Today we’d like to discuss the following topic: Why the future is about multi-offer solutions and how marketplaces empower consumers?

It seems to be an obvious trend to see more and more services being constructed around one or another type of Marketplace. However, the number of parties against this tendency is also staying sufficient. So how exactly marketplaces help to bring the best product offers to customers and why then somebody could be against it.

So, let’s start digging deeper from the pros of multi-offer solutions:

Direct price competition

Cutting to the chase, the first obvious consequence of any marketplace is the fact that all the offerings are gathered so that a consumer could easily analyse price versus value matches presented in the list.

It seems quite inevitable for any participant standing on the panel of such a marketplace to compare itself and compete with others, as a result, in terms of price offer.

So, marketplaces “stress out” service providers chasing them to offer the lowest possible price for a service.

Standards unification

Being a part of a range of offerings, adaptation to the supply side of the market looks like an obligatory action of surveillance for sellers. By saying that, we could touch almost any feature presented among the characteristics of the product or service, that once could be highlighted by a competitor as a competitive advantage.

Thus, as a result, customers receive an organic evolution of the quality on the supply side – a.k.a. the newest products and features included.

What is important finally…is not a price

Recalling the basics of Adam Smith’s ideal market conditions, we could suggest a type of marketplace with an indefinite number of offerings for the same price. Looks good, right? J OK, but how then one could finally choose among such a homogeneous structure of offers?

The answer probably would lie in the field of additional features and service side of the product – everything beyond “brick and mortar” of any product, but more on the brand itself, positioning on the market, a message that a seller wants to bring to the table, advantages of using the product etc.

What do we, final consumers, get from it?

Well, probably the richest possible in the product or service we are looking for.

So why a concept of the marketplace could bring any votes against?

Primarily we jump on a seller’s side now to answer that:

Brand dilution

The famous and furious. What’s happening?

Every seller anyway tries to emphasize its product or brand differences from the current offering on the market. Sometimes with sufficient investments in a product/design side (Apple as an example), but mostly with brand positioning techniques which could be considered more as cosmetical changes than an enclosure.

So, you could imagine the level of discomfort this type of sellers gets standing under the light of direct comparison.

Lost control on customers binding

Yep, it is quite challenging when you customer could change one’s mind quite fast and get some better product from competitors leaving you abandoned for the ages.

As an opposite option, “sewing on” your customer by some clausulae in the contract or a long period of commitment is widespread and actively used now even with all the efforts on the consumer rights protection side.

Harder to get your figures while being agile

Making an analogy with a war, without marketplaces sellers need to compete mainly on some sides of their markets with limited geographies of their opponents and sometimes more with themselves to reach the target level of sales, incomes, market share.

What happens with multi-offer solutions is that service providers are obliged not only to protect their initial plans and figures but also adapt to any real-time changes of the competitors that are presented vastly and almost without any artificial barriers.

Conclusion

All the cons sound like a clear threat to sellers’ side, so that is what probably limits and holds back the current growth of marketplaces in any field of service or product.

At JO1N we have gathered all the best consumer finance lending options in a one-stop solution to bring a clear range of offers for final consumers.

We do believe it makes the market more transparent and beneficial for customers.

We also believe an additional value of multi-lender hubs for retailers will force more and more of them to apply this approach and boost their sales as well as customer satisfaction levels.

And yes, we are sure there is a place for any service or product provider in a marketplace to enrich the final variation of choices for consumers in this generous and so fast-changing world  J

Stay tuned ‍

With passion,

Your JO1N Team