CEOs Reveal Their Now or Never Marketplace Moment
Becoming a Platform Pioneer starts with the vision to seize the moment when an opportunity is undeniable. As eCommerce dramatically accelerates and marketplaces capture the majority of growth, leading organizations are adopting marketplace strategies and mindsets to accelerate digital growth and meet growing customer expectations. Below, a pair of B2B CEOs and Platform Pioneers share their organizations’ “now or never'' moment for adopting an online marketplace, and how it’s powered their business growth so far.
Interested in learning more from these Platform Pioneers and others like them? You can still watch the entire 2021 Platform Pioneer Summit on demand.
How Conrad Electronic addressed its biggest customer pain point
Premier electronics and technology retailer Conrad Electronic has always had an extremely loyal customer base. While customers loved Conrad’s core catalog of high-quality products, their large but still incomplete selection meant that customers couldn’t shop with Conrad for all of their needs. Instead, customers had to juggle multiple suppliers and catalogs to fulfill orders. Time and time again, they asked for a way to shop more efficiently and effectively, with the ability to purchase everything from a single source.
Four years ago, Conrad rose to the challenge to become the “one-stop shop” their customers had been looking for, with the launch of their online marketplace. Since then their catalog has exploded from 800,000 products and services to more than 6 million. With this expanded selection, customers now have a single location where they can search products, compare prices, and get everything they need with just a few clicks.
The end result: Since launching their online marketplace, Conrad more than doubled their marketplace's business every year, one year after the other. Additionally, they’ve seen the number of buyers purchasing marketplace items continue to grow, and today more than 50% of their online transactions are mixed transactions (consisting of a Conrad item and a marketplace item).
The Conrad team has worked to ensure curation does not lie in opposition to scale. Using the marketplace model, they’ve been able to offer customers exactly what they need without diminishing the product quality and reliability synonymous with Conrad. Despite already expanding the online catalog (with a mix of products from both new and complementary categories), they believe they’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to onboarding new sellers, products, and services. As their marketplace continues to grow, Conrad will be better equipped to offer customers a broad selection that can be easily sorted by what matters most to them - such as brand name or price.
Kramp’s vision for a “one-stop shop”
Kramp, a B2B agriculture wholesale company, was noticing a distinct trend. Each year, more farmers were turning to online purchasing to meet their business needs. However, even in doing so they had come across a familiar stumbling block - having to scour hundreds of online “shelves” to find the vast array of unique items they were looking for.
To keep up with this trend, Kramp had spent the last two decades allocating money, time, and resources to grow its online presence. Their efforts resulted in an offering of more than 500,000 different products. However, despite this impressive selection, Kramp discovered it was meeting only 3 to 5% of farmers’ needs. To address this gap, last year they launched Maykers – an online marketplace for farmers.
A “one-stop shop,” Maykers is transforming the way the agriculture sector does business. Now, farmers can quickly find and order everything they need without having to negotiate pricing each time. It’s also made shopping more efficient, with the ability to instantly compare a variety of products all on a single site. Finally, the marketplace has even created a community where farmers and suppliers can connect, share expertise, and read online educational material.
Learn more about Kramp’s marketplace journey, and how they’re making dealer relationships a top priority by watching the Platform Pioneer Executive Insights: Manufacturing & Distribution session. Don't forget, you can also watch the entire 2021 Platform Pioneer Summit on demand.
