Gartner recently released the report What’s Hot in Digital Commerce in 2017* and it outlines many things merchants are doing to offer better customer experiences. Gartner analysts talk to a huge number of brands, manufacturers, retailers, distributors, wholesalers, and eCommerce professionals and have finger on the pulse of what kinds of projects are taking priority in digital commerce.
The report also “profiles technologies and strategies intended to help them nimbly provide an outstanding experience without significant upfront investment.” It is exactly what we hear regarding the challenges facing online merchants today - they face a hyper-competitive environment. Growth is expensive and profits are hard to come by. How can merchants improve customer experience, grow top-line revenue, and be profitable at the same time?
According to Gartner, there are several sets of technology that can help to enable growth via improved customer experiences:
At Mirakl, we are excited to see Marketplace Management on the list of hot digital commerce technologies. Mirakl already has over 115 customers launching and managing their own Marketplaces. Because of the popularity of Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba, the term Marketplace often conjures up the notion of selling on a Marketplace versus launching one’s own. In that sense, we feel this report from Gartner sets a new tone, calling out a distinction between “Marketplace integration” and Marketplace management.”
Marketplace management platforms, according to Gartner’s report, “allow companies to create their own marketplaces by enabling vendors to register, load products and sell on existing commerce sites. Gartner goes on to say that, “becoming a marketplace operator and opening an existing commerce site to marketplace sellers is an excellent way to increase product selection for customers without the inventory costs. Increased product selection can result in greater cross-selling and upselling opportunities, improved search engine optimization, and better customer experiences when some products are out of stock.”
Launching and managing a Marketplace provides huge benefits on top of the profitable revenue stream it produces. It allows a merchant to:
- Offer more – Get new products in your customers’ hands faster. The marketplace model allows you to rapidly expand your product offer by inviting third party sellers to sell directly on your site - within minutes. Our customer Darty increased their product offer 5X within 1 year.
- Learn more – No more buying & storing inventory that goes unsold. Use the data from marketplace sales to make more cost effective decisions around what customers actually want. Our customer Best Buy Canada is now the top provider of baby products online in Canada.
- Sell more – Never miss a sale. With the expanded assortment online, you’ll achieve a true endless aisle. The marketplace lets you quickly scale a new, source of revenue and increase sales volume. And, the SEO benefits from additional product listings mean more shoppers to sell to. Our customer Galeries Lafayette saw the marketplace impact 10% of their online sales in their first year of marketplace operation.
With Marketplace management heating up, now is the time to contact Mirakl for more information about how launching and managing a Marketplace can grow your business.
*Gartner, What's Hot in Digital Commerce in 2017, 25 January 2017
Topics : Marketplaces B2B eCommerce Gartner B2C eCommerce
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.
