So, you’ve made the decision to supercharge sales and growth by extending your current e-commerce business into an online marketplace.
It’s a smart move, given research shows online marketplaces account for a growing share of total ecommerce spend, here in Australia and around the world. As of 2024, online marketplaces account for the largest share of online purchases worldwide.
Keeping that in mind, let’s dive into how Marketplacer can help you launch your Marketplace. At Marketplacer, we take great pride in the support our customer delivery division provides as businesses implement their eCommerce strategies. Having navigated this journey ourselves, we understand the challenges and pitfalls that can arise. Our commitment is to work closely with your business and its partners to help you avoid these obstacles, ensuring that your transition to online marketplace selling is as smooth as possible.
The implementation agenda
The typical Marketplacer project goes live in around 12 weeks. That’s assuming your e-commerce business has already identified the third-party sellers it wants to work with and has agreed on terms and conditions with them. This can be a time-consuming activity, and it’s best if it’s well in train before the implementation program kicks off.
Phase 1: Kick-off
We like to get started by bringing the entire project team together for a kick-off meeting. Those in attendance should include your stakeholders and dedicated project team members, your Marketplacer certified systems integration partner, and Marketplacer’s delivery and customer success team.
Over the subsequent two weeks, we’ll hold a series of discovery meetings and work closely with you to sign up and onboard your selected third-party partners.
Phase 2: Category creation
Organizing the brands and products you intend to sell into clear and logical categories makes it easier for customers to navigate your site and for sellers to upload new items down the track. A degree of finessing and review may be required if your business is expanding its range or taking the opportunity to move into new product categories.
This phase typically takes two weeks to complete.
Phase 3: Setting up sellers
Sellers are added to the platform, and once set up with access, they can begin importing their products to sell on the Marketplace. Initially, our Marketplacer team will help you map your sellers’ products to your category structure. This process can take around two weeks. Then, after going live, it’s over to your team to update and manage sellers and products.
Phase 4: Testing the platform
Once the configuration is complete, it’s time to test your online marketplace platform to ensure products are classified correctly, and user journeys can be completed seamlessly.
We allow a month for this process because we’re passionate about ensuring everything works smoothly and our clients are happy with the settings and configuration of their sites.
Phase 5: Go-live
Everything is triple-checked, including the flow of data between your front end, back end, and the warehouses of your third-party partners. We only proceed once we are confident that we have eliminated every possible glitch.
Top tips for a smooth launch
Our delivery team has helped to implement over 100 online marketplaces over the last 3 years. These are their top tips for a successful launch.
- Set goals for how many sellers you would like to launch with. Seller onboarding can take anywhere between 2-4 weeks, so it’s important not to bite off more than you can chew. You can always launch in an MVP phase, and onboard more sellers post-launch
- Qualify your sellers. Working with experienced e-commerce sellers will ensure a better customer experience and an efficient seller onboarding phase.
- Work with a Marketplace-certified systems integrator. They understand the platform and how it is best integrated with your front-end, ERP, and CRM systems.
- Build a strong internal team. Dedicated personnel available from kick-off who can become subject matter experts will contribute to the ongoing success of your marketplace.
Marketplacer’s technical and business development specialists are happy to discuss any questions you may have about online marketplace implementation. We can also refer you to a Marketplace-certified systems integration partner. We look forward to working with your team to get your online marketplace up and running.
Contact Us & Let’s start your journey to building your marketplace platform.
