Posts

Online Marketplace: New challenges to overcome

/in , /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Online Marketplace: New challenges to overcome

The marketplace model of eCommerce is one such breakthrough that allowed everyone to become a part of the new ecosystem of online commerce. There was a time when the entry of an online alternative in a market would scare the hell out of small offline retailers. The consumer behavior was changing and the prices were getting aggressively competing; it was not easy for small retailers to keep up with their online counterparts.

Then came the marketplace model that allowed even small retailers to claim a share from the multi-billion dollar pie of eCommerce. Now, instead of competing with the offline retailers, the eCommerce sites were connecting third-party retailers directly to their customers. We called this model the pure marketplace ecosystem, where the owner of the marketplace did not maintain the inventory but simply connect the people with inventories to the people who want to purchase. The marketplace was just an intermediary, which would make money from the commissions they charged on each sale generated for their retailers.

The time changed, markets evolved, competition became even harsh, and marketplaces required more innovative ways to make money than the mere commissions. This gave birth to different sub-classifications of the actual marketplace model, which still exists:

  • E-Bay: A peer-to-peer marketplace that sales only from the third-party inventories
  • Amazon: A hybrid marketplace that sales from both in-house and third party inventories
  • Walmart: A hybrid combined with the physical model to sell both in online and offline ecosystems

What’s next in the marketplace model of eCommerce?

The meaning of an online marketplace is changing as we speak. Today, the boundary that differentiates a physical marketplace from its online counterpart is as thin as a thread. The biggest names in the marketplace ecosystem, such as Amazon, Alibaba, and Walmart, have established both online and offline presence and securing major shares of the pie through their Omni-channel manifestations.

Today, the marketplace business is no more about massive catalogs of different categories of products. Instead, marketplaces are creating ecosystems for their customers. They are driving customers towards the business from all possible sides and earning customer loyalty by offering everything at one place on any channel. Take Amazon for example. Is there anything that Amazon can’t offer to a common consumer? From entertainment to finance, grocery, vegetables, electronics, home furnishing, and cloud services, Amazon is the best example to understand the rapidly evolving face of the Retail 4.0 marketplace model today.

StrategyDriven E-Learning Marketing System | Online Training | Online Training Program | Entrepreneurship | Revenue Growth

Is the marketplace is a profitable business idea in 2020?

It indeed is. Even the biggest entities in the market cannot cover everything. There are still numerous niches with profitable prospects for the new entrants. It certainly not an easy job to set up a marketplace and compete with the likes of Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, and Walmart. However, you don’t need to compete with them, if you identify some niche marketplace ideas. The marketplace model offers an array of benefits to the merchants and the customers, and all of them could encourage them to come along with your platform:

  • A combined channel: You could offer a hybrid channel to small retailers and merchants to generate sales from both online and offline markets.
  • Better exposure: Selling on a marketplace platform reveals new doors to the merchants who have been relying on traditional channels. They can even expand their business internationally.
  • Reduced marketing cost: Merchants need not spend a fortune to build eCommerce sites and then marketing them. They can save all these costs by simply signing up on your marketplace.
  • Established trust factors: Retailers get access to an established platform, which its customers already trust. This trust factor is induced to the sellers of the marketplace, too.
  • Competitive product prices: With so many sellers available for a single product, the prices are l always competitive. It encourages more customers to shop from your site.
  • Multiple revenue channels: As a marketplace owner, you need not depend on commissions alone to make money. You can make money from several non-traditional channels, such as showing featured products, sponsored products, and selling membership subscriptions for added benefits to sellers and the customers.

No doubt, the above benefits for everyone lay down the foundation of the marketplace model, but it’s not all breezy either. There are some pitfalls too that require strategic resolutions:

  • It’s all technology: The core that drives an online marketplace business is pure technology. From the marketplace software to web-hosting, content delivery networks, third party APIs, and compliance with the laws, everything is driven by technology. That makes a competitive marketplace setup quite expensive, complex, and workforce-extensive.
  • Chicken and egg problem: Sellers won’t board your marketplace until you have enough customers to make good sales, and customers can’t purchase until you have sellers. It makes the opening days for a marketplace business pretty complicated. You would need a significant amount of investment to market your platform, and then acquire sellers through handsome incentives.
  • Data security: When you are managing a massive marketplace with so many merchants, customers, and sensitive information onboard, there is a high risk of data security. Since the only asset you have is your platform and data, you have to be very particular about keeping it secure.

How you can start an online marketplace business?

It’s a big question – how to start an online marketplace business? There is the technology and there is business process development, both go hand-in-hand to form a complete marketplace ecosystem. If you have a business plan or a niche in your mind, you need to focus your efforts on handling the following four challenges first, and you could own a great marketplace business:

Note: You need to manage these challenges keeping your customers and sellers/merchants in thought. You can’t start a marketplace by conciliating with the needs of any of the two stakeholders.

Marketplace Software

Marketplace software constitutes your entire platform. You would need a collection of different marketplace solutions that work collectively to build your marketplace platform. One of the major constituents is – the marketplace website.

Marketplace website builder: You can develop your marketplace platform from scratch by outsourcing your project or hiring in-house developers. However, this would be a highly expensive and time-consuming undertaking. Instead, you can purchase a ready-made, open-source, multi-vendor eCommerce script to set up your platform in a few hours. There are various clone scripts in the market; you can get one of them and build your website. These scripts will provide all the fundamental features you need to build your platform. Since they offer open-source code access, you can also customize them the way you want.

Another alternative is using a free eCMS like Magento, PrestaShop, or OpenCart. However, these Commerce platforms are mainly suitable for inventory-based eCommerce sites, as they do not provide multi-vendor support out-of-the-box. You will have to purchase a corresponding multi-vendor module or extension from a third-party vendor to add marketplace features. They are open-source too.

Some SaaS solutions are also present in the market with ready-made marketplace sites. If you are ready to pay a monthly recurring fee, transaction fee per-sale, and can do with limited control over your site, this could be one of the fastest ways to build and launch your site in a day. These solutions are closed-source.

The choice is yours, you can use any of these options based on your preference and requirements. Do some research and select the most suitable option, as it would be a long-term commitment. You can’t switch your marketplace software every now or then.

Branding and Marketing

Be advised that customers don’t remember the seller but the marketplace platform itself. Therefore, every bad experience customers receive from your sellers directly affects your business image. All the discounts, Ads, and promotions, happen in the name of the marketplace platform. If you can’t get your customers to remember your brand identity, know that there is something wrong with your marketing and branding activities.

Supply-chain and Demand

The sole purpose of a marketplace platform is to fill the gap between supply and demand. Both the buyers and the merchants are your customers. You need to maintain a steady flow of demand and supply to keep both of the ends happy. Without buyers, you will lose customers and demand; without sellers, you will lose the supply-chain. Happy customers create demand, and sellers create the supply. You have to maintain an optimum balance between the two entities to succeed.

Flawless Customer Support

For both the buyers and the sellers, customer support is the most volatile constituent that might just ruin everything at any stage. There is a need for offering continuously impeccable customer support to the stakeholders. However, it cannot happen unless your sellers are supportive to the customers. You might try your best to give flawless experience to the buyers, but everything stops if your sellers don’t do their part. You must create an environment where everyone is doing his or her jobs properly. From quality control to addressing queries, processing refunds, and undertaking replacements, everything should work in harmony with each other. Consider professional grade customer service software or hiring professionals to build you efficient systems to reduce customer support issues.

To Conclude

Overall, the marketplace is a challenging business. However, easy businesses don’t furnish good returns. You can win this war with technical advancements and customer-friendly policies. If you want to create a hub of customers like Amazon and eBay, you shouldn’t arbitrate on the above four fronts. Invest in innovative marketplace software solutions, bridge the supply-demand gap, market your business, and extend the best customer support –this is the optimal way to command the new challenges of marketplace business and succeed effortlessly.

About the Author

Jessica Bruce a professional blogger, guest writer, Influencer & an eCommerce expert. She is currently associated with ShopyGen as a content marketing strategist. Jessica also reports on the latest happenings and trends associated with the eCommerce industry.

Follow her on Twitter @Jessicabruc (https://twitter.com/Jessicabruc)

How to Use Webinars for Commercial Prospection?

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Webinars for Commercial Prospection|How to use webinars for commercial prospection?In order to succeed in their commercial prospection, companies are competing with each other in terms of ideas and thinking outside the box. They rely heavily on the Internet to try to stand out from the competition and increase their turnover. Many of you use webinars for prospection. This tool is an important marketing lever in the age of digitalization. Moreover, with the current health issues, the webinar offers significant advantages for SMEs, large groups and startups. What do you need to know about webinars? How can you use it to develop and succeed in your commercial prospection? Focus on the subject.

Towards a Better Understanding of the Webinar and Its Challenges

Before delving into the various techniques for exploiting the webinar in a commercial prospection, it is first necessary to understand how it works.

Brief definition of the webinar

The webinar is a very popular concept. It is a virtual seminar during which participants can interact. This is the definition from which the term was born: web + seminar. Here, the word “webinar” is the English version. In the French-speaking world, the term “webinaire” is used instead. However, both terms primarily define a “web conference”.

It is usually companies, brands and professionals who organise an online conference for marketing purposes. The event is focused on a particular topic and lasts on average 30 minutes to 1 hour, or much less, depending on the objective. People, often prospects, receive invitations to participate in the remote webinar. They are free to participate and ask questions.  Common webinar platforms include Zoom.us and StealthSeminar.com

Webinar: an interactive and communicative tool

The main issues of the webinar are :

  • Interactivity
  • Visibility
  • Persuasiveness

The webinar is indeed a powerful tool for the 21st century. It is accessible anywhere, which makes it a significant marketing lever. The tool is also distinguished by the opportunities it offers, namely:

  • To make people aware of the qualities of a product or service
  • Demonstrating the expertise of a company
  • Proposing solutions to various problems

The strength of the webinar also lies in its interactive part. Participants are free to express their opinions during the webinar. The communication model used is also more friendly and in total opposition to the standard scheme where the audience remains passive. Because of these multiple advantages, more and more companies are placing webinars at the heart of their marketing strategy. This method is a development lever for your commercial prospection actions.

Tips for successful commercial prospection using webinars

As mentioned above, webinars are high-impact communication and marketing tools. However, different aspects need to be taken into consideration in order to make it an effective tool for commercial prospection.

Making the most of webinars

After organising an impactful and interesting webinar, your company should be able to generate leads with this tool. You can exploit the data collected from the webinar for example. This includes participants’ opinions, feelings, participation rates, questions asked, etc. This information will help you refine your target profile for commercial prospection.

Find webinar participants with a dedicated tool

Once you have defined the profiles of the prospects, you can easily find them thanks to the LinkedIn social network. The Kaspr extension is a must for generating leads quickly. It allows you to find email addresses, phone numbers and other information about these people in record time.

Kaspr is one of the most popular tools used by salespeople and companies for prospection. You can easily integrate it into your marketing strategy in order to increase your turnover and guarantee a good return on investment. For the prospection stage to be a success, your webinar must nevertheless be an event that has made an impression on prospects. Otherwise, you risk working harder to convert your prospects into customers.

Analyse the post webinar statistics

At the end of the webinar, participants usually receive an email as a thank you. In some cases, organisers also send out a feedback questionnaire to improve future webinars. The answers to these questions provide a framework for improving the organisational aspect of the webinar, the content, but also the quality of the product or service.

To Conclude

A webinar is an efficient way to develop a company’s visibility. This event goes beyond the time and availability constraints often encountered in communication actions. With relevant themes and rich content, your company gets known and (subtly) talks about its services. But above all, the webinar is a means of providing solutions to prospects, while demonstrating your company’s expertise. The webinar allows you to interact with your potential prospects and offer them the answers to their questions. You can then track down these prospects and convert them into customers through proper prospection.

Keeping Your Storage Warehouse In Good Condition

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Storage Warehouse|Keeping Your Storage Warehouse In Good ConditionWhen we think about managing our inventory properly, we often think of the range of processes that need to be taken care of in maintaining, preserving, securing, and organizing that stock. This may mean storing our goods on strong palettes that can be easily moved by machinery like forklifts and easily loaded onto trucks, using long straps to hold this in place, as well as making sure it is stored properly, without overly stacking goods on top of one another.

In some cases, industrial storage areas require certain conditions to be met. For instance, refrigeration or freezing may be essential for some products, and not necessarily just for food items either. Yet it’s also true that while keeping your inventory in good condition is essential for preserving its value – none of this could be made possible if your warehouse is in shoddy shape.

In this post, then, we’ll discuss a few means by which you can keep your storage warehouse in good condition. With this approach, you’re sure to benefit by keeping your staff safe and your inventory in an ideal environment:

Floor Cleaning

Your floor must be in good condition, stable, free from obstacles at all times, and of course, clean. You can use industrial floor cleaner services to make sure that years of movement, heavy objects being transported, drops, scrapes and other debris that may have effective the floor over the years, not to mention millions of steps, is totally undone and that the space is rendered safe and stable once more. This way, you’ll be sure to improve safety while also keeping your inventory in good condition.

Secure Shelving

Of course, when storing inventory, it’s essential to make sure that actual installations in your building are equipped to handle that weight, and constant use. Flimsy industrial shelving units can cause real problems, as can ill-maintained equipment, as can overused palettes in need of replacement. Constantly making sure your investments to this degree are properly aligned can aid you in preventing a small issue from becoming a big problem, and perhaps even accidental damage from causing internal infrastructure to fall down.

Fire Safety

What’s the most important part of your warehouse? The assets and inventory you store within it? The shelving units and structures you invest so much in to make the logistics of the space necessary? Perhaps the building itself? Not at all – it’s the people within it. Your staff need to be safe at all times. Making sure that fire safety protocols are always handled maturely, that evacuation procedures are trained regularly, that signage is properly placed, that reporting systems are installed, and that proper procedure is followed is key. Ensuring this as standard, never leaving it up to chance, should be the foremost effort we make before we even care about storing a single piece of inventory.

With this advice, you’re sure to keep your storage warehouse in good condition.

How to Take Control of Your Career

/in /by

StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Take control of your career|How to Take Control of Your CareerLife is busy, and the months and years can fly by in what seems like the blink of an eye. With time passing so quickly, many people find themselves stuck in the same job, following the same routine each day without even realizing it. So, when they suddenly notice they have been doing the same job for years and every day feels like groundhog day, it can be an essential wake-up call. If you feel like you have been drifting through life and your role is no longer fulfilling, you may be ready to make a change and to take back control.

Realizing your career is not progressing in the way you hoped can be frustrating. But recognizing that something needs to change is the best way to get your job back on track. Putting yourself back in the driving seat and regaining control of your career can benefit every part of your life. Once you get started and begin taking control of your job, you will soon regain your enthusiasm.

Time to Change?

If you have been unhappy with your job for a while, you will need to decide whether it is worth persevering and sticking with it for the long term or whether you need to try something new. Making the break and moving on to a new role can be scary and unsettling, but doing so can bring a renewed sense of purpose into your life.

If you decide to stay with your current employer, you may want to explore the different career options available in the company. Taking on a new role in the same organization is an excellent way to revive your interest in your career and do a job you love. Alternatively, you may decide that you have been following a career path that is not right for you. If this is the case, you may want to focus your attention on thinking about the type of job you would like and how you will make that happen. It is never too late to change your career, so if there is a job you would rather do, why not find out more about it and make it happen?

Reach Out For Guidance

Whether you are just starting your career or you are a seasoned employee, seeking guidance from others is always helpful. Discussing your options with other people can be a valuable way to gain a fresh perspective on your career and will help you make an informed decision on your plans for the future. Talking through your options with your boss is helpful, but seeking a mentor to guide you is likely to be even more useful.

Having a mentor is an excellent way to get your career moving in the right direction. A mentor will help you map out your plans and be by your side to support you while you put them into action. When you choose to work with a mentor, you can benefit from someone else’s experience and skills, which can be helpful when you are trying to enhance your career. Your mentor will also assist you in developing your interview skills to help you secure a new position. While having a mentor can provide many benefits, you will only enjoy these benefits if you find the right mentor.

Selecting a mentor that is not right for you can be a negative experience. So, choosing your mentor carefully is essential. It is helpful to use a Mentoring Platform to help you connect with a wide choice of mentors so you can select someone that best matches your needs.

Make a Plan for Success

Achieving career success means different things to different people. For some, career success means reaching a high-ranking position in their organization, and for others achieving success means securing a six-figure salary. Deciding what your idea of career success looks like is the first step toward making it happen.

Understanding what you want to achieve from your career is an excellent starting point, but knowing how you will make it a reality requires further thought. One way to take ownership of your career plan is to set yourself goals. Setting yourself SMART goals is an excellent way to propel your career forwards. Making a plan for success and then breaking it down into smaller goals will make your career progression so much more manageable. Mapping out a route towards success in this way will help prevent you from becoming overwhelmed and make it easier to achieve the successful outcome you are aiming towards.

Forge Connections

Making connections and getting yourself noticed is a great way to open yourself up to a whole range of new opportunities. Through networking, you may discover an entire range of career options you have not previously considered, and you may even find yourself offered a new role. There are several ways that you can forge connections to benefit your career. Networking is one of the most popular methods of meeting like-minded people and building up your contacts. Looking out for networking groups in your area and joining them will put you in touch with a wide range of connections that you would not have met otherwise.

Keep Monitoring Your Progress

Taking control of your career and achieving your full potential at work is not easy. Maintaining constant progress and pushing yourself forward is challenging, and at times, you may feel your motivation is slipping. To keep your motivation levels high and to sustain your focus, you need to monitor your progress along the way. Celebrating every small success and acknowledging how far you have come on your journey is an excellent way to keep yourself moving in the right direction.

Checking back in with your goals regularly to ensure you are not venturing off track will help you stay in control of your career. With plenty of focused effort and lots of tenacity, you will not only be able to take control of your career but develop it way beyond your expectations.

Top Finance Management Tips

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |Finance Management Tips|Top Finance Management TipsWhen you have your finances in order, life feels like a breeze. There are a few different ways you can manage your money, but different methods work for different individuals. It’s best to try a few ways of managing your finances and see which one works successfully for you.

If you’ve got debts, pay them off as soon as possible

Debt is the biggest reason people fail to manage their money successfully, if you get yourself into money troubles it will be a lot harder to organise savings, and budgeting can feel pointless if you can still see you’re in debt. If you are in an emergency situation, there are options like payday loans direct lender if you think you will be able to pay it back.

The best way to deal with debt is to push yourself to budget in certain areas of your life and pay a bit off your debt every month. Setting aside a certain amount will ensure you don’t spend it, if you get paid once a month you could pay off a set amount on this date. The main thing to focus on is paying the debt off, whether it’s an overdraft or a credit card the more you pay off, the better. Service fees, interest fees, and other bank charges will keep adding up until you pay the money back.

Create a monthly budget you can stick to

A monthly budget you can actually stick to will set you up for a few weeks. If you get paid once a month, you can divide up your money on payday, make sure you set aside any basic outgoings like mortgage, rent, or bills and then you know you can spend what is left over. However, if you have debts to pay off or saving goals, take this money straight out on your payday aswell, this will prevent you from spending it.

Set an amount to save every month

If you aren’t in debt and you feel at a stable point with your income, you can start to set aside a certain amount to save every month, if you aren’t already doing this. It doesn’t have to be a huge amount but it will slowly add up if you are consistent. At the end of the month seeing savings in your account can feel satisfying and rewarding, you just need a certain amount of self-control to make sure you don’t feel proud of yourself and spend them, you would then be back to square one.

Use money management phone applications

Banks that have a money management feature are very helpful for tracking your spending. Some applications even have categories for your transactions, so you can compare what you are spending every month. It is helpful to set monthly budgets for categories, for example, maybe you want to spend a small amount on transport and try to use your bike more. Planning our budgeting and spending goals at the beginning of the month will keep you motivated.

Find a side hustle

We hope you now feel more positive about managing your finances, whether you’re in debt or doing well with your savings, there will always be a way to manage your money more successfully. It’s just finding the best option for you.