Category: Non classé

1. Stocks and logistics

Indeed, in order for an e-merchant to generate significant revenues, he must have a large depth of catalog: vast references, regularly supplied stocks… This requires a significant investment.
In addition, the manager of a merchant site must also be able to manage logistics and the shipment of products directly to the end customer.
On the contrary, the Marketplace operator does not have an inventory: his role is to put buyers in contact with third party sellers. It is the latter who directly manage the inventory and ship the products.

2. Professions

Although some functions are found in both activities, such as management or marketing, the core business of the Marketplace operator and the e-merchant differ.
Indeed, the job of a Marketplace operator is above all to find and integrate sellers on its platform, as well as to manage the acquisition of traffic on the site.
The manager of a merchant site must focus on the purchase of merchandise, customer support (the part delegated to the sellers in the “Marketplace” model), manage its stocks soundly and take charge of the shipment of its products.

3. Business model

In a classic e-commerce scheme, the manager buys products, which he then resells on his site at a higher price, in order to generate a margin for his business. A good budget management is thus induced by a good sourcing of suppliers.
The Marketplace operator, for its part, is generally remunerated on a commission taken from each sale. His commercial approach is therefore based on business volume: the higher the sales, the more his income will increase.

4. Catalog

One of the great strengths of the Marketplace is the decentralization of inventory to its vendors. This makes it possible to aggregate an almost infinite number of references, to put sellers in competition with each other on certain products, thus making it possible to offer attractive prices (and thus increase sales), and to push merchants to display impeccable customer service (thanks to the instructions left by buyers).
An e-merchant’s catalog, on the other hand, depends on its storage and logistics capacities, and is therefore very limited.
For example, on the Amazon site, king of e-commerce and logistics, there are 2.8 million “Amazon” products, the rest, more than 285 million, are sold by Marketplace sellers.

5. Legal status

From a legal point of view, the Marketplace operator acts as a broker, providing a secure platform for the transaction. The legal responsibility for the products is therefore imputed to the seller.
Conversely, the manager of an e-commerce site is legally responsible for the products sold.
And if a buyer decides to take legal action following damage caused by a product/service sold on the Marketplace, the operator is covered: it is the seller who must be heard.
More information on legal issues can be found on the website of Haas Attorneys at Law, which specialises in the Marketplace.

6. Technology

While building an e-commerce site is now simple, thanks to numerous SaaS or open-source technologies (from Shopify to SAP Hybris, via Magento), few platforms allow you to create a marketplace. E-commerce CMSs are in fact not natively thought of as “multi-seller” (and all the attributes that come with it: payment, invoicing, synchronisation of flows with external IS, commission models, logistics management etc.).
IZBERG, the most complete Product and Services Marketplace solution on the market, meets precisely this need, and now equips many players, such as Vente-Privée, Europ Assistance, Suez and Gifi. In addition, IZBERG can be integrated in less than 4 months with any type of front-end technology, from e-commerce CMS to a custom framework.
Thus, for a multi-brand pure-player, the Marketplace is much less risky than a classic merchant site. And this disintermediation mechanism will see two strong trends in the years to come: the B2B sector, which is still not very digitalized, and Services platforms, making it possible to reinvent sometimes dusty business models.

There’s been a real shift this year: the volume of online retail in B2B has exceeded that of B2C (Gartner). And this trend is likely to intensify thanks to marketplaces, which represent the best driver of sales among professionals: 70% of new marketplaces in the coming years will focus on B2B!

Digital retail in B2B in 2022 will be worth some $7 billion (Frost & Sullivan). If this incredible sum doesn’t grab your attention, it’s equivalent to +20% (19.6%, to be precise) and equates to the increase in online B2B sales in the first quarter of 2022 in France. B2C, meanwhile, is standing still, with a drop of 15% (Fevad).

The marketplace model provides companies with new opportunities. This “revolution” is happening gradually: professionals are slowly embracing this solution. They’re not used to working in this way, even though they already make a significant number of their personal purchases on marketplaces. It also takes time for a company to internally approve a change on this scale.

Changing habits

Launching a marketplace means embarking on a new way of managing a market; to do this, a company needs to adapt the way in which it works. You will probably need to review your stock and catalog management with the (virtuous) aim of automating them.

For instance, Alstom worked with IZBERG to launch StationOne, the first marketplace for railway operators. Wheels, bearings, motors, suspensions, cables, screws, cameras, personal protective equipment: StationOne provides all the necessary material for maintenance, installation, repairs, servicing and even training. The site streamlines the supply chain by working directly with a wide range of suppliers and by facilitating the identification of parts, the ordering process and the organization of deliveries.

Total provides us with another example: Click & Buy is an internal marketplace, which facilitates invoicing, especially for small amounts (C-class purchases). The main benefits for the group: faster processing times and time savings for its employees.

In addition to spare parts and invoices, you can also “trade” events online, as GRDF has done with its service marketplace, known as Dej’Tour’. The site encourages all group employees to sign up for internal lunches and discussions throughout the year.

Developing a service offering

Developing a B2B marketplace is also an opportunity to consider the specificities of the market and to demonstrate that you can respond to them with a real sense of service. Your professional clients have needs that don’t exist in B2C: quote management and deferred payment methods (credit, leasing with the option to purchase, long-term leasing, credit insurance, etc.), along with automatic invoicing and batch delivery management. A marketplace makes it possible for you to do this, while also offering a range of additional functionalities: from a deferred payment solution to the use of a virtual IBAN to limit the risk of any errors with manual entry.

The model also facilitates the management of access and rights (including approval by the ordering party, for instance) because in B2B, the person who’s buying isn’t necessarily the person who’s paying! Lastly, your site can support your company’s international expansion by automating the choice of language and compliance with local regulations.

Expanding the target market

Who wouldn’t want to reach new clients by launching on new markets that have previously been limited in scope?

Launched by IZBERG in 2017, Suez’s Organix marketplace connects sellers of organic waste (fruit, oil, sugar, lactose, etc.) with biogas plants with the aim of transforming this waste into energy.

It’s a win-win for all the project’s stakeholders. This reduces waste, protects the environment, creates a new business and opens up the market to all, overcoming an “ultra-local” issue that was previously resolved solely by word of mouth. The Organix marketplace already has 200 sellers and 140 buyers and more than 300 tons of waste have been sold online. 

In addition to providing an opportunity to develop a new business model, a marketplace makes it possible to: 

• launch an additional offering, as we are increasingly seeing in the health sector. Major financial organizations are creating marketplaces that offer the leasing or purchase of medical equipment for professionals; the purchase process includes financing options, whether for long-term leasing or leasing with the option to purchase.
• firmly establish a business within the circular economy by refurbishing and reusing. There are many examples of this, including Backacia, Cycle Up, Waste and BeeWee, which works to give industrial spare parts a new lease of life.
  

A marketplace project is more business-focused than technological. That’s why IZBERG supports its clients during the early strategic analysis phase: this is a vital process to identify and prioritize the functionalities to be included in your platform’s store front.

When the Internet made its first appearance in our lives (back in the early 2000s, if you remember!), food was undoubtedly the last product we imagined that we’d end up buying online one day.

Too fresh, too complex to pack and ship, too complicated to choose without seeing, smelling or touching: simply too physical (food is probably the most physical thing we buy). It seemed like there were far too many obstacles. What’s more, it didn’t really feel like a problem that needed solving: we all lived close enough to a supermarket or other shops selling food.

Thirty years later, things have changed considerably. Consumer expectations have become more diverse and more sophisticated. Eating is no longer the priority; instead, the focus is on eating well, protecting the planet, eating locally produced ingredients, shopping ethically, respecting the changing seasons, supporting organic farming and so much more.

Over time, retailers and agrifood have invested in the marketplace model, which is particularly relevant when it comes to encouraging more responsible consumerism. Today, plenty of pure players continue to focus on growing customer demand in various areas: buying loose groceries, limiting waste and more.

1. Flashback: a dramatic rise

On Thursday May 19, Marc Lolivier, Fevad’s Managing Director, announced that online food shopping has become the norm. “Because of the pandemic, many French consumers tried online food shopping in 2020 and remained loyal to it in 2021. The growth in sales of fresh food has been spectacular with an increase of 58% in three years. After the incredible rise in popularity of click & collect, home delivery is now making waves.”

Any market’s history includes key stages which serve as symbolic milestones. The history of online food shopping was undoubtedly shaped by Amazon’s takeover of Whole Foods in 2017: this was seen as official recognition of the e-commerce boom in a sector that previously had been largely unaffected by the rise of digital technology.

Two years earlier, Auchan was the first company to open a marketplace in France. This was a particularly innovative approach in 2015; the company focused initially on two categories (garden and food) before gradually expanding its offering.

Carrefour then launched its extensive food marketplace, showcasing local products that were not available at a national level.

Specialist food marketplaces emerged, including Les Grappes (buying wine directly from wine-makers) and, in B2B, Les Grands Moulins de Paris (flour for the Île de France region).

Métro, another B2B company and the leading supplier to independent restaurants, also opened its marketplace in 2019. The company now works with more than 250 traders and suppliers, with over 160,000 food products available online and has launched a program entitled “My sustainable restaurant” to support restaurant owners with their ecological transition.

2. The shift: a different kind of consumerism

Buying organic, buying local, shopping ethically: although consumers’ demands may have become much more specific, buying better is the clear overall objective.

Of course, other far less virtuous (and even contradictory!) trends have emerged at the same time, including quick commerce (whereby companies such as Getir and Flink deliver food in under 15 minutes) and the boom in delivery aggregators (Deliveroo, Uber Eats), which are accused of creating insecure, poorly paid and even dangerous jobs.

However, we’re hopeful that in the end, consumers will opt for responsible consumerism.

Adaptability is key for distributors. They must be able to react quickly to these fundamental changes and provide a relevant and tailored offering.

The marketplace model makes it possible for anyone to consolidate supply and demand and build bridges between two communities, such as organic producers and consumers who are interested in an organic approach, for instance.

Kazidomi, GreenWeez and La Fourche play this role.

There’s been a similar dynamic in B2B, with initiatives like L’Aventure Bio, a wholesaler specializing in organic food.

Other players focus on local produce: La Ruche Qui Dit Oui was founded in 2011 (if you’re looking for genuine pioneers, you’ve found them!) and now has more than 700 distribution points for producers within a radius of 60 kilometers.

Similarly, Pour De Bon now works with 500 growers and artisan producers and provides online shoppers with a digital shopping experience “that’s just like being at the market”.

3. The future: reducing waste

This is an important sustainable development issue, supported by regulations and the AGEC Law in France (which aims to fight waste and encourage the circular economy): we must urgently reduce our waste and, at the same time, we must also stop destroying unsold goods that are still perfectly edible.

The food distribution and institutional catering sectors (supermarkets, canteens, etc.) must reduce food waste by 50% by 2025, in comparison to 2015 levels. The same will apply to food producers, processors and commercial catering by 2030.

For distributors, circular economy marketplaces are a quick and efficient solution to the challenge of getting rid of stock.

Founded in 2020, WeBulk is “the first bulk and zero-waste marketplace for professionals” and has ambitious objectives. Its mantra is particularly appealing: 3 x 0 commerce or “zero disposable packaging, zero unnecessary miles, zero food waste”.

This is a clever and contemporary positioning. Other recent success stories including Too Good to Go, HorsNormes and Phénix show the way forward. And with marketplaces like Cstick (which sells products with a limited use-by date) and Organix (which sells leftover sandwiches, meat, etc.), the B2B sector is certainly not to be outdone!

In conclusion, we encourage you to pay close attention to this combination of food and digital technology; although it seemed improbable just a few years ago, it has proved to be essential.