Making a marketplace work for more of its suppliers.
Buyers were searching plenty, yet about a third of paying suppliers never heard from one, and they renewed at less than half the usual rate.
paying suppliers with no buyer contact in their first 90 days~35 → 12%Approximate figures · Over six months
The challenge
On this business marketplace, buyers search for suppliers and contact the ones they want to work with. About 35% of paying suppliers got no contact from a buyer in their first 90 days. Those suppliers renewed at less than half the rate of the rest, even though buyers were searching a lot overall.
What I owned
I was responsible for how new suppliers got set up, how buyers were matched with suppliers and what happened once they connected. I worked with engineering, sales and customer success.
The decisions
- Looked at how buyer contacts were spread across suppliers. The top 10% of suppliers were getting about 60% of them, which the averages had been hiding.
- Rebuilt matching around what buyers actually checked: certifications, minimum order size, product category and delivery time.
- Changed how search results were ordered so good suppliers who were never being seen got shown to buyers.
- Asked new suppliers for those four details during setup, and alerted sales and customer success when a supplier still had no contacts after 30 days.
What changed
- The share of paying suppliers with no buyer contact in their first 90 days fell from about 35% to about 12% in six months.
- Supplier retention improved 20–25% across more than 200 clients.
- Early cancellations by new suppliers fell 15%, and closed deals rose about 10% in six months.
A healthy average can hide customers receiving no value. Measure the distribution.