Often, the thought of letting third-party sellers offer products alongside a retailer’s own is scary.  But, that fear is only theoretical; in practice, retailers see compelling results of increased revenue, improved customer loyalty and retention, and increase in profitability.  These are the results that the Marketplace model provides.  Case in point: Darty. With 400 physical stores across Europe, Darty (part of Darty Group Plc) is the leading French retailer in consumer electronics and household electrical goods.

A “Trust Pact”®, (translated from French “Contrat de Confiance”), has been at the heart of Darty’s business philosophy for over 40 years. This pact is based on three pillars: guaranteed low prices, excellent choice of equipment in store and online, and quality service made available 7 days a week.

With their dedication to creating a positive customer experience, the organization sought to continue to meet consumer expectations within their e-commerce efforts, partnering with Mirakl to launch the Darty Marketplace. This new platform was part of the group’s omni-channel strategy, in order to offer a wider choice at a better price regardless of the purchasing channel.

We asked project manager, David Devalois, about the importance of leveraging the Darty Marketplace to foster multiple offers and seller competition within this customer-centric strategy.

Why did you decide to launch multiple offers on your Marketplace?

David - “For three reasons:

  • To increase the number of offers and allow sellers to compete for the same products
  • To expand our customers’ product selection by selling pre-owned products
  • To allow customers to easily compare services provided by different sellers and make an informed decision based on their level of quality”

Read more about the importance of allowing sellers to compete with you in your online Marketplace.

What kind of impact has this had?

David - “Enabling sellers to compete has allowed us to offer more competitive prices to our customers, which has had a positive impact on our conversion rate. In addition, we’ve tripled the number of offers, leading to an increase in overall sales.

This multiple offer approach also gave us access to new seller opportunities, providing the chance to target and recruit bigger, more experienced sellers who are easier to on-board and can rapidly add their offers on existing catalogs through matching. It also gave us the ability to recruit international sellers.”

The results

In less than a year with Mirakl, Darty has opened 10 new product divisions including fitness & sport, small households, garden, and toys & games. They’ve seen over 60,000 new offers, and target 10% of their total e-commerce sales in 2016 to come from the Darty Marketplace. In addition to these results, their efforts have contributed to greater synergies with their physical brick-and-mortar stores through store-to-web devices.

Read the Forrester Research case study to find out about how Darty saw a 2-3X boost in profit margin with the Marketplace.

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Hear more from Darty CEO Regis Schultz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barry Murphy

Written by Barry Murphy

Barry Murphy is the Director of Content and Product Marketing at Mirakl. In this role, Barry leads the alignment of Mirakl's offerings to market needs for the next generation of online commerce. Barry previously ran product marketing organizations for X1 and Mimosa Systems (now part of HPE). Barry also had a highly successful stint as Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. Barry received a B.S. from the State University of New York at Binghamton and an M.B.A from the University of Notre Dame.

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