A Services Marketplace matches contracts or projects with suppliers. This is not a new idea. In fact, about 6 years ago, I registered at a couple of sites myself, which eventually became stagnant, partly due to very small startups looking for £50 web sites and students wishing to add work to their porfolios.
I was recently asked to give some feedback on one particular new Service Marketplace, by a potential investor.
A service marketplace is a great idea if you can get enough paid jobs posted. The Marketplace I reviewed are making money from a commission on sales. It seems that they are competing with recruitment companies who generally make 10 - 15% commission on contract work. The web site service concept is faster in one way, as there is no intermediary involved. However, on the other hand, the benefit of a middleman such as a recruitment consultant, is that C.V.s and candidates are vetted before going to the buyer. If there are additional selling points to buyers of using a Services Marketplace, it should be clearly evident on the site.
Search engine placement, for this case study, was good on google, but the average number of page views per user had gone down 17%. Does this suggest a lack of regular fresh web site content and postings?
If a Services Marketplace is to succeed, it needs to refer back to old business models and study current methods of recruiting contractors, such as the use of recruitment agencies. The most difficult element of the equation is getting sensibly paid projects on the Services Marketplace, and this means either beating the recruitment companies - no commission fees, or working with them somehow. Two other possible revenue models are free subscriptions with profit from selling online advertising. The other is an annual or monthly subscription fee. The latter choice involves less technology and sales force to sell advertising, but selling the subscriptions still needs planning and effort.
I hope this section is useful, and note that this advice can be applied to many types of business web site. If you have any feedback or a case Study that you would like to share with our readers, please contact me
