PARIS — Mirakl, a global marketplace solutions provider, on Tuesday announced the launch of its B2B solution, Mirakl Marketplace B2B, designed to help distributors and manufacturers create their own online marketplaces.
Online marketplaces are a major growth area in retail, and B2B organizations now have the chance to embrace this wave of innovation to increase their product range by offering products from third-party sellers.
“Online marketplaces are as well-suited for B2B as they are for B2C,” said Adrien Nussenbaum, U.S. CEO and co-founder of Mirakl. “The fundamentals are just the same, offering customers more choice, better service and more competitive pricing. With B2B firms feeling the pressure from pure-players such as Amazon Business or Alibaba, Mirakl Marketplace B2B delivers a host of specific features tailored for the B2B market, enabling those organizations to meet customer needs, without cost or inventory.”
Mirakl launched Mirakl Marketplace B2B as a response to the changing behaviors and needs of B2B stakeholders. Due to the popularity of same-day delivery, price transparency and first-class customer service in B2C from pure-players such as Amazon, buyers and procurement teams in business now also expect that same convenience, price and service at work.
“The rise of digital has had a strong impact on the B2B market because it facilitates peer-to-peer exchanges,” continued Nussenbaum. “B2C e-commerce has induced a change in behavior and today B2B consumers expect the same kind of experience as B2C consumers. B2B companies must address this e-commerce challenge or they will face extinction. Creating their own online marketplace allows a B2B organization to adapt to changing markets, remain competitive and relevant in the face of stiff competition from new players.”
A recent Forrester report showed that 82 percent of B2B buyers would buy again from the same supplier because of that supplier’s broad selection. Additionally, 84 percent of B2B buyers would buy again from the same supplier because of consistently low prices. Mirakl Marketplace B2B comes with a host of additional features designed to specifically address these customer requirements of choice and competitive pricing in the B2B market, including:
- Negotiation Tool: allows the vendor to negotiate specific price offerings for a specific buyer. It also includes a chat feature in which buyers and vendors can discuss the products.
- Quantity Discount: a common feature of B2B sales, which involves decreasing the cost-per-unit of goods or materials when purchased in greater numbers.
- Customer Personal Prices: prices are displayed on the marketplace according to each individual buyer.
- Quotation Management: a buyer can interact with a seller to ask for a quote through a managed process until the quote is approved. These quotes can then be used as a basis for future transactions between the buyer and the seller.
- Catalog Integration: third-party sellers offer catalogs in many diverse formats, Mirakl Catalog IntegrationÓ enables easy integration of catalogs and onboarding of sellers at scale to ensure continuity of look and feel of the marketplace.
- Multiple Vendor Order Management: provides the operator with a complete overview and control of order lifecycle on the marketplace, ensuring that customers can order from different vendors with the same service levels.
- Packing Unit Management: this feature takes into account the volume of data to be purchased in order to calculate the order value, assess shipping costs and select the right carrier.
“Whether a manufacturer is offering a new innovative sales channel for its distributors, or a distributor is wanting to offer its customers more choice with complementary or related products and better pricing, the future of B2B e-commerce is linked to online marketplaces,” said Nussenbaum. “The key to successful e-commerce is providing first-class customer service, and with the launch of Mirakl Marketplace B2B, this is now possible for B2B firms as well as traditional retailers.”
