Category: marketplace

The eCommerce landscape in Saudi Arabia is changing. Shoppers in the country have shown a preference towards online fashion portals due to the variety of clothing and discounts offered, and convenience of shopping.

Do you know the number of eCommerce shoppers in Saudi Arabia is expected to increase at a CAGR of 12.4% by 2020, with the average online shopper spending SAR 2,405 by the same year?

The statistics don’t surprise given Saudi Arabia has multiple achievements to speak about including advanced infrastructure, younger working demographic and high connectivity rates.

A Jan 2018 report by yStats.com on Saudi Arabia’s B2C eCommerce market states that the country will become the top online retailer by 2020, surpassing the current regional leader, the UAE.

The report further mentioned that the increased use of smartphones has facilitated the exponential growth of eCommerce in Saudi Arabia. That’s huge!

While well-known eCommerce players like eBay.com, Amazon.com and Aliexpress.com are already hot favorites of online shoppers in the country, there are other Saudi Arabia-based eCommerce marketplace businesses that have managed to create a buzz.

Souq.com (an Amazon company), OpenSooq.com and Jarir.com constitute 22%, 21% and 75% of the web traffic respectively in Saudi Arabia.

Adding to that, let us explore success stories of five Saudi Arabia-based multi-vendor eCommerce marketplace businesses:

1) Noon.com

Based in Riyadh, Noon.com is a USD $1bn eCommerce shopping Marketplace that was founded by Mohammed Alabbar, the Chairman of Emaar Properties.

The online portal offers an assortment of products including fashion, beauty, home & kitchen, babycare, groceries and electronics. It even features top brands like L’Oreal, Apple, Mothercare and more.

Keeping up with the digital technologies across geographies and industries, Noon.com has up-scaled itself to be a digital marketplace relevant to consumers from all age groups.

In 2017, the “Arabic-first” e-commerce platform rolled its operations in the UAE after noticing the country’s internet-friendly, digitally savvy population.

The same year it partnered with eBay to reach a wider audience and offer a larger product range. In early 2018, Noon.com announced that it was set to enter the online groceries delivery market in China.

Noon.com currently has a head office in Riyadh, and a warehouse the size of 60 football pitches in Dubai.

Even though the eCommerce scene in Saudi Arabia is still booming, Noon.com is making the right business moves and paving its way to multiple industries and countries.

How soon do you think it will become a USD $2bn eCommerce shopping website? Very soon, we would say!

2) Jarir Bookstore

Founded in 1979 as a brick-and-mortar supplier of books, office supplies, and educational aids, Jarir Bookstore has evolved to a thriving eCommerce business.

Based in Riyadh, today it has expanded its product range to Children’s toys, Arts and Crafts materials, AV instruments, photography tools and electronic gadgets.

In December 2018, Jarir Bookstore was awarded Primaduta, the highest award given by the Indonesian Government to those foreign entities that stay loyal to buying and developing imported products from Indonesia.

In an effort to target millennials, it opened an Apple store in its Riyadh Panorama showroom recently, promising an exceptional shopping experience.

Jarir Bookstore has survived the ever-changing business landscape for 30 years, and it will continue to thrive given how easily it adjusts to the disrupting technologies and evolving consumer patterns.

3) Wadi.com

Saudi Arabia-based eCommerce business stands out among the rest because of the fact that one of its founders is a female, Kanwal Sarfraz hailing from Pakistan.

Founded in 2015, Wadi.com grew six-fold its operations in just one year.

After raising US$67 million, and subsequently setting a record for Series A funding in the Middle East, Wadi.com achieved operational profitability by late 2016 – within just two years after getting launched.

Today, it offers a catalog of 550,000 products including fashion, babycare, electronics, and more. It is often called the “ultimate oasis of online shopping” because one can buy anything from under the sun at Wadi.com.

Apart from being headquartered in Saudi Arabia, it has offices in Dubai and India, with a major plan to expand its India operations in the coming months.

Wadi.com sells to major Middle-Eastern countries like Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

4) Souq.com

After being acquired by Amazon for USD $580mn, Souq.com found itself as the forefront of technological innovations in the Middle East.

According to CEO Ronaldo Mouchawar, much emphasis is now being given to accelerating mobile initiatives given that 80% of their consumer base shops on their smartphones.

Moreover when Souq.com was first established, it took 3-5 days to deliver an order. Now most orders happen on the same day!

Souq.com has also been a pioneer in making cashless transactions a possibility since a major portion of online shoppers in Saudi Arabia prefers to Cash On Delivery (COD).

Souq.com has a product catalogue that is similar to Amazon, and happens to be one of the top three shopping websites in Saudi Arabia.

5) OpenSooq.com

OpenSooq.com follows a one-of-a-kind business model. It is the most famous horizontal classifieds platform in the Middle East where it enables users to buy and sell goods and services without the involvement of any third parties.

Just like Wadi.com, the COO of OpenSooq.com also happens to be a female, Joanne Bou Jawad from Dubai. The online portal operates in six key countries including Saudi Arabia, Libya, Oman, Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq.

OpenSooq.com has been successful in penetrating a market which earlier relied only on traditional or print classifieds. Since its inception in 2008, the online portal has come a long way in educating them about going digital.

Wrapping up

The internet penetration in Saudi Arabia is extremely high at 64%, as compared to other countries in the Middle East. Smartphone usage is commendable with bought on mobile.

Moreover, the success stories of these five online shopping marketplace portals prove that Saudi Arabians are eCommerce-ready.

Event management and all related businesses are running strong in South East Asia. With recent reports showing the emergence of a staggering number of millionaire businesspersons in this region, it is no surprise that conference, seminars and even private parties are on the rise. Naturally, event management companies native to the region as well as from outside are keenly interested in tapping into this market.

However, it is not so easy to penetrate this market as it is already saturated with high-end event planning and management service providers. So, smaller companies take advantage of multivendor marketplace options to optimize their business cycles. Generally, these platforms utilize Magento multivendor marketplace extensions to deliver the widest options to clients and also offer specialized services.

Now when it comes to these multivendor platforms, there are tons of other factors which will need to be considered. And all of it depends upon the online marketplace interface that you adopt. Since all bookings are done online and many happen on short notice, having a responsive, customized and easily used marketplace interface is key to success. Below, we have compiled a list of some of the most critical features that you must have in your multivendor marketplace script:

Top Features Your Event/Show Booking Ecommerce Multivendor Marketplace Must Have?

1. Region-specific Services

Customization is the name of the game in the world today and the event planning industry is no exception. South East Asia, in particular, is a culturally diverse region featuring blends of novelty and tradition. To successfully cater to potential clients from this region, your Magento marketplace software needs to be able to accommodate these different facets.

Exploration of services based on thematic similarities like cuisines, décor, purpose etc is a good way to help clients get what they want in quick time. If your marketplace platform can deliver this then it can potentially become a leading presence in the market.

2. Variety Ensures Success

One of the main reasons why event planning services offered via B2B ecommerce multivendor marketplaces are so popular is convenience. Having multiple businesses offer competitive services under one platform allows clients to compare and choose the best for their needs.

So, in order for your marketplace platform to get successful, you need to offer a wide number of options. This refers not only to companies but also services. Of course, there is a definite amount of value in specializing in say business events. However, the more diverse your list of vendors, the higher the chance of long-term growth and success.

3. Tier-based Services

Having a multivendor marketplace for your event planning and show booking services is only the start. Even if you have many options, it is not necessary that clients will be willing to go through them all to choose the one that will fit them best. So, it is important to structure the services on the basis of tiers.

There are many ways to establish tiers in your marketplace. All of them must be calibrated to provide a unique cross-section of services to clients. This is critical for helping them make the right selection. For example, a show booking service based on the venue charges should be combined with the potential catering and décor options. Similarly, multiple day bookings should be combined with the cumulative valuation of overall costs at a fairly lowered price.

4. AI-based Suggestions

Artificial Intelligence can be a great help for B2B multivendor ecommerce systems. They can help clients understand where their needs can be most easily and economically met. The AI can factor in vital things like location, budget, type of event etc. and provide smart suggestions to clients for the best experience.

Having a smart AI which can provide the best suggestions and navigational help to clients requires the use of highly-qualified Magento marketplace software builders. In order to ensure this, check the total validated work experience of your developers as well as their actual skills. This will help you get a fair idea of how much value for money you are getting.

5. Season-specific Service Options

One of the most effective ways of catering to any event booking market is to offer season specific services. Consider the most important times of the year when business and personal events are frequently held. During these times, you can offer lucrative discounts or complementary services through your multivendor market script. If you already have a good presence, then consider how you can expand it. All of this will help solidify your market reputation and popularity.

Conclusion

Event planning, booking,and management is a vast field and a very profitable one. It is also highly competitive and so, multivendor ecommerce marketplaces for this platform have risen to prominence. If you are planning to establish a dominant marketplace for these services, consider the factors we have mentioned above. This will help you cater to your clients in the best way possible and rapidly grow your enterprise.

89% of the Businesses that present in Multi-vendor Marketplaces are successfully able to retain the clients well.

It is also anticipated that sales through eCommerce solution to reach $4.5 Trillion by 2021.

Looking at the growth, current trends and consumer satisfaction ratio there will be high rise in the sector in upcoming years.

Multi-fold features of Marketplace Solution –

• Complete Omni channel solution
• Customizable and scalable
• Fully tested and ready to go-live
• Multiple payment gateways
• Social media friendly
• Integrated Analytics and SEO friendly
• Easy to manage admin and vendor panel

MobiCommerce offers multi-vendor marketplace solution for all types of marketplaces personally-tailored, power-pack, Marketplace solution perfectly suitable for your business needs be it Hyperlocal or Generic, Retail or Wholesale, Rental or Booking or on-demand services.

Watch this video to know more about MobiCommerce’s feature-rich Multi-vendor Marketplace Script and Solution that helps to level-up sales and revenue.

Considering the shift in the online buying habits of customers which is highly forced by technological changes and other factors like change in customer expectation, increased customer value has improvised the demand of online marketplaces. Due to this, online Marketplaces are doing vast growth and driving robust sales.

Ecommerce Marketplaces – Business Models

Business models are identified based on how and with whom the transactions are talking forwards.

• If the consumers are selling to consumers, model is known as C2C Businesses
• If the Business owners are targeting to Consumers, it would be B2C Businesses
• And when Businesses are targeting to other businesses then it would be B2B Businesses

The concept will remain same in the ecommerce marketplace business as well.

If you look around the marketplace platforms you’re using will make you understand how one is different from another.

OLX where the customer is selling product to another customer creates a C2C business platform, Amazon is the example of B2C marketplace where business is selling to customers whereas platforms like Alibaba, Indiamart are B2B marketplaces where the business needs are fulfilled by another businesses.

Here, B2B marketplaces can grow in two directions, Vertical businesses and Horizontal businesses. Industries like plastic, chemicals, automobiles etc. are falling in B2B sectors.

In B2B or B2C, the concept of online marketplace will remain same.In general terms, Marketplace offers a platform to multiple vendors who can sell their products to buyers. Marketplace owner is the middlemen connecting vendors and buyers who offer variety of different brand of products at a single platform.

Key differentiating Factors – B2B and B2C Ecommerce Marketplace

Though the concept is same, business model and the usage differentiates one marketplace with other. There are different buyer segment in each of the business model, customer of B2C model is different from B2B model.

Why it’s not a good choice to interchange B2C ecommerce Marketplace with B2B ecommerce Marketplace?

Customer from B2C and C2C Marketplace requires easy access, quick delivery, easy payment option, quick buying process. They buy the product in low amount.

Whereas customer in B2B ecommerce marketplace segment requires

• Bulk product orders
• Discount based on quantity
• Availability to edit or change and validation of purchase order online
• Quotation for orders
• Custom quotation
• Different payment option acceptability

In this way, the way buyers deal with the seller makes the difference.

Rising B2B Ecommerce Marketplace Trends

Due to shift in the way business buy products, B2B online marketplaces are rising.
“As per the report, today 74% of the B2B buyers do online research at least for half of their work purchases.
Also, the 73% of B2B millennial are involved into purchasing decision that has different mind-set and preferences for buying. (Reference: forrester.com)

So, the merchants need to be there where your customers are. Though the rises of B2C ecommerce marketplaces are high, actual revenue from B2B ecommerce marketplaces are high and touching the sky. B2B online marketplaces are an untapped opportunity; it provides convenience and easy accessibility to large new audiences.

Also, the start-ups have many advantages to tap this market, like-

• Low entry cost
• Easy to set-up
• No burden of making huge inventory

B2B E-catalogues – replacing print catalogues

Online catalogues are helping both entrepreneurs and buyers because of following important features –

• Gives easy access of products to customer
• Reduces labour costs
• Real time integration with suppliers

Easy access, real time integration and link with suppliers enable buyers to look into the details at their own desktop without any transit error along with reducing labour and print cost.

There are various platforms available to build your own ecommerce B2B multi-vendor marketplace. Magento is highly used and advanced ecommerce platform providing full flexibility and scalability.

Magento’s reputation has been built upon its bang for buck and strong digital commerce solution for businesses ranging from small to mid-sized.There are a host of plugins available and supported by Magento that make implementation of an ecommerce marketplace business model on this platform highly feasible. These are those features that are considered to be a must have for a marketplace webstore. And that kind of modularity offered by Magento makes it one of the most user-friendly ecommerce development platform currently available on the market. Additionally, that also makes personalizing your Magento based ecommerce store a breeze.

Personalization is key for Magento multivendor marketplace

We are not talking about the personalization offered that is ironically generalized, i.e., one which is focused on a specific demographic as opposed to individual customer. But with Magento multivendor marketplace, individual consumer centric personalization is possible. No two consumers will be shown same products, categories or prices. But before we delve into how Magento makes it possible we need to familiarize ourselves with multivendor marketplace.

A multivendor marketplace is an ecommerce platform where products from multiple vendors are marketed at a common marketplace, for instance Amazon, eBay.

The need for a multivendor marketplace

So why should one create a multivendor store? an entire new dimension of possibilities is opened up by a multivendor marketplace which the single vendor ecommerce stores just simply can’t beat.
It gives you room to create a webstore to sell virtually anything to a category specific online store that sells products for that one category from multiple vendors, for instance electronics, clothing, etc. We have barely scratched the surface of its potential.

You extend the range of your webstore by offering products from other vendors which you natively can’t provide. The site traffic is propelled higher and the management time for store is also drastically cut down. One of the biggest advantages that the multivendor marketplace offers is the freedom from worrying about the inventory management since there is virtually no inventory to keep, you in fact act as a moderator for suppliers as opposed to being a supplier yourself.

Recommended Blog: A Handy Guide to Pick The Right Multi-Vendor Marketplace for Your Business

To add to above, the personalization offered goes even deeper wherein the vendor can enable or disabled their specific merchandise and the admin can remove or disable individual or multiple products from the seller.

How is Magento marketplace personalizing B2B

The below mentioned factors are key to creating a highly personalized shopping experience

1. Intuitive navigation and search: Ensuring that the consumer navigate your site easily and discover their sought products conveniently is key. Magento multivendor marketplace does that by enabling synonyms, filters, sorting by business rules, and auto suggestions. It is the easiest method that converts customers in the fewest no. of clicks possible.

2. Account personalization: You have the facility of customizing your customer’s account which your consumer seeks as he wants you to understand his business and predict his needs. Account personalization delivers on that with simplified ordering made possible by targeted messaging.

3. Tailored, dynamic pricing: You can dramatically improve your consumer relations via dynamic pricing. It enables you to show through prices the negotiated contract pricing terms and pre- configured business rules. This also boosts the profit earned.

4. Product recommendations:Offering your consumer carefully curated shopping recommendations is another personalizing aspect that is executed with precision by Magento multivendor marketplace. Consumers want the convenience of retail shopping experience provide that with product recommendation based on consumer shopping habits.

5. Quick repeat ordering: B2B customers usually know exactly what they want and will order again. Make purchases easier by highlighting their previous orders and automating re-orders.

6. Loyalty programs: Another way of strengthening consumer relations and personalization, is loyalty program. Each of your consumer can be offered a reward scheme based on their shopping trends on your webstore and encourage them to shop more. This will cultivate a sense of value in the customer.

7. All devices: Personalization is also focused on optimizing your features for all devices and not just desktops. These include smartphones and tablets. You have to realize the essentiality of mobile B2B, the days of solely focusing on desktop ecommerce are passéd.

8. Automatic Payment to Vendors Via Paypal: Further features that have been brought to the Magento marketplace have boosted further the level of personalization. The Marketplace Paypal integration has enabled the admin to transact with vendor who market products in the webstore. Earlier the payment wasn’t automated but now with this feature it is. You have choice of 3 payment options. You can choose from

• Pay instantly whenever a productis purchased on the site.
•You can also make payment when the order is completed, i.e., delivered to the consumer
•You can even pay each vendor in accordance with their admin billing panel rank based on their earnings from sale.

9. Ability to Create Configurable Products: This feature was added solely focusing on the level of customization that can be offered. Earlier that wasn’t possible and the vendors had to get their products configured anywhere else, now it can be done directly from the marketplace itself. Before supplier was only able to upload simple products, and it was only the admin who could categorize those via admin dashboard.

Now, you can very easily create configurable products that too via supplier’s dashboard and you can group them on a page together allowing the consumer the freedom to choose any product from the page of their choice.

Just like major malls and supermarkets, e-commerce has also come to a stage where the giants in the field have brought not one, but several vendors on board in order to attract more fish in the sea.A multi-vendor eCommerce marketplace is a huge virtual shopping mall that offers innumerable types of stuff to buy. Today, people barely even want to move from their comfortable chairs and sofas, out onto the busy streets just to shop for some stuff that allures them. In 2017, the E-commerce market had a whopping 2290 billion dollar sale and is expected to reach 2774 billion sales. E-commerce market has eliminated the need for people to strain their muscles by giving its customers a huge variety of products to keep them busy choosing for a good amount of time. And what’s more? It’s cheaper!

WhyMulti-Vendor eCommerce Marketplace?

Digitalizing the world has come to a point where anything, from vegetables to those little beads on that sofa cover can be bought online at moderate prices. This has been possible due to various kinds of vendors coming together on a common platform to share their products with the customer, thus giving them a wholesome shopping environment. 1.61 billion people chose to buy things online in 2016. The total global sales are expected to reach a whopping 4.06 trillion US dollars in the year 2020.

So what are its benefits over a single vendor marketplace? It keeps all, the business owner, the consumer, and the vendor happy. Let’s find out:

1. A commission can be asked for from the vendor in exchange for giving their products some space in the e-commerce website that the business owner handles. This commission can be based on the number of products sold, the total amount made in the month, etc. depending upon the owner and vendor mutual agreement. This grows the overall profit of the business owner.

2. Consumers can buy directly from the platform as the stock is readily available and prices are mentioned right on the screen. No hustle-bustle, whatsoever!

Recommended Blog: Why Customer Engagement & Retention is Important for Businesses

3. Timing is no more an issue due to the fact that the e-commerce platform is available 24*7.

4. Vendors would automatically get more recognition by attaching themselves with a running e-commerce multi-vendor renowned giant. Even the minor vendors, who cannot start their own websites, can easily approach the bigger e-commerce businesses and start selling their products there and make good profits.

5. Overseas sales, that were once a great deal, have now become a piece of cake!

6. Inexpensive and excellent quality products, with utter variety, are available for the users to look at and choose from.

7. Comparison of products has become oh so simple. All one has to do is open the other website and look at the price of the same product, instead of going shop to shop and confirming prices.

8. Products and their costs are regularly updated and thus the users cannot be blinded or fooled anymore.

9. With the ease of mobile app commerce, the users are given constant updates on the latest deals and can access them anywhere, anytime, even while spending the first few minutes of the day in the washroom.

How to choose the right Multi-Vendor E-Commerce Marketplace for your Business?

Before coming to the final conclusion of picking the Marketplace, one needs to keep in mind a few major factors in order to gain the most from it.

1. Vendor Management and Support
It is important to note that the e-commerce business is giving all sorts of comfortable and required support to the vendors which include the registration of vendors, product picture uploading, management of inventory, costing, delivery, and obviously the commission standards. Make sure it is authentic and easily manageable.

2. Performance Statistics
Going over the history and previous year sales and performance can give a good outlook of how the e-commerce website operates. Look at the customer visitation statistics and build a graph to come to the conclusion.

3. User Interface of the Mobile App
Every other individual is using mobile apps these days to do the simplest of the tasks. It is important to have a catchy, yet easy to use interface, making it more feasible for the user to select from the available products and make one-click payments. The search and filter algorithms must be well refined to cater to the impatience of today’s customers. It doesn’t take long to direct them out of the website/app.

4. Cost Effectiveness
Before finalizing which marketplace to invest your products in, it is a necessity to compare the costs of the shortlisted e-commerce solutions. There might be a good variation in them depending on the platforms used to build the websites, i.e. Magneto, WordPress, etc.

5. Customer Reviews
Customers do not mind giving good reviews to something that satiates them completely. Going through customer reviews and ratings could give a good understanding of how good the e-commerce marketplace is running.

Going through these points should sure come handy in selecting the right e-commerce marketplace for your business. Clearly, there is no reason why this market should fall down in the next few years. However, in order to keep up in the game, one has to be updated and innovative.