Online marketplace

Online Marketplaces

Place to be for B2C and B2B?

Munich, August 03, 2022

The retail trend of online marketplaces:

Opportunities, pitfalls and tips for implementation

Online marketplaces are a retail-megatrend – experts predict that more than half of all e-commerce sales in the DACH region will be generated on online marketplaces as early as 2024. So it’s no surprise that many retailers want to take advantage of the lucrative opportunities these marketplaces hold for them. But not all attempts at implementation have been successful. While more than 100 new online marketplaces have been created in the DACH region in recent years, 30 marketplaces have had to close down in the same time period. This fluctuation exemplifies that the implementation of a marketplace should follow a few practical tips to avoid serious mistakes.

Woman packing packages

During the pandemic, even the last retailers that still resisted the trend towards e-commerce were forced to recognize the enormous importance of online sales channels. However, the evolution towards digital commerce had already been set in motion a long time ago – and seems to be unstoppable to this day. Online marketplaces in particular are quite popular with customers and retailers alike. These platforms offer both parties a virtual framework in which they can trade with each other.

The biggest online retailers all have their own marketplaces and their success demonstrates the potential of the concept. Many retailers now want to implement the marketplace approach themselves – preferably with a proprietary solution. But a successful implementation requires a great deal of caution: Only a well-planned and well-designed roll-out promises the desired success in the marketplace business. Three basic rules help to ensure a successful implementation.

Three basic rules for success in the online marketplace business

First

Planning and perseverance for long-term success

A marketplace is not just an additional sales channel, but an entirely new business model. Accordingly, aspiring online marketplace retailers should ensure that the implementation of their marketplace is commercially reasonable. Retailers should therefore clearly define their goals, strategies and target groups before implementing their marketplace – otherwise the required effort quickly gets out of hand. Looking back on numerous successful marketplace projects, the experts at KPS also recommend conducting a feasibility study before the actual implementation. A long-term plan is also often a big success factor, as retailers need to invest a lot of time and money for the implementation of a sustainably successful marketplace. However, realistic planning already requires a lot of expertise in the marketplace business. Getting advice from specialists with prior experience in digital transformation can help avoid costly mistakes during this process.

Second

One booth today, the whole marketplace tomorrow: Experience pays off

The success of major marketplace operators is strongly related to their longstanding experience. That is why experts at KPS recommend starting with gaining experience by selling your own products on existing marketplaces, rather than immediately building your own solution from scratch. This way retailers can get to know their competition and anticipate potential problems with their own marketplace implementation later on. This approach also enables a gradual transition from trading on external marketplaces to a complete shift to a proprietary marketplace. Finally, companies with efficient solutions could potentially even completely decouple their own retail business from their marketplace and generate their revenues from fees or the sale of logistics services.

Third

It’s about the journey: Staying flexible to seize opportunities

No matter how an individual entry into the marketplace business looks like, there will always be unforeseen developments, problems and opportunities. The software foundation for a marketplace should provide the necessary flexibility for such cases right from the start. This kind of setup enables retailers to grow along with their challenges and learn continuously, rather than being constrained by a rigid IT corset. This enables them to optimize marketplace implementation in order to gain competitive advantages. Professional consulting can help laying a solid foundation for this.

Realizing added value with marketplace know-how

The marketplace concept offers various opportunities for differentiation and for responding to market developments favorably. Retailers should seize this opportunity. In doing so, they can seize many advantages for their own business: The opportunity to scale sales, test their own product range, collect useful customer data and generate new revenue streams.

More Insights

These topics could be interesting for you

Hat ihr Business Marketplace Potenzial?

KPS Marketplace

Does your business have Marketplace potential?

Many online traders are considering expanding their business into a marketplace. But not every business is suitable for this. Does your business have Marketplace potential? Find out - together with KPS, a leading e-commerce implementation partner. Choose the right bundle for you from our range of bundles. These are the first and most important step towards your Marketplace success.

read more
Patentlösung Marketplace

The Marketplace patent solution

How can retailers benefit?

Major retailers such as Amazon, Otto, Douglas and Claas are leading the way:

 

They all operate their own online marketplace. But such a marketplace is not equally suitable for every retailer.

read more
Eine lächelnde Frau

Inspiring customers

Customer Experience & Marketing

With personalised customer journeys that are consistent across all touchpoints and the seamless integration of customer experience and business processes, successful companies create effective customer experiences, build stronger customer loyalty and ensure operational excellence.  

read more

Privacy settings

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential, while others help us to improve this website and your experience. With your consent, we use cookies to analyse the usage of our website.

We also use cookies for marketing to help us measure the success of our marketing efforts. In the settings you will find detailed information about the individual cookies, and you can refuse the use of cookies.

You can change or revoke your selection at any time on any KPS.com page in the footer under Privacy Settings.

Essential Cookies

Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper functioning of the website.

Cookie Banner

  • Cookie Name: kps-privacy-settings
    Value: PrivacyLevel_0#a
    Storage Duration: 4 weeks
    Description: This cookie is required to save cookie settings. It is a purely technical cookie.

HubSpot:

  • Cookie Name: __hs_opt_out
    Storage Duration: 6 months
    Description: This cookie is used by the opt-in privacy policy to prompt the visitor to accept cookies again. It is set when you allow visitors to disable cookies. It contains the string "Yes" or "No."

  • Cookie Name: __hs_d_not_tracking
    Storage Duration: 6 months
    Description: This cookie can be set to prevent the tracking code from sending information to HubSpot. It contains the string "Yes."

  • Cookie Name: _hs_initial_opt
    Storage Duration: 7 days
    Description: This cookie is used to prevent banners from being displayed every time visitors access your website in strict mode. It contains the string "Yes" or "No."

  • Cookie Name: __hs_cookie_cat_pref
    Storage Duration: 6 months
    Description: This cookie is used to capture the categories a visitor has consented to. It contains data about those categories.

  • Cookie Name: __hs_gpc_banner_dismiss
    Storage Duration: 3 months
    Description: This cookie is used when the Global Privacy Control banner is dismissed.

  • Cookie Name: hs_ab_test
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is used to ensure that visitors see the same version of an A/B test page they were shown previously. It contains the ID of the A/B test page and the ID of the variant selected for the visitor.

  • Cookie Name: __cfruid
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider in accordance with its rate-limiting policies.

  • Cookie Name: ___cfuvid
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider in accordance with its rate-limiting policies.

  • Cookie Name: ___cf_bm
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider in accordance with its rate-limiting policies.

Functional cookies

Functional cookies are used by third parties or publishers to display personalised advertisements. They do this by tracking visitors across websites.

Google Analytics

Cookie Name: _ga
Storage Duration: 2 years
Description: Used to distinguish between users.

Cookie Name: _gid
Storage Duration: 24 months
Description: Used to distinguish between users.

Cookie Name: _gat
Storage Duration: 1 minute
Description: Used to throttle the request rate. If Google Analytics is provided via Google Tag Manager, this cookie is named dc_gtm<property-ID>.

Cookie Name: hide-cookieinfo
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Cookie set for querying the cookies.

HubSpot

Cookie Name: __hstc
Storage Duration: 6 months
Description: The main cookie for visitor tracking. It contains the domain, the user token (hubspotutk), the first timestamp (of the first visit), the last timestamp (of the last visit), the current timestamp (for this visit), and the session count (increases with each subsequent session).

Cookie Name: hubspotutk
Storage Duration: 6 months
Description: This cookie tracks the identity of a visitor. This cookie is passed to the HubSpot software when submitting a form and is used for deduplicating contacts. It contains an opaque GUID to represent the current visitor.

Cookie Name: __hssc
Storage Duration: 30 minutes
Description: This cookie tracks sessions. It is used to determine whether the HubSpot software needs to increment the session count and timestamps in the __hstc cookie. It contains the domain, the number of page views (viewCount, increases with each page view in a session), and the session start timestamp.

Cookie Name: __hssrc
Storage Duration: End of session
Description: Whenever the HubSpot software changes the session cookie, this cookie is also set. It determines whether the visitor has restarted the browser. If this cookie is not present when HubSpot manages cookies, it is considered a new session. It contains the value "1" if present.

External media

Content from video platforms and social media platforms is blocked by default. If cookies from external media are accepted, access to this content no longer requires manual consent.

LinkedIn Tag

Cookie Name: bcookie
Storage Duration: 365 days
Description: Browser Identifier cookie to uniquely identify devices accessing LinkedIn to detect abuse on the platform and for diagnostic purposes.

Cookie Name: bscookie
Storage Duration: 365 days
Description: Used for remembering that a logged-in user is verified by two-factor authentication and has previously logged in.

Cookie Name: JSESSIONID
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Used for Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) protection and URL signature validation.

Cookie Name: lang
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Used to remember a user's language setting to ensure LinkedIn.com displays in the language selected by the user in their settings.

Cookie Name: lidc
Storage Duration: 1 day
Description: To facilitate data center selection.

Cookie Name: sdsc
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Signed data service context cookie used for database routing to ensure consistency across all databases when a change is made. Used to ensure that user-inputted content is immediately available to the submitting user upon submission.

Cookie Name: li_gc
Storage Duration: 180 days
Description: Used to store consent of guests regarding the use of cookies for non-essential purposes.

Cookie Name: li_mc
Storage Duration: 180 days
Description: Used as a temporary cache to avoid database lookups for a member's consent for use of non-essential cookies and used for having consent information on the client side to enforce consent on the client side.

Cookie Name: UID
Storage Duration: 720 days
Description: Cookie used for market and user research.

Cookie Name: UserMatchHistory
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: LinkedIn Ads ID syncing.

Cookie Name: AnalyticsSyncHistory
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Used to store information about the time a sync took place with the lms_analytics cookie.

Cookie Name: lms_ads
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Used to identify LinkedIn Members off LinkedIn for advertising.

Cookie Name: lms_analytics
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Used to identify LinkedIn Members off LinkedIn for analytics.

Cookie Name: li_fat_id
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Member indirect identifier for Members for conversion tracking, retargeting, and analytics.

Cookie Name: li_sugr
Storage Duration: 90 days
Description: Used to make a probabilistic match of a user's identity.

Cookie Name: _guid
Storage Duration: 90 days
Description: Used to identify a LinkedIn Member for advertising through Google Ads.

Cookie Name: BizographicsOptOut
Storage Duration: 10 years
Description: Used to determine opt-out status for non-members.

Cookie Name: li_giant
Storage Duration: 7 days
Description: Indirect identifier for groups of LinkedIn Members used for conversion tracking.

Cookie Name: oribi_cookie_test
Storage Duration: Session
Description: To determine if tracking can be enabled on the current domain.

Cookie Name: oribili_user_guid
Storage Duration: 365 days
Description: Used to count unique visitors to a website.

Cookie Name: ln_or
Storage Duration: 1 day
Description: Used to determine if Oribi analytics can be carried out on a specific domain.

Cookie Name: ar_debug
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Supports Google attribution reporting API integration to mitigate signal loss.

Lead Forensics

Cookie Name: __lfluuid
Storage Duration: 10 years
Description: The _lfuuid cookie allows a website to track visitor behavior on the sites on which the cookie is installed. Tracking is performed anonymously until a user identifies himself by submitting a form.

Changing privacy settings

Imprint

Data protection statement