E-marketplaces from Sellers Perspective

What is an E-marketplace anyway?

E-marketplace is a business to business web based venue, where buyers and sellers meet online, generate business leads and conduct business transactions. The e-marketplace features are tailored in a manner so that a large numbers of buyers and suppliers can be serviced as a community. A participant of an E-marketplace can be a buyer, a seller or both. Unlike an E-distribution portal which is oriented to assist suppliers selling their products or an E-procurement system which is focused on buyers solely, an E-marketplace is a platform which caters buyers and sellers equally. As a participant of an E-marketplace you are able to explore buying and selling opportunities, make sales offers and buy products and services, add products and services to aggregated e-catalog and use numerous other value added features.

E-marketplaces are tremendously beneficial to all businesses that decide to participate in them. However, the potential benefits that a company can accrue from an E-marketplace are directly proportional to the factor - how heavily the company uses the offered features of that E-marketplace. Naturally, a company that makes e-marketplace as its primary sales channel and integrates its sales resources to supply chain solutions of the E-marketplace avail more in sales and administrative overhead cost savings, reduced paper work, better customer service, reduced product distribution costs and online sales growth than a seasonal user of the e-marketplace.

A committed participant of an E-marketplace can benefit from and improve two primary factors of company productivity: Revenue Growth and Cost Savings.

Revenue Growth

Expand Customer Base

A seller, once registered with an E-marketplace, gets immediate access to a large community of prospective buyers of his products or services.

Revenue Increase from Existing Clients

Existing clients get faster and easier access to product information, quicker response to their requests, get better customer support and buy products online.

Revenue Increase from Value Added Services

Once an E-marketplace is set as primary sales channel, freed resources can be used to create more value added services for clients. Some of the services that the E-marketplace offers also can be utilized to generate more value.

Cost Savings

Order Processing Cost

The supply chain solutions of E-marketplace allow sellers to reduce order processing cost significantly. Studies show that cost of processing a purchase order can be reduced from US$ 70 down to US$ 6 only.

Sales and support costs

By automating sales and customer support processes companies can reduce over head costs over 25-30% easily.

Inventory keeping costs

Clearer visibility and forecasting ability allow companies considerably reduce inventory keeping costs.

Most executives agree that primary reason why they feel that the companies should participate in E-marketplace is its ability to streamline supply chain mechanism. Many inherent inefficiencies of supply chain process can be eliminated thanks to integrated to e-marketplaces supply chain solutions.

What sellers have to do in order to participate in E-marketplaces and reap numerous benefits that it can provide?

As most of the administrative and operational tasks are done automatically by the e-marketplaces, participation in them is not a difficult process.

These are the basic steps that a seller must take to participate in an E-marketplace:

Register

Registration might be an easy job of filling up a form. It is much better to take some initial preparations before doing this.

Choose a good login name: your login can be used by the E-marketplace to give you subdomain name, i.e. login.e-marketplace_name.com.

Profile: A well-written profile increases company image.

Logo: your logo helps you brand your company.

Add your products or services to E-catalog

Most E-marketplaces furnish with easy to use forms or wizards for sellers to add their products to E-catalog. As the product and service classification used in the E-catalogs often is an industry standard, it is important to spend some times to find the perfect subcategories for your products or services. If you have any doubt contact the customer support of the E-marketplace. Fill up as many given fields are there for a product as you can. The more information buyer gets right away the faster his buying decision would be.

Create offers

Most sophisticated E-marketplaces have various sales platforms apart from the E-catalog inclusion. Make general sales offers, time sensitive offers (hot offers ? with offer expiry dates) and auction offers of your products and services. Determine the terms and methods of price, payment and shipment.

Decide how you will handle portions of the supply chain that you have to do offline.

Although, most of the supply chain process can be done online, not all e-marketplace offer a complete end to end solution. You also have to figure out what part of your back office can be integrated to the E-marketplace.

About The Author

Nowshade Kabir, Ph.D., is the founder, primary developer and present CEO, of Rusbiz.com, a global business to business e-commerce portal with feature like storefronts, aggregated catalog, e-marketplace, trade leads, internal messaging system supply chain solutions, etc. With a doctorate in Information Technology, Dr. Kabir has worked an advisor to government projects and has over 12 years experience in International Trade. An author of many B2B and business related articles; he publishes a bi-weekly E-zine for online business community. You can subscribe to his newsletter free of charge from http://www.rusbiz.com.

nowshade@rusbiz.com

---

Credit Card Processing - 7 Things You Need to Know Before Opening an Online Merchant Account

When considering opening an online merchant account to accept credit... Read More

E-Currency Exchange: The First Bonanza of the 21st Century?

The 21st century has introduced the world to a new... Read More

Business Online ? Blind Hunt

Do you sell something online? Do you have a business... Read More

Selling Globally Through a B2B Exchange

Participation in B2B Exchanges is increasingly becoming one of the... Read More

Distinguishing Features of E-Commerce

E-commerce offers customers the chance to eliminate many stages in... Read More

Choosing the Right Online Shopping Cart

Are you a website owner or a web designer/developer? If... Read More

3 Powerful Concepts That Climb Marketing Mountains

You have probably heard many times how you should offer... Read More

How To Eliminate Credit Card Refunds From Digital Thieves

Can you encounter the number of times where a Credit... Read More

How E-commerce Web Site Design Differs From Normal Web Design

When it comes to e-commerce everything is a little bit... Read More

Maximize Your Froogling for Increased Website Profits

Are you familiar with Froogle? If you are an online... Read More

The House Of Print.Com

Publishing has always been a difficult business to promote successfully,... Read More

Shopping Cart Features to Consider

Often the simplest Web stores have the most success. But... Read More

Mr and Mrs Smith Go Online, as Internet Technology Moves from Fantasy to Normality

According to NOP World, 48% of all Internet users have... Read More

Your Affiliate Web Site Is Built ? Now What?

When I first got my web site built, I thought... Read More

Online Merchant Account - Costs and Alternatives

Merchant Account BasicsA Merchant Account is a commercial bank account... Read More

Ten Reasons Why Online Surveys Are The Future of Marketing

Customers are tough cookies. They're extremely media aware and increasingly... Read More

The Lowdown On ECommerce: Making All The Pieces Fit Together

The Lowdown on EcommerceEcommerce is truly the most confusing aspect... Read More

A Beginners Guide To Setting Up A Successful Online Store

A beginner's guide to setting up a successful online store... Read More

Your Readers are Publishers Too

Too often we charge ahead and treat the web as... Read More

eCommerce Software Solutions

All of the long, grueling nights and an unknown number... Read More

Shopping Carts and the E-Aisles

Have you ever gone to the store and thought you... Read More

Home Sweet Home Page

"Your home page is the world's introduction to you and... Read More

Online Shopping: Legal Challenges for Taxing Authorities

E-commerce offers customers the chance to eliminate many stages in... Read More

Leading eCommerce Consultant Admits You Should Only Listen to One Real Expert! (And its not him!)

Let me share with you a secret that most marketing... Read More

Accepting Credit Cards For Your Online Business

Did you know that one of the best ways to... Read More

10 Reasons Why People Wont Buy A Second Product From You

1. You didn't follow up after the first sale. After... Read More

Beginner Ecommerce Mistakes

This is a short article because in the constraints of... Read More

Is ECommerce Right for Our Business?

If your business features products or services for sale, undoubtedly... Read More

Eleven Things You Must Know About A Drop Shipping Directory And Its Company

1. Balance - You want to find a directory rich... Read More

5 Powerful Ways to Make Money Online with a Website

There are many ways to make money online and the... Read More

Intranet Portals ? Collaboration through Team Rooms

Knowledge Management for beginnersKnowledge Management (KM) can be defined simply... Read More

How Measuring Key Performance Indicators Can Improve E-Commerce Strategy - Part Three

The first article of this series discussed page views per... Read More

Six Components Of A Good E-Commerce Site

Businesses, which are still sitting on sidelines and not doing... Read More