Building a service marketplace platform and making it a successful one is not as easy as you think. There are many challenges that are to be faced and overcome. Every aspiring entrepreneur has their eyes on developing a perfect online service marketplace but the most essential part that is to be focused is on the difficulties that every service marketplace faces in the day to day market.
In this article we will first analyze the challenges and then we will find out the success strategies to make the service platform to be a leader in the ecommerce industry. It is advisable to check the features of other leading service marketplace platforms that will help you to build a perfect one and will let you survive long in the market.
Challenges of running a service marketplace platform
#1. Multiple user roles – every service marketplace platform will contain three user groups ie. The admin, service provider and customers. Each user needs to have a separate user interface that will help them to access their requirement related features. Creating a different user interface is the most difficult task in any service marketplace platform.
Recommendation – you can have customization options to have personalized interface for each user. Also you need to have in-built tools that will support interacting within the platform.
#2. Cyber-security – data privacy is the major threat that any service marketplace website will face. You need to ensure a high level of security to your users else you may not get visitors and orders. If no proper security is provided to the service platform then data leakage is possible
Recommendation – you need to have higher-end SSL certification and PIC compliant for your online service marketplace. Also you should use only the latest version of all users libraries that will help you to stay far away from security breaches. For user identity issues you can ask for a phone number for verification.
#3. Payment processing – every service marketplace platform will follow its own monetization system. Most online payment transactions fail frequently and this will irritate customers as they need to attempt several times to pay the amount through the platform.
Recommendation – build your service marketplace software by integrating with most familiar and leading payment gateways like Stripe, paypal etc. This will make buyers feel comfortable to pay for the service they receive through the service platform online. More transparency and stability can be experienced with these leading payment gateways.
#4. Different time zones – when you run a multivendor service marketplace platform you will get visitors from different time zones and also they will have different languages and different currency type. If the service marketplace platform sticks on to any particular time zone then it is really going to be tough to survive.
Recommendation – you need to make sure your online service marketplace has a universal time zone. Also your platform should support multiple currencies and should also be multilingual that will help users all over the world to access the platform without any difficulty.
#5. Nurturing customer loyalty –getting more visitors to the service platform is really a challenging one and even more challenging is to retain them with your service website. There should be mutual trust between service providers and the customers. Easy communication is difficult, which makes the online service marketplace have a tough time to survive.
Recommendation – be transparent with your pricing and offers and make your customers feel comfortable to make use of the service in your service marketplace. Also have multiple communication channels that will help customers to communicate freely with the service provider and get clarified with their queries that make them satisfied with the service marketplace. By doing so you can maintain the reputation of your service platform among your customers.
#6. Providing an omni-channel shopping experience – approaching any service marketplace platform is not restricted to desktop and mobile devices alone. People find many ways in reaching the service marketplace website like social media platforms, forums, live chats and many more. If your service platform supports single shopper features then you may lose the major audience.
Recommendation – categorize your audience and understand which communication channel will suit them and then optimize that channel with your service marketplace platform. Be more responsive to all your customers’ queries and provide a perfect omni-channel customer experience.
#7. Promoting the brand online – all our audiences are available online so you need to promote your brand online with effective marketing strategies. But digital marketing has become costlier in recent days as all businesses are utilizing this marketing often and there is a serious competition in making their service marketplace website to be in top of the search.
Recommendation – when we take digital marketing there are many branches like SEO, SEM, SMM, content marketing, affiliate marketing and many more. You need to filter the branches and check which branch will have more of your audience and you should just invest on that particular digital platform. This will save your money and also will get your more leads and conversion.
#8. Converting visitors to customers – there are thousands of service marketplace platforms available in the market so it will be a great challenge to convert your visitors to customers. The bounce rate will be higher if you do not have a perfect and attractive interface. Gaining a better conversion rate is the real challenge for any online service marketplace platform.
Recommendation – build a user-friendly service marketplace platform that will have better navigation and will be more mobile responsive. This will make visitors stay in your marketplace platform for a long time. Use attractive content that will grab the attention of your audience. Try to build mobile applications that will gain the attention of major mobile users and you can easily win your competitors. Better conversion can be easily obtained by providing an exclusive mobile application to your users.
Conclusion
Be clear with all challenges that are before you when you plan to start your own online service marketplace platform. No matter what the challenge is, there is always a solution to overcome it. understand the solution and implement it while developing and launching your service marketplace platform.
