What C2C Apps Do for Sellers

In a C2C marketplace, consumers are the sellers and the buyers. There are a lot of use cases for C2C mobile applications and omnichannel to improve the customer’s experience and boost sales.

This hinges on providing value and self-service for the end users, both from a seller perspective and from a buyer perspective. So let’s dive in about how this omnichannel and mobile and tablet experience can make a huge difference for the sellers’ and buyers’ experiences and the ability to boost sales.

First, it’s essential that your marketplace platform is easy for sellers to use. It’s the marketplace’s job to give a concise, simple set of steps that the user can follow. These steps need to work well and be simplified because a lot of consumers/sellers are busy, and they’re looking for the lowest barrier to entry. They’re also going to look for any gotchas being laminated that’ll draw them in to participate, but a lot of times they’ll forego selling something because it’s just inconvenient to go through the process.

They could end up donating thousands of dollars’ worth of items as opposed to selling them because it’s frustrating and inconvenient for them to interact and list their items accurately to go through the process of fulfilling items. These are all the aspects the C2C experience has to address and make easy from a governance and application perspective.

One of the easiest ways to make this process easier is by offering a robust mobile application that operates in a simple way for the seller in a C2C transaction. If you put yourself in the shoes of the seller, they really want to be able to do just a few key things.

Creating an Account with the C2C App

The first is that they need to be able to register their account very easily. Ideally, we want to enable a single sign-on or automated registration with systems that they’re already registered with. This could be social media based, so a Twitter, Facebook, Google, Apple, or Samsung account, etc. These different types of social based logins are really important to simplifying the process.

After making an account, they’ll want to list items to sell. We want to present a concise and simple process for them to follow. For example, we might show them a four-step process, such as:

- The first step is to get your items together and take pictures of them. With the mobile device, we’re going to show you these four steps and you can click on each one. So if you click on the first step, it will automatically open your camera through the C2C app so you can take a picture and upload it right into your marketplace listing.

We can make it easier by providing tips on how to take the best picture. Then, we make sure that their pictures match certain criteria for the marketplace. Once they’ve completed this step, we move onto step two:

- Select the category, description, price, and/or fulfillment options you want to provide.

PROVIDE THE SELLER WITH RECOMMENDATIONS

Keep the Seller Informed via the C2C App

The other thing we want to do with the omnichannel experience and the C2C app is keep the seller informed. Whenever a seller is listing something, it helps to provide them with a range for pricing, a recommended category, and any feedback about imagery, descriptions, etc., in as much of a self-service manner as possible.

On the mobile C2C app, we want to give them feedback such as:

- If you have an item in this category, this is a typical price range that’s selling well.

- If you have this particular item, it normally sells well in this price range.

- If these are the first items you’re selling, you may want to list the price a little lower so you can get credibility in the market; normally the five star sellers sell at this higher price range because people know they’re going to get a great quality fulfillment.

The typical price range and expectation around fulfillment are the types of things the seller needs to be aware of.

USE THE C2C APP TO THE FULLEST

Help the Seller Fulfill Orders

Whenever a buyer makes a purchase, we also want to help the seller with fulfilling the item. This is often overlooked and a significantly challenging aspect of a C2C marketplace. So here, again, we want to make it simple for the seller to fulfill the orders.

Within the actual order itself, we need to provide the seller with options for fulfillment that they’ll be willing to do. This would be part of Step Two as described above. One simple solution would be to take the item to a FedEx or UPS store or USPS location and simply process the shipping through their standard terms.

They may need to have dimensional weight information about the products or items before they get shipped out. You can decide if you want the seller to include shipping cost, have a flat shipping rate, or if they should tack that on once the item is sent.

Now, depending on your particular marketplace, a lot of times it makes sense to simply allow the buyer to choose what their fulfillment options are. In other words, so they want an express delivery. Do they want it with a particular carrier? That might be more expensive. Do they want ground shipment?

Well, these different forms of shipping can vary significantly in costs. Do they want a particular price range for their shipping? These are things that we can predetermine upfront and auto-calculate for you, or they can be things that are determined by the seller whenever they bring their item to a shipping location.

In many cases, though, it might be convenient to offer pickup of the items. That way, the seller doesn’t have to leave their home, and can have it picked up. There can even be shipping materials (boxes, bubble wrap, etc.) provided so that when the seller is fulfilling something, they’ve got the shipping materials to pack everything in, and then it gets picked up.

Varying Levels of Fulfillment Complexity

You decide how turnkey you want to make this for your sellers. Maybe you could offer programs for new sellers where they get certain supplies as part of their onboarding, and then you have recommended guides for different fulfillment options. We can do this through your marketplace C2C apps and present them with options for local fulfillment centers that they can work with, and logistic centers like UPS and FedEx stores and USPS centers, etc. Provide them with checklists and information, such as:

- If you get an order in this time window, we recommend going to this location and doing your fulfillment at this UPS store. You need to go there by this time and prepare for it being this much extra cost for them to package it for you.

For an intermediate, rather than beginner, level seller, we might say:

- You can also use this partner that will send you a shipment printing label maker. They’ll provide you with boxes and give you the resources you need, and then you can schedule a pickup with the carrier.

So there could be a starter level and then a more intermediate level and then an advanced level. Or we could say:

- We’re going to recommend that you go ahead and set up with this particular carrier. You’ll get dynamic pricing whenever somebody orders something.

And we’ll help facilitate this by partnering with the carriers, such as FedEx, UPS, DHL, USPS, etc. So this particular seller gets dynamic pricing for their orders, and all the products that are for sale by the C2C seller, if they’re doing enough volume, they could have dimensional weight information and very accurate shipping costs estimated, as well as accurate timelines. This can make them more competitive in the marketplace.

A lot of C2C fulfillment can also happen though simply by dropping something off at a physical distribution center, and then the distribution center takes care of a lot of logistics afterwards. It depends on how many items you’re going to be fulfilling, how you’re going to be fulfilling those. A lot of sellers in a C2C environment are comfortable following guidelines and resources and checklists, so again, you can let them choose as the seller.

- Do you want to go with a simple beginner option for fulfillment? If so, click here and then follow these four steps.

- Step one, select fulfillment method. Do you want to use UPS, FedEx, or USPS?

- Step two, choose your location.

- Step three, take your item in. We estimate that if you take your item in by this time today, then your item will get there within the window that the buyer has requested.

- Step four, enter the tracking information. We’ll provide this to the buyer automatically through the application.

If the seller selected the intermediate option, we might offer them the ability to tie into a shipping provider or multiple shipping providers and have a simple set of prepaid labels or boxes. Then, the seller can affix the prepaid labels to the shipment and tell the shipping provider through the application that they have an order ready to go out and need someone to come pick it up.

The advanced option would have more detailed steps, but essentially there are several different logistics providers who we can tie into their APIs through the C2C app. The seller can then use a shipping label printer and work directly with the different carriers and automate the integration between the printer and publishing and tracking information into the application.

Automate Processes

There are many aspects of the fulfillment process that we want to automate. This can include a lot of the interaction between the buyer and the seller. As in, whenever the seller is going to be interacting with the buyer, there may be a live chat that they need to do. They may need to respond to different notifications and be able to provide responses. And having a mobile application and generally being able to have this omnichannel experience that goes beyond just the website ensures that these interactions occur timely and effectively.

Related Articles to Explore

• Pros and Cons of a C2C eCommerce Business Model
• Expanding Your Target Marketplace Audience
• Enhance Your eCommerce Digital Storefront
• Factors Influencing Trust in Online C2C Transactions
• Updated for 2022: C2C eCommerce Marketplace Tips
• How Does a Mobile App Help a B2B Marketplace?