Choice.
Your customers want it in everything they do: Their careers, where they live, daily meals, and, of course, where they make their purchases.
Consumers want the freedom to be able to select what they want, where they want, and when they want.
In an ideal world, this would be great.
And the Internet, to a degree, has facilitated this. But consumers want to minimize their time and effort.
Given a plethora of choices out there, what can your business do to compete?
Why Not a Marketplace?
Winning brands are the ones with 50-100 million SKUs.
This is a big reason why Amazon, Walmart, and Target continue to thrive.
Marketplaces make this possible.
Traditionally, a branded online marketplace is a primary type of multichannel e-commerce platform that streamlines the production process.
Consumer transactions are processed by the marketplace operator and delivered and fulfilled by the participating retailers or wholesalers.
Marketplaces aggregate products from various brands, provide wider selection, and availability is typically higher compared to vendor-specific online retail stores.
For the consumer, it offers seemingly endless choices.
For the retailer, it opens a whole new world of products or services that would otherwise be logistically difficult to offer. It gives a competitive edge.
A marketplace can be a great solution that is quick to implement and offers tremendous value.
Millions of SKUs with no inventory:
Today your business has a limited number of SKUs that you sell of your product.
You need to warehouse it, inventory it, ship it, handle returns, and so on while your customers are always looking for more.
What if you have 100 million SKUs available to your customers of product they shop for every day and you don’t have to do any of that work?
Associating your Brand with every purchase:
Using a marketplace is a way to put your brand in the middle of your customers’ daily spending velocity.
Now every time someone goes through your marketplace and orders something from a pharmacy, or from an electronics store, or a replacement water filter they will associate your brand with assisting with that purchase.
Data, Data, Data:
Today you acquire data from direct interactions with your brand or from purchases through third-party data providers.
By offering a marketplace, customers are now purchasing through your pipes as a conduit and you are collecting all the data from actions consumers are taking, whether it is browsing or purchasing.
You now have access to an abundance of data to personalize every customer experience. You also know when customers are most likely to buy which helps with your merchandising strategy.
A Marketplace Provides Choice and Sparks True Customer Loyalty
When you think of loyalty today you should learn what would benefit your customers most, what are their daily habits, and how can your brand play a bigger role in providing a better life experience?
Loyalty is harder than ever today, but while that is challenging for retailers, it also presents a major opportunity.
Since an abundance of choice is a key element for today’s consumers, consider offering an online marketplace that can offer millions of SKUs, keep your brand top of mind, and provide you with volumes of data.
What do you think about adding on a marketplace to your brand?
Tom Baker
Tom Baker has been Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, at Clarus Commerce since late 2015. He has been partnering with retailers for the last 18 years delivering innovative solutions to impact companies' bottom lines. As part of this process, Tom has spent thousands of hours in retail locations and call centers listening, learning and providing advice on how to maximize every customer touch point. He has worked for leading brands creating new consumer engagement strategies, products & services and revenue generation for such companies as Dun & Bradstreet, Oxford Health, GE & Time Inc. His specific areas of focus have been in business development, brand management, direct & digital marketing, new product development and client services. Tom enjoys volleyball and watching his daughters dance. He's a passionate, lifelong fan of the NY Yankees, Giants & St. John's.