How Marketplace Chat Transforms Your Success Story?

Imagine this scenario. A smartphone on an online C2C (customer-to-customer) marketplace impresses you, but you have doubts about the product. You also need more information about the seller's return policy. So, you initiate a chat with the concerned seller. In such situations, marketplace chat capabilities enable sellers to provide a personalized experience to each customer. Such interactions usually trigger a favorable buying decision.  

Marketplace chat provides anytime accessible (asynchronous) or live (real-time, synchronous) conversations that boost online success—irrespective of whether it is C2C, B2C (business to customer), or B2B (business to business). Marketplace chat stays relevant regardless of the type of product or service transactions.  

Chats are the best way to connect buyers with sellers. Each vendor on your marketplace can instantly respond to multiple customer queries simultaneously. Both parties can share files, images, and documents over chat messages. The chat window also facilitates near-instant customer signups or logins.  

How chat helps marketplaces grow  

Reliable customer service is the linchpin of a consumer-centric business. Chat can contribute significantly to the improvement of your marketplace's capabilities on this front. 

Engagement via buyer-seller chat drives sales and transactions on your online marketplace. It closes the gap between a customer's desire for a product or service and their commitment to buying it at a specific moment. Marketplace chat helps the seller to educate and convince the buyer about the item.  

Website or in-app chat connects buyers and sellers across platforms on your marketplace. It makes it possible for both parties to remain informed about your online marketplace's supply and demand status. This way, marketplace chat creates transparency and trust between the parties.  

Benefits of chat for your marketplace 

User engagement via marketplace chat boosts transactions, gross merchandise value, and average order value. It speeds up customer acquisition and existing customer retention. Best of all, these buyers usually become your merchandise's advocates.  

Chat data also helps you to optimize interactions. You can also leverage this data to launch new businesses, products, and services. 

Other benefits of marketplace chat include: 

1. Real-time convenience 

2. Time and cost savings  

3. Competitive advantage 

4. Higher conversions and sales 

5. Lasting customer relationships 

6. 24/7 support 

7. Better customer service  

8. Enhanced customer experiences 

9. Useful analytics and reports 

10. Quick query resolution 

Why you must add chat to your marketplace  

Today's online marketplaces hold more substantial potential since they offer an ever-increasing variety to buyers–sometimes, even more options than online retailers. The success of specific on-demand marketplaces (such as online grocery or food delivery) depends significantly on fast communications. If consumers receive late responses, they'll likely move on to other platforms.  

Engagement between buyers and sellers via the website or in-app messaging plays a decisive role in the success of online marketplaces. Leading marketplaces are known for their fast, easy, and effective buyer-seller journeys. So even if your business is a relatively new startup, you must offer an apt platform that allows buyers and sellers to connect and engage. 

The must-have chat features for your marketplace include: 

• Support for multiple devices (such as mobile, tab, laptop, or PC) and platforms (like iOS, Android, or Web) 
• Convenient interaction options for users 
• Reminders for users about messages or offers  
• Capabilities for sellers to demonstrate their product(s) and share media about them 

 Other features to look out for are as follows. For end-users, the marketplace chat solution must provide the following: 

• Read receipts 
• Push notifications 
• Cross-platform sync 
• Leave reviews 
• Delivery receipts 
• User-to-user blocking 

The ideal marketplace chat solution must provide the following admin features: 

• Moderation tools 
• Simple ways to monitor transactions 
• Message retrieval API 
• Easy message list to search and monitor 
• Recommendations for crucial updates 
• Demo of listings and products to enhance trust  

How to add chat to your marketplace website  

The online marketplace space is becoming increasingly competitive. So, your chat app must ensure a unique experience for your users.  

Building a viable chat or messaging solution from scratch can be daunting. Then comes the matter of funds and manhours required for development and maintenance.  

Next is to ensure a safe chat environment for buyers and sellers on your marketplace. You can protect users using conversation moderation and profanity filters.  

The ready availability of powerful third-party chat APIs and SDKs is excellent news on this front. Your marketplace can easily add a reliable, scalable, and secure chat platform with such plug-and-play tools.  

Five popular chat solutions (2022 Edition) 

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TalkJS  

TalkJS provides user-to-user chat functionality for your online marketplace, Web app, or social platform. It can turn any HTML division/section (<div>) into a 2-way chat box. You'll have this easy-to-integrate chat app up and running in 10 minutes.  

Other messaging solutions tend to offer only backend infrastructure with some UI-building blocks. TalkJS provides your marketplace with a fully-featured, refined, and embeddable UI. It comes standard with a simple yet powerful API and integrated email/SMS/push fallback. 

Core features of TalkJS include: 

• Good performance for online apps which involve interactions between more than two users 
• Capabilities for customers to ask questions, as well as request support, during pre-sales and post-sales stages 
• Works fine for social platforms, online communities, collaboration tools, and games 
• The dashboard gives CEOs and product managers insights into user behavior 

Magento 2  

You can use the Magento 2 buyer-seller chat extension to add chat capabilities to your marketplace. This chat solution lets customers get instant responses from sellers. All the conversations are stored in chat history and are displayed when necessary. 

The login process or ease of access is considered one of the keys to customer retention. Magento 2 makes it easy by allowing the customer to log in from the chat window, which speeds up user account registration. It also boosts traffic with an enhanced user experience. 

 Core features: 

• The seller chat panel is available on all pages 
• Sellers can conduct instant chats with many buyers at a time 
• Messages can have attachments, and the admin can fix file size limits 
• Sellers and the admin can express themselves better with emojis  
• Complete compatibility with mobile devices 
• Allows push notifications  

AtomChat 

AtomChat helps you establish direct communication between buyers and sellers, consultants and clients, teachers and students, and more. Secure and real-time conversations for your marketplace's users are the hallmark of this chat plugin.  

Your customers can conduct text, voice, and video conversations easily and quickly using AtomChat. As a result, users get detailed information and develop trust in your marketplace's product(s) or service(s). Transactions and better conversion rates are a direct benefit. 

Core features: 

• Honest, reliable user-generated content creates a helpful marketplace database 
• Stimulates comprehensive, dynamic, and far-reaching communication between all the marketplace users 
• Multilingual chat functionality enhances UX across the globe 
• You can monetize the chat between premium sellers and buyers per minute or message 
• You can ban emails, phone numbers, and hyperlinks from the admin panel. You can also filter out offensive words.  

 Chat Widgets for WP MVMs  

Chat widgets for multi-vendor marketplaces (MVM) are compatible with popular WordPress (WP) MVMs such as Dokan and WCFM Marketplace. The chat widget offers high levels of customer service satisfaction.  

It lets you stay in touch with your customers throughout their buying journey. Thus, the chat widget helps you create trust with your users. Chat widgets boost your brand value, customer relationship and retention, conversions, and sales. 

Core features: 

• Users can chat via channels like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and many more 
• Display up to two different chat channels at a time 
• Choose the widget location on your screen 
• Set triggers for when the chat widget should appear 
• The Pro version allows full customization of background colors, widget sizes, and designs 
• The pending message icon reminds users to contact the host 

LiveChat 

LiveChat is a complete chat solution. It can be customized to get messages from anywhere on your support channel or marketplace.  

The omnichannel customer support desk of the chat offers a fascinating experience rather than a chat solution. It specializes in proactive conversations. It anticipates questions so you can reply faster. 

Core features: 

• Offers easy integration with around 200 tools 
• You can send the chat data to your CRM and payment channels 
• Stores replies beginning with the hash symbol, and suggestions pop up as you type in 
• Provides filter reports using tags and customizable buttons 
• Unique features include canned responses, sneak peeks, targeted messages, ticket forms, and chat transcripts  

The takeaways 

Chat has emerged as the leading and most effective customer service option. You can attract new users and retain the loyalty of existing ones to your marketplace with a chat service.  

Hold an edge over your competition by enhancing user experiences. Full utilization of chat capabilities will boost your marketplace's brand loyalty, conversion rates, and revenues. 

Luckily, excellent readymade chat solutions are available at your service. You can get your marketplace's chat functionalities up and running fast using these solutions—minus the hassles and at a low cost.

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