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B2BCMarket supports different geographic and market-reach strategies for businesses participating in the marketplace.
A marketplace strategy describes how a business intends to reach its target market geographically and operationally.
A business may participate in a Local marketplace, a Global marketplace, or a combination of both.
A marketplace strategy defines the intended reach of a business's marketplace participation.
Geographic reach can be an important part of marketplace participation. A business may want to serve customers in a specific locality, a particular region, multiple countries, or markets around the world.
B2BCMarket is designed to accommodate these different approaches while keeping the business, company, branch, and product relationships connected.
A Local marketplace strategy focuses on serving customers within a defined geographic area.
The relevant area may be a city, district, province, region, or another defined service area.
This strategy can be particularly useful for businesses whose products or services depend on local availability, local delivery, physical locations, or regional operations.
A Global marketplace strategy focuses on reaching customers across broader geographic markets.
A business may present its offerings to customers in multiple countries or international markets.
This strategy can be useful for businesses whose products or services can be supplied across geographic boundaries.
A business does not necessarily have to choose between local and global marketplace participation.
Depending on its business structure and offerings, a business may participate in both local and broader markets.
This allows a business to maintain local marketplace presence while also making appropriate offerings available to wider markets.
A local strategy is appropriate when geographic proximity is important to the marketplace relationship.
Branch-level geographic information can provide important context for this type of marketplace participation.
B2BCMarket's connected entity structure allows geographic information to remain associated with the relevant Branch.
A Branch can contain information such as city, district, province, country, address, and service area.
This provides geographic context to the marketplace offerings associated with that Branch.
A business may operate from one physical location while serving a wider geographic area.
For this reason, a Branch can have service-area information in addition to its physical address.
Identifies where the Branch or operational location is physically situated.
Describes the geographic area that the Branch or business can serve.
A global strategy is appropriate when a business wants its marketplace offerings to reach customers beyond its immediate local geography.
Product country information can provide additional context for internationally oriented offerings.
Product information in B2BCMarket can include country relationships such as where a product is made or where it is assembled.
Identifies the country associated with the manufacture or production of the product.
Identifies the country associated with product assembly.
These details can provide useful information when products are discovered in broader or international markets.
Branches are important to marketplace geography because they can represent operational locations and service areas.
A company may have multiple branches serving different geographic markets.
This structure allows marketplace offerings to remain associated with the operational locations through which they are presented.
A company can have multiple branches, and those branches can represent different geographic marketplace locations.
This makes it possible to maintain one Company identity while representing multiple operational areas.
Not every product necessarily needs to have the same geographic reach.
Different products may be associated with different branches and therefore different marketplace availability contexts.
This provides businesses with flexibility when presenting products across local and broader markets.
Marketplace strategy and marketplace model describe two different aspects of marketplace participation.
| Concept | Primary Question | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplace Model | Who is the business serving? | B2B, B2C, B2BC |
| Marketplace Strategy | Where or how broadly is the business participating? | Local, Global |
These concepts can work together.
A business can combine a marketplace model with a geographic strategy.
Example:
Marketplace Model: B2B
Marketplace Strategy: Local
Result: Business offerings focused on business customers within a defined geographic market.
Another business could use B2C with a broader geographic strategy, depending on the nature of its products and operations.
Sellers can use marketplace strategies that reflect the markets they are capable of serving.
Geographic context can help buyers understand whether an offering is relevant to their location or intended market.
Branch information, location information, address information, and service-area information can provide additional context during product discovery.
Merchants can use marketplace geography as one factor when identifying potential business opportunities.
A merchant may be interested in businesses operating locally, within a particular region, or across broader international markets.
The connected marketplace structure helps preserve the relationship between the merchant opportunity and the underlying business entities.
Marketplace strategies work together with the B2BCMarket Connected Entity Architecture (BCEA).
The entity architecture establishes the relationships between Business, Company, Branch, and Product.
Geographic marketplace strategy adds another dimension to those relationships.
Geographic information becomes more useful when users can navigate between related entities.
A buyer may discover a Product, examine its Branch, learn about the Company, and then explore the Business behind the offering.
This preserves both the product information and the organizational and geographic context surrounding it.
A business can grow its marketplace participation over time.
A business may begin with a local marketplace presence and later expand into additional regions or countries.
The connected entity structure can continue to represent the same Business and Company relationships while additional geographic marketplace participation develops.
A marketplace strategy should not be confused with the identity of a Business, Company, Branch, or Product.
The entities remain independently identifiable and accessible. Geographic strategy provides additional marketplace context without replacing those identities.
Business, Company, Branch, and Product identify the marketplace entities.
Local or broader participation describes the intended marketplace reach.
B2BCMarket can support businesses that participate in local markets, broader markets, or combinations of different geographic strategies.
Local marketplace participation can provide geographic relevance.
Global marketplace participation can provide broader market reach.
Multiple branches can allow businesses to maintain operational and geographic context across different locations.
The underlying Business → Company → Branch → Product relationship remains connected as marketplace participation expands.