How to Attract Sellers to a P2P Marketplace

User acquisition is a challenging and important aspect of building a successful marketplace. If you want to start making a profit and enhance your market presence, attracting sellers and buyers is a must-have stage.

Previously, we discussed 4 quick ways to acquire buyers to a marketplace. Namely, we considered a referral system, landing page, free offers, and constraints that can help you attract early consumers.

Today, we want to cover the acquisition of the second platform side – sellers. We will discuss the most efficient strategies to fill your peer-to-peer marketplace with vendors.

1. Contact Active Sellers From Other Platforms

An effective method to attract first vendors to your marketplace is to use other online and offline platforms.

Considering the latter option, you can visit business-related conferences and events that connect entrepreneurs. Sellers promote their goods and services to search for new buyers there. This way, it’s a great idea to communicate with them and attract them to your website.

If you want to use online platforms, then consider the following ones:

• Forums (Web Retailer, Amazon Seller Central);
• Q&A websites (Quora, Reddit);
• Other marketplace platforms, such as Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, etc.

For instance, Reddit offers a number of subreddits for entrepreneurs. One of the most visited and well-known ones is r/entrepreneur with more than 700k members.

Once you choose the platform, contact vendors, and offer them to join your online marketplace. To increase the chances of user acquisition, you need to demonstrate the vivid benefits of your platform over other market alternatives to attract sellers.

2. Give Sellers the Number of Buyers on Your Platform

Another efficient technique to attract vendors is to provide them with the number of consumers in your marketplace. This way, they will know that there are potential buyers who can be interested in purchasing their products.

For example, you can create the following message for sellers. “We have attracted X thousands of consumers that are ready to buy your goods on day 1. Join the platform and begin selling your products”.

This statement is pretty solid as vendors have no reason to join a platform that does not include any buyers.

3. Implement Useful Guides

The marketplace niche includes both experienced and entry-level sellers. The latter do not know all the tips and tricks that can help them sell their items.

You can solve the chicken and egg problem by making your marketplace website easy-to-use. For instance, you can create guidelines and blog posts. This will increase your chances to become the sellers’ choice as you give them some value.

Besides, you can create a separate page with valuable guides for each product category. This technique was implemented by Etsy and allows them to effectively attract sellers. The platform gives advice on how to successfully run online shops in multiple categories.

4. Introduce Clear Monetization Strategies

Now it is time to talk about the major ways of how you can charge sellers for using your platform. Remember that the monetization models you will apply should be clear and transparent. In other words, sellers should know exactly what they will pay for. I would like to focus your attention on the most efficient and suitable monetization strategies for successful user acquisition.

Commission: Vendors will have to pay a certain amount of each transaction made on the platform.

Listing fees: You can charge sellers for publishing their houses for sale.

Selling fees: When vendors sell a house, you will get a share of each payment before it comes to them.

Subscription fees: Sellers will make monthly or yearly payment to get access to the platform.

5. Build a Powerful Seller Support System

Customer support is a crucial and must-have feature of a viable peer to peer marketplace that will help you attract sellers. This functionality enables your website users to receive support for any problem that may appear on the platform. This way, support allows both buyers and sellers to feel care from an e-commerce website. Such a platform-user relationship creates a smooth purchase/ selling experience.

One of the successful chicken and egg problem solutions is Amazon Seller Centre. It allows vendors to choose the relevant issue topic and report about a certain problem. This way, Amazon attracts sellers and builds a strong relationship with them.

Bottom Line

User acquisition is a crucial stage to launch a profitable and viable marketplace platform. Apart from building the key website features, you should focus on attracting both buyers and sellers. This is important to begin making a profit and improve your market presence.

We believe the discussed tips will assist you in finding sellers for your peer-to-peer marketplace platform.

If you are looking for an experienced online marketplace development company, we will be happy to help you develop an e-commerce platform. Contact us and let’s bring your idea into reality.