More Channels = More Sales: Why Marketplaces are Booming in Ecommerce

The most successful brands and businesses often have the most available channels to sell to their customers. Today’s customers are sophisticated and impatient: they demand the ability to purchase what they want, when they want it, from where they want it, and they want to make sure they’re getting the best deal possible. 

Many brands are having trouble keeping up with this new customer attitude. Marketplaces are a valuable channel to implement because they allow brands to meet customers where they are. Opening a new revenue channel in the form of a marketplace creates the following benefits:

• Convenience: A one-stop shop where customers can read reviews, compare prices, and have seamless access to multiple sellers. 
• Diversification of Revenue: A marketplace doesn’t only create revenue through purchases, there’s also the option of subscriptions and memberships, commissions, and logistic services like shipping or tracking, that add value to the implementation of a marketplace. 
• AI and Personalization: Marketplaces are a prime place to use AI or agentic commerce. Those tools will provide customers with personalized and first-party data-based experiences of the marketplace allowing them to see more products they’ve shown interest in.

While the potential in opening a new revenue channel through a marketplace is great, it is a highly complex process for both your business and technical teams. Risks your business could incur when implementing a marketplace:

• Losing control of your brand, or undermining competitive positioning
• Turning your products into a commodity
• Unfavorable commissions, fees, margins
• Losing control of your customer data

Now you understand the pros and cons of opening a marketplace, and you’re ready to pull the trigger and create that new revenue stream. How do you do it? 

1. Identify the needs of your customers

The process starts with identifying the needs of customers and finding ways to provide the products and services that meet those needs. In general, there are two critical needs that B2B customers have when it comes to marketplaces. The first is trust in the brand and the company’s ability to deliver. In mission-critical jobs, such as delivering fresh groceries across the country, reliability and trust are essential. The second need is a seamless and intuitive user experience. The right technologies must enable business leaders to interact and get the key qualities they need, exactly when they need them.

2. Identify marketplace partners to fulfill customer needs

The process of creating the marketplace begins with identifying the different types of products or services that customers require based on market research. The company then has to identify the competencies and capabilities required to deliver these services.

Once the competencies are identified, the operator company needs to search for partners that can fulfill these needs, including both internal and external manufacturers and service providers that can enter as sellers on the marketplace. The goal is to create a pool of sellers who could offer a wide range of products or services to customers.

3. Create the marketplace infrastructure 

Next, the operator needs to create the digital infrastructure for the marketplace, identifying current pilot technology vendor retailers. This may include building a website and app that would allow customers to access the marketplace and directly purchase products or book services. The operator also needs to create a system for managing the providers and their products and services, as well as a payment system for customers to transact.

Marketplace architectural components enable the marketplace ecosystem, but they must be carefully tuned. It’s important to create a marketplace prototype with customer journeys to test with real customers and iterate based on initial data gathered to optimize the experience ahead of scaling. 

4. Launch the marketplace

The launch of the marketplace is critical as the operator has to ensure that the marketplace is marketed effectively to customers, both existing and potential, to generate interest and drive traffic to the site. The company also has to onboard the service providers and ensure that they understand how the marketplace works and how to use it effectively.

It’s best to execute high-value and complex requirements first in agile sprints to deliver a phase one pilot for specific customers or regions before rolling out an optimized pilot to all markets.

5. Monitor marketplace performance 

Finally, monitor the marketplace’s performance and make adjustments as necessary. This involves collecting and analyzing data on customer usage, seller performance and marketplace revenue. By tracking these metrics, the operator can identify areas for improvement and make changes to increase the marketplace’s effectiveness and profitability.

Publicis Sapient is a leader in the digital transformation world. WE’ve implemented marketplaces for leading global brands, putting them ahead of the curve. If you’re interested in utilizing a marketplace for your business, you’ve come to the right place. Read on to learn about a few of the most cutting-edge and successful marketplaces implemented by Publicis Sapient. 

MARRIOTT: RATE LIST MENU 

The global hotel chain had noticed a troubling trend of users dropping off the website once they got to the actual booking stage. The overwhelming number of options and permutations was paralyzing users and resulting in lost revenue. They needed to reinvent the booking experience to show customers fewer options and have those options be more relevant.

Using AI and first-party data, they built a marketplace called the Rate List Menu that streamlines what customers see based on a few filters the user selects at the beginning of the booking journey. Based on location preference, room size, number of beds, if they’re traveling with pets, and a few other preference questions, the marketplace then shows them several available options that correspond to their requests. This streamlining of search results increased conversion rate and built lifetime customer value and loyalty by delivering users easy and effective experiences. 

MARRIOTT HOME & VILLAS 

The COVID-19 Pandemic changed how people interacted with travel: how they do it, what they want out of it, and how they want to book it. Using a proprietary LLM, Publicis Sapient built Marriott Home & Villas a generative AI-powered search-based marketplace that gather natural language input from the user to product a marketplace of vacation homes based on user preference, past experience, and desires for their upcoming trip. 

This AI-based marketplace is an era-shifting implementation that empowers users to more easily find the vacation home of their dream and creates efficiency for Marriot Home & Villas in how they present the customers the experiences they’re looking for. 

BRIDGESTONE

Bridgestone’s customers were experiencing friction when trying to find the best and best-priced tire for their needs. Trying to navigate the available options, often through a third-party dealer, was complex and frustrating. By working with Publicis Sapient, Bridgestone built a marketplace that connects Bridgestone tires more easily to third-party dealers, namely mechanics, giving the D2C customer more access to the buying journey, and more control over their purchases. 

By streamlining the dealer network through a marketplace, auto shops can show costumers more options with more price transparency leading to increased purchases and improved customer satisfaction.