Amazon competitor OnBuy is on the hunt for more resellers to add to its platform.
CEO Cas Paton said the B2B outfit has received £3 million in private equity (PE) investment and works with distributors who use the platform as a way to engage with B2C audiences.
He wants more distributors to start using the online market and hopes that word of mouth among disties will work its way to resellers selling on the site.
“All the distributor would need to see some benefit from OnBuy’s growth would be to introduce their resellers to us so the resellers can buy from the distributor and sell through us. This affects the whole reseller market because we give a brand new route to market that is dominated by large internet marketplaces like Amazon and we’re creating new opportunity.”
Paton said the platform a means to market for distributors which could continue to sell to their resellers. Instead, they’re just pushing their resellers to join OnBuy which enables us to sell more volume and they’re selling more volume to their resellers.
The £3 million investment from London-based PE firm Fuel Ventures allows the company to expand its operations into 20 countries by the end of the year, including the US, UAE, Australia and Canada. This would mark its first time entering different markets as it has been UK-only until now.
Paton said that OnBuy’s current growth market share (GMV) sits at roughly £30m, but he has ambitions to raise this figure to £1 billion by 2024. He added that it is adding 300 retailers per month to the platform and currently has 21 million products on the site.
