Buying industrial goods online: what a B2B marketplace is and who becomes your contracting party

The word marketplace describes a shop window, not a legal relationship, so the platform you order from is not automatically your seller — that is whoever the terms name for that position. Two questions separate the models, and both only matter on the day something goes wrong.

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Before the first order

Breadth of range tells you nothing. Who issues the invoice tells you everything.

A manufacturer shop can list ten thousand articles and a marketplace two hundred. What separates the models is who you actually contract with, and there are exactly two questions that establish it: who sells the position, and to whom does a notice of defects have to go.

They are not academic. They decide who owes you performance, who bears the insolvency risk, whose terms apply, and how many separate legal relationships your accounts department maintains in order to buy five items on one afternoon.

The answer is a matter of fact, not of marketing: it is written in the terms. shukchok is an open marketplace for industrial goods that works in both roles — seller of its own goods, intermediary for supplier goods — and which of the two applies is shown at the position before you order, with the supplier’s company name and address where a position is brokered.

One basket and one ordering process, however many suppliers are involved
The selling party is named per position, not buried in the small print
Your purchase order number and cost centre travel with the order onto the document

Six arrangements

Who sells, who invoices, who answers for a defect

Read the second and fourth columns first. They are the ones that surface in a dispute.

The third row is shukchok. Which role applies to a position is stated on the product page, in the basket and on the document, before you order. Where an order contains own and brokered goods, it produces more than one document — two different sellers do not fit on one invoice.
Model	Your contracting party	Who issues the invoice	Where a defect notice goes
Intermediation marketplace	The individual seller behind each listing	Each seller separately	To each seller; the platform passes messages along at most
Marketplace trading on own account	The platform operator	The operator, in their own name	To the operator, regardless of which warehouse the goods left
Marketplace with both roles — the model here	Per position: the operator for own goods, the supplier for brokered goods	The operator issues both; for brokered goods in the name and for the account of the supplier	To whoever sells that position; the operator forwards it without delay
Distributor or dealer shop	The distributor	The distributor	To the distributor
Manufacturer shop	The manufacturer	The manufacturer	To the manufacturer
Procurement platform on the buyer’s side	Nobody — it does not sell	The supplier connected behind it	To that supplier

What it changes in practice

Four consequences you notice in the same week

One ordering process, not five
Positions from different suppliers go into one basket, one checkout and one payment. That is the part that saves the afternoon; the documents follow the sellers involved.
The selling party stands at the position
Before you commit, each position shows who sells it — us, or a named supplier with company name and address. Without that statement a position is treated as our own.
Partial delivery as the norm
Goods come from several warehouses, so an order usually arrives in more than one consignment. Clause 8.9 of our terms says so plainly, including separate invoicing.
Suppliers come in without a fee
No listing fee, no monthly charge, no manual product release. What a supplier does have to bring is technical data good enough to compare — an article without it does not go live.

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The rules people quote

Half the platform regulation you have read about does not apply here

Article 30 of the Digital Services Act — the "know your business customer" duty to collect and verify trader details — applies to platforms that allow consumers to conclude distance contracts with traders. The Platform-to-Business Regulation likewise excludes pure B2B intermediation services not offered to consumers.

What holds for the large consumer marketplaces therefore does not hold here, and that is the scope of those rules rather than a gap in them.

VAT marketplace liability knows no such restriction. § 25e of the German VAT Act makes the operator of an electronic interface liable for unpaid tax on a supply it supported, and § 22f requires records about the supplying trader — both attach to the supply itself.

Which of the two roles a platform occupies is the first thing to establish about it
It is a better question before the first order than after it
Ours is answered in clause 1 of the terms and repeated at every position

From both sides of the platform

Six questions buyers and suppliers ask first

Who is my contracting party when I order here?

It depends on the position, and you can see which before you order. For our own goods we are the seller and the contract is with us. For a supplier’s goods the contract is with that supplier; we handle the ordering process and the payment for their account and issue the invoice in their name. Where no supplier is named, the position counts as our own.

What is the difference between a marketplace and a dealer shop?

A dealer shop sells goods it has bought in, and there is one seller for everything in it. A marketplace carries goods that suppliers list themselves, so the seller can differ per position. The practical difference for you is not the range — it is how many parties you deal with when a delivery is wrong.

Where do I send a notice of defects?

To whoever sells that position. For our own goods that is us; for brokered goods it is the supplier named at the position, and we forward the notice without delay and help with the handling. Between businesses the notice has to be given without undue delay after examination, otherwise the goods count as approved under § 377 of the Commercial Code.

Why does my order arrive in several consignments and on several documents?

Because the goods come from different warehouses and, where own and brokered positions are mixed, from different sellers. Partial delivery is the normal case under clause 8.9, and each seller accounts separately. What stays single is the process: one basket, one checkout, one payment.

Can I connect the catalogue to our procurement system?

Not today. There is no PunchOut over OCI or cXML, no BMEcat export with eCl@ss or ETIM classification, no EDI over EDIFACT and no Peppol connection; quotations and invoices are PDFs, and a quotation covers one position. Worth knowing before you evaluate the range. One distinction that helps in the meantime: eCl@ss and ETIM are classification languages, BMEcat is the container that transports them, and UNSPSC is a spend-analysis taxonomy with no technical characteristics at all.

What does listing cost us as a manufacturer or dealer?

Nothing to start and nothing per month. We take a share of a position that actually sells, and of nothing else. You keep your prices in your own hands and stay named at every position; the shop, the checkout, the payment handling and the customer contact are ours. There is no manual product release either — validation is automated, so an article goes live as soon as its data is complete enough to be compared.

Check it yourself

Where the answers are written down

Two sides, one platform

Decide which side of the marketplace is yours

As a buyer you get the price and the specification before you sign in, and one process for however many suppliers are in the basket. As a maker or dealer you get shelf space that costs nothing to occupy — we are paid out of a sale, so an article that never sells never costs you anything.

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