Myths about anything begin to develop as soon as that thing reaches the stardom of popularity. As the marketplace has started stealing the limelight of the offline market, myths surrounding it is rolling out every now and then.

The online marketplace today is more like a battleground. There's a cut-throat competition, every second, at every step. As since the past few years, there is no limit in the way the marketplace is growing high, looking at which, the malls and street businesses are having a hard time, hence, the myths.  

The reason the marketplace is a hit is that it has made businesses powerful enough to make their customers happy with ample product options and customer-friendly; and quality services. It is one such platform where sellers, vendors, wholesalers, distributors, each one can present their business to the customers and reap benefits in their own manner.  

But, owning, launching and running a marketplace is not everyone's cup of tea. Since third-parties do the majority of selling, some companies find it not much profitable for the exposure of their business. Let's see, what myths are preventing such business from taking the leap into the marketplace.  

#Myth 1 - “Marketplaces are complex. Who's going to take the trouble of running it?” 

Considering the widespread of the marketplace, it is often regarded as a big load which no is willing to take on their shoulders. Whereas, it is the vice-versa. The marketplace is the easiest way today to scale your business rapidly and successfully as the sellers are the ones who do the heavy lifting jobs. Moreover, its unique price-competition benefit ensures each one associated with it gets their share accordingly, hence companies need not micromanage anything.

As far as managing is considered, you don't have to expand your workforce or time for it. A small team of yours can be assigned to run and manage it easily and that would be enough. When compared with other multistore ecommerce solutions, the marketplaces guarantee consistency with your branding even with third parties. You don't need to appoint too many HR's as one marketplace manager would be enough to manage approx. 100 sellers of yours. The automated quality controls and seller performance tracking in it makes the management even easier, faster and error-free. Also, you can simply integrate your existing eCommerce site and get started.  

#Myth 2 - You can't appoint sellers of your choice.  

Of course, appointing a seller for your marketplace is a crucial decision but that doesn't mean you don't have a say in it. For a successful marketplace, fishing out advantageous sellers from the pool of it can be difficult. Better create a product catalog hierarchy, using which, sellers can map their product catalog to your marketing operator who can then automate product selection by importing only products from the categories and subcategories supported on the marketplace.

#Myth 3 - Third-party sellers will take-over your eCommerce site. 

Aiming for a sky-rocket success, marketplaces appoint sellers who are good and well-versed in their business, but along with it, comes the fear of them crossing you out. Well, it’s nothing like that.

Just before onboarding any seller, plan out a strategic and systematic approach. Prioritize sellers based on their quality of service and analyse their performance so that everyone gets benefitted including your customers. Yes, sellers contribute a lot to your marketplace by offering product options, managing inventory and customer orders, shipping them and handling customers individually but remember, they are an integral part of the customer experience.  

#Myth 4 - No one can compete with Amazon. 

Amazon is indeed one-of-a-kind and it may take ages to become the next Amazon, but it is not impossible too. Amazon has trained people around to shop on a marketplace and customers are always out there looking for something new, hence as far as you have an effective B2B marketplace software running, you have nothing to worry about as you too can offer your customers a lot more with it than you can imagine.

#Myth 5 - It's costly and wild 

It is a common belief that if its big its costly. Well, the expense of running a marketplace is a lot less than you can think it would be. With a multi-vendor marketplace software, you can, in fact, reap really good profits. And, there's nothing like it being unmanageable. Along with your existing channel partners, you can easily provide a single platform for all to research, purchase, sell and ship products without disturbing the ecosystem or bothering each other in any way.

Rakesh Jain is the co-founder and CEO of MobiCommerce. When he is not busy taking the company to newer heights, he authors detailed blog posts for leading publications, teaching eCommerce store owners different ways to manage, grow and scale their business. As a seasoned entrepreneur, he is passionate about proactively finding the “next big thing.”