How to Choose a B2B Marketplace Platform—The Top Forrester Criteria, and How AppDirect Measures Up

The Forrester Wave™ Marketplace Development Platform, Q4 2024

Forrester recently released The Forrester Wave™ Marketplace Development Platform, Q4 2024—The Nine Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up. In the report, Forrester evaluated marketplace development platform providers, identified the most significant ones, then researched, analyzed, and scored them. With the goal of helping businesses select the right provider for their needs, the resulting report shows how each provider measures up.

AppDirect was among the nine companies evaluated, scoring the highest in the strategy and current offering categories. AppDirect also earned the highest score possible in 25 criteria, including customer experience front end, customer success program, search, promotions, AI, vision, innovation, roadmap, and adoption.

Whether you’re looking at a marketplace platform for your business or recommending marketplace offerings as an advisor, this blog will help you: 

• Understand what’s driving marketplace growth
• Know the key criteria you should consider before you lock into any marketplace platform or vendor

We also share how AppDirect stacked up in key categories in the Forrester report.

What is a marketplace development platform?

A marketplace development platform is a comprehensive solution that enables businesses to create, manage, and scale online marketplaces. It provides the necessary tools and infrastructure to support various business models, including first-party, third-party, and mixed marketplaces. Key features typically include product listing management, commission and revenue sharing capabilities, integrated payment processing, front-end customization, and advanced analytics. 

These platforms often support multi-vendor environments, offering seamless integration, user-friendly interfaces, and robust security measures—all aimed at delivering an optimized, consistent user experience across multiple touchpoints.

What’s fueling today’s rapid marketplace platform growth

The numbers are staggering. As companies rush to buy, sell, and manage products online, B2B marketplaces have become the fastest-growing digital sales channel, experiencing a 100% sales growth year over year in 2023. According to Gartner estimates, 80% of B2B sales will be generated digitally by the end of 2025, up from 13% in 2019, and cloud marketplace spending will grow from $15B in 2023 to $100B in 2026.

B2B buyer needs are driving change

To understand why marketplaces are flourishing, we need to start with the problems marketplaces solve—and they largely involve spending too much time, effort, and money procuring and managing technology:

• Procurement complexity—Buyers spend too much time finding and buying the technology they need—44% of IT decision-makers list complexity and lack of efficiency as major procurement challenges.

• Tedious vendor management—In an AppDirect study, 70% of SMB respondents expressed frustration with the time wasted dealing with multiple SaaS suppliers.

• The heavy cost of wasted licences—When it comes to SaaS, license waste is the number one challenge reported by IT leaders. On average, companies use just half of their SaaS licenses according to one study, with 51% of licenses paid for, but not used. Procuring through a marketplace and having full visibility into every product and every licence enables better SaaS spend management.

What do all these numbers mean to you?

As buyers shift their technology procurement and management online, companies that offer customers a buyer-centric, frictionless, unified commerce experience will see 20% or higher growth in total revenue, according to Gartner. So whether you’re a product developer, a marketplace operator, or a technology advisor, you stand to reap significant rewards by seizing the marketplace opportunity.

“... selling things you don’t own frees you from the constraints that have throttled your business for ages (e.g., the amount of space in your warehouses, size of your inventory credit line, size of your merchandizing team, etc.). Selling, servicing, and managing multivendor solutions of cloud-connected devices represents a step-change in how you do business.”

—The Forrester Wave™ Marketplace Development Platform Report, Q4 2024

What to look for in a marketplace platform

In this section, we’ll focus on what you should look for when evaluating your marketplace platform options, drawing in part on the insights gained from The Forrester Wave™ Marketplace Development Platforms Q4 2024.

We’ll take a look at strategy and current offerings categories identified in the report as the criteria we believe should be among your top considerations in selecting a marketplace platform. We'll also share details about AppDirect's key strengths in these areas. 

For the report covering all criteria, and to see how AppDirect stacks up, you can access the full report.

Strategy criteria

The future vision of your business is a crucial aspect to consider when choosing a marketplace platform. As AppDirect SVP of Product Management, Peush Patel, points out, “A platform that can adapt to your commerce vision is vital. Businesses evolve, and so do their needs. The marketplace platform of your choice should be capable of growing with you and should adapt to your evolving requirements. Essentially, it should be a tool that enables your vision, rather than one that limits it.”

Laura Stevenson, AppDirect VP of Marketing, added: "Look for references. Find customers you can talk to who've been using the platform for an extended period of time.".

The Forrester criteria for strategy

Forrester’s Strategy criteria include the marketplace platform vendor’s vision and innovation strategy, their roadmap and commitment to maintaining a partner ecosystem. It includes how their adoption strategy encourages product adoption among customers, and how well each vendor maintains a community that enables customers to connect with peers. It also looks at what additional support and offerings each vendor offers their customers, and direct feedback from customers collected as part of the study.

AppDirect earned a score of 5 (the maximum possible score) across every strategy criterion.

AppDirect’s strategy capabilities

In the report, Forrester remarked that AppDirect exhibits across-the-board strategic superiority, and that it enables a wide range of use cases, including embedded app stores, telco sales reps, and managed service providers (MSPs). Forrester noted that AppDirect’s vision to enable the flywheel of subscription digital commerce for buying, selling, and managing recurring tech services is particularly strong.

“That vision is built for a world where the future of tech buying is more about a stack: a curated group of integrated, embedded, white-labeled technologies that together solve for a business outcome. In such a world, tech advisors, not single mega-vendors, help businesses of all sizes buy all of their stack components from one source.”

—The Forrester Wave™ Marketplace Development Platform Report, Q4 2024

The report added: “Customers appreciate AppDirect’s partnership in helping them simplify their products for market and ultimately expand reach.”

Current offering criteria—5 key considerations

In this section, we dive into 5 of the 26 criteria that Forrester includes in its marketplace development platforms report. You can access the full report covering all criteria across all vendors.

1. Catalog of digital services

A great catalog is at the heart of any marketplace platform. As AppDirect VP of Product Management Peush Patel said recently in an interview, “First and foremost, the platform should offer a comprehensive, ready-to-use product catalog. A broad and diverse catalog enhances your ability to attract and retain customers, foster loyalty, and drive growth.”

“Next, you should be able to efficiently onboard and manage a thriving ecosystem of ISV developers,” he added. “The platform should allow you to effortlessly add your first-party products to the catalog. Simultaneously, it should enable partners to seamlessly add third-party products and integrate them into your marketplace.”

Key things to look for in a marketplace catalog of digital services

As you research potential marketplace platforms, keep these criteria in mind:

• How does the platform support global SKUs, taxonomies, attributes, fitment, complex products, bundles, and rich content?

• How comprehensively does the platform support complex products, bundles, kits, and so on?

• How does it support bundling of physical goods and services, and bundling of physical and digital services?

• How comprehensive is its no-code tooling for product content ingestion, transformation and mapping, enrichment, bulk editing, and quality control?

• How comprehensively does it support catalog syndication out to other marketplaces?

AppDirect’s catalog capabilities—5,000 products that span every area of technology

AppDirect provides extensive support for syndicated digital catalogs from third-party vendors. The distributors we support, Synnex and Ingram, offer a broad array of SKUs from providers like Microsoft and Google. Our platform enables seamless bundling of digital and physical services, with robust no-code tools for product content ingestion, transformation, mapping, and enrichment. We also offer comprehensive catalog syndication capabilities, allowing for efficient distribution across various marketplaces.

The AppDirect catalog includes 5,000 digital products that span every area of technology, from more than 1,000 vendors. Whether a business is looking to sell or buy the fastest internet connection available, unified communication solutions powered by a host of the top brands in the industry, security solutions, energy solutions, software as a service, AppDirect has it.

“AppDirect provides a broad suite of products that support the go-to-market ecosystems surrounding B2B subscription product offerings like SaaS, telecommunications, and energy. It enables merchants of any size to sell any service, in an omnichannel experience, across all devices.”

—The Forrester Wave™: Marketplace Development Platforms,
Q4 2024

2. Seller Network

A vibrant seller—or distribution—network is the backbone of any successful marketplace.

"When you’re looking for a marketplace development platform, look beyond technology to distribution,” says Laura Stevenson, VP Marketing at AppDirect. “Consider how the platform can support your go-to-market and distribution goals. Can they help you distribute your products throughout other marketplaces around the world, or even through the channel? As more end customers prefer buying through a marketplace and working with technology advisors, it's crucial to ensure the platform can provide access to a community for successful distribution.”

"When you’re looking for a marketplace development platform, look beyond technology to distribution.”

—Laura Stevenson, VP Marketing, AppDirect

The Forrester criteria for seller network

Ask prospective marketplace providers about the following capabilities:

• What tools are available to operators for discovering new candidate sellers and products?

• How large and diverse is the set of sellers onboarded to the network?

• What tools are available to sellers for discovering new candidate marketplace operators to list on?

AppDirect’s seller network capabilities—Integrate once and distribute widely

Navigating technology distribution can be complex for technology providers, with challenges in scaling, marketing, and managing their offers. AppDirect’s comprehensive platform simplifies these challenges by connecting technology providers with a vast network of 10,000+ advisors and platform syndication, offering essential digital tools to ensure they reach the right markets efficiently and effectively. This support allows providers to integrate once and distribute widely, ensuring their solutions reach the right markets efficiently.

AppDirect offers powerful tools for discovering and onboarding new products and sellers. Our network catalog and distributor catalogs, such as Ingram and TD Synnex, enable operators to easily expand their offerings. Additionally, our platform supports Developer Programs for systematic onboarding, ensuring a diverse and high-quality seller network.

3. Customer experience front end

"The customer experience is key in any marketplace,” says Peush Patel. “A smooth, intuitive interface really boosts user satisfaction and loyalty. A marketplace platform needs to support various touchpoints, whether it’s a mobile app, web browser, or in-product interface,” adding that developer tools and visual editing features make it easy to keep things fresh and engaging. “Plus, having a central hub for content and media management is essential for consistency."

The Forrester criteria for customer experience front end

To evaluate prospective marketplace platforms, consider how they meet the following criteria:

• How comprehensively does the platform support a variety of customer touchpoint technologies (e.g., server-side rendered HTML, static site generation, native mobile, and others)?

• How comprehensive is the front-end developer tooling (e.g., SDKs, DevOps tooling, middleware, design systems)?

• How comprehensive are the visual editing and preview capabilities for nontechnical practitioners?

• How comprehensive is the platform's repository for content and media?

• How intuitively can a user access content items in the content model based upon a taxonomy using metadata and tags?

AppDirect’s customer experience front-end capabilities—A seamless user experience across platforms

AppDirect received the highest score possible in the customer experience front-end capabilities criterion, and has robust support for various technologies, including server-side rendered HTML, static site generation, SPA/PWA, native mobile, and starter stores on multiple frameworks. This ensures a seamless user experience across different platforms.

AppDirect also provides comprehensive front-end developer tools with a Storefront SDK and Mantine design library, enabling efficient and high-quality development. Nontechnical users can easily customize and personalize storefronts with no-code visual editing and preview features, maintaining brand consistency. With a centralized content management hub and intuitive content access through metadata and tags, AppDirect offers an unparalleled customer experience front-end solution.

4. B2B customer accounts and contract entitlements

B2B marketplaces require granular control over customer accounts and contract entitlements to cater to complex organizational structures. Robust contract management and lifecycle management capabilities are crucial for maintaining long-term customer relationships and ensuring compliance with contractual obligations. The platform should support robust contract management and end-to-end customer lifecycle management for digital services.

The Forrester criteria:

Talk to prospective marketplace platform operators about these criteria:

• How robustly can customer divisions, cost centers, and buying teams be modeled?

• How granularly can customer roles and permissions be modeled?

• How robustly can contracts (e.g., account-level terms, etc.) and entitlements (e.g., customer-specific sub-catalogs, etc.) be modeled?

• For digital services, how does the platform support end-to-end customer lifecycle management?

• For digital services, how does it support single sign-on to all purchased services, and identity management for end users?

AppDirect capabilities in customer accounts and contract entitlement—Robust, comprehensive

AppDirect excels in managing B2B customer accounts and contract entitlements, supporting detailed modeling of customer divisions and granular role settings. Our platform offers robust contract management features and comprehensive lifecycle management, including single sign-on (SSO) and identity management for all digital services.

5. Commissions management

Effective commissions management directly impacts the financial health and transparency of any marketplace. Flexible commission structures make it possible to incentivize sellers appropriately and manage revenue sharing efficiently. Tools for vendor invoicing, reconciliation, and accounting ensure accurate financial reporting and compliance, making the marketplace more trustworthy and reliable.

The Forrester criteria:

Be sure to discuss the following areas with any prospective marketplace platform:

• What factors can define a commission structure (e.g., supplier, category, SKU, etc.)?

• What tools are available to support vendor invoicing, reconciliation, adjustment for returns, and other accounting activities?

AppDirect commissions management capabilities—Simplified revenue-sharing

AppDirect provides comprehensive tools and flexibility for commission management across various business models, allowing marketplace owners to define commission rates at the product (SKU) level and set default rates by provider, simplifying revenue sharing.

The platform's multi-party commerce engine supports detailed revenue splits between the platform, vendors, resellers, and operators, ensuring transparency and accountability. Integrated with Stripe Connect, AppDirect handles complex financial transactions, including vendor invoicing, reconciliation, and return adjustments.

These features make AppDirect an excellent choice for businesses seeking effective and transparent commission management in their marketplaces.

Why the Forrester rating matters for advisors and marketplace managers

For AppDirect, Forrester's recognition as a Leader in the marketplace development platform space is a powerful testament to our expertise and innovation. It's not simply a badge to display; we believe it's a validation of our platform's strength and our strategic vision.

For advisors and platform users, this recognition carries significant weight.

For advisors

• Access to proven solutions—We believe that Forrester's rigorous evaluation process gives you peace of mind, knowing you're offering your clients a proven and reliable solution.

• Credibility and trust—Forrester is a globally respected research and advisory firm. Their recognition boosts your credibility as an advisor, assuring your clients that you're aligned with a recognized industry leader.

• Competitive edge—We believe that working with a Forrester-recognized Leader sets you apart from the competition. You can confidently showcase AppDirect's ranking as a leader to differentiate your services and attract new business.

For marketplace operators

• Future-ready solutions—We believe that AppDirect's score in the strategy category and highest possible score in the innovation criterion highlight our commitment to staying ahead of the curve. You can be confident that our platform will continue to evolve and meet your future business needs.

• Industry-leading support—As a recognized Leader, AppDirect is dedicated to providing world-class customer support. You can count on us to be a trusted partner in your growth and success.

• Confidence in your choice—We believe that Forrester's recognition affirms that you've chosen a leading marketplace development platform. This reinforces your decision and assures you that you're partnering with a company that's committed to innovation and excellence.
  

When it comes to marketplace development platforms, AppDirect checks all the boxes. Our platform is designed to be flexible, adaptable, and capable of delivering differentiated experiences. We've built it on a modern tech stack and integrated capabilities for efficient and effective ongoing management and support, positioning us among the leaders in marketplace platforms.

Get The Forrester Wave™ Marketplace Development Platform, Q4 2024

Access the full report to see how AppDirect stacks up among the 9 top vendors selected by Forrester.

Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here.