Sales, Pricing, and Payments: Have B2B Online Marketplaces Found Their Niche?

Online marketplaces are a world away from the bazaars of yesteryear—or are they? They’re both places where buyers and sellers come together to make a deal, where a customer can buy from an independent artisan or an industry behemoth, and where a supplier can get in front of just about anyone who’s looking for the product or service they’re selling. And all at a fair market price.

Serving a Global Marketplace

Consumer marketplaces have come long way, and the internet changed everything by making it easier than ever for parties on both sides of the buy/sell transaction before to participate in a global market. Open marketplace e-commerce sites like eBay have changed the way people shop for every kind of product imaginable—and today, that includes products and services used by businesses.

More and more B2B online marketplace platforms are emerging and constantly evolving to deliver the value that business buyers have come to expect as consumers in an increasingly digital world. Look at just a few online marketplaces to see how they’re serving various needs in B2B procurement:

• Amazon Business, which may be the quintessential “general purpose” B2B online marketplace, enables registered business users to shop for business supplies on Amazon and access administrative features customized to their workflows, payment, and reporting preferences

• Alibaba.com facilitates cross-border B2B e-commerce. Originally created to connect Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers, it has become the world’s biggest online ecommerce company. Learn more in Forbes’ So What Exactly Is Alibaba?.

• B2B technology buyers can visit the SaaS marketplace, Discovercloud.com, to compare and purchase cloud-based business tools in 119 categories.

• Buyers seeking specialty products—and the expertise that isn’t necessarily met by companies like Amazon Business—can visit online marketplaces like Mybinding.com, for example, which serves buyers in search of binding equipment and laminating supplies.

Here’s why they’re gaining traction in B2B ecommerce:

They’re a Boon to Sales

Borne out of buyer demands for convenience and industry price transparency—and driven at least in part by the success of online consumer marketplaces—B2B online marketplaces are helping suppliers maximize their online sales, whether or not they’re already selling directly from their brand websites. By listing their products and services on marketplaces, smaller suppliers, in particular, get exposed to a larger audience and can take advantage of the platform’s technology. In this way, marketplaces take e-commerce to the next level for suppliers who may not be able to otherwise compete for online market share.

Dive into InternetRetailer.com’s report, Portals to Business: Amazon and the Rapidly Evolving World of B2B Web Marketplaces, to learn how many of these portals operate and how companies can incorporate them into their B2B e-commerce strategies.

For more insights into why business-to-business purchasing is moving online at a rapid pace, turn to Proof of Concept in B2B Ecommerce: Amazon Business Hits $1B in Year One.

They Spotlight Pricing

B2B online marketplaces are an important industry resource for product information, solution availability, and pricing. According to Acquity Group research cited in the InternetRetailer.com report, when asked to name their sources for researching products before purchasing them,

• 83% of B2B buyers cited suppliers’ web sites
• 77% of buyers say they use Google
• 34% say they use third-party marketplace sites

What’s more, even if a B2B buyer visits a marketplace for pricing information, they may make their purchase from the supplier’s ecommerce website—and this means they’re aware of competitors’ pricing they can use to negotiate (or renegotiate) contract pricing. In fact, a customer shopping on the Amazon Business marketplace will see both their supplier’s contract price and their Amazon marketplace price, as well as what other Amazon sellers are charging for the same product. This topic is discussed on B2BEcommerceWorld.com’s Amazon Business Helps Buyers Beat Their Negotiated Supplier Prices.

They’re Driving Payments Innovation

When it comes to payment capabilities, the goal is to reduce friction for marketplace shoppers. Forbes article The New Curated Consumer Marketplace Model: 10 Criteria For Success stresses the importance of embedding trust, safety, and payments into the shopping experience. Until recently, B2B online marketplaces have been slower to adopt deliver this value. Many sellers, despite selling online, required customers to use slow and costly payment methods like paper checks and international wires, and they managed customer details, payment verification, and servicing issues offline in largely manual processes. Companies like Payoneer offer streamlined payment solutions to marketplace platforms, making the end-to-end purchase process smoother and more integrated with digital workflows. Learn more in Taking The Pain Out Of Marketplace Payments on PYMNTS.com.

For more on changes and opportunities in B2B e-commerce, check out B2B Ecommerce Accelerating, Study Finds and Changing the Game: The B2B Ecommerce Manifesto.