The future of Single Seller and Multi-Vendor Stores
The future of shopping retail sector is full and bursting of possibilities for multi-vendor store model. As an outcome, in the present eCommerce shopping dynamics, growth is the only means forward– the only way of success.
One of the significant barriers to growth is the inadequate scalability of a company structure and architecture, which brings us to the topic of single seller vs. multi-vendor supplier eCommerce approach.
Single supplier (or standalone shopping) shops, by their actual nature, continue to be popular to a single market or particular niche; thus, have poor scalability. On the other hand, multi-vendor or marketplace model has the capability to scale like a forest fire in brand-new markets. And this appears in the reality throughout the world. Growth in eCommerce sector is driven by multi-vendor stores– Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, Flipkart, Rakuten, & so on.
Besides scalability, there are other fundamental difficulties related to single vendor shops that are unconditionally taken care of with multi vendor shops to make sure that start-ups have a seamless eCommerce development. Below we will discuss just how a multivendor marketplace addresses these challenges for business owners (as the business proprietors & as the suppliers).
Difficulties Related to Single-Vendor eCommerce Model
Inventory Management
There’s just so much supply a supplier can deal with, which is among the main reasons why standalone online shops quit scaling after some time. It’s not a dead-end situation, but after a threshold worth (which differ from company to company), enhancing inventory requires a huge investment added, monitoring efforts, which frequently cause narrow revenue margins.
In a multi vendor environment, increasing stock means getting in touch with even more suppliers, not just increasing the inventory of one supplier. Given all your effort and investment on inventory and inventory management, your resources are already distributed amongst suppliers, and the expected expansion doesn’t come as a challenge to scaling your service.
Market Presence
As mentioned earlier, single-vendor online stores are mainly destined to stay constrained within a certain market or niche. Also, when backed by a great deal of funding, there is a restriction to how much they can extend their market reach.
To overcome the problem single store owners usually get in touch with on-line multi seller marketplaces to promote their store and to increase their reach on the market that was until now far beyond their radar. It is almost certain that for sectarian producers, home-made item vendors, musicians, and so on, connecting with a multi-vendor store is a better idea than just counting on their very own online store.
Procedure Cost
We noted above that for a single seller store is wiser to connect with a multi-seller marketplace to increase their reach with absolutely no advertising and marketing cost. With a single-vendor model, a retailer simply cannot wish for such a reach despite a great deal of financial investment. Aside from that, connecting with an existing online marketplace likewise allows sellers to go online with no need to develop their own webstore which is associated with a significant investment.
Multi-vendor store model preferably segregates the cost & responsibilities between the marketplace owner & suppliers (to make sure that owners take care of only admin associated tasks & cost; & price; and vendors handle just vendor related activities & expense); therefore, produce a win-win situation for both.
Tips for Business Owners
Targeting at Multi-Vendor Business & Selecting a Modern Technology Software
In comparison to single-vendor solutions, there are relatively fewer ecommerce platforms offered for the multivendor model. On top of it, many don’t provide an off-the-shelf platform and require a lot of effort to create a full-fledged multivendor shop, that makes finding the right multi-vendor solution fairly a job.
Ideally, a multi-vendor ecommerce solution should come with inbuilt features, analytics & reporting system, social media integration, and preferably with multi-currency/multilingual capability to stand out in the eCommerce industry and have a smooth growth in different markets. One of the Multi-Vendor platforms that is fully features and come with all the tools to help you run a marketplace is IXXO Multi-Vendor solution. IXXO is the smartest and closest Multi-Vendor platform to fulfill all the needs adequately. IXXO Multi-Vendor is the ideal tool for start-ups, entrepreneurs and businesses looking into getting in ecommerce industry and launch their own AliExpress, Amazon, eBay or Etsy.
Getting in touch with Suppliers
As a marketplace owner, your infrastructure should be developed and be in balance with the number of suppliers you are partnering and will partner with. It must be obligatory for the industry owners to design a strategy to attract as many suppliers as feasible in the target market.
Some valuable suggestions in that regard are to get in touch with on-line sellers on social networks, sign up with ad network providers that provide promotion on preferred sites, invest in offline advertising to bring offline sellers aboard as well as get in touch with vendors directly through online company directory sites, seller organizations, trade fairs, etc.
Final thought
I lately checked out a service model study published on Brookings.edu, which specifies “The business model—the specific combination of product, distribution, supply chain, financing, pricing, payment and sales—is often far more important in determining success than a given specific technology”.
If we compare single & multivendor models, we can plainly see just how the last outperforms the former on most of these parameters.
As an aspiring entrepreneur, you ought to focus at multivendor marketplace development since that is what basically drives the success of ecommerce market nowadays and is what inevitably gives masses a much better & hassle-free way to shop online that get advantage of great deals, huge discounts and variety of products to choose from.
On the other hand, the multi-vendor eCommerce industry has the potential to scale like a forest fire in brand-new markets. This fact is apparent and is noticeable throughout the globe that the success of eCommerce sector is driven by multi-vendor stores like AliExpress, Alibaba, Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, Etsy, Rakuten & so on.
If we were to compare the single seller store & multi-vendor store models, we can clearly see how the multi-vendor approach stands-out the single seller approach globally.