ux-design-workshop

3 Ways to Maximise Your B2C Marketplace

How to ensure your B2C Marketplace website is a success

1) Validate your idea

According to Cristóbal Gracia, OuiShare connector in Barcelona and a partner at Consumo Colaborativo, not validating your business idea and strategy is the worst mistake that budding marketplace entrepreneurs can make. After all, if no-one wants what you’re offering your business will sink without trace.

So when you’re starting out, the only thing that matters is to understand your potential users and their problems. (1) Only then will you know if your product fills a gap in the market. Startup guru Steve Blank echoes this sentiment saying that customer discovery or achieving problem/solution fit is the first step to validating your idea.

2) Build a minimal viable product (MVP)

The term ‘minimal viable product’ was popularised by startup gurus Eric Ries and Steve Blank. Basically, it means finding the fastest and simplest way possible to bring a working prototype of your product to market. 

So it doesn’t have to be the finished product – it could be a social media group or basic website – but a way of testing your idea with real users to get an understanding of how they interact with it, and to receive feedback on the best direction in which to take the finished product.   

3) Start small

When you’re ready to launch your MVP, start small with a select group of users. Doing so has many benefits. 

  • Fewer people will see your work-in-progress marketplace
  • It’s easier to forge a relationship with a small group of users 
  • Their feedback helps achieve a problem/solution fit

Opting to launch with a small group also helps promote a community feel where people are more likely to be open and honest and want to provide feedback. Plus, it helps give you an early user fanbase who can be utilised for reviews and positive social sharing when the time is right.  

Are you in the market for a marketplace?

If so, we can help. We design and build bespoke, highly scalable, secure multi-vendor marketplaces. Whether you’re after business to consumer (B2C), business to business (B2C), or even customer to customer (C2C), get in touch and we’ll start the process of bringing your marketplace to market.

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References

(1) https://www.sharetribe.com/academy/