Handy Tips To Advance Online Marketplace In 2023

In our previous article, we touched on the topic of how to develop a unique eCommerce platform. Today we want to continue exploring the eCommerce niche, namely online marketplaces, which have become an integral part of modern life, connecting a significant number of sellers and buyers daily. Such prominent players as Uber, eBay, Amazon, Etsy, and Walmart are on everyone’s lips. Yet, the domain is not limited to them. There are many other equally compelling marketplaces, and new ones appear daily. The potential customer always has the opportunity to choose more and better, and new vendors can find new clients due to their growing number. This explains the increasing interest in the issue of marketplaces and their development. 

At the same time, online commerce has experienced a sharp upsurge during the COVID-19 pandemic and a slight post-pandemic downturn, which could have raised some concerns. However, by the middle of the following year, more than 17% of all transactions will be conducted on marketplaces or through E-commerce. Also, forecasts indicate that the online market will account for about a quarter of all retail sales worldwide by 2026. This means steady growth over the next few years. At the same time, it also indicates the need to stay on top of emerging tendencies and flows that set the pace of development and help grow and promote your online business. As we have delivered a sufficient number of successful marketplace projects, we want to reveal the veil of what to expect in 2023 and what you should pay special attention to strengthen a marketplace. 

Adaptation and integration of fintech solutions

The FinTech industry has expanded quickly over the past few years, and developments in this field won’t slow down. It has redefined and recreated all types of marketplaces, starting with B2B and ending with SaaS marketplaces. Tech-enabled financial services embedded directly into the platform help create lasting value for customers and save their and your time and resources. Embedding FinTech solutions into the platform enhances consistency, provides various possibilities, reduces costs, and boosts user experience. For example, when Airbnb, Uber, Opendoor, and Shopify integrated financial services, their shareholder value increased. You can choose either “plug and play” embedded fintech solutions or build them in-house. 

AR and VR technologies

Regarding marketplace development, customers and their preferences have always been crucial points. More than 65% of consumers are interested in VR shopping experiences. Their satisfaction level directly affects the commission you can receive from your vendors. In this case, your successful implementation of virtual and augmented reality into the marketplace will reach and engage more customers. VR and AR aim to assist current and prospective customers visualize a product in 3D before ordering. Thus, they start having more faith in the goods they buy and, correspondingly, in the vendor they work with. You will have an excellent opportunity to strengthen brand recognition and value among buyers and sellers. 

Innovative VR and AR technologies increase the comfort and convenience of online shopping, eliminating the need for marketers to interact directly with clients to provide them with a relevant product experience. For example, before buying a piece of furniture, a client can see how it will fit into the interior using augmented reality or try on the clothes or jewelry they like without leaving home and even staying in the virtual space. Customers may walk through many virtual showrooms and visually see the items they need.

Omnichannel selling

In late 2021, omnichannel order rates were six times higher than those from single-channel campaigns, and retention rates from omnichannel strategies were 90% higher than from single-channel ones. Such figures demonstrate the attractiveness of using omnichannel marketing strategies for online marketplaces. 

The omnichannel approach is primarily about customer care because it optimizes functionality and offers what is more convenient and familiar to the consumer. They can choose one channel for communication and another for shopping and move freely between them. Among the most effective tools, we single out information on the site, posts in social networks, talking in instant messengers, targeted or contextual advertising, video and audio communication, web push, and SMS. In addition, such a strategy is aimed at personalization, increasing customer satisfaction, saving time, and aggregating the effectiveness of advertising. If all channels are set up correctly, your user will have no challenges interacting with your marketplace. The information about their actions will be stored in the database, allowing you to send people more relevant offers and notifications.

Voice-enabled shopping experiences

According to recent research, more than 50% of United States residents use the voice search functionality to help them during online shopping. At the same time, about one-third of all US consumers have one smart speaker in the family, which is growing. According to Statista, more than 70% of American families will own them by 2025. So, it is promising and justified to invest in optimizing your marketplace for voice search features. 

Our team suggests paying attention to adding semantic markup to home pages and a semantic core for voice search that distinguishes it from a written language using spoken language standards. Besides, it is advantageous to incorporate a special voice search module enabling customers to transfer their spoken words into search results displayed on the screen. With AI and machine learning, a voice assistant can study customers’ habits and shopping behavior, allowing vendors to adapt to their features.  

Shoppable videos 

Investing in shoppable videos had taken off over the past few years when Walmart and Amazon started relating to them as a tool to enhance their digital platforms. Following the example, many smaller marketplaces like Goldbelly and Wish, which ranks #17 in the top online marketplaces by country in 2022, have started to master the tool and released their own types of shoppable video on their websites and apps. 

The purposes of using shoppable videos range from simply increasing the number of new customers to encouraging existing ones to buy more products. However, they all have one thing in common – the desire to drive traffic and sales through delighted, enthusiastic, and satisfied customers and merchants. With embedded links, such videos allow viewers to click on them and buy what they like without additional search. They will also improve shopping behavior and conversion rates, simplify buying funnels and provide customers with a better user experience and merchants with essential data on performance. 

Vertical marketplace

Unlike a horizontal market, a vertical marketplace aims to reach a narrow range of customers in particular economic niches. Uber and Airbnb are just a few examples of successful implementation of vertical marketplace principles. The first targets people looking for a drive to a necessary place; the second connects those who need to rent accommodation with people who provide housing in that location. 

A vertical marketplace will give you a clear target audience with specific interests and needs. You will not need to become an expert in all areas but concentrate on one industry. Having developed a centralized policy and profound analysis of the product features and their performance, your company will easily track the appropriateness of your marketing strategies and change them if necessary.

Various payment options

The buyer must be able to choose a payment system. If clients do not find a suitable payment method for the order, they will go to another service. The variety of options should include both the traditional form of payment with bank cards and the ability to use the fast payment system and e-wallets. Consider split payments, which automatically divide trade payments. Suppliers promptly receive the amounts due to them without marketplace commissions, which you receive automatically. And the system completes this large amount of work incredibly fast.

Before choosing any payment solution for creating a marketplace, check if it accepts payments in your region, consider security issues, and verify if international systems will support consumers from various parts of the world. To stand out from competitors in the market, you can use custom payment solutions designed specifically for your requirements. However, our experts advise paying attention to the appropriateness of costs since such development always takes more time and requires more resources.

Product and Vendor Reviews 

Statista’s figures show that up to 70% of shoppers always read from one to six reviews before making an online purchase. They are meticulous and wish to know every detail of the product they are buying, its pros and cons in comparison with other goods in the same category, as well as find information about the vendor and marketplace and the level of trust in them. That is why they refer to every possible means to ensure they’re selecting properly before buying. Thus, e-commerce marketplaces should consider it and do their best to work out special functionality for asking, gathering, processing, and placing customers’ reviews about both goods and vendors they are cooperating with. 

To build automation workflows that collect reviewing requests when you know what messages and how you want to send them is relatively easy. In addition, synchronize data transferred across your digital e-commerce platform not to lose successfully submitted reviews. Our marketplace developers consider it relevant not only to create and maintain the Reviews block on your platform but also separately build and actively participate in the FAQ and Questions & Answers Sections. It will demonstrate your concerns and empathy and increase customer loyalty.

The Final Insight

The structure of modern digital marketplaces is constantly shifting. Their owners should foresee possible threats, predict coming changes, and follow innovations in development. This article presents “must-have” features of modern eCommerce marketplaces for the coming year. The list is rather vast, and it doesn’t mean you have to use all of them. We recommend analyzing them, checking how they correlate with your goals and demands, and then making a decision. Our reliable and experienced marketplace development team is ready to consult and assist you if you do not know what you need.