Both single vendor and multi-vendor online stores had an upper hand over brick and mortar stores in 2020. However, most business owners get confused when it comes to selecting between these two options. In this blog, Techosquare will tell you the key differences between multivendor and single vendor online stores so that you can pick the best one for yourself.
Before discussing their differences, let’s put a spotlight on their definition:
As the name suggests, an online store where only its owner is selling products is called a single vendor e-commerce website. Here, the owner sells directly to the buyers. Since there are no third party sellers or vendors in the picture, these stores are pretty simple and carry only the core ecommerce shop features like product listing, shopping cart, and admin dashboard.
An e-commerce website where the owner allows many sellers to register themselves for selling their respective products through a virtual storefront is called a multivendor online store. Such online shopping websites are big in size and host thousands of products. They also pack complex features and are harder to build from the ground up.
Now that you know the meaning of both single and multivendor online stores, let’s look at their differences:
The multivendor vendor online store is more demanding in nature since you have to build both supply and demand-side initially. A single vendor online shop is less draining in comparison and easier to operate at a small level.
It is obvious that both formats require investment in the design and development field. However, a single vendor is fairly cheap to get up and running due to a simpler site and transaction structure. Multi-seller stores are cheap only if you use online store launchers like Swiftkart.
Whether you are opting for a single-seller store or a multivendor marketplace, you anyhow need the nest of technology by your side but multivendor stores are comparatively more complex to build and improve. That's majorly because of the vendor capabilities, inventory management, and advertising capabilities.
Multivendor stores have huge traffic potential since the catalog runs in hundreds of thousands of products and all vendors work hard for sales. Profitability, therefore, is also huge if the website takes off. Single vendor online stores, on the other hand, attract less traffic unless powered by a renowned brand name.
Both single vendor and multivendor online stores are right for different groups of entrepreneurs and businesses. It is up to you to select the right technology that meets your business needs and overall budget. With that said, we end our comparison of multivendor vs. single vendor online stores.
Got any queries to ask? Send them at info@techosquare.com and have them answered by our professional web store developers.
Also read:
10 ecommerce niche ideas to dominate 2021
Everything you need to know before starting a multivendor marketplace
