Every Product Manager Should Know : P2P eCommerce Marketplace
The Peer to Peer eCommerce Marketplace is a beautiful use case of how technology has digitized trade and commerce. Just like the old days, now you can find a skilled craftsman and buy precious art from them or receive a service at home from an expert! P2P marketplace is an online platform where people can trade their skills, products, and services in exchange for money. If you explore all the Apps on your phone you will realize that on an average you make atleast one purchase per week on such P2P platforms. Websites like Esty, AirBnb, TaskRabbit, Thumbtack, Scoop, Uber, and Lyft are few examples where you can reach out to your community and find goods/ services from another peer. The P2P eCommerce market is subjected to $355 billion by 2025 as per PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Now, as a Product Manager of any such P2P eCommerce business, you will have to balance a few things for your product like every other consumer product, however the success the product lies in understanding the underlying business model, Users and Providers (peers who are selling a product/service on your platform to other peers). The user experience and technology stack must align with the purchasing habits and ease of use for all it’s actors. If you are building such platform form scratch, then there is freedom to choose your technology framework, UX from scratch but you are hopping on a running train, following 5 things will help you make a
1. Stranger Is No Danger — Until couple of years ago, would you have dared to enter a strangers car for a ride or stayed overnight for bread n breakfast at a strangers house in a tourist city? Thanks to these new P2P platforms, we have started trusting strangers again. To create trust and ensure safety of all Actors on the platform, following are the basic 3 steps for all P2P platforms -
• A Robust Verification Process for all- Verification is must for Providers as well as Users of the platform. Lyft has a set sign up process for all it’s drivers, Lyft also made sure that all the drivers get a standardized display photos to create trust in the community. Do not forget that the Rider can also be a potential threat to a Driver for a ride sharing App.
• An Easy Review /Rating Process — Help Users make informed decisions on the platform and improve the overall experience of the platform. Make sure that the review process is easy and quick. Nobody wants to spend 10 mins on writing a review. Let Sellers provide photos, Videos and even AR/VR capabilities to communicate what they want to offer to Users. Even Users can use these capabilities to provide un-biased reviews on the Provider.
• Safety Kit — Even after ensuring everything, we can still expect some bad actors on the platform. Some drunk Uber driver or some AirBnB guests vandalizing house property. Have a safety kit available to Users. Uber /Lyft has live ride sharing capability, and emergency calling facility. The way you are working on providing a good experience to your Users, focus on the User safety and pay attention to details.
2. Law Of The Land — When you are launching new features on your P2P platform or introducing your platform to a new market, do not forget to consult with your legal team. Interactions with legal teams are sometimes part of launch activities but if at all, you are working for a startup or the company that hasn’t established a legal team yet, make sure you get some legal opinion on your efforts before executing on them. This way you are not only protecting your company from unnecessary legal hassles but also ensuring safety to your Users/Providers on your platform.
3. Set The Stage — Never forget that when you are enabling peers to sell products / services on your platform, there is very little you can do to standardize those products or services. e.g. On AirBnB we see luxurious properties as well as a couch in a house of university students. Price being one factor to differentiate that but you have to set the stage for all types of providers on your platform. This way every offering on the platform is fairly compensated and fairly enjoyed by the Users. On Esty, you will find hundreds of handmade jewelry designers. Each of them should be compensated for their time, materials used and skill-level. Hence, make sure that the platform can provide detailed product catalogs to the Providers. All products also have detailed description, visuals (photo/videos), reviews and ability to answers questions by Providers. A good SEO will help Users also find relevant offerings.
4. Sell More, Sell Better — In my opinion, Providers are the star of your business and you must empower them to sell more. Set up some free workshops / meetups to help them understand the platform better. Create online videos, papers and community support to teach Providers how to utilize the platform to their advantage. Work on providing analytical capability on the platform that will give sell insights to Providers. Insights on who is buying, when is he buying and post-buy purchase will help them sell the right products to right Users. Also, provide pricing insights will help them optimize the profits. Not to forget, the that better sale will result in bottom line of the platform.
5. Ace the Experience — We want Providers to focus on the offering and Users stay loyal to buying on the platform. User experience is very important for P2P platforms because the platform targets Users from all walks of life. Identify all possible use cases, user flows on the platform for all Users.
I found this article very useful -
https://hackernoon.com/the-building-blocks-of-online-p2p-marketplaces-307144ba0e7f
