THE MARKET PLACE January 1, 2023 /Posted by Admin / A marketplace is a platform where vendors can come together to sell their products or services to a curated customer base. The role of a marketplace owner is to bring together the right vendors and the right customers to drive sales through an exceptional multi-vendor platform - sellers have a place to gain visibility and sell their products, and the marketplace owner earns a commission from each sale. An online store, on the other hand, is a single store selling its own products online. All marketing and operations are managed by the company that owns the website and products. Marketplace owners do not own the inventory their platform sells, unlike online store owners. The marketplace owner, therefore, leaves the more operational side of the business to vendors while focusing mainly on promoting their marketplace brand with a view to driving traffic to the platform and converting site views into sales. Marketplaces are large businesses that deal with many vendors, that provide their catalogue, and typically carry much more inventory than online stores. Does this mean they are more complex to manage? Not necessarily. In fact, the opposite can often be the case. As an online store owner manages their own stock and inventory, they usually need to invest heavily in stock acquisition and management when starting the business (dropshipping models apart). On the other hand, the catalogue offered in marketplaces is held by external vendors so the investment in stock management is non-existing (hybrid marketplaces apart). When operating an online store, there is so much to think about: inventory management, site management, customer service, marketing, sales, social media, content and so much more. In contrast, when running a marketplace, the main focus is simply to offer the best platform for the users: marketplace vendors, and the customers they sell to. In particular, for entrepreneurs that leverage a state-of-the-art marketplace SaaS solution to take care of the technology side of the marketplace, there is a whole lot less on their plate. This means they can truly focus on adding value for their users and optimising the marketplace to best meet their needs. Marketplaces are rapidly dominating the world of ecommerce. Indeed, online marketplace revenue is expected to double by 2025. Online marketplaces are already an attractive option for those looking to move into ecommerce, and with Saas solutions to help ventures and brands launch and scale with ease, they just became a whole lot more appealing.