Buy-sell marketplace platforms have achieved popularity and tremendous growth in recent years. In spite of all recognition, many marketplace platforms struggle to survive in the market. If you want to achieve then you need to focus more on user acquisition. You need to attract more buyers and sellers to your C2C marketplace platform.
Before learning about how to attract buyers and sellers to your website, you need to understand what makes users show more interest in developing a C2C eCommerce platform.
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What Do Users Love About Buy-sell Marketplace Platforms?
Marketplaces for selling and buying products are extremely performing well in the market mainly because it gives equal opportunities to all users. Sellers and buyers along with the admin of the platform will enjoy the benefits.
- Free registration – most buy and sell marketplaces offer free registration initially and will let users post their products or buy other products without paying. This aspect is quite attractive for any fresher.
- Better comparison – users can easily compare products with other sellers and can check prices. This will support them to spend their money wisely and get a qualified product.
- Advanced payment options – users will get multiple payment options to pay and buy products. Most payment gateways are reputed and secured gateways providers.
- Review and rating – the quality of the product and the service offered by the marketplace platform can be reviewed and rated by the user. This will enhance the brand’s credibility.
How can you Attract Buyers and Sellers to your Platform?
67% of marketplace platforms struggle to survive as they fail to retain their buyers and sellers. This article will guide you in getting more users to your marketplace that will result in better revenue generation and will increase your customer base.
#1. Contact Active Sellers From Other Platforms
This is a better way of finding genuine sellers who can be an advantage for your platform. You can easily monitor your competitors’ marketplace and can check sellers who are active and performing well. Get their contact info and contact them and offer better benefits to join in your marketplace.
You can offer the best commission plan that will benefit both admin and sellers. Assure them about the support you can give them in selling their products. Make them know how your brand is well-established and it will not take much time for them to get their orders.
#2. Gain your Sellers’ Attention by Projecting your Customer Base
Your C2C marketplace platform should be beneficial for sellers to join. Let them know the customer base your platform holds. That will give them the confidence to sell on your platform. The number of buyers you have will attract sellers automatically as the sale is well-assured for them.
You can even post an ad stating the count of customers your platform holds. This will grab the attention of sellers and will get them to your buy-sell marketplace platform automatically. But for this, you need to have enough customer base, else it is difficult to get sellers.
#3. Guide your Sellers and Make them Earn Well
All sellers will not be skilled enough in handling a marketplace platform. There can be freshers who are totally new to digital platforms. In this case, you need to extend your support in guiding them on how to utilize your classified ads listing marketplace software and get all benefits.
You can have separate blogs that will give them a detailed view of managing their own seller page and getting customers for their products. This strategy is already implemented by Etsy where it guides its sellers about how to use multiple categories in selling their products.
#4. Give Exclusive Offers that Meet Sellers’ Expectations
Each seller will have certain expectations when they join a new marketplace platform. If you fail to meet them then it will be difficult for you to retain them. For this, first, you need to analyze each seller and what expectations they have with your buy-sell platform. You need to give them personalized offers that will fulfill their demands effectively.
The offers can be like providing advanced analytics tools to sellers and letting them utilize those tools to know their business performance. You can also be flexible with the commission plan and make them pay less initially. Once they get settled with your platform and start earning, then you can think about revising the commission plan.
#5. Implement Suitable Revenue Models
Any buy-sell marketplace platform will support multiple revenue streams that will assure better income to the platform. When you invite a seller, you need to understand his business and should suggest to him the best revenue model that will suit him. You cannot blindly suggest the same model for all sellers.
The commonly preferred revenue channels are commission fee, subscription fee, listing fee, lead fee, etc. Some sellers may need to list their products and get them displayed on top searches. For them, you should suggest a listing fee model. Likewise, each seller will have their own preferences with your platform. Suggest them the right model and let both admin and sellers be benefited.
#6. Offer Inventory Management Assistance
Although inventory maintenance is not our headache, still, we need to support sellers in handling their inventories with our platform. You should offer certain functionality that will simplify their inventory maintenance process. You need to allow sellers to set their stock value and get notifications whenever they go below the minimum value.
This will help them to keep stock all the time. This will avoid out-of-stock problems and will have uninterrupted order processing. Many leading eCommerce giants like Amazon follow this strategy and retain their sellers with them for a long period. Sellers also feel comfortable staying with these leading and reputed platforms.
#7. Create a Solid Seller Support System
To increase user relationships with the platform, your buy-sell marketplace should assure users about excellent back-end support that will be provided round the clock to them. Your marketplace platform should have multiple communication channels that will let buyers and sellers communicate regarding their orders.
This will reduce the return and refund issues and increase the credibility of sellers among customers. Both buyers and sellers should feel that the platform is there to support them. You need to build a strong relationship with your sellers by offering them relevant solutions.
Conclusion
You may spend more on building a perfect buy-sell marketplace platform. If you do not know how to attract sellers to your marketplace then it will be very difficult for you to survive in this industry. You need to start making your online market presence and grab the attention of users.
Hope this article has given you enough knowledge to enhance your C2C marketplace platform. There are many more strategies that can attract sellers and buyers to your buy-sell marketplace. You need to have deep market understanding to stand alone in the market.
