E-marketplaces from Seller's Perspective

What is an E-marketplace anyway?only.
E-marketplace is a business to business web basedSales and support costs
venue, where buyers and sellers meet online,By automating sales and customer support processes
generate business leads and conduct businesscompanies can reduce over head costs over 25-30%
transactions. The e-marketplace features are tailoredeasily.
in a manner so that a large numbers of buyers andInventory keeping costs
suppliers can be serviced as a community. AClearer visibility and forecasting ability allow companies
participant of an E-marketplace can be a buyer, aconsiderably reduce inventory keeping costs.
seller or both. Unlike an E-distribution portal which isMost executives agree that primary reason why
oriented to assist suppliers selling their products or anthey feel that the companies should participate in
E-procurement system which is focused on buyersE-marketplace is its ability to streamline supply chain
solely, an E-marketplace is a platform which catersmechanism. Many inherent inefficiencies of supply
buyers and sellers equally. As a participant of anchain process can be eliminated thanks to integrated
E-marketplace you are able to explore buying andto e-marketplaces supply chain solutions.
selling opportunities, make sales offers and buyWhat sellers have to do in order to participate in
products and services, add products and services toE-marketplaces and reap numerous benefits that it
aggregated e-catalog and use numerous other valuecan provide?
added features.As most of the administrative and operational tasks
E-marketplaces are tremendously beneficial to allare done automatically by the e-marketplaces,
businesses that decide to participate in them.participation in them is not a difficult process.
However, the potential benefits that a company canThese are the basic steps that a seller must take to
accrue from an E-marketplace are directlyparticipate in an E-marketplace:
proportional to the factor -- how heavily theRegister
company uses the offered features of thatRegistration might be an easy job of filling up a form.
E-marketplace. Naturally, a company that makesIt is much better to take some initial preparations
e-marketplace as its primary sales channel andbefore doing this.
integrates its sales resources to supply chain solutionsChoose a good login name: your login can be used by
of the E-marketplace avail more in sales andthe E-marketplace to give you subdomain name, i.e.
administrative overhead cost savings, reduced paperProfile: A well-written profile increases company
work, better customer service, reduced productimage.
distribution costs and online sales growth than aLogo: your logo helps you brand your company.
seasonal user of the e-marketplace.Add your products or services to E-catalog
A committed participant of an E-marketplace canMost E-marketplaces furnish with easy to use forms
benefit from and improve two primary factors ofor wizards for sellers to add their products to
company productivity: Revenue Growth and CostE-catalog. As the product and service classification
Savings.used in the E-catalogs often is an industry standard, it
Revenue Growthis important to spend some times to find the perfect
Expand Customer Basesubcategories for your products or services. If you
A seller, once registered with an E-marketplace, getshave any doubt contact the customer support of the
immediate access to a large community ofE-marketplace. Fill up as many given fields are there
prospective buyers of his products or services.for a product as you can. The more information
Revenue Increase from Existing Clientsbuyer gets right away the faster his buying decision
Existing clients get faster and easier access towould be.
product information, quicker response to theirCreate offers
requests, get better customer support and buyMost sophisticated E-marketplaces have various sales
products online.platforms apart from the E-catalog inclusion. Make
Revenue Increase from Value Added Servicesgeneral sales offers, time sensitive offers (hot offers
Once an E-marketplace is set as primary sales- with offer expiry dates) and auction offers of your
channel, freed resources can be used to create moreproducts and services. Determine the terms and
value added services for clients. Some of themethods of price, payment and shipment.
services that the E-marketplace offers also can beDecide how you will handle portions of the supply
utilized to generate more value.chain that you have to do offline.
Cost SavingsAlthough, most of the supply chain process can be
Order Processing Costdone online, not all e-marketplace offer a complete
The supply chain solutions of E-marketplace allowend to end solution. You also have to figure out what
sellers to reduce order processing cost significantly.part of your back office can be integrated to the
Studies show that cost of processing a purchaseE-marketplace.
order can be reduced from US$ 70 down to US$ 6