Marketplace Badges

What are Marketplace Badges?

In the TraceGains Gather® Marketplace, suppliers who actively contribute content, respond to requests, and keep their listings up to date are rewarded with badges and scores. These achievements not only showcase a supplier's commitment to responsiveness, diligence, and transparency but also provide enhanced visibility with improved placement in search results.

As shown in the image below, badges appear in many places within Marketplace search for potential customers to discover:

This article will explore the different badges and scores available in the Marketplace, their value to suppliers, and how they can be earned.

View Badge Progress

To view and track your company’s progress towards each badge, simply navigate to Customer Management > Company.

This page gives you a handy checklist and/or progress wheel to indicate what you need to do to earn each badge. In the example below, the company is 85% of the way towards earning the Documents Up to Date badge.

Badges

The following sections describe each badge, explain how to earn each badge, and describe some of the benefits that come with each badge.

Responds Quickly

Badge Description

The Responds Quickly Badge recognizes suppliers who promptly respond to marketplace sales requests. Achieving this badge demonstrates a commitment to excellent customer service.

Badge Qualifications

Suppliers who respond within an average of 48 hours (about 2 days) receive this badge. This time frame is based on average response time between 1-7 days.

Badge Benefits

• Attracting new business
  • Buyers often require prompt answers, samples, and quotes and suppliers who respond promptly have a higher chance of converting leads into customers.
• Boosts the supplier's placement in search results by incrementally increasing visibility.
  • Responding even faster than the average response time can result in a greater boost to search results placement.

Documents Up to Date

Badge Description

The Documents Up-to-Date Badge highlights suppliers who consistently provide accurate and current documentation. This badge signifies transparency and reliability in the marketplace and indicates to buyers that updated documentation is readily available.

Badge Qualifications

To earn the Documents Up-to-Date Badge, suppliers need to ensure that over 80% of the visible documents in their listings are not expired.

Badge Benefits

• The presence of the Documents Up-to-Date Badge for an item, packaging, or supplier listing adds a boost to the listing's placement in search results.
• Suppliers who maintain accurate information and readily available documentation build trust with buyers and partners, making them more attractive prospects.

Service Excellence

Badge Qualifications

The Service Excellence Badge is awarded to suppliers who demonstrate outstanding service by meeting two key criteria:

• Quick Response: They consistently complete key document* requests in under 14 days on average.
• High Fulfillment Rate: Their document request fulfillment rate reaches the Tier Rate** (the green indicator), adjusted for the volume of requests they handle.
  • *Key documents include 8 key item documents (allergens, nutrition, country of origin, suitability requirements, item questionnaire, safety data sheet, product spec and CoA sample) and the Supplier questionnaire.
  • ** Fulfillment rate needed to earn the Service Excellence badge is adjusted based on the total number of requests received

Supplier Champion Badge

Badge Description

The Supplier Champion Badge represents an overall outstanding supplier partner.

Badge Qualifications

To qualify for this badge, a supplier must meet the following criteria:

• Documents Up-to-Date Badge
• Responds Quickly Badge
• Supplier Listing Score > 80%

Badge Benefits

Earning the Supplier Champion Badge provides a significant boost to a supplier's placement in search results. It not only enhances visibility but also indicates to potential partners and buyers that the supplier is highly responsive, diligent, and maintains up-to-date information.

Listing Completeness

This insight is not a badge, but the score does impact your company listings, and by extension, your presence in the Marketplace.

The score contributes to your overall Company Listing Score, which you can also read about in this article.

View your Listing Completeness stats via Customer Management > Company > Listing Completeness.

Listing Scores

While not technically a badge, listing scores still impact your presence on the Marketplace and provide valuable insight into how your listings are performing. Listing Scores in general give us a sense of how complete and robust the data available is.

Currently, there are two levels of listing scores:

• Item Level
• Company Level

Company Level Listing Score

Your company’s overall listing score is a representation of how complete the company-level data in your Marketplace listing may be. Only suppliers with a listing score of >80% are eligible for the supplier champion badge. View your Listing Completeness stats via Customer Management > Company > Listing Completeness.

Navigate to Item Listing Scores

To see all your items’ listing scores at once, navigate to Customer Management > Items (shown in the below image).

To get a breakdown for each item, simply click on a particular item’s score:

Item Listing Criteria

The following list denotes how the Item Listed Score is calculated and weighted:

• Item description: 13%
• Item is visible: 13%
• Item image: 6%
• At least 3 function, application, features & benefits selected: 13%
• At least 3 tags added: 13%
• 8/8 key item documents available/visible: 40%
  • This is an "all or nothing" score — all 8 docs must be added to receive the 40%

Maximizing Placement in Search Results

To make the most of badges and scores in maximizing search results placement, suppliers should:

• Ensure listing completeness: Fill out all necessary details and add relevant content like descriptions, attributes, updated documents etc.
• Respond promptly: Aim to respond quickly to requests to take advantage of potential new business coming your way via Marketplace.
• Keep Documents Up to Date: Adding and updating item and location documents improves visibility in search and helps buyers to qualify potential partners.
• Aim for high listing scores: Focus on improving the Supplier Listing Score and Item Listing Score by meeting the criteria for badges and optimizing item listings.
• Continuously improve SEO: Pay attention to elements such as item description, visibility, keywords, relevant tags, and availability of essential documents. Adding comprehensive information to listings improves placement within search results and will attract more business.