How to Launch a Successful Medical Supply Marketplace: A Step-by-Step Guide

Medical supply marketplaces are vital in providing the necessary products for healthcare. This sector encompasses a vast array of items. It offers the delivery of basic consumables like gloves and syringes to sophisticated diagnostic devices and surgical instruments.

Thanks to medical product marketplaces, hospitals and other healthcare providers receive timely supplies. Thus, patients get the needed care thanks to high-quality and compliant products and pharmaceuticals.

In this article, we discuss how you can build a marketplace for medical products. Our team provides tips on how you can make your platform functional to meet the high standards of this industry and put your medical supply marketplace to success.

Understanding the medical supply marketplace landscape

Medical supplies and equipment marketplaces help fill the gap between patients’ needs and medical services. With timely and high-quality supplies, organizations can provide all the necessary care their patients need.

Market overview

The global medical supplies market was valued at $159.99 billion in 2023. It is forecasted that this market will reach $510.21 billion, growing at CAGR 15.60% during 2024 - 2031.

The medical supply market sees significant transformations that are driven by emerging improvements in delivering healthcare. Medical supply companies adopt innovative methods in providing care, such as IoT in smart equipment and artificial intelligence in optimizing operations.

The key market opportunities today include the rising demand for disposable medical supplies and the integration of digital health solutions.

Key industry players

McKesson. The leading healthcare service company has been operating for over 180 years. It is the largest distributor of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies in North America. The company is also a leader in healthcare information technology. In the US, 52% of hospitals and 20% of physicians use their solutions and services.

Source: McKesson

Cardinal Health. It is a global healthcare product and services company. Cardinal Health operates in over 35 countries, serving nearly 90% of U.S. hospitals and more than 60,000 pharmacies. It distributes pharmaceuticals, medical, and laboratory products and offers over 20 product categories as an integrated product manufacturer. The company’s marketplace provides products for monitoring, care, laboratory, anesthesia, personal protection, and more.

Medline Industries. The company is a prominent American healthcare provider. It operates in over 125 countries and territories and has over 50 distribution centers across North America, ensuring next-day shipping to 95% of U.S. customers. The platform offers a diverse range of medical products and clinical solutions to various healthcare settings. They include hospitals, extended care facilities, surgery centers, physician offices, and home care providers.

Essential features of a medical supply marketplace

Defining the key features of your marketplace means creating a valuable solution for your customers. Let’s dive deep into the key features of a medical product marketplace that will be valuable for people who sell and buy via your platform.

User-friendly interface: intuitive navigation for suppliers and buyers

The medical supply marketplace helps buyers and sellers reach their goals. That’s why user flow in your platform should be simple and intuitive. Your marketplace handles a product catalog with different products and parameters. Thus, make sure that the menus are clear and help buyers find what they need easily.

As for vendors, they should be able to receive and manage orders, track inventory, and handle issues that may arise during the sale cycle. Also, they should be able to message customers and easily track payments.

Robust search functionality: advanced filters and live search options

As buyers come to find the necessary medical products, advanced search is what should make this process easy and smooth. Essential search features include keyword search, handling misspellings and similar terms, and voice search. It is also helpful to include AI to enable buyers to search faster with provided recommendations.

As your customers might need supplies from a particular provider or with a certain specification, comprehensive filters are a must-have. The following are filters for a medical product search:

• Category-based filtering. Outline the items in medical equipment, PPE, pharmaceuticals, lab supplies, etc.
• Brand and manufacturer filter. Help buyers source from trusted suppliers.
• Regulatory approvals. Sort by FDA-approved, CE-certified, or ISO-compliant products.
• Stock availability. Show products that are in stock or allow pre-orders.
• Price range slider. Help users find supplies that fit their budget.
• Bulk order discounts. Allow buyers to filter by quantity-based pricing.

For example, MedCart, one of the top marketplaces in Australia for medical supplies, provides a straightforward search and drop-down menu with the categories you can search for.

Source: MedCart

Secure payment gateway: transactions with compliant payment systems

As your marketplace handles operations with medical products, relevant security and compliance in transactions are necessary. Your payment integrations should support PCI DSS compliance, fraud prevention, risk monitoring, end-to-end encryption, and HIPAA compliance for patient-related payments.

It is also helpful if your marketplace supports different payment options and flexibility in payments. Allow your customers to pay with credit cards, digital wallets, ACH, and bank transfers. Thus, you will be able to target transactions of any size, from small orders to large B2B payments.

Moreover, to streamline payments, your marketplace should support bulk order discounts and dynamic pricing. Also, enabling automatic invoicing and tax compliance improves the experience with your brand. For repeated purchases, you can activate recurring payments and subscription-based supply purchases.

Vendor management system: easy onboarding and management of suppliers

If a marketplace handles products with strict compliance standards, the platform should ease the verification for vendors. So, your vendor management system should help sellers to onboard easily and upload the necessary documents and certifications. Ensure FDA, CE, HIPAA, or ISO compliance before approval of a seller and keep an eye on the necessary compliance updates over time.

The system also should help sellers with handling orders, payments, inventory management, and communication with buyers. Ensure that your vendor system supports product compliance monitoring and tax-compliant invoices for different regions.

Inventory management: real-time stock updates to prevent order issues

Your sellers should be able to manage, replenish, and forecast needs in stock. So, your inventory management system should include real-time stock updates, demand forecasting, expiry date and compliance tracking, and order and restocking automation.

What is helpful for buyers is including additional information on stock. So, your marketplace can show customers only in-stock products, allow buyers to secure high-demand items, and check recommendations on other vendors when a product is out of stock.

Order tracking: monitoring of purchases from order to delivery

This multi-step process should be timely and flexible. From placing the order to receiving it, your buyers should be able to track the order status. Notify buyers on order confirmation and delays via email or SMS.

Also, allow for real-time updates from vendors and different fulfillment centers. Your marketplace can highlight the stages with the following descriptions: Processing, Shipped, Out for Delivery, Delivered.

Ensure that sellers and buyers can communicate on returns, refunds, and damaged or lost items. Smooth resolutions improve the operations and experience with your platform.

Compliance verification: ensuring products and vendors meet regulatory standards

Verifying regulatory compliance in a medical product marketplace is crucial for patient safety, legal protection, and industry credibility. The registration process on your marketplace should include the verification of vendor credentials before approval. Ensure also that vendors have FDA, CE, ISO 13485, HIPAA, or GMP approvals.

For a medical product marketplace, it is also necessary to ensure that products can be traced, have sufficient expiration dates, and are safe. Enabling routine checks for regional and international regulations updates and AI scans of regulatory documents will help keep your sellers and their supplies compliant and up-to-date.

Customer support system: prompt assistance through integrated support channels

The better your customer support, the deeper the trust in your marketplace. Ensure that your marketplace provides answers to questions of different complexities. So, simple inquiries can be passed to AI chatbots and automated FAQs, and more challenging ones can be resolved via live support chat, phone, or email.

Your marketplace should be a favorable environment for vendors and buyers support equally. So, if damaged products appear or there are disputes, both sides should be armed with clear policies and transparent systems for resolution and personalized communication.

Thinking of a medical supply marketplace?

We are eager to build it for you.

Let’s discuss

How to build a medical supply marketplace: a step-by-step guide

In this guide, we discuss the process and best practices to develop and launch your marketplace. So, you will learn how to start, create, and get your platform to market.

Step 1: Conducting a discovery session

A well-thought-out plan for building your medical product marketplace helps you optimize development, cut costs, and launch within your timeline. Discovery is not a formality. It is an essential step to avoid scope creep and exceeding the budget.

So, what do you need for project discovery sessions? First and foremost, it’s your team or the professionals of your tech vendor. They will discuss with your stakeholders your idea’s unique value proposition, target audience, competitors, and features.

The discussions are documented for your review and to help you understand further steps in development. For example, as a result of product discovery at Codica, you will get:

• Clickable prototypes;
• Time and cost estimation;
• List of priority features;
• Recommendations on team composition;
• Technical stack and architecture;
• Product specification.

Check out the video from our team on the deliverables you will get after product discovery sessions with us.

Step 2: Creating UI/UX design

Based on the result of product discovery, designers create UX prototypes that help you see how your solution will work. They outline the basic features and flow of your marketplace’s UX. Upon discussing the prototypes with you and the developers, the designers proceed to add style to them.

Medical product marketplaces are typically created with minimalism in design. The main goal of buyers is to find a high-quality and licensed product. So, a clear layout, navigation, menus, and checkout process are the priorities in UI/UX design services for a medical product marketplace. The colors are usually selected as one primary color and one accent color. The preferred hues are blue and grey, which are modest and associated with the medical environment.

For example, our team created this prototype homepage for a medical product marketplace. The search starts from the homepage. So, we included the possible paths for users’ searches. Thus, a buyer can search by category and subcategory, such as Surgery - Devices.

Moreover, the design suggests support for recurring orders, payments, discounts, and customer support. Thus, users get convenience and incentives to stay with the platform.

Step 3: Choosing the right software architecture

In software development, there are two basic approaches to architecture: monolithic and modular. Monolithic architecture means that your marketplace is built as a uniform whole with tightly connected parts. On the other hand, modular, or MACH, architecture treats each component independently at the same time, making the solution work as a whole. Let’s compare these two methods.

Monolithic architecture:

• A single, unified structure where all components are tightly connected.
• Any change, even minor, requires redeploying the entire solution.
• Lacks flexibility for updates and scaling.

MACH stands for:

• Microservices. Each function operates as an independent service.
• API-first. Seamless integration between components.
• Cloud-native. Scalable and hosted in the cloud.
• Headless. The frontend is decoupled from the backend for better customization.

Thus, in MACH, you get flexibility in updates, security, and short time-to-market in case of a new feature rollout.

As with any solution, MACH also provides challenges. You need to fine-tune all components so that the work is done correctly, which requires time and money. Nevertheless, in the long run, you gain a solution that adapts to new technology advancements, your customers’ wants, and market conditions.

At Codica, we build marketplaces with MACH architecture as it is a proven approach that has been used by prominent marketplaces for years. For instance, eBay switched to MACH architecture to handle the growing demand on their marketplace back in 2000.

Step 4: Selecting the technology stack

Proven technologies are what help you make a solution that is future-proof and scalable. That is why it is crucial that your tech vendor has the necessary expertise in the relevant technologies.

For a custom solution that you can fine-tune as you need for your business goals, we recommend React and Vue.js for the frontend, Ruby on Rails for the backend, and PostgreSQL or MongoDB for data management.

As for hosting, we recommend Amazon Web Services for its robust and comprehensive functionality. We also include payment integrations, which are flexible and secure. So, our selection encompasses Stripe, PayPal, and Braintree.

Check out the image below for a more detailed overview of the technologies we use at Codica to build robust and scalable marketplaces.

Step 5: Developing the medical product marketplace

After the designs are ready, designers create guidelines for developers, based on which the solution takes shape. When building a custom web product, we use agile development methodology. It is a time-tested approach that helps us move in sprints, hold regular meetings, and agree on progress and changes as needed.

As the online marketplace development for medical products requires strict compliance, we ensure that the functionality follows these requirements. Thus, we include easy, smooth navigation, a simple verification process and document upload, product pages with relevant descriptions and highlighting of certifications, and streamlined order management and payments.

This stage has many processes and involves a team of specialists coordinating their work to deliver the solution as planned. Thus, at Codica, our project managers make sure that stakeholders and the team are on the same page throughout the process.

We recommend starting your marketplace with MVP development services. It will help you test your solution with real users by putting minimum effort into development.

Step 6: Testing and quality assurance

Since a medical product marketplace deals with regulated products, compliance, and security-sensitive transactions, it needs comprehensive testing. Usability, accessibility, load, and security tests are part of the manual and automated testing of the medical product marketplace as a custom solution.

In addition, quality assurance services include the following tests specific to platforms handling medical supplies:

Seller and buyer verification and access management for different roles; Opt-in and opt-out mechanisms for data usage; Validation for product details (regulatory compliance, certifications); Image and document uploads (MSDS, manuals, certifications); Adherence to FDA, CE, and ISO standards and HIPAA and GDPR compliance; PCI DSS compliance for payment gateways and secure escrow mechanisms for large transactions.

Step 7: Launching the marketplace

When your marketplace is ready for launch, it is better to start with a small group of users. These can be particular hospitals, patients, or suppliers who can give feedback on your platform. This way, you can reveal and fix UI/UX issues.

After that, your platform is ready for market. However, you still need a team to add new features, test your marketplace for vulnerabilities, and support your platform’s scalability. This way, you ensure that your marketplace is a reliable and convenient environment for medical supply buyers and sellers.

Need a reliable team to create a marketplace?

We can do it for you.

Contact us

Monetization strategies for your medical supply marketplace

Medical product marketplaces generally provide their supplies for free and earn from recurring sales and large B2B transactions. Still, they also provide additional services for a subscription and a unique proposition by taking a commission.

Here are several medical marketplace monetization approaches and examples of marketplaces using them:

• Commission-based model. Charge suppliers a percentage for each sale made through the platform. For example, MediBid charges 5% of the first $20,000 and 3% of anything that is beyond $20,000.
• Subscription fees. Offer premium services or memberships for a recurring fee. MedicalExpo provides a subscription-based platform where medical equipment and device suppliers can showcase their products to a global audience.
• Advertising space. Sell advertising slots to suppliers or related businesses seeking increased visibility. For instance, MedicaEx, in addition to a paid subscription, offers advertising options to help sellers improve their visibility via the platform.

Best practices for retaining sellers and buyers

For your marketplace to evolve, there are several aspects that help you deliver your unique value and connect sellers and buyers on your platform. Here are several tips to make your platform a convenient place to get medical supplies:

• Intuitive interface. Design a user-friendly platform with easy navigation, advanced search functionalities, data analytics, and responsive design to cater to various devices.
• Efficient order management. Help sellers to manage inventory, process orders, and track shipments with robust tools.
• Regulatory adherence. Verify that all products and suppliers follow the necessary medical standards and regulations to maintain trust and safety.
• Clear policies. Create and outline transparent return, refund, and dispute resolution policies to make your marketplace trustworthy.
• Loyalty programs. Introduce rewards for repeat purchases or consistent sales performance to encourage ongoing engagement.​
• Promotional opportunities. Provide sellers with promotional tools to highlight their products and attract more buyers.

Wrapping up

Building and putting your medical supply marketplace to work is a comprehensive endeavor that takes careful planning and a reliable development team. Yet, it is achievable with the proper analysis at the start and a clear understanding of your marketplace value and structure.

Our team has been building successful marketplaces and other web solutions for years. Check out our portfolio for more details. If you have a project in mind, we would be happy to help you plan and create it. Contact us to discuss the details and get a free quote.