There are businesses working to smoothen pain points for people by providing products and services from several vendors under one roof.
Digital technology has made this possible with the birth of multivendor marketplace platforms. Enhancing user experience on multivendor marketplace platforms is imperative so that users folk to your website / app for the convenience being offered.
Multivendor marketplace platform is a one-stop solution offering a variety of products and services from different vendors.
The cherry on the cake is that it helps users compare prices and products from different vendors to help them decide. Moreover, mobile optimisation of a multivendor marketplace platform helps users to easily navigate through the platform on their smartphones.
This provides an enriching experience to customers, encouraging them to revisit and repeat purchases. Also, this kind of marketplace improves accessibility, conversion rates, and revenue for the platform. Surveys can be conducted to understand the market and the preferences of the audience.
Introduction: Enhancing User Experience On Multivendor Marketplace Platforms
Enhancing user experience on multivendor marketplace platforms is imperative and hence need to be built carefully by a team of expert developers, designers and analysts. Multivendor e-commerce platforms should ensure:
- User interface design is such that it enhances user experience by focusing on ease of operation.
- Customers have various options when buying a product. Customisation enables customers to share additional information about the product after a purchase. Users can control their interactions with others.
- Security and fraud prevention is done by using strategies and tools to ensure secure payment gateways. Conducting regular security audits, IP tracking and address verification are some of the measures adopted for the same.
- Search engine optimisation (SEO) and Performance optimisation plays an vital role in boosting, visibility, traffic and popularity of the site. This is done by optimising product listings, and the performance of the server and the website.
- Mobile responsiveness enlarges clickable items and pictures are resized and reformatted on the platform
- Personalisation is done to boost the conversion rate. This is based on customers’ past purchases, browsing behaviour, geographic location, and other personal information like age, gender, etc.
- Integration with social media can help promote your multivendor marketplace products and services.
Enhancing user experience on multivendor marketplace platforms offer a win-win situation for consumers, vendors, and market owners.
Benefits for Users
- Get a comprehensive list of products that is available at any given time.
- Avail plentiful discounts and personalised offers
- Experience great satisfaction through prompt customer support
- Easy decision-making on the basis of user feedback, ratings, and product reviews readily available on the platform
Benefits for Vendors
- Vendors don’t have to spend to develop a marketplace platform, work on branding, or marketing. The only thing they are required to perform is to register on the website, feature their products, and start selling.
- Platform Technology provides notification about inventory levels and orders in real-time resulting in hassle-free inventory and order management for Vendors.
- The vast traffic that the marketplace attracts and its brand value help vendors reach a wider audience.
Benefits for Marketplace Owner
- The marketplace owner only needs to focus on enhancing their market presence and are free from managing the day-to-day business chores.
- Marketplace owners have access to numerous revenue generation channels via a single platform.
- Access to an unlimited customer base across borders with large-scale product selection.
- Owners do not have to worry about inventory management or its related costs.
Ways To Enhance User Experience On Multivendor Marketplace Platforms
Simplify the registration process: Simplifying the registration process helps enhancing user experience on multivendor marketplace platforms and makes it easy for vendors to sign up for your platform. Avoid asking for unrelated information, and provide clear instructions on how to complete the registration process.
Optimise search functionality: Ensure that the search bar is easy to find and use. Provide filtering options help users to quickly locate what they are looking for.
Ensure responsive design: Your platform should be optimised for all devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
Encourage user-generated content: Request users to leave a feedback, ratings, and reviews on products and sellers. This can help build trust and credibility on your platform.
Offer personalised recommendations: Use data analysis to offer personalised product recommendations to users based on their browsing and purchase history.
Provide necessary customer support: Ensure that your platform has a customer support team that is available to answer questions and resolve issues quickly.
Offer competitive pricing: Ensure that the prices on your platform are competitive, and provide incentives for users to purchase from your platform rather than a competitor’s.
Ensure secure transactions: Use secure payment gateways and data encryption to protect users’ personal and financial information.
Provide easy checkout: Make the checkout process simple and quick. Avoid asking too much information and offer a variety of payment options.
Continuously update and improve: Regularly update your platform with new features and improvements to enhance the user experience and keep up with industry trends.
Main Features Of A Multivendor Marketplace Platform
1. Vendor management
For the success of a multivendor marketplace platform, it is imperative to make it easy for vendors to join and sell. Some vendor-friendly features are: –
- Vendor onboarding
- Payout accounting and adjustments
- Communication tools
- E-commerce tool integrations
- Product uploads and inventory management on the vendor portal
- Commission calculation and vendor contract management
Vendors should be able to sell their products with minimum effort on a multivendor marketplace platform.
2. Product management
Product management helps in enhancing user experience on multivendor marketplace platforms. Ensure a hassle-free process for a seller to upload their product catalogues while selecting the right platform. This should be possible without much assistance. Sellers should also be able to feed in detailed product descriptions, images, specs, and categories.
Effective product management ensures that customers can easily locate the products they require.
3. Packaging and shipping
The vendor manages the packaging and the store owner handles the shipping. Multi-seller store owners help with the packaging material, out of which some are free and some are chargeable. This is done to keep up their brand identity.
4. Payment management
Enhancing user experience on multivendor marketplace platforms can be done by providing a hassle-free experience when it comes to making payments.
A multivendor marketplace platform also has to pay out vendor commissions that are split within a single transaction. It also has to ensure regulatory compliance as per each vendor’s location.
5. Profit generation
The scope of profit is huge with multivendor marketplaces as it attracts huge traffic. That means to generate revenue from a multivendor store several strategies can be adopted such as:
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- Memberships– Online stores sell store memberships that give customers advantages like free shipping, added discounts, easier returns, and better support. These memberships are immensely popular among customers who shop quite often. A notable example is the Amazon prime membership.
- Flagship Products– Big online stores introduce their flagship products by directly associating it with its manufacturers. Multivendor stores manage to earn huge profits by removing the middlemen in such transactions. Amazon Kindle is the best example of this.
- Commission on the product sold- This is the key source of revenue for store owners. They charge a small commission on products sold and after deducting the said amount, the rest is credited to the vendor.
- In-store advertising- Multi-seller platforms offer in-store advertising to vendors so that customers can find their products easily and quickly, for which vendors pay a fee. Flipkart makes huge money through this route. We know Flipkart attracts millions of visitors each day, hence having a prominent position on the app can help vendors.
- Exclusive seller- Online stores with a vast customer base become exclusive sellers of new products initiated by reputed brands. Companies dealing in smartphones make stores like Amazon their official sellers. This helps sellers as now the platform pushes for the sale of such products and the seller doesn’t have to bear any supply chain expenses.
6. Analytics and reporting
Analytics and reporting helps enhancing user experience on multivendor marketplace platforms. Keeping a check on the pulse of shopping trends and user insights is very important for growth of any business. That is how analytics come into the picture. It provides insights into what is working and which aspects require improvements for both you and your vendors.
It can be inventory management, user behaviour, or sales forecast. The analytics also help in the decision-making process and can take your business to another level.
Conclusion: Enhancing User Experience On Multivendor Marketplace Platforms
A few decades back, online shopping was a novelty that was practised by few geeks. Slowly online shopping found its way into our homes. Initially we shopped at single vendor stores and later – on Amazon or multivendor marketplaces.
A real inflection point in e-commerce began around 2017, when smartphone penetration hit 80% worldwide. And when the pandemic struck us hard, the hoi-Polli began to shop online on a daily basis.
Over the past two years, there’s been unprecedented growth of online marketplaces of various kinds. In 2020 the highest annual US ecommerce growth in the last two decades was witnessed at an incredible jump of 44%. Therefore it has now become important to enhancing user experience on multivendor marketplace platforms for its success.
After an Engineering degree and a Diploma in Management I devoted 16+ years working in the automotive industry. My innate skill and extreme passion in writing, encouraged me to adopt it up as a profession. I have been writing for more than 10+ years in the software industry. The 400+ blogs I published are informative, exhaustive and interesting to a professional and causal reader.
