online sales are the new gold mine for retailers. The closure of physical stores has forced the most reluctant to start digitizing their business. The simplest and most effective way to do this is to offer their products in a marketplace. Simplified inventory management and access to a large audience for sellers, a vast shopping catalog for consumers, marketplaces seem to benefit everyone.

If you are a retailer, don't hesitate to create your own.

Is the marketplace a miracle business model for retailers?

Marketplaces are becoming the most popular business model for retailers. There are three main reasons for this:

Marketplaces respond to new consumer demands

Consumers want to be able to shop anytime, anywhere and on any device. This need has increased dramatically during the health crisis, making this mode of consumption inevitable. The epidemic has pushed online shopping over the 50% mark, according to The Future Shopper 2022 study. Consumers now shop as much or more online than in stores. Selling online has become a necessity for retailers, when being content with a physical store is no longer enough to compete.

An economically advantageous model for retailers

Logistics and inventory management are time-consuming and complex. One of the main advantages of marketplaces is that these variable costs can be delegated. All the retailer has to do is charge a commission for sales made through its virtual storefront. This business model is therefore both simple and effective, which is why more and more retailers are choosing to try it out.

Marketplaces are an excellent lever for sales development

Faced with the meteoric rise of marketplaces and the growing enthusiasm of consumers for this new way of shopping, more and more companies are seeing the growth lever they represent. This is the case, for example, of Carrefour. Its marketplace, which was initially developed as a simple virtual version of its product catalog, has been extended, as of 2021, to the non-food sector. Focusing on three main areas (electronics, home and culture), the international giant expects to triple its online sales in less than five years.

Advantages of the marketplace model in retail trade

Omnichannel and marketplace selling are gradually becoming the new norm. Here are the main advantages that explain this new trend:

Expand your product or service offering

Marketplaces are an excellent way to expand your product or service offering. They can be used to sell both physical and digital products, depending on storage capacity. More importantly, it is possible to sell the products of third-party sellers on commission. Of course, retailers must be careful about which vendors they do or do not agree to represent in their marketplace. At stake is their brand image and the trust consumers place in them. The catalog of offers should not be expanded blindly, but should remain consistent with existing offers in order to remain effective.

Better control of stocks and logistics

Marketplaces enable considerable reductions in warehousing and logistics costs. On the one hand, the retailer benefits from a new sales channel to market products that he has not been able to sell through his current distribution. As a result, suppliers are reassured and the retailer gains bargaining power. On the other hand, warehousing and logistics are taken care of by the third-party vendors it includes in its marketplace. The retailer is thus content to recoup a commission while avoiding the tedious management of the products sold.

Improved catalog management

For brands like C&A, which manage thousands of products from different suppliers and a dozen sub-brands, managing a large and diverse catalog is a real challenge. The marketplace makes this task much easier: not only is management simpler, more linear and faster, but it also opens up new possibilities.

Increase traffic to your website

Marketplaces generate considerable traffic and often appear at the top of search results. For retailers, integrating a marketplace into their website is an excellent opportunity to generate natural traffic. Since deciding to expand its product offering using a marketplace, French retailer Darty has seen a 20% increase in overall traffic to its site. The marketplace indirectly benefits retailers by highlighting their entire online presence.

Internationalize your company

Marketplaces allow the internationalization of the company. A translation of the interface together with the integration of foreign third party sellers and the creation of localized sites allow to reach an international audience in a few weeks. And, of course, the number of potential customers increases. In addition, a company with a worldwide presence benefits from greater credibility in the eyes of consumers.

Izberg, Wizaplace, Uppler support retailers in creating quality marketplaces to help them gain an important competitive advantage.

Depending on the specific needs of your business and your objectives, the LUNDI MATIN Group can offer you three platforms for the creation of marketplaces: Izberg, Uppler, Wizaplace.

These solutions allow the creation of B2B or B2C Marketplaces, consisting of a set of 3 applications under a unique and open environment to create, customize and manage your marketplace in a simple way:

• An administration back office that concentrates all the marketplace management tools.
• A back office (or middle office) for sellers that allows sellers to manage their store on the marketplaces.
• A front office module to customize the visible part of the user's shopping experience.

By centralizing the back (or middle) office and the front office on a single platform, the management of the marketplace can be carried out by all your teams without any prior knowledge. Benefit from an ergonomic dashboard, with numerous adjustable parameters, to easily switch from one function to another and follow all your activity in real time. You will be able to monitor your most important KPIs and make the necessary changes to your product and service catalog in just a few clicks.

With these solutions, retailers have everything they need to create a successful and scalable marketplace. The platforms adapt to any need and are an excellent tool to help retailers grow in the digital world.

Do you want to know more about LUNDI MATIN solutions? Get in touch with us

To learn more about LUNDI MATIN Group solutions:

Marketplaces and ecommerce softwares

• LM Marketplace, Izberg, and Wizaplace, B2B/B2C marketplaces creation platforms.
• LM Ecommerce and Oxatis, ecommerce site creation platforms

ERP/CRM Solutions

• LM ERP, omni-channel management backoffice
• LM CRM, the solution to drive sales

POS Software

• LM TPV Retail, the POS software for retailers
• LM TPV Horeca, the POS software for the horeca sector