The Marketplace Strategy Blog

Kahuna partnered with Altimeter Research and digital futurist Brian Solis on a first-of-its-kind research report on the state of digital marketplaces. This original research is based on a survey on managers and executives at 100 leading marketplaces. The survey questions spanned business strategy and execution questions, with the result compiled by the data science team at Altimeter. Brian Solis delivers a sharp narrative that connects the rise of online marketplaces to the emerging platform economy and the well-established evolution of customer experiences, the latter of which he has been a leading voice on.

As the dust settles from Black Friday and Cyber Weekend, we take a moment to reflect on this year's winners and losers on what has become a pivotal event in the retail calendar. 

Thanksgiving is no longer just a day synonymous with turkey, pumpkin pie and football. Increasingly, it’s all about the deals. This year Black Friday started early with online sales reaching $3.7 billion on Thanksgiving Day (up 28 percent from last year), meaning shoppers found time to take advantage of early Black Friday deals between the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and before the post-meal tryptophan kicked in.

Last week, Mirakl participated in the inaugural Platform Economy Summit Europe—a gathering of the most influential platform business innovators to catalyze this revolutionary business model across the continent.

While companies in the US and China have already adopted a platform mindset, their European counterparts are lacking are lagging. Today, seven of the world’s ten most valuable companies are platform businesses; yet not one of them is European. 60% of the ‘Unicorn’ billion-dollar start-ups are platform businesses, and only a small proportion were born in Europe.

With just a week to go until Black Friday signals the start of the holiday season, we’ve put together three key areas all retailers should consider to maximize their return during this peak period.  Featuring guest comment from Dimension Data, Valantic and our own key recommendations these are your last minute tips for this joyful season.

Oddly enough, Singles' Day began with a performance to remember from Mariah Carey. However, It ended with $37 billion in revenue, and a promise to hit $500 billion in the coming years. As this iconic shopping day cements its position at the top of the retail charts, we sort the fact from the fiction to help you understand what this shopping bonanza means for the global retail market.