The client
Adedayo Akande came up with a mission to make it easy for buyers and caribbean suppliers to connect and do business through an online marketplace. Based on the belief that businesses in the Caribbean should be able to fully take advantage of borderless commerce through the use of technology. However, the process must be simple to be effective.
The Business challenges
- Due to absence of any online marketplace customers used to spent most of the time contacting local suppliers offline, seeking the quantities for the right price.
Suppliers were only found through personal contacts, and no online presence was available for the suppliers. - Customers had to end up purchasing products from United States, as they were easily found online.
Getting products shipped from United States takes a longer arrival time and duty was expensive.
Difficulty in locating nearby suppliers due to lack of marketing.
Our Solutions
- An online platform that makes it easy for Caribbean suppliers to showcase their products to buyers both within the region, and globally.
- Buyers can directly contact suppliers to get quotations
- A messaging channel between buyers and suppliers to manage all communication within the system.
- User-friendly dashboard to manage user accounts.
We used Chapter247 to assist us in building our B2B Marketplace. We had initially purchased a script from another vendor and wanted to make changes/customize it so that we could use it for our organization. However, the vendor delivered an unfinished project.
Adedayo Akande
The Product
Features:
- Find sellers on Carib Sources Platform using the internal search engine or browsing through a number of categories for different products.
- Buyers can also submit a Request For Quotation (RFQ) to receive quotes from relevant suppliers.
- Dedicated contact forms on products or seller profile to submit your request. The seller will receive your contact and respond.
- Intuitive user dashboard which displays complete highlights of a user account.
- Sellers can feature their products on the homepage by using paid services.
Business Benefits:
- Caribbean products commerce increased by 40% within 2 months of launch.
- Local suppliers business revenues increased by a minimum of 25% after listing their products on Carib Sources Platform.