How To Get Dealers For My Online Shopping Website In India?

The economy is developing rapidly and becoming more and more competitive owing to the online marketplace that has taken over most of the offline market as people do not have time and energy to wander in the physical market to find suitable products for them since they rely and trust on the major e-commerce platform like Amazon, Myntra, Snapdeal and others.

According to a research published by Statista Research Department this year, the share of Indian e-commerce retail market was 40 per cent of the total market share in 2020 and all other segments had share of less than 10 per cent.

And now this share surely has increased as COVID-19 induced lockdown gave every business a chance to go online and explore the other side of the market, increasing the internet penetration rate in India.

Read also about Club Factory Online Shopping becomes largest online shopping portal in terms of monthly users.

In this fast growing economy, the difficulties faced by marketplace website business especially multivendor e-commerce platform service which are prominent trend of the industry, are more complicated than that of offline businesses.

The online marketplace is a platform which provides various services to the consumers as well as the dealers and suppliers, where as a business owner, you need to get clients from both the sides of the market to fulfil the supply and demand which means you need sellers and customers who will buy from your e-commerce platform where you work as middleman.

In order to run a successful e-commerce website, the owner needs to focus on two things including, the target product(s) to be sold and market research for the same and focus on developing your supply base by inspiring vendors to list their products on your marketplace.

Before jumping to invite vendors to the platform, you need to evaluate products you want to sell on the channel.

Selection Of Product and Research For The Same

One needs to research the market to obtain an idea about the products that are trending and have bigger market for sale and purchase. One should also keep tab on the cost and profit margins in the market for the desirable product. Once the cost feasibility is established, now it is important to create a digital catalogue of the goods that are to be sold via e-commerce platform, including product code, name, description, selling price, category in which you want to display your product-- brand, colour and discount if your website provides any. 

On the other hand, without evaluating the product(s) that you want sell and niche idea, your business will be random and so will its chances of success and no vendor will be attracted to your website to list their products.

What is Product Research?

Product research is simply to see whether it will be successful or not. It also helps in knowing the needs of the customers and demand in the market so that you can get better return on investment on the product(s) by supplying them with the help of various vendors on the platform.

This process will answer questions including, Will the product be a success in the market?, What are similar products in the market? and What’s the best way to develop and sell the product?

Evaluate Market Size

Determining market size might prove to be difficult but some guessing in the right direction can serve you good and you can know which product has wide market and which one has narrow.

To narrow down your market research on the basis of luxury and consumer goods can help you in a long-term. Usually the market for luxury goods is narrow and wide for the consumer durable goods.

For example: Daneson sells high-end, luxury toothpicks including flavoured ones. Now, one can know that someone who has an eagle-eye and who is well-dressed belonging to upper level of economy will buy these toothpicks while layman will always incline towards which is affordable for him. So, we can determine that market size with this practice.

Now let’s talk about sellers for your e-commerce marketplace website

In order to run multi-vendor marketplace website successfully, strategize how to get dealers for your marketplace and know that they are correct ones that you are involving with them.

Let’s Understand What Is Meaning Of Multivendor Marketplace Website

An online multi-vendor marketplace is a single platform which streamlines the entire process of buying and selling of products from different brands and multiple sellers available on the platform.

Many vendors sell their products through this single website while the admin or the owner of the platform manages the transactions, management system across the marketplace.

On the other side, the third-party vendors are responsible for the manufacturing and shipping of the products which they are representing to the fulfilment centre.

How to get vendors to list their products on your website?

Owing a multivendor marketplace helps in increasing merchants resulting in increased income for everyone. If you have more products on your website, more people will visit it and buy from it that will increase the sales which will give good return.

According to the Statista research published in 2022, there is a major scope of sales via e-commerce and there are billions of vendors who want to sell their products on an online platform to increase their sales and profit so attracting them will be an easy task.

Following are some tips which can be used in attracting vendors for the website:

1. Reach Vendors on the existing platforms

2.      Market your e-commerce website smartly

3.      Find vendors for your e-commerce marketplace website and connect with them directly

4.      Clearly mention the commission structure

5.      Provide e-commerce logistics and customer support

Reach Vendors on the existing platforms

The first and easy choice to find vendors for your e-commerce platform is to embark on the existing marketplace where these potential vendors are active. You can approach them via META (formerly Facebook) groups or other online forums where people having same interest gather. These platforms encourage discussion and help the providers promoting their items.

On that platform, be prepared and project your platform as the number one platform of all and provide some insights to the vendors to make them keen to know more about the platform where they can clearly see their profits which are better than that of the platforms they are using to sell their items. Make them a good offer that they have to think twice even when they have to reject it. Create a comparison analysis of your multi-vendor website with the existing competitors in the market.

2. Market your e-commerce website smartly

Marketing is difficult and time taking so it should be done smartly in efficient and effective manner that can prove to be a good choice for the online multi-vendor marketplace. A good marketing strategy helps to attract vendors to the online shopping platform to list their products.

Take The Advantage Of Advertising Platform

Advertising makes things easy when it comes to marketing of any product or service. One can share promotional posts on the social networks that can attract more eyeballs as it is the easiest way to reach out to vendors as well as consumers these days.

Proper Targeting Of Ads

Running a Google search and display ads campaign is also another great way to promote your marketplace. Create your ads for the vendors to register on your online marketplace as a seller.

Utilize Social Media Groups, Forums, And Communities

One should join such groups, communities and forum where discussions on the same interest is available and you can find various vendors through different media platforms. This will enable you to associate directly with them. Sharing information regularly on these platforms keep the vendors updated about the latest information.

3. Find vendors for your ecommerce marketplace website and connect with them directly

In order to find vendors and connect with them directly, on must know where to discover merchants’ data.

Merchant Associations: You can search for local vendor associations and try to get information about the vendors of your chosen specialty.

Trade fairs: You can also attend the local trade fairs. From trade fairs, you can find out vendors who are related to your business. Tell them directly about your business and get contact information so you can reach them in the future.

When you have adequate dealer information, now is the time to start contacting the vendors through online and offline modes of communications.

4. Clearly Mention The Commission Structure

The major problem in attracting vendors to online marketplace due to which most of the sellers take back foot is commission and payment structure which proves to be worrisome for the sellers.

The website should display clear structure of commission and payment for which one should install the modules at e-commerce website that consequently separate the expense and Return on Investment (ROI). It ought to be relegated to the payment page itself. Any deferral in this may leave the sellers in doubt.

Provide E-commerce Logistics and Customer Support

For running successful business of e-commerce, the owner should think about the customer satisfaction too. For this, it has to set up 24X7 support, and setting up a fool-proof returns systems.

One needs to think about the issues related to fulfilment centres, warehouse, packaging and afterwards providing end to end delivery logistic of the commodities.

Discovering sellers, helping them go web-based, creating traffic, conveying an item, and overseeing client desires, these are all link in your ecommerce business chain. Your vendors will come to you for delivery logistics as much as with respect to your advertising hacks. So get this right.