Multi-Vendor Market Place is most sought after eCommerce shopping platform, to the end-users or Customers, as against Single Vendor eCommerce platforms. This is due to the advantage the Multi-Vendor Market Place gives to the end-users. They have a wide range of products to choose from, they have multiple buying options, they can compare the shipping rates and time for shipping for the same product from different vendors, and more. No wonder, Amazon, Alibaba and FlipKart are successful eCommerce businesses today and the main reason behind their success is they are Multi-Vendor/Multi-Merchant platforms. Let's take a look at the must have features of a Multi-Vendor eCommerce Platform, from three different perspectives. The different perspectives are basically Users, who are either buyers and sellers and Admin, who manages the platform from the back-end.

Must-Have Features from End-User (Customer) Perspective

Easy Navigation:

Easy navigation is what makes the entire shopping experience enjoyable for a site visitor. Say for example, while moving from choosing an item to check out, the customer should feel like a pleasurable walk in a park. Only then the visitors will spend more time on the website, convert into customers, subsequently which increases the sales to the eCommerce site.

Easy Checkout:

It has been already mentioned in another article in the Spurt Blog on how a check out page needs to be designed and we are stating it again. Keep the check out page process short, simple and engaging. This is the only way out, if you do not want your Customers to get impatient with a tedious check out process. This is the only way out to increase conversions and sales for your eCommerce platform.

Order Tracking:

Your Customers will always like to get notified, when an order has been placed. Also, send notifications at every stage - say when the order has been confirmed, processed, shipped and out for delivery. In addition, you can also give a tracking number for the order and a link, where they can see the status of their orders.

Multi-language/Multi-Currency:

Having Multi-language and Multi-Currency features in website will encourage global Customers to visit your eCommerce website, experience the website in their preferred language and shop and pay for the products in their native currency.

Multiple Payment Options:

Offer your Customers a wide range of payment options - debit card, credit card, popular wallets, net banking, COD and more. By giving more options, you will be pushing them to quickly pass through the check out funnel.

Must-Have Features from Sellers Perspective

Sellers are as important as Customers. We already mentioned in the introduction that a Multi-Vendor website attracts visitors with its wide range of products and shipping options. So, a supply chain with many sellers selling a wide range of products is a must for Multi-Vendor eCommerce platform. So, we need to have the right and attractive features that will attract more sellers to partner with the eCommerce platform. Let's look at them now.

Import/Export:

From tax categories to catalogs to sell products, this feature is a must for Sellers to import/export all the data that they want to migrate from their system to the eCommerce platform. This should not be a manual process and providing them with an automated system, will make their work easier and hassle-free.

Powerful Vendor Dashboard: 

A powerful Vendor dashboard with features to manage their profile, their products, sales and inventory should be in place.

Shipping Info: 

Give your Sellers with options to choose a shipping company. Also, provide them with access to Shipping info. This will help them in informing Customers of the time it will take for the product to get delivered at their door step.

Multi-Store Functionality: 

There are many instances where a Vendor may want to have multiple stores, if they are selling a wide variety of products. A market place eCommerce platform should offer sellers to add as many stores as they want. This will also help and improve the business of the primary business owner, who owns the market place.

Must-Have Features from Admin's Perspective

Admins are the people, who use the market place quite often. They are the people, who manage the entire market place, including Customers and Vendors. So, they need to have a wide range of features that can give them complete freedom to efficiently manage the market place. Let us look at the important Admin Features.

Vendor Management: 

The eCommerce Admin should be able to easily add vendors and keep track of their orders, sales, commission earnings through their product sale or orders. They should be able to track sales, orders and commission from each Vendor and more.

Product Catalog:

A good product catalog makes it easy for the Sellers. Admin should be able to add a good and organized catalog, where sellers just need to select a particular product from the catalog and simply add the price they want to set for it and the stock of that product they have with them.

Commission Management:

The Admin should be able to set different types of commission and easily manage them. The commission can be set for each product, or each Vendor or for the sales of a certain quantity (say for example, for every 100th sale of a particular product) and so on.

Revenue/Income Management:

The Admin should be able to track the total revenue of a Vendor, the commission earned through that Vendor and so on.

Reports:

The Admin should be able to generate and view reports on vendors, a particular product category, commission reports and more. Different search and filter options should be in place for fetching different reports.

Delivery Status Management:

The Admin should set different delivery statuses like ready for dispatch, dispatched, shipment in process, out for delivery and more such statuses for an easy update of the order status to the Customers.

Scalability and Customization:

An eCommerce platform should be enough flexible to grow in the same pace as the business grows. As the business grows, the eCommerce market place should have the capacity to add more vendors, product categories and products. The Admin should be able to easily customize the platform as per the requirement.

Automated task processing:

From setting commission, to calculating shipping and taxes, all the features must be simply automatic and hassle-free.

Wrapping Up

Any Multi-Vendor Market Place should have these features as the bare minimum. To know more about the wide range of features that Spurtcommerce is offering in its Multi-Vendor/Multi-Merchant Market Place, feel free to write to support@spurtcommerce.com