Workflow Software Drives Vertical SaaS Marketplaces
Ameet Shah, partner at Golden Ventures, on the economics of vertical SaaS marketplaces
The real shift is that B2B commerce is moving from relationship managed ordering to software managed ordering. COVID forced wholesalers to replace in person sales with online workflows, but the deeper change is generational. Younger operators on both the buyer and seller side expect ordering, payments, inventory checks, and customer communication to live in one system, not across paper, calls, and spreadsheets. That makes workflow software the entry point to marketplace liquidity.
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In practice, this means low value orders that used to be handled by outside reps are getting pulled into digital channels. Once a distributor can take orders online, it becomes much easier to aggregate more buyers and sellers in a marketplace, because the hard part, changing behavior at the point of purchase, has already happened.
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The winning product is usually not a marketplace homepage first. It is software that sits inside the daily workflow, sourcing, procurement, logistics, contracts, and payments, so a buyer can place an order and a supplier can process it without leaving the system. That is why vertical SaaS often comes before the marketplace layer.
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This pattern now shows up across categories. In restaurant supply, Notch digitized ordering between distributors and restaurants. In retail and distribution, Mirakl sells marketplace infrastructure to incumbents launching third party commerce. More broadly, B2B buyers have become much more comfortable with self serve and hybrid purchasing since COVID.
Going forward, the advantage will keep shifting to companies that own the operating workflow before they own the transaction. As more buyers and operators become digital natives, the best marketplaces will look less like directories and more like the system of record for ordering, payments, and supplier coordination, with commerce monetization layered on top.