Key Features to Include in a Horizontal B2B Marketplace

The eCommerce industry is thriving continuously and the concept of building a marketplace is gaining popularity. According to Statista’s latest report published on 26th Feb 2025, global eCommerce sales have crossed $7 trillion in 2024 and are expected to exceed $10.4 trillion by 2028.

The horizontal marketplace including Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, Walmart, and other similar market leaders has played a significant role in global eCommerce sales. Of course, the success story of these eCommerce giants is inspiring entrepreneurs and business owners. They are eagerly looking for opportunities to launch their own horizontal eCommerce platforms.

This informative blog is exactly for those who are seeking information about horizontal B2B marketplaces. You will learn about horizontal marketplaces including key features to ensure smooth marketplace operations and drive growth. In addition, you will also learn about the best way to launch your own horizontal marketplaces.

What is a Horizontal Marketplace? 

A horizontal marketplace caters to the needs of a wide range of customers. This marketplace offers products or services from diverse industries. A horizontal marketplace is not limited to specific categories or niches, unlike a vertical marketplace.

Horizontal marketplaces have a broader audience base and they reach out to tackle larger markets with their offerings. In short, these marketplaces offer almost everything possible on the online platform. In other words, horizontal marketplaces can be a one-stop destination like a supermarket where different groups of buyers come to buy everything they need.

Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, and Walmart are popular examples of horizontal marketplaces known for offering a wide range of products from diverse industries catering to various categories. You can find clothes, sneakers, electronic items, home decor, books, and many more you want to order from these online eCommerce platforms.

Popular Examples of Horizontal B2B Marketplaces

Horizontal B2B marketplaces connect manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and other business entities on an online platform by allowing them to trade in large quantity orders. These platforms let businesses buy or sell from diverse industries. There are several B2B horizontal marketplaces including Amazon Business, Alibaba, eWorldTrade, and DHgate:

Amazon Business

Amazon Business is a popular example of a horizontal marketplace that offers a wide range of products from diverse categories and industries. The platform allows buyers and sellers on the platform to buy and sell almost everything from different verticals. Initially, Amazon was established and started as a vertical marketplace selling books on the platform. Later it became a well-known example of a horizontal marketplace, also famous as “The Everything Store” in the eCommerce industry.

Alibaba

Alibaba, a widely recognized name in the B2B eCommerce industry known for connecting small and medium-sized Chinese manufacturers and suppliers with businesses worldwide. It is another well-known example of a horizontal marketplace that helps businesses trade in almost all the products from different industries. In 1999, Alibaba was started as an online platform to trade in bulk by a school team Jack Ma and his 17 friends in China. Today, the platform is popular among many countries and is dominating the B2B eCommerce landscape.

eWorldTrade

eWorldTrade is another notable and one of the fastest-growing B2B eCommerce platforms. This B2B horizontal marketplace helps manufacturers and suppliers from varied industries to connect with buyers worldwide to sell products in bulk. eWorldTrade is quite famous among its users because of its user-friendly interface that simplifies the process of finding products and suppliers. The platform primarily focuses on building long-term business relationships to establish a reliable B2B eCommerce platform.

DHgate

DHgate is among the list of top B2B horizontal marketplaces in China that primarily connect small and medium-sized Chinese companies with worldwide businesses. This platform offers a wide range of products at lower prices. DHgate is an ideal B2B eCommerce platform for startups and small-scale businesses who are looking for manufacturers and suppliers to trade with the minimum possible order quantity. It connects buyers directly with the manufacturers, one of the reasons to offer products at lower and competitive prices.

What are the Benefits of Building a Horizontal Marketplace?

The eCommerce industry is growing and customers are shifting from offline to online purchases, building a marketplace can help you achieve your objectives. However, before you launch a horizontal B2B marketplace, you should comprehend and decide the type of marketplace that can satisfy your vision or not. Here are some benefits of building a horizontal marketplace that can help you nail whether the idea is right for you or not.

1. Diverse product selection: The horizontal marketplace covers a wide range of product categories from diverse industries. This type of marketplace attracts sellers from different verticals on the platform that contribute to diversified product offerings. 

2. Wider customer base: An extensive array of products from diversified industries attracts customers to the platform offering enhanced and satisfying customer experience. Horizontal marketplace offers a wide range of products that undoubtedly attract more customers. 

Wider product offerings and a larger customer base both complement each other. More product offerings attract more customers, and a wider customer base attracts more sellers, which leads to more elevated product listings. Therefore, both factors are equally important and play a significant role in securing marketplace success.

3. Large market share: A horizontal marketplace has a broad range of products that allow marketplace owners to market the platform more effectively to a larger audience contributing to a larger market share.

4. High in demand: The variety of products and services offered on the horizontal marketplace minimizes the risk of lower product demand. As the platform tackles diverse customer needs, it becomes a one-stop destination that is always in high demand.

5. Multiple revenue streams: Diverse offerings and a wide customer base on the platform allow marketplace owners to tap into multiple revenue streams to generate more revenue.

What Makes a Horizontal Marketplace Different from a Vertical Marketplace?

An online marketplace is a platform where buyers and sellers interact together to initiate online business transactions. However, not all the marketplaces are the same. Similarly, like horizontal and vertical marketplaces. There are several considerations that need to be considered before launching a marketplace. Let’s explore common differences between horizontal and vertical marketplaces that make them separate from one another.

Horizontal VS Vertical: Target Audience Catering to their Needs

For any marketplace type or business, identifying the target audience is an important aspect. This consideration helps businesses align their offering according to the customer’s needs and preferences.

In the horizontal marketplace, the target audience is broader. It caters to diverse customer needs across various industries by offering an extensive range of products. On the other hand, in a vertical marketplace, the target audience is limited. This type of marketplace focuses on a specific industry. Therefore, the target audience and customer base in this marketplace are narrower than the horizontal marketplace.

Horizontal VS Vertical: Product Offerings Considering Scope of Business

Deciding on product offerings helps the marketplace owner to determine the intent and market coverage.

Horizontal marketplaces sell a wide range of products across multiple industries. These product categories and industries may include fashion, electronics, healthcare, furniture, home decor or others. A horizontal marketplace is like a one-stop supermarket where buyers can get all the products according to their requirements.

While vertical marketplaces focus on a specific product category or industry. This type of marketplace focuses on the specific customer’s needs making the platform a targeted platform. Vertical marketplaces focus on a single niche or category allowing its users to have a more tailored shopping experience.

Key Features Required in a Horizontal B2B Marketplace

B2B marketplaces help businesses to trade in bulk orders. However, these marketplaces required some tailored features to become functional for B2B business transactions. Here is the list of essential B2B horizontal marketplace features you can look for in your platform:

Request for Quote to Enable Price Negotiation Option in Online B2B Marketplace

B2B transactions are mostly begun with the RFQ (Request for Quote). This is an important feature of the B2B marketplace. It enables an option for the buyer and seller to negotiate on pricing to finalize the deal on the best possible pricing.

A buyer requests a quote from the sellers on the platform for some specific product. On the other hand, the seller replies with the counteroffer. Both parties can bid and counter until the request is closed.

However, buyers can request quotes on several levels depending on their preferences. They can request a quote from a particular seller, a seller with the same product catalog, or a seller with any product variant. In addition, a buyer can also request a quote globally. This means every seller on the platform can see and counteroffer. In this way, buyers have the opportunity to get counter offers from multiple sellers and choose the most preferred one.

Hide Pricing to Discuss Pricing on Various Transactional Terms

Hide pricing is another important feature for a Horizontal B2B marketplace. In the case of hidden pricing, there is always an option to request a quote. However, the hide pricing feature is a choice that can be enabled or disabled as per the preference. The marketplace owner can evaluate both options, hide pricing and buy now to decide which option suits best.

Let’s make the role of the hide product prices feature in a B2B marketplace clearer to you. In the B2B marketplace, buyers can see major price differences for similar products and these differences can frustrate them. However, an in-depth analysis can help them understand the key factors influencing prices. These factors may include Product quality, competition level, market demand, customer type and buying volume, production costs, and more. In the case of hidden pricing, there is only an option available to request a quote. Using this feature buyers can ask for the pricing.

This is how the hide pricing option helps the marketplace enable an option for the buyers and sellers to discuss pricing considering various factors and business terms.

Minimum Order Quantity: A Core Feature of any B2B Marketplace

What separates B2B transactions from B2C is their order volume and value. Unlike B2C marketplaces, one can’t place an order in one or two quantities for personal use. In B2B marketplaces, businesses need to place orders directly to another business in large quantities. In this scenario, minimum order quantity features become essential in B2B marketplaces.

The minimum order quantity feature restricts the buyer from placing an order in less than the defined minimum quantity. Sellers on the platform select the minimum order quantity that they can accept from the buyers. However, the order quantity may vary depending on its value, demand and other such factors.

Bulk Order Discount to Achieve Sales Goal

Discounts, offers, coupons and rewards are strategies to attract customers. The purpose of these offerings is to incentivize customers through discounts and added benefits. However, the ultimate goal is to increase sales, attract new customers and foster customer loyalty. In addition, these offerings also make them feel valued and encourage repeat business.

Bulk order discounts in the B2B horizontal marketplace help businesses achieve their sales goal. The discount increases with the increasing order quantity motivating customers to place orders in maximum quantity.

Suppose, you are a business owner who is placing an order for 500 pairs of sneakers at $200 each. On the other hand, you can get more discounts, which means you can get each pair of sneakers at $190 instead of $200 if you place an order for 700 sneakers. This signifies that you are getting a $10 additional discount on the increasing number of orders. This is how the bulk order discount feature works in the B2B marketplace. Sellers on the platform get more orders and buyers get more discounts.

Direct Buyer-Seller Communication to Resolve Queries and Concerns

In B2B transactions buyer-seller direct communication is truly important. It plays a significant role in resolving queries and concerns. B2B transactions are really complex and one can’t clarify everything with product listings. Several concerns, queries and other requirements may require direct buyer-seller communication.

For instance, there might be some specific customization requirements, discussion related to the agreement or other business terms required that may not be possible without communicating directly. Therefore, a direct-buyer-seller communication feature is recommended in a B2B marketplace.

Through direct messaging features sellers and buyers connect on the platform. This direct communication channel not only fosters communication but helps businesses increase their conversion rates. On the other side, it also helps the buyers to get more clarity on their queries and concerns.

However, to maintain transparency in the marketplace, the admin has access to view the communication.

A Clean UX/UI for an Enhanced User Experience

For any eCommerce platform whether B2B, B2C or D2C, user experience matters the most. It helps the marketplace build a connection with its users.

A clean and user-friendly UX/UI leads to enhanced user engagement, increased conversion rate and retention rate and more. Ultimately, it helps the marketplace to fulfill its end goal of converting leads into sales to generate more revenue.

A good user experience encourages a buyer to place an order by making them feel comfortable on the platform. From browsing products to filling in details for the final checkout, user-friendly UX/UI plays a significant role in ensuring a smooth user experience.

Let’s understand the importance of a user-friendly marketplace through an example.

Suppose, you are a buyer who wants to buy something from an online eCommerce platform. However, you are unable to find the product or facing difficulty during checkout due to the platform’s navigation. In this scenario, there is a high possibility that you will not complete the checkout.

On the other hand, you visited a marketplace where you easily discovered the product that you were looking for and placed an order in just a few steps with its simplified checkout process. In both the examples, the product was listed on the platform but the visitors placed an order in the second instance that’s only because of the platform’s user-friendly UX/UI. This is how a clean UX/UI can help your business generate more revenue contributing to an enhanced user experience.

Additional Features Required to Make a Marketplace Operational 

Apart from the above key features of a Horizontal marketplace, there are a few more additional features required to make a marketplace fully functional for all its users, customers, vendors and admin. Let’s take a brief look at those additional features:

• Easy to Register: From the user’s perspective, the easy sign-up feature is truly crucial to initiate the first marketplace interaction.
• Search and filter: Search and filtering is an important feature for any marketplace that helps users find what they’re looking for quickly.
• Add To Cart: This feature refers to a virtual cart where users can add products to browse or check out later.
• Multiple Payment Options: Multiple payment options in the marketplace allow users to make payments using their preferred payment method. There are several payment gateways that enable various payment options.
• Easy Checkout Process: A convenient checkout process helps ensure customers complete their purchase
• Reviews and ratings: Ratings and reviews from shoppers help build trust and credibility among the customers.
• Order tracking: Order tracking is another required feature for any platform selling products online. It helps buyers to get real-time status.
• Customer support: One Click and easy customer support ensure an enhanced customer experience.

What are the Popular Ways to Build a Horizontal B2B Marketplace?

There are three popular ways to build a horizontal B2B marketplace and each approach has its own pros, cons and technical capabilities. One can launch a horizontal B2B marketplace by building it from scratch, using a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform like Shopify or WooCommerce, or utilizing a readymade marketplace solution like Sharetribe or Yo!Kart.

1. Building a Horizontal Marketplace from Scratch: Building a marketplace from scratch requires several considerations and resources. In addition, compared to any other solution it takes more time and money. It may take anywhere between 6 months to one year and also requires $30000 to $150000 or more depending on your marketplace requirements and complexity. 

2. Choosing SaaS-Based Solution: You can also launch your marketplace using a SaaS-based solution. Initially, it seems cost-effective and also lets you launch your platform quickly. But in the long run, it may cost you more. In addition, a SaaS-based solution can limit your marketplace features and may require additional expenses while tailoring that platform to your specific business requirements. Somewhere, it may also limit the customization options. 

3. Launching a Marketplace Using Readymade Self-hosted Software: Readymade software is another popular and cost-effective way to launch a horizontal B2B marketplace. These self-hosted solutions let you host your platform on your preferred server by giving you complete control over the platform. It helps you introduce your marketplace faster and comes with a lot more flexibility. You can easily tailor the solution to your specific business needs by customizing the solution. The readymade software comes with all the essential features and functionality. However, if you need some customization, you can amend them according to your specific requirements. 

Yo!Kart: A Cost-Saving Way to Build a Horizontal B2B Marketplace 

Building a successful horizontal B2B marketplace requires a reliable and scalable eCommerce marketplace solution. At the same time, cost-effectiveness is also a significant consideration. Yo!Kart is the most reliable and scalable B2B marketplace software that helps entrepreneurs launch their own eCommerce platform. This self-hosted readymade software is available at one-time payment with no recurring charges making it a cost-effective solution as well. 

Yo!Kart comes with out-of-the-box features that make it fully operational allowing its users to grow business effortlessly. In addition, being a fully customizable eCommerce software, it also allows you to add additional features and upgrade existing ones as per your marketplace requirements. This feature-rich eCommerce platform comes with 20+ payment gateways and lets you seamlessly integrate third-party applications easily.

From consultation to final launch, Yo!Kart team helps you throughout your marketplace launch journey. Even after the marketplace launch, you also get one year of free technical support. Apart from the above-all offering, Yo!Kart also provides source code ownership which means access to the source code that helps its users get complete control over the platform.

Yo!Kart’s built-in B2B-Specific Features for Horizontal B2B Marketplace

If you are an entrepreneur who is looking for a feature-rich horizontal B2B marketplace solution, Yo!Kart is the right choice for you. Let’s explore its extensive B2B features: 

• RFQ Module: Allows buyers to negotiate pricing by requesting a quote. 

• Hide Pricing: Yo!Kart’s hide pricing feature provides an option to hide product prices. 

• Bulk Order Discount: The bulk order discount feature on the platform helps sellers to get more sales and buyers to get more discounts on increasing order quantity.  

• Minimum Order Quantity: The minimum order quantity feature helps sellers restrict buyers from placing orders less than the specified order quantities. 

• Direct Buyer-seller Communication: This essential B2B feature allows buyers and sellers to communicate directly using text messaging to resolve their queries and concerns. 

B2B Marketplaces Launched with Yo!Kart:

• UNI Diamond is a custom-made B2B marketplace for diamond trading. View Case Study
• Bozinga is a multi-vendor B2B marketplace. View Case Study 
• Green Sourcing Hub is a B2B platform for sustainable products.
• Rexporta is a Georgia-based B2B marketplace platform known for selling hardware parts. 

Explore more

Final Thought

The era of eCommerce is full of opportunities. Launching a marketplace will bring you wholesome outcomes. No matter whether you want to launch a horizontal marketplace or a vertical marketplace, both the marketplace have their own pros and cons. The decision to launch a marketplace should be your own. But before you launch a marketplace what you need to do is a thorough research and analysis to understand which marketplace can be best for you.

In this blog, you primarily explored the horizontal marketplace including its definition, benefits, examples, and features. Also, you had a glimpse of the vertical marketplace while differentiating horizontal and vertical marketplaces.

In addition, you have also explored Yo!kart, a readymade eCommerce marketplace software and learned how this self-hosted software can help bring your marketplace idea to life in no time. How this eCommerce platform can help you launch and grow your marketplace with its extensive range of features and functionality.

Finally, if you are an entrepreneur who is looking for the opportunity to launch an eCommerce platform, you can consider launching it with Yo!Kart. Launching the marketplace with Yo!kart will not just help you introduce your platform faster but also provide you complete control over it.

FAQs 

Q 1. What is the difference between the horizontal and vertical marketplaces? 

Ans. There are two common differences between horizontal and vertical marketplaces; target audience and product offerings.

The target audience in the horizontal marketplace is wider and product offering is also extensive. On the other hand, in vertical marketplaces, they target specific niches or industries tackling a specific customer segment with their unique needs.

Q 2. Which marketplace is best to launch horizontal or vertical?

Ans. Launching a marketplace required thorough research. It helps you understand product demand, target audience, customer preferences, pain points and lack of availability. However, both marketplaces are best on their own and there are several popular horizontal and vertical marketplaces in the eCommerce space that have shown proven results. Hence, there is no definite answer to prove whether the horizontal marketplace is best or the vertical marketplace. Therefore, always choose the marketplace type that is best for your vision and business’s success.

Q 3. Can I launch a global marketplace with Yo!Kart?

Ans. Of course, you can surely launch a fully operational global eCommerce marketplace with Yo!Kart. This eCommerce software has empowered a large number of global marketplaces with its out-of-the-features and functionalities. Especially, its multilingual and multi-currency support alongside multiple payment gateways has played a crucial role in empowering them. 

Q 4. What are the popular ways to launch a horizontal B2B marketplace?

You can launch a horizontal B2B marketplace in three popular ways:  

1. Developing a marketplace from scratch:  This process can be very costly and time-consuming.

2. Choose a SaaS-based solution: You can launch your marketplace SaaS-based solution. However, there are a few limitations associated with the solution. 

3. Readymade eCommerce Software: Readymade software solution is a popular marketplace solution that can help you launch your platform in the fastest possible time.  

Yo!Kart is a readymade marketplace solution that allows entrepreneurs to launch their horizontal marketplace by offering complete control over the platform. 

Q 5. Does Yo!Kart come with separate dashboards?

Ans. Primarily there are three participants required in a B2B horizontal marketplace who make the platform operational. These participants include buyers, sellers and admins. Yo!kart’s separate and robust dashboards provide an enhanced marketplace experience to all its participants.

Q 6. Which software is best to launch a Horizontal B2B Marketplace? Ans. If you are an entrepreneur or business owner who is looking for software to launch a horizontal B2B marketplace, you can choose Yo!Kart. It is one of the best self-hosted readymade software that can help you launch a feature-rich horizontal B2B marketplace. Yo!Kart comes with 20+ pre-integrated payment gateways and other third-party apps for order fulfillment. In addition, Yo!Kart’s multilingual and multi-currency support makes the platform a reliable choice among its users who are looking for a solution to tackle the global market.