Wholesale businesses are the backbone of retail companies as they supply products generally at a lower price. Now if you are planning to start a wholesale business, you can build an eCommerce website or you can use a popular platform for wholesalers, to begin with. If you search, you are likely going to find so many best eCommerce platforms for wholesalers. You need to have a clear criterion using particular standards or concepts that you need to create a successful eCommerce platform.
The internet is likely going to provide you with an ocean of information, and swimming to the right one is indeed going to be time-consuming. So it is important that you find the right platform for your business without losing much time. Here we are listing out some of the best eCommerce platforms for wholesalers to help you pick one quickly.
Don’t worry, here we have listed a few popular eCommerce platforms where you can sell your products and some features you need to rely on while choosing the best eCommerce platforms for wholesalers.
What do you mean by Wholesale eCommerce platform?
A wholesale eCommerce platform is a digital space that facilitates wholesale purchases over the internet. Now there are two conflicting terms in wholesale eCommerce – a B2B wholesale platform and a B2B wholesale marketplace.
B2B wholesale platforms are services that provide a complete digital storefront for your wholesale business. These have a host of other features like blogging platforms, marketing features, and other integrations that will improve the business. Some popular examples are WooCommerce, Shopify, Bigcommerce, etc.
Most businesses work and create a complete ecosystem using one of these platforms. These platforms let you integrate other plugins that will enhance the basic features of a store. For example, you can make use of certain plugins to enhance the in-built features of a WooCommerce store for better pricing, shipping options, and much more. The best part of these platforms is that any kind of integration is possible.
B2B Wholesale Marketplace is specialized in selling your wholesale products to retailers. The common examples are Alibaba, eWorld Trade, and Made in China. Here the wholesalers need not set up a storefront for selling, rather they need to set up the inventory well and sell through these platforms. The best part of these is that you need not worry about brand building, website setup, or web development. So why do we need a marketplace for B2B selling?
These eCommerce platforms offer the same convenience that is offered to a regular customer who is purchasing online. This is the major factor that is making eCommerce platforms inviting to the wholesalers. With online platforms, you get to connect with different customers who are in line with your requirements. Also, they help to expand your product line. These platforms also help you search for a potential supplier with no hassle.
Why Wholesalers need an eCommerce platform?
With online shopping booming, the whole scenario of visiting the market and looking around for stuff has become almost outdated. Nowadays everyone, including a customer or a retailer, goes online to look for what they want to purchase. For example, a retailer in the US may look for a supplier who is in China or Europe. How are you planning to connect with them when they may not come to your location to fetch the goods? This is when an open marketplace comes in handy. These platforms let you connect with buyers more readily.
Benefits of eCommerce Applications in Wholesale
- Rise in the number of customers because of greater outreach.
- It helps to establish a brand faster.
- You get to benefit from multi-channel sales.
- Wholesalers can gather data from prospective customers.
- Evaluate potential competitors easily.
- Make B2B more economical by excluding irrelevant costs.
- Broadens opportunities for promotion.
- Provides you the opportunity to have direct customer contact.
- Mobile eCommerce accessibility.
- Steady 24-hour accessibility.
Top Wholesale eCommerce MarketPlace Features
Let’s look at some of the prominent features that you may find useful in wholesale eCommerce marketplace platforms before you choose them.
Simple Design: The design should be simple and elegant. It is always better if the website is easy to navigate. Also, if the marketplace platform is more focused on functionality, it will give better results.
Multiple Budget Options: Every business has its budget for purchasing. Hence wholesale platforms need to have flexible and customized rates for purchasing.
Varied Catalogs: When you are shipping, you are likely to stumble upon various products. To find the best-fit product for your business needs, you need to have a proper catalog. Hence, a catalog is essential for a marketplace to help the customers choose what they want.
Easy Re-ordering: Sometimes customers want to re-order the same items from your store. To achieve this, your marketplace needs to provide the opportunity to do it. So it is ideal if the eCommerce platform has the re-order option.
Mobile-enabled: Customers are increasingly getting used to the convenience of a mobile device for placing orders. By enabling the options for customers to place orders through their mobile devices using dedicated apps or mobile-friendly websites, you can enhance their shopping experience on varied devices irrespective of their size.
Barcode Scanning: Since wholesale dealings are much more in bulk, to simplify it you can make use of a barcode scanner. This saves time for customers while placing orders.
Full Shopping Cart Experience: With these eCommerce platforms, the wholesaler can review, make changes, and also confirm their orders on the checkout page, which makes the process of purchasing easy.
The Top 10 eCommerce Platforms for Wholesalers
Here are some popular eCommerce platforms that are ideal for a wholesaler.
1. Alibaba.com
Alibaba is a China-based wholesale platform that hosts multiple wholesale businesses with a larger user base. The website has a variety of products that are ready to be shipped. Plus, it is easy to sign up on the website, and it is free. You can even place your quotes on the products and purchase the ones which you need. Usability is the key here. It is easy to set up and has multiple payment options to process the payments, and also supports multiple languages. The service charges are capped at $100.They also offer logistics services and trade assurances.
2. Amazon Business
Amazon Business is designed for B2B transactions, mostly between retailers and wholesalers. It is free to sign up. You can also compare the offers from different sellers to get what exactly you need. You can also have multiple accounts and process payments using various methods. Amazon has better fulfillment options and also prime delivery options that come in handy when you want your packages urgently.
3. X-Cart
X-Cart is yet another platform that is ideal for wholesalers to showcase and sell the products online to reach out to a larger audience. The best part of X-Cart is indeed its usability as you can connect your ERP, CRM, and POS without writing any code. It has multiple language support and omnichannel content management.
4. IndiaMart
IndiaMart is the best option for both B2C and B2B customers. The marketplace is focused on most Indian regions. They have over 3 million suppliers across locations.
5. Made in China
If you are looking for electronics, Made in China is the best. The products on this marketplace are mostly manufactured in China or Taiwan.
6. Global Sources
Global Sources is one of the oldest and fastest-growing eCommerce platforms around. This is a Hong-Kong based eCommerce business with a fabulous B2B sales strategy. This platform brings retailers and wholesalers face to face.
7. DHGate
Headquartered in Beijing and with offices in the US, UAE, India, and the Philippines, DHGate is another China-based platform. It has almost 1.2 million Chinese suppliers and buyers from almost 200 countries. The platform facilitates wholesale transactions for small to medium and big manufacturers.
8. eWorld Trade
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, the World Trade platform is completely managed and run from Karachi, Pakistan. The CPEC economic corridor developed this to facilitate and develop trade between Pakistan and China. It is the largest growing platform available online now.
9. Tradekey
If you are looking to establish your trade, in Asian regions like Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Malaysia, and Taiwan, Tradekey is the best platform for you. You can either get quotes on certain products or go for what is available on the platform.
10. Kinnek.com
The Kinnek.com platform is completely buyer-centric. It facilitates wholesale distribution for small and medium enterprises. The users on this platform can create advertisements and also ask sellers for quotes. You will find small-scale businesses like bakeries, restaurants, etc., on this platform.
How To Pick Your Platform
The very first thing that you need to decide before you choose a platform is what exactly do you want to sell? Do you have any specific region or area in mind? Or do you need any external fulfillment options for your order? Here are some of the popular aspects to consider before you decide upon a platform to choose.
- Your budget.
- Target region.
- Multi-language support.
- Payment methods offered
- Usability
- How efficient is customer support?
- Ease of managing the account
- Connectivity with CRM and inventory.
- Order Fulfillment and logistics.
With these points to consider, you can easily arrive at the right platform that will help you create your market space.
How to Create a Marketplace using WordPress WooCommerce?
As we read above, various factors need to be considered to choose the right marketplace for your store. How about you create a marketplace on your own? Though it is a big task, it is worth taking the trouble. WooCommerce is one of the flexible options to create a marketplace. There are several benefits of owning a marketplace:
- You get an additional income when you invite other vendors to your marketplace to sell.
- Better audience reach, as you will be hosting multiple vendors who are selling varied items.
- You can gain control over other vendors and also in terms of the payments you want to make and receive.
- You can create automated payouts for your vendors with proper plugin integration.
- Shared responsibility in terms of managing and running the store.
WooCommerce has plenty of options when it comes to supportive features to build a multi-vendor marketplace. Creating a wholesale eCommerce site using WooCommerce is simple. Here are other things that need to be considered while creating a wholesale marketplace.
- Create a WordPress WooCommerce website with themes.
- Create user profiles to define rules and regulations to price the products and sell them. We can achieve this by using several pricing plugins which help to arrive at an appropriate wholesale pricing strategy for your store.
- Let users place a quote on your products, without much hassle.
- Support multiple payment gateways in the store.
- You need to get a multi-vendor marketplace plugin like Dokan, WooCommerce Product Vendors, etc., to help you easily add/manage the vendors who are associated with the eCommerce store.
- To manage shipping without my conflict in your marketplace, you can use WooCommerce Multi-Vendor Add-On for ELEX Shipping Plugins. This helps to fetch real-time shipping rates on your checkout page. Hence, when the customers place orders with various vendors, they will not experience any conflict with the shipping options listed. To smoothen the order processing method, this plugin works well. The plugin is compatible with the marketplace plugins too.
With the right choice of plugins to integrate into your WooCommerce store, you can build an excellent multi-vendor marketplace store.
7. With the plugin, you can list the shipping options for each vendor in your store. You can choose to display the consolidated and unconsolidated shipping options on the store depending on your shop settings.
Learn more about the plugin from the product page.
Go for the best eCommerce platforms for Wholesalers and build your online presence
eCommerce is evolving every day, giving opportunities for wholesalers, dropshippers, and retailers who are looking to expand their business reach all over the world. Choosing the right platform is essential as it becomes your gateway to expand your business worldwide.
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