6 ways to strengthen the Supply of your online Marketplace

Ideas on how to deepen your relationship with your business partners

The Problem with Supply

All online marketplaces try to connect the Supply and the Demand side of a market in a more efficient and mutually beneficial way by taking advantage of new technologies and business models. As Apostolos Apostolakis pointed out in this article, one of the key success factors of a marketplace is the domination of the Supply side.

I happen to be a co-founder and co-CEO of E-table which is an online marketplace that gives its users the ability to book restaurant tables with instant confirmation. In our case the Supply side consists of restaurants, and the Demand side consists of diners. I could not agree more with Apostolos, and so do my peers in other types of marketplaces (food delivery, doctors, freelancers etc).

Sadly, there are some people out there who think that this solely translates to a number game of onboarding new supply partners…

More supply partners bring more final consumers and more final consumers attract more supply partners in a continuous cycle. However, everything will eventually fall apart if you do not keep an eye not only on numbers, but on the quality of your relationship with your supply partners.

You have to build strong ties to your supply partners, that will help you:

• Make them understand and appreciate the extent of the value you provide them with
• Put an extra ‘barrier to entry’ for potential new competitors
• Build mutual ‘good faith’ that, in my opinion, is an intangible asset
• Ensure a high-quality service provision to your demand side
• Reduce collection issues

So, how do you strengthen your relationship to your Supply Side? There are certain things you can do that are no-brainers and easy to implement. There are other things that require the use of a lot of resources. Therefore,

Υou should always weigh costs and benefits, but DON’T lose a long-term perspective. Relations need time to be nurtured, so be patient.

Let’s begin:

#1. Make extensive use of your B2B CRM

Having a CRM where you can encapsulate all the useful knowledge about your customers is a MUST-HAVE. The software features required depend on your industry. In general, you need a single location where you will be able to:

• Store all critical information regarding every customer (billing details, address, contact details and preferences, people in charge etc).
• Log in all important communications (when, how, who, what outcome)
• Assign contracts and other documents to customers
• Store all helpful not-critical information that may come in handy sometime (business issues faced, past complaints etc)
• Collection issues and preferences
• Plan your next actions/ communications per customer and set alerts
• Consume intelligent REPORTS that may affect your Strategy or Operations

We have built our own CRM solution at e-table. It has been integrated with our B2C platform, our B2B solution and our Invoicing System.

Your CRM should ideally be connected to most related IT systems, in order to facilitate the flawless and effortless transfer of information. You may build your own or opt to buy one. The option of SaaS is very popular these days. You may investigate what is out there in Capterra.

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#2. Facilitate your transactions by offering them a software solution

Make their life easier, and increase transparency, by offering a software solution to facilitate their operations! For example, e-table offers a mobile app to restaurants, in order to (among other things):

• Inform them about e-table reservations details
• Give them the ability to declare their available capacity on regular days and holidays
• Help them manage their subscription and payments
• Give them the ability to manage their web profile

Our own S/W solution is called ‘myRestaurant’

Such a software solution:

• Makes them see your marketplace services as a solution to their needs and not as a burden on their operations.
• Constitutes a very reliable communication channel between you and your partners that works both ways.
• Reduces errors in transactions (bookings, orders….).
• Improves your image as a business.
• Makes your life easier if you decide to charge your Supply partners with a subscription fee.

It is very common nowadays to offer the solution as ‘SaaS’.

#3. Build on other needs

After sometime operating your marketplace, you will realize that you are in a key position to learn about the needs, problems and intricacies of the industry. Why not take advantage of it, and offer industry-specific solutions yourself! It will solidify your place in the market, and it might provide you with extra revenue streams!

You must have your ears open, and try to identify opportunities, by taking into account your own business competencies and available internal resources.

There are certain things to keep in mind though:

• Never get too far from your existing operating model without a proper cost-benefit and competition analysis.
• Do not let extra costs that may be incurred hinder your path. Do not forget that you can always transfer these costs to your supply partners, who would happily cover them for you (assuming you are solving a problem of theirs effectively)

As one man wisely once said to me:

“Avoid saying ‘No’ to your customer, when you can just reply ‘Yes, with some extra cost…’” !

Complying with the above, we — at e-table — are offering a variety of services to our partnered restaurants, such as extra marketing services, reservation and table management software for their own reservations, guestbook functionality in their app, and others.

#4. Give them helpful Insights

Most small businesses lack a proper reporting solution. This can be attributed to these facts:

• A lot of small business owners do not have the time or knowledge to seek such a solution.
• There are no affordable industry-specific solutions.

You have the business knowledge, the IT background needed, and the data to help your supply partners. Do not just focus on providing statistics, but move on to offer them critical business insights. They will eventually love you for that!

Visualization of data will help your customers absorb the information more easily

We — at e-table — provide our partnered restaurants with critical reports, but we also devote time to offer personalized tips, based on the statistics.

Remember that only you are in the unique position to have reliable industry benchmarks.

#5. Take the time to appreciate them

Do not forget that the Supply Side of your marketplace consists of valuable partners. Your success is dependent on their own success as well as their business ethics. Having said that, you must identify ways to make your best partners happy every now and then, without negatively affecting your business. For example, you could offer some extra free promotion, or give them the opportunity to stand out from the mass in your platform.

This ‘Thank you’ message leads to some kind of positive feedback.

#6. Devise ways to communicate your Value effectively

Let’s say that you have been able to effectively offer unique value to your supply partners, and no one can contradict this in a rational manner. That does not mean that your work here is over. You must also win the communication game.

A great product doesn’t go far if you cannot properly communicate its value to potential customers.

Some people tend to forget that signing the first contract with a customer is just a new beginning and not the end of the sales process. You must identify ways to continuously remind your supply partners of the true value you bring them. For example, you may:

• Send them special periodic reports illustrating the benefits you offed them for a specific period of time (bookings, views, reviews, revenues etc.). You may use whatever communication channel you feel sufficient (email, your software solution or other).
• Perform regular follow-ups on the phone, in order to know where they stand and let them know about your contribution to their profitability.
• Offer them an easy to use tool to translate your partnership to tangible benefits in dollars!
• Make them feel special in general, by providing them the opportunity to participate in special events, to have special treatment by big brands that supply them etc. This is actually a value-signaling tactics, and not a communication of the actual value per se.

I am sure there are many ideas out there about the same subject. Do YOU have something to add to the above? Please share your thoughts in a comment below. We love new ideas!