Business-To-Business Marketplace: A Boon for Small Businesses

By: Gaurav Batra In: B2B Last Updated: 2018-05-23

B2B Marketplace for Small Businesses

Establishing a small business may be easy but ensuring steady growth is a big challenge for the entrepreneurs. With limited funds and human capital, small business has to manage several business operations, stay competitive, and scale the performance. Apart from these, there are other challenges like maintaining the cash flow, finding clients, balancing the quality & growth, managing operation & processes, and keeping up with what’s current in their niche that are unique to small businesses. A small business can easily conquer these challenges if it is able to promote itself, generate leads, and build brand. And that’s where B2B marketplaces come in.

B2B marketplaces offer various opportunities to the small businesses to take their business out in the open and give them the support to stay competitive in the industry. These marketplaces enable the small businesses to enter a large community, fetch quality leads, and gain global visibility. And that’s not all. There are several other benefits offered by the B2B marketplaces that make them a boon for the small businesses.

That said, here are some of the top benefits and opportunities offered by B2B marketplaces to the small businesses. Let’s have a look.

Automation of Sales
One of the biggest challenges faced by the small businesses is getting quality leads. B2B marketplaces connect the small businesses with a large pool of buyers, seller, suppliers, and other industry persons as per the business requirements. There are various tools available on the B2B marketplace platforms that let you get closer to the distributors, retailers, buyers, suppliers etc. The marketplaces make use of latest technology to notify its clients about the latest postings by the businesses they follow. Businesses can use keyword alerts and other triggers to get notifications, thus filtering out the unnecessary notifications. The businesses do not have to scan through thousands of business postings, thus, saving time, automating their sales process, and further, increasing their chances of closing a sale.

Platform for Market Research
Analyzing the competitors is crucial for the small businesses to maintain their status in the B2B ecosystem. On B2B marketplaces, the small businesses can get an ideal platform to study their competitors and perform market research. Small businesses can view the products or services offered by the competitors and analyze their business from various angles. Be it the pricing structure, product features, or even the branding strategies, small businesses can easily view competitors in their niche and have a deep analysis on these B2B marketplaces.

Tool for Business Branding
Building brand and name in an industry where big players have already carved their niche is one of the biggest challenges for the small businesses. Business-to-business marketplaces offer the businesses with an opportunity to build their brand. By taking membership on B2B marketplaces, the small businesses get a built-in virtual presence in the form of website, logo, catalog, and product showroom. With a website, the small businesses can directly compete with the bigger players of the market in the virtual world. More and more B2B buyers start recognizing the brand when they see it regularly on the B2B marketplaces. Moreover, businesses can also take special packages from the B2B portals get higher visibility and branding.

Innovative Product Ideas
There are various benefits of B2B portals for SMEs.One of the biggest benefits that B2B portal or marketplace have for the small businesses is that it opens a treasure of product innovation ideas for them. There are more than 582 million entrepreneurs in the world starting their own small business with a unique idea. By taking the small business on the B2B marketplace, the businesses can get more innovative product ideas. By studying the features details of the products listed on the B2B marketplace, businesses can get inspiration for their own product innovation.

Small Investment Offering High ROI
Small businesses have a small budget and even smaller is the budget they can invest in their marketing efforts. B2B marketplaces offer the small businesses an opportunity to market their business in front of a global audience by charging a minimal sum. A B2B portal, usually, charges from $300 to $3,0000 annually. In turn, the marketplaces offer high exposure to international clients, high visibility, better SERP ranking, quality leads, and automation of sales. Thus, a small investment in the B2B marketplaces offers a high ROI for the small businesses.

These were some of the reasons that make B2B marketplaces a boon for the small businesses. By registering the businesses on these B2B marketplaces to showcase their products or offer services, the small businesses can ensure the success of their endeavors.

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