← Toutes les nouvelles
Whether for online sourcing, stock optimization or connecting suppliers and professionals, B2B marketplaces are increasingly appealing to businesses.
A key to successful digital transformation, creating a marketplace indeed offers many advantages, including simplifying inter-company relationships and generating new revenue streams. Consequently, sector associations, municipalities or economic development organizations have every interest in taking the lead to provide this tool to their communities or members.
B2B Marketplaces: A Thriving Market
Did you know that in 2019, 58% of online sales were made on a marketplace? And this, even though only 0.5% of websites are marketplaces? This shows the strength of this model, which is shaping the entire web economy.
The trend is identical in the B2B segment.
Recent studies even estimate that by the end of 2022, 75% of online B2B purchases will be made on a marketplace.
B2B Marketplace: Strong Development Potential Across All Sectors
Beyond markets for goods rental, transport, or travel, the marketplace model also benefits sectors that were previously less obvious. Thus, the emergence of marketplaces is seen in very diverse fields, from logistics to construction, including agriculture or business services. It’s clear: the B2B marketplace model works, because before being professionals, we are all individuals who, in our private lives, have already experienced the benefits of a B2C or C2C marketplace.
Meeting the Needs of New Buyers
The profile of commercial buyers is changing considerably. Young workers from Generation Y (or Z) are increasingly numerous in companies. Consequently, these buyers show a preference for online transactions.
In 2015, Google noted this change among B2B buyers: about half of them are millennials.
They research on the spot among their peers and trust their peers more than sellers. Additionally, they expect the same personalized experiences through marketplaces that Generation X buyers expect from a traditional sales representative.
Digitalization: A Necessary Turn
In this context, if companies using the traditional model miss their digital turn, it is very likely that start-ups will outpace them. The risk of falling irretrievably behind is significant.
The hotel rental sector, plagued by structural inertia, knows this all too well. Hotels have indeed seen the arrival of new, innovative and more agile players, such as AIRBNB, which is capturing an increasingly large share of their customers.
In an extremely competitive digital context, creating and deploying a marketplace in your sector is all the more relevant as it is a simple, dynamic and easy-to-implement solution.
Why Implement a Marketplace?
A marketplace makes perfect sense for municipal organizations, economic development agencies, federations, or sector associations—known as commercial networks—that are responsible for offering optimal products or services to their communities.
The approach involves grouping all the offers and services of a network or business community on a single platform. The site is managed and operated by the network members, to generate more sales or rentals, benefiting from unparalleled impact.
Because they align with social and environmental responsibility issues, marketplaces are also valuable allies in implementing the circular economy. They allow companies to reduce storage costs by recycling used products or reselling/renting second-hand products.
Creating a Marketplace
The company that owns and operates the platform is considered the marketplace operator, while the one that develops, maintains and evolves the technology is called the marketplace publisher. This publisher also offers and manages payment solutions, ensuring the smooth execution of financial transactions.
On a B2B marketplace, the role of the payment solution is crucial, as payment habits differ significantly from B2C. On such a platform, it is essential to offer payment solutions tailored to the B2B segment.
BizBiz Share, the Canadian leader in B2B marketplace creation, offers organizations the ability to create white-label marketplaces for them, paired with a payment interface for buyers. This ensures control of capital and fund transfers to sellers.
BizBiz Share’s involvement remains invisible to marketplace users but allows the operator to offload all tasks related to payment management, enabling them to focus fully on developing their business.