Why dental suppliers should join a dental marketplace early
On established marketplaces, a new seller starts uphill. Ahead of them are competitors with years of sales and hundreds of reviews, and climbing up takes time, aggressive pricing or advertising. The same goes for dental suppliers who arrive late on a crowded dental marketplace.
On a marketplace that is just starting, the situation is the opposite. Categories have few sellers, products face little direct competition, and every position is still up for grabs.
On Oralzon this advantage is not just a matter of timing: it is written into the rules used to rank results, which are public and the same for everyone.
The first rule that matters for newcomers is the boost for new products. Recently published products receive an explicit ranking boost, which gradually decreases over the first three months. It exists precisely to stop the marketplace from forever favouring those who were there first.
The second concerns sales. A product already bought by other professionals ranks ahead of one with no history, but the effect diminishes: the difference between no sales and the first sales matters far more than the difference between many sales and a great many.
In practice, the first sales are the ones that weigh most. Whoever makes them while competition is still low builds a position that is harder to win later.
The third concerns reviews. Only buyers who have actually purchased that product on the platform can leave one, and the average is weighted by the number of reviews: a few excellent reviews weigh less than many good ones. The first reviews accumulate more easily when you are one of the few selling in that category.
Then there is an advantage that is not written anywhere: the relationship with your first customers. A practice that buys from you in the early months and is happy tends to come back, and reorders of consumables are the most stable revenue there is.
In fairness, the flip side should be mentioned too. Joining early means joining while the marketplace is young, so with fewer buyers than it will have a year from now. That is the price of the advantage, and it is why the first 180 days come with no subscription fee.
The calculation is simple: joining today costs only the time to upload your catalogue, while joining in a year means finding the top positions already taken.
If you want to see what your shop will look like before deciding, you can open the vendor dashboard in a demo store, without signing up.
In short: on mature marketplaces newcomers start at a disadvantage, on Oralzon new products get a boost during their first three months, the first sales and first reviews weigh more than later ones, early customers tend to reorder, and the price of joining early, a still young market, is offset by six months without a subscription fee.