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Marketplaces: why UX is twice as important

45% of French people* (almost one in two) leave a website or mobile site after viewing one page. And a single second’s delay in loading leads to a 16% drop in customer satisfaction**.

If customers are king, then UX is their crown! By improving the quality of the customer journey, customers are more likely to want to stay on a site.

UX comes into play as soon as the customer accesses the homepage and extends well beyond the purchase process, including the after-sales service. It’s a key way to stand out, particularly in saturated markets.

For marketplaces, this issue is twice as important, simply because you need to attract two different types of customers: sellers on one side and buyers on the other, both of whom are equally important!

UX is a demanding discipline, but it pays dividends: the efforts you make yield immediately measurable results. Another positive: you can take a progressive approach, making changes wherever you need to.

Helping sellers to sell

As marketplace publishers, retailers see us as partners: we’re here to help them create an efficient platform. 

The first step is to provide the basics in terms of service: focus on offering seamless product listings and tracking to ensure successful sales.

This involves very specific tools, particularly when it comes to invoicing and payment. These tools are at the heart of the marketplace model! At IZBERG, we’ve added a module that enables B2B sellers to edit a quote and invoice directly in the marketplace. 

But how can you give these sellers an additional helping hand? By providing them with marketing tools, for instance, or by enabling them to push payment facilities or insurance themselves.

We firmly believe that an API-first approach is needed to develop a modular marketplace; in this way, administrators can add additional features, as their market evolves. 

And remember… it’s about more than just the online world! Move away from screens and ensure that staff are easy to contact, responsible and attentive to sellers: it’s vital to create a dedicated team to recruit sellers when the marketplace launches and encourage their loyalty in the long term!

Provide buyers with great service

The challenge for any marketplace is to maintain the delicate balance between buyers and sellers. When it comes to buyers, marketplaces must play a role as a trusted third party, providing reassurance and reliability without overlooking the importance of “pleasure” in the online shopping process.

• Some features have become essential, such as fast delivery, the importance of which cannot be overstated. There are other features that users expect to find on marketplaces: payment in installments and free returns, for instance.

• Other features are beginning to emerge, particularly with regard to reducing customers’ carbon footprint: delivery by bike is one such option.

• Other services make it possible to really stand out, as with the “Ask Your Father” button that we deployed for Dott, a Portuguese rival of Amazon. Young people can use this feature to ask their parents to pay for their order. Dott sends an email to the chosen person, with the ATM reference for payment.

Talking of millennials, they’re particularly keen on customer care and expect a personalized service. Picking up on the importance of this, Mano Mano readjusted the objectives of its customer relations center: with an 80% pick-up rate in under a minute, most customers wait no longer than 60 seconds before speaking to an employee. As for its CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score), the company aims at a score of 90%***. Mano Mano has also created a community of “Manodvisors”, knowledgeable DIY fans who are paid to encourage purchases by providing Internet users with advice****.

The marketplace La Beauté Française is another example; it offers its (professional) customers the option to customize their selection, based on their region (local products), criteria that are important to them (cruelty-free, artisanal, zero-waste products, etc.) or their desired profit margins. In this way, the marketplace demonstrates that it’s focused on its customers’ priorities.

Delving a little deeper, a website’s scroll rate is a good indicator of UX performance. The higher it is, the better! To date, the average scroll rate across all industries is 54%*.

(*) Source: ContentSquare, Digital Experience Benchmark 2022

(**) Source: Aberdeen Group

(***) https://www.relationclientmag.fr/Thematique/techno-ux-1256/Breves/ManoMano-et-Diabolocom-une-relation-qui-s-inscrit-dans-la-duree-370235.htm#

(****)  https://www.manomano.fr/devenir-manodvisor?referer_id=683767&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7__qmvSz9wIVAuh3Ch1a1QzaEAAYASAAEgKGSfD_BwE

Banking & insurance: 3 good reasons to open e B2B marletplace

We recently explained how marketplaces are driving the circular economy. But the model is also providing a boost in more traditional and infinitely more regulated sectors, such as banking and insurance. If you work in these industries, you know that intermediation plays a key role when it comes to reaching customers. By opening a marketplace, you can take advantage of this intermediary role, rather than leaving it to others.

1. The starting point: selling banking products

Let’s start with a statistic: 47% of French people say they are ready to use a platform to compare and sign up for financial products and services offered by different banks (CGI/Next Content study, February 2020).

There is an increasingly extensive product offering, including for professionals (as with compte-pro.com, for instance). However, this type of site can undoubtedly be considered to be a marketplace: the comparison between banks is just a step, or even a pretext, before a contract is concluded. Yet it’s not operated by a bank or an insurance company. That’s a pity, isn’t it?

The marketplace model is particularly interesting, given that banks have developed their offering to provide non-banking services to their customers: telephone services, accounting services, HR management software, etc.

2. Leveraging the ecosystem: the “banking as a service” approach

In this scenario, banks rely on other players: they refer their customers to a selection of partners with whom they share data.

This is how Shine, an online bank for professionals, expanded its product range with leasing, insurance products, a marketing and web solution, a physical payment device and management and accounting services. The aim? To check all of its clients’ boxes to meet all their needs.

This value proposition has been driven by regulatory developments in 2009 and 2018: both existing banking players and start-ups (FinTech and RegTech) have started to share their data. This explains the “banking as a service” (BaaS) approach: thanks to the Cloud and APIs, this approach makes it possible to bring new banking services to market and, most importantly, include services from other financial chain operators in new product offerings.

A banking product offering can include the accounting or real estate services of a specialist editor partner.

Other players, who have nothing to do with banks, have seized this opportunity, as we have seen with Darty Pro: in addition to its real estate department and its corporate incentive department, it also puts professional clients in touch with banks.

3. Becoming a retailer: an example from the medical industry

The approach can be pursued further: some banks have opened a marketplace to sell expensive products (requiring maintenance or replacement) to a B2B market, before offering a credit or leasing plan. This is how they attract new customers and seek out new markets. Liz&Med, managed by FranFinance, a subsidiary of the Société Générale Group, is an impressive example of this. “Find the medical equipment you need in a few clicks and rent or lease it. With a fixed monthly price, there are no nasty surprises when it comes to your budget. And you’re free to include additional services, such as maintenance or insurance,” the site explains.

When taking payment, the platform offers insurance and financing, as Darty or Fnac could do with a B2C market. In this way, the bank maximizes the various benefits of this system: it sells a medical product that’s available on the marketplace thanks to its partners, a loan and even related services. The bank plays the role of a facilitator.

Once you adapt the B2B marketplace model to banking and insurance, there are unlimited possibilities. All products are potentially impacted. By building bridges between the worlds of retail and finance, you can broaden your target and your market (revenue diversification), all while offering payment options that will encourage purchases!

To find out more:
B2B marketplaces
McKinsey study

“Marketplaces: a cornerstone of the circular economy”

The circular economy, second-hand markets: in this article, we provide an overview of this alternative and environmentally friendly consumer trend. As more and more people take an interest, companies are transforming their business models to meet this growing demand.

The B2B sector has lots to do when it comes to its manufacturing and marketing practices. Professionals can make the most of enormous and exciting opportunities that are entirely in tune with today’s focus on CSR.

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In France, the Anti-Waste Act for a Circular Economy, which became law in 2020, encourages companies to change their bad habits. For example, it has prohibited the destruction of unsold non-food items since January 1, 2022 and generally urges businesses to think more before throwing items away.

A brief reminder: the circular economy is an innovative economic model that puts an end to the endless cycle of producing, consuming and throwing things away. Possible solutions include recycling, repairing and reusing.

Individuals are leading the way

More and more people in France are buying second-hand products. One in three people already buys or sells on the second-hand website Le Bon Coin. Websites such as Vinted and BackMarket have experienced incredibly fast growth. It must be said that the boom in second-hand sales between individuals has been largely prompted by financial concerns, rather than by a focus on environmental issues. The latest Cetelem Observatory on the circular economy confirms that consumers’ primary objective is to save money. 7 out of 10 Europeans bought a second-hand product in 2021. 24% of them sell products every month, with 18–34-year-olds being the most active: this generation has never known a world without the Internet.

The huge potential of B2B

These transactions between individuals are the most highly visible but the second-hand market extends much further. Today, professionals are embracing the concept.

For example, La Redoute has opted to retain control of the resale of its products by opening La Reboucle, a marketplace for sales between individuals.

Other companies are launching circular economy marketplaces for professionals: manufacturers and distributors put second-hand products on sale, from spare parts that cannot be used internally to materials that would previously have been thrown away but that can now be used by a third-party company. Given that construction is one of the most polluting industries, BatiPhoenix and Backacia have taken this approach.

The Suez group, one of our clients, has taken advantage of this opportunity as well: its Organix marketplace connects organic waste producers with buyers who will process this waste. Moreover, it’s the only trusted third party to offer a delivery service for this waste.

Other companies are focusing on inventory rotation. This approach inspired Engie’s BeeWee marketplace: it provides opportunities to pool “dormant” spare parts within the group. The result? Existing parts can be used, thereby preventing the manufacture of new parts. It’s a win-win.

Plenty of (secondary) benefits

We couldn’t resist the pun! The marketplace is an essential tool for anyone starting out in the circular economy. It plays a vital role, acting as an intermediary to ensure the circular nature of the aptly named circular economy. It provides a wide range of benefits, many of which are felt instantly.

The most obvious advantage is a reduction in the cost of disposal, storage and production, as we have earlier in this article. It creates unexpected added value by enabling the trade of items that weren’t initially designed to be sold.

It has other advantages too: it plays a significant role in brand image, helping companies stand out. Companies with marketplaces remain one step ahead of any future regulations, but that’s not all: circular economy marketplaces often prove to be unifying business projects, increasing a company’s social value.

For all these reasons, these initiatives are becoming increasingly common. The marketplace’s impact can be felt in every sector of the economy: from charities (Label Emmaüs) to the automotive industry (Reparcar), not forgetting fashion (place2swap), cosmetics, agri-food and household appliances.

Alstom, another of our clients, has opened StationOne, a specialist marketplace for the railway sector. The company now connects railway operators with international suppliers of wheels, bearings, motors, suspensions, cables, screws, cameras, personal protective equipment and more. What’s even better is that it also offers installation, repair, maintenance and training!

What makes the marketplace model so successful? It enables companies to expand their offering over time, as we’ve seen in traditional distribution channels. This is sure to revolutionize the circular economy! Flexible and experimental, marketplaces ensure that B2B players aren’t trapped in a rigid system. The format gives them the opportunity to reinvent their business model by providing a “greener” offering and experimenting without having to take significant risks. Marketplaces provide additional revenues and demonstrate real progress in terms of CSR: the effects are purely positive.