What is a white-label software marketplace?
In the current professional climate of constant fluctuation, increasing client demands, and unprecedented operating complexity—business owners are understandably overwhelmed. Cobbling together tools to attempt to address a variety of new needs is inefficient and expensive. Enter the Swiss Army knife solution: a white-label software marketplace. Yet some businesses that stand to profit big from software marketplaces are still hesitant to engage with them.
Explore current tactics and tools to resell software solutions by downloading our guide, “The ecommerce ecosystem: A post-pandemic playbook” now.
We understand.
The digital world can feel oversaturated with tools and platforms, making something like marketplace software seem like just another piece of complicated tech or a new, fleeting online fix for companies selling solutions to local businesses.
We’re here to explain the value of a white-label software marketplace to ensure that a knowledge gap does not prevent you from reaping the benefits.
What is white-label software?
First and foremost, let’s break it all the way down and begin with white-label software.
White-label software means you can resell another company’s digital solution under your own name and branding. To visualize it, the label on the product is blank (or “white”) so that you can place your logo on it and resell it.
An indie pet brand might buy dog treats wholesale from a trusted manufacturer, white-label them, and sell the treats under their own business name and branded packaging to consumers. It’s the same idea when you resell software.
White labeling is a proven business model that is trusted, streamlined, and relied upon by all kinds of businesses to eliminate the growing pains associated with scaling.
Next, let’s understand how a white-label software marketplace facilitates the selling and reselling of digital solutions, under the banner of your brand.
How marketplace software fits into the picture
To make a point, we can think of a white-label software marketplace just like any other market that sells goods.
Would you rather purchase a single item from 10 different stores, or visit a marketplace where everything you need is under the same tent?
Consider it. Purchasing from different stores means wasting time traveling between each different location, keeping track of several receipts, memorizing all the various sale and return policies, and developing trust with different vendors.
It’s similar for software tools and platforms. Marketplace ecommerce resolves these issues.
Buying resellable solutions from a software marketplace, as opposed to buying one-off solutions from various vendors, reduces complexity and inefficiency. When it comes to marketplace ecommerce, you’re getting a platform specifically designed for multiple vendors to sell solutions and services in one place.
This means that a white-label software marketplace:
- Offers a more diverse range of solutions to resell to clients
- Requires only one login to keep track of
- Streamlines reporting and billing all in one place
- Curates and vets marketplace software solutions so you can purchase with trust
- Often will offer white-label fulfillment services to deliver at scale
But that’s just the beginning when it comes to the benefits of a software marketplace.
How marketplace ecommerce helps businesses grow
Businesses often hit a ceiling when it comes to growth. Things are challenging but simple with a startup-sized team and only a few clients.
Many companies never quite figure out how to scale beyond a certain threshold. Or worse, they attempt to grow too quickly, no matter the cost, and then crash and burn (Business).
The ability to resell software is often not enough to grow sustainably on its own. A white-label software marketplace, however, is an ecosystem that can propel you forward on your sustainable growth journey by offering both big brands and white-label solutions you can resell, all in one place.
White-label software powers up brand building for increased revenue
Software marketplaces provide you with the ability to offer a wide range of digital products and services, all under your own branding.
Brand building is not only great for increasing trust, credibility, and awareness.
Brand building is also a powerful revenue generator.
Stay competitive and upsell
For your current clients, your access to marketplace software ensures that you can always keep up with their growing and shifting business needs. No matter what tomorrow brings, you will be able to position and resell software that adds value to them in new ways.
Studies show that needs-based selling and providing relevant solutions increases client retention by 30 percent.
Data from the same study shows that upselling has the highest impact on the lifetime of your clients at the three-month mark. This indicates that the capacity to upsell new clients can foster longer, more profitable relationships and reduce churn.
A white-label software marketplace provides you with this increased capacity.
Reach a new tier of clients
Building your brand also expands your audience reach, which casts a wider net. But you also want to watch bigger fish.
When it comes to attracting new business, a white-label software marketplace allows you to position yourself to a client base with more stability and growth potential. Bigger clients will seek a partner that can demonstrate that they are organized, have a reputable team, and can provide an extensive offering.
Engaging with a marketplace that offers pre-vetted white-label software to resell can help you reach a whole new tier of clients. And through the power of white labeling, your clients know exactly who they are working with the entire time: you.
Software marketplaces allow you to integrate your own offerings
If you want to resell software, marketplace ecommerce solutions provide you with hundreds of options.
But what about the offerings that you already sell?
One of the great benefits of the right white-label software marketplace is that it will provide access to a wide variety of white-label software to sell alongside your own offerings.
By integrating your own products and services, you can effectively take your special sauce and funnel it through the same marketplace you’re using to resell software. That way, your clients can view and purchase all of your offerings in a single place for increased simplicity and efficiency.
Integrating hybrid offerings of your own products alongside white-label software and reseller programs means you can effectively create a one-stop shop for your clients.
Sell your own solutions as a marketplace vendor
Perhaps you have your own app that you’ve created for your business. Or you have software currently in development. What’s your distribution plan? How labor intensive and costly will it be, and how will you reach a network of resellers and relevant businesses?
Software marketplaces can also be powerful distribution centers to accelerate the reach of your owned and operated products.
You can not only be a user and reseller but also a vendor in a white-label software marketplace. This is a great way to open up a new stream of revenue for your business—without having to start from scratch.
Instead of spending time and money building up distribution channels and strategizing on how to expand your reach, software marketplaces grant you access to thousands of interested buyers and resellers who are primed and ready.
Scale sustainably with a white-label software marketplace
When it comes to making the decision to leverage marketplace ecommerce or resell software under your own brand, consider this:
The more of your clients’ problems you can solve, the more value you add to their businesses and the more essential you make yourself to them.
A white-label software marketplace can:
- Help build your brand with white-label solutions
- Generate more revenue with upselling
- Increase client retention and reduce churn
- Unlock a new tier of clients to sell to
- Integrate your own offerings into the marketplace software
- Become a vendor and create a new revenue stream
And finally, software marketplaces can be the ticket to scaling sustainably. That means breaking through the threshold so many businesses get stuck at, without all the associated growing pains.