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Banking & insurance: 3 good reasons to open e B2B marletplace

We recently explained how marketplaces are driving the circular economy. But the model is also providing a boost in more traditional and infinitely more regulated sectors, such as banking and insurance. If you work in these industries, you know that intermediation plays a key role when it comes to reaching customers. By opening a marketplace, you can take advantage of this intermediary role, rather than leaving it to others.

1. The starting point: selling banking products

Let’s start with a statistic: 47% of French people say they are ready to use a platform to compare and sign up for financial products and services offered by different banks (CGI/Next Content study, February 2020).

There is an increasingly extensive product offering, including for professionals (as with compte-pro.com, for instance). However, this type of site can undoubtedly be considered to be a marketplace: the comparison between banks is just a step, or even a pretext, before a contract is concluded. Yet it’s not operated by a bank or an insurance company. That’s a pity, isn’t it?

The marketplace model is particularly interesting, given that banks have developed their offering to provide non-banking services to their customers: telephone services, accounting services, HR management software, etc.

2. Leveraging the ecosystem: the “banking as a service” approach

In this scenario, banks rely on other players: they refer their customers to a selection of partners with whom they share data.

This is how Shine, an online bank for professionals, expanded its product range with leasing, insurance products, a marketing and web solution, a physical payment device and management and accounting services. The aim? To check all of its clients’ boxes to meet all their needs.

This value proposition has been driven by regulatory developments in 2009 and 2018: both existing banking players and start-ups (FinTech and RegTech) have started to share their data. This explains the “banking as a service” (BaaS) approach: thanks to the Cloud and APIs, this approach makes it possible to bring new banking services to market and, most importantly, include services from other financial chain operators in new product offerings.

A banking product offering can include the accounting or real estate services of a specialist editor partner.

Other players, who have nothing to do with banks, have seized this opportunity, as we have seen with Darty Pro: in addition to its real estate department and its corporate incentive department, it also puts professional clients in touch with banks.

3. Becoming a retailer: an example from the medical industry

The approach can be pursued further: some banks have opened a marketplace to sell expensive products (requiring maintenance or replacement) to a B2B market, before offering a credit or leasing plan. This is how they attract new customers and seek out new markets. Liz&Med, managed by FranFinance, a subsidiary of the Société Générale Group, is an impressive example of this. “Find the medical equipment you need in a few clicks and rent or lease it. With a fixed monthly price, there are no nasty surprises when it comes to your budget. And you’re free to include additional services, such as maintenance or insurance,” the site explains.

When taking payment, the platform offers insurance and financing, as Darty or Fnac could do with a B2C market. In this way, the bank maximizes the various benefits of this system: it sells a medical product that’s available on the marketplace thanks to its partners, a loan and even related services. The bank plays the role of a facilitator.

Once you adapt the B2B marketplace model to banking and insurance, there are unlimited possibilities. All products are potentially impacted. By building bridges between the worlds of retail and finance, you can broaden your target and your market (revenue diversification), all while offering payment options that will encourage purchases!

To find out more:
B2B marketplaces
McKinsey study

“Marketplaces: a cornerstone of the circular economy”

The circular economy, second-hand markets: in this article, we provide an overview of this alternative and environmentally friendly consumer trend. As more and more people take an interest, companies are transforming their business models to meet this growing demand.

The B2B sector has lots to do when it comes to its manufacturing and marketing practices. Professionals can make the most of enormous and exciting opportunities that are entirely in tune with today’s focus on CSR.

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In France, the Anti-Waste Act for a Circular Economy, which became law in 2020, encourages companies to change their bad habits. For example, it has prohibited the destruction of unsold non-food items since January 1, 2022 and generally urges businesses to think more before throwing items away.

A brief reminder: the circular economy is an innovative economic model that puts an end to the endless cycle of producing, consuming and throwing things away. Possible solutions include recycling, repairing and reusing.

Individuals are leading the way

More and more people in France are buying second-hand products. One in three people already buys or sells on the second-hand website Le Bon Coin. Websites such as Vinted and BackMarket have experienced incredibly fast growth. It must be said that the boom in second-hand sales between individuals has been largely prompted by financial concerns, rather than by a focus on environmental issues. The latest Cetelem Observatory on the circular economy confirms that consumers’ primary objective is to save money. 7 out of 10 Europeans bought a second-hand product in 2021. 24% of them sell products every month, with 18–34-year-olds being the most active: this generation has never known a world without the Internet.

The huge potential of B2B

These transactions between individuals are the most highly visible but the second-hand market extends much further. Today, professionals are embracing the concept.

For example, La Redoute has opted to retain control of the resale of its products by opening La Reboucle, a marketplace for sales between individuals.

Other companies are launching circular economy marketplaces for professionals: manufacturers and distributors put second-hand products on sale, from spare parts that cannot be used internally to materials that would previously have been thrown away but that can now be used by a third-party company. Given that construction is one of the most polluting industries, BatiPhoenix and Backacia have taken this approach.

The Suez group, one of our clients, has taken advantage of this opportunity as well: its Organix marketplace connects organic waste producers with buyers who will process this waste. Moreover, it’s the only trusted third party to offer a delivery service for this waste.

Other companies are focusing on inventory rotation. This approach inspired Engie’s BeeWee marketplace: it provides opportunities to pool “dormant” spare parts within the group. The result? Existing parts can be used, thereby preventing the manufacture of new parts. It’s a win-win.

Plenty of (secondary) benefits

We couldn’t resist the pun! The marketplace is an essential tool for anyone starting out in the circular economy. It plays a vital role, acting as an intermediary to ensure the circular nature of the aptly named circular economy. It provides a wide range of benefits, many of which are felt instantly.

The most obvious advantage is a reduction in the cost of disposal, storage and production, as we have earlier in this article. It creates unexpected added value by enabling the trade of items that weren’t initially designed to be sold.

It has other advantages too: it plays a significant role in brand image, helping companies stand out. Companies with marketplaces remain one step ahead of any future regulations, but that’s not all: circular economy marketplaces often prove to be unifying business projects, increasing a company’s social value.

For all these reasons, these initiatives are becoming increasingly common. The marketplace’s impact can be felt in every sector of the economy: from charities (Label Emmaüs) to the automotive industry (Reparcar), not forgetting fashion (place2swap), cosmetics, agri-food and household appliances.

Alstom, another of our clients, has opened StationOne, a specialist marketplace for the railway sector. The company now connects railway operators with international suppliers of wheels, bearings, motors, suspensions, cables, screws, cameras, personal protective equipment and more. What’s even better is that it also offers installation, repair, maintenance and training!

What makes the marketplace model so successful? It enables companies to expand their offering over time, as we’ve seen in traditional distribution channels. This is sure to revolutionize the circular economy! Flexible and experimental, marketplaces ensure that B2B players aren’t trapped in a rigid system. The format gives them the opportunity to reinvent their business model by providing a “greener” offering and experimenting without having to take significant risks. Marketplaces provide additional revenues and demonstrate real progress in terms of CSR: the effects are purely positive.

An effective marketplace catalog is both dense and easy to read

=> Marketplaces: two priorities to develop an effective catalog

Let’s compare a marketplace to a virtual mall. As the site operator, you’re faced with the same challenges as real estate companies: how can you attract the best brands to your site? How can you achieve a satisfactory mix of products and services (ensuring product breadth and depth) to drive traffic to your doorstep?

Remember that there’s no such thing as a “small marketplace”: all marketplaces tend to grow quickly. Indeed, the strength of the model lies in its ability to connect a pool of sellers and a pool of buyers. Your profitability is directly dependent on this, since you receive a commission from each completed transaction.

It is therefore vital to establish the widest possible offering, without losing sight of your initial positioning. It must be easy for buyers to find what they’re looking for.

Let’s take a closer look at two big names in fashion, Asos and Veepee: we can immediately see that the quality of their catalogs has been key to their success. There’s one magic word: complementarity.

When Veepee launched its marketplace (called Brandsplace), the company initially started with a test focusing on two different sectors: homeware and wine. Positive results made it possible to launch other verticals.

Veepee’s CEO Jacques-Antoine Granjon emphasized this in an interview with capital.fr in 2019: “Veepee is already connected to brand platforms, by which I mean that we have access to inventories, photos and product specifications. Brandsplace is the next step: when a member comes to us but doesn’t buy, we can connect him or her directly to the brand via our Brandsplace which offers the best prices. In this way, we offer clearance prices on past collections and promotions on current collections.”

Asos, meanwhile, launched its Asos Marketplace platform eleven years ago. There were 20 sellers at the beginning and there are more than 1,000 today. This progress was made possible by the brand’s clear positioning and a catalog that fulfills the brand promise: vintage clothing, created by young independent designers and new talent from all over the world. Fashion inspired by 90s sportswear at affordable prices. And of course, the marketplace complements the Asos.fr catalog: it acts as an extension of the brand’s initial service, without any duplication or overlap.

As we can see, these two e-commerce giants have developed catalogs that complement their initial product offering. Whether you have an existing offering or you’re starting from scratch, the challenge is the same: the quality of your catalog. It’s key to success because it simultaneously attracts sellers while appealing to buyers. A “good” catalog is both dense and easy to read.

As such, there are two main principles you need to consider:

1. Offer a product catalog that appeals to the maximum number of vendors.

2. Ensure a taxonomy (a system of filters) of categories that’s sufficiently detailed for buyers while being sufficiently concise for sellers. 

More specifically, your back office should be intuitive and easy for sellers to use.

Although they don’t all sell the same products, they need to be able to work out how to “match” their items with your categories quickly and easily.

We recommend having no more than three product categories at the first level. For example, choose two categories, literature and sport, for the first level: the distinction for “water sports” will only come into play on the second level and “sailing” will appear on the third level.

We recommend adding custom features: each operator can create as many as they want for their products’ various features. The better the taxonomy, the easier it is to combine different product features.

To take the previous example, “number of pages” could be a feature of the “literature” category.

The features will enable the buyer to carry out a quick search: they act as a filter in the search engine. They reassure the buyer as to the relevance of the available products.

IZBERG’s solution includes the “Mapper” tool: it makes the link between categories and product features. It automates the process for listing products online, something that is particularly interesting for bigger retailers.

With their wide-ranging product catalogs, marketplaces offer a major advantage which should be a key area of focus: enhanced SEO. You must make sure that you provide unique product specifications.

In conclusion, when it comes to recruiting retailers, don’t skimp! You need a dedicated team: this is a time-consuming activity that requires availability and expertise. This team must be excellent at what it does, because it is responsible for developing links with partner merchants.

Be savvy: identify and distinguish your best vendors, because they are strategically important to your marketplace. You can also encourage a real sense of community among your sellers: you can create collaborative spaces for them to share best practices, for example

Help your buyers to find their way

→ List all the products and services offered

→ Divide products into logical and consistent categories and sub-categories

→ Identify a specific semantic field for each category 

→ Create an intuitive visual presentation

→ Provide effective filtering and search functions

→ Assess and optimize your catalog based on the feedback you receive