Unlocking Opportunity for All: How Tradeshift is Redefining Value for Sellers in a Buyer-Centric World

Earlier this year, we welcomed Raphael (Raphy) Bres back to Tradeshift as Chief Product and Technology Officer. We sat down with him to discuss his vision and passion for delivering value to every business on the Tradeshift network. 

In this interview, Raphy shares how Tradeshift is breaking down barriers in a traditionally buyer-centric world by unlocking opportunities for sellers, streamlining operations, and using cutting-edge technology to create growth and economic opportunity for all. 

Watch highlights and read the full Q&A below

What does Tradeshift mean when it talks about delivering value for sellers?

The industry we operate in has traditionally been very buyer-centric, with technology designed mainly for large enterprises looking to digitize their operations. Any notion of value for the businesses on the other side of those transactions was an afterthought at best. 

Our vision at Tradeshift has always been clear: we aim to connect every company in the world, creating economic opportunity for all. This means building a network that serves both sellers and buyers equally.

It’s a noble vision, but what does it actually mean in practical terms for businesses that may receive an invite to join Tradeshift from one of their customers?

When a seller connects to Tradeshift, they join a global network of over one million businesses in 190 countries. 

While many sellers initially join through an invitation from a specific buyer, the platform allows them to easily conduct business with any other company on Tradeshift. Sellers can even use Tradeshift to send invoices to customers who aren’t on the platform. 

Essentially, with just one connection, any business can manage all its relationships and transactions, creating its own network of business connections.

We offer a range of functionalities on Tradeshift designed to streamline operational processes for sellers, such as the ability to convert a sales order into an invoice, or ensure compliance with local tax regulations. 

Additionally, we provide value-added services, like embedded finance, to help sellers unlock fast and predictable access to working capital.

What would you say is the biggest advantage of sending invoices through Tradeshift versus any other method?

The number one issue we help sellers address is transparency. Traditionally, when a business sends a paper or PDF invoice, they have little visibility into its status—whether it’s been received, processed, or when it will be paid. 

With Tradeshift, sellers can track their invoices throughout the entire process, right up to payment. If any issues arise, they can be addressed in real time.

Above all, we help sellers get their invoices approved and paid as efficiently as possible. 

Our platform specializes in enabling Straight-Through Invoice Processing (STP), minimizing the time between invoice issuance and payment approval. This not only reduces manual work for buyers but also helps sellers avoid payment delays caused by errors, disputes, or administrative backlogs.

What steps is Tradeshift taking to help sellers get the very best out of Tradeshift?

While Tradeshift offers tremendous value to businesses using our platform, we recognize that more can be done to educate and engage with the seller community to ensure they maximize these benefits.

Our quarterly newsletter shares feature updates, how-to guides, and industry trends with sellers. We recently launched a dedicated resource on our website for sellers, outlining the specific features and services they can access. Additionally, we host regular webinars where sellers can learn about our product roadmap and new features designed to deliver even more value.

We also educate our buyer community, encouraging them to shift away from manual data entry on our portal—which can be time-consuming for sellers. Instead, we’re promoting the use of PDF invoice attachments through Tradeshift to streamline the process and simplify operations for all parties.

Is there any advice you would give to a business that’s just starting to use Tradeshift and wants to get the most out of the experience?

Don’t use the Web UI to send invoices—it’s time-consuming, inefficient and not the sort of experience we want for you. Instead, take advantage of our other methods, such as OCR, PDF, and PO-flip submissions. 

Businesses that integrate their ERP or financial systems with Tradeshift see the greatest benefits, and we have a dedicated team of specialists ready to help them get set up. 

Let’s talk about onboarding. What steps is Tradeshift taking to make that process as easy as possible for sellers? 

We’re always investing in and innovating ways to make the onboarding process smoother. Recently, we introduced ‘first invoice onboarding,’ a feature that allows sellers to start onboarding simply by sending a PDF invoice to a dedicated email address on the buyer’s side. 

Using AI vision technology, we extract data from the invoice to set up the seller’s account on Tradeshift, making it ready to use. No other company makes onboarding this simple or intuitive. 

We’re seeing more and more countries worldwide adopt e-invoicing and clearance mandates. How does Tradeshift help businesses tackle the complexities that stem from this evolving regulatory landscape?

Tradeshift offers industry-leading compliance capabilities for both outbound and inbound e-invoicing. 

Our philosophy is to deliver global compliance-as-a-service, ensuring that no matter where a business operates or where its customers are located, our technology handles all aspects of local e-invoicing tax regulations.

How do you see Tradeshift’s product suite and value proposition for sellers evolving? Why should sellers be excited about what’s on the horizon?

Many businesses know Tradeshift primarily for e-invoicing, but we believe that marketplaces represent the future of procurement and that’s where we’re heading. 

Over time, we expect to see various vertical, horizontal, and niche marketplaces coexisting on the Tradeshift platform. Some will be private for specific buyers, while others will be open for any business to join. 

For sellers, these marketplaces will provide a ready-made venue to market products, find new customers, and generate additional revenue streams. 

If you’re already connected to Tradeshift, then you’ve already taken the most important step to realising those opportunities. 

I couldn’t possibly finish without asking you about AI. Where does Tradeshift sit in its deployment of these technologies and how is this benefiting businesses on the network?

There’s a lot of hype around AI, but Tradeshift has been an early adopter, and it’s already embedded deeply in our platform—from onboarding to invoice coding to fraud detection.

We’re continuing to ramp up our investments in this space, and starting this year, you’ll see more features on our platform that leverage these technologies across the buyer and seller experiences. 

For sellers, we’re able to help them build a ready-to-go marketplace catalogue simply by allowing machine learning to read the descriptions on invoices sent through the Tradeshift platform. 

We are also deploying the latest generative AI to power a new support chatbot for sellers that provides answers to queries whenever and wherever our customers need them, eliminating the need to log a ticket and wait for a response.