Multi-Channel Commerce & Retailing

Over the last decade the concept of an online market-place and e-commerce have gained all the requisite importance. The way the Logistics/Reverse logistics is handled on a market-place generally depends upon a number of factors including but not limited to the business policy of the Marketplace. For e.g consider a marketplace which takes care of your deliveries if you are a seller, and you returns if you are a customer. The way this would work from an e-commerce perspective would be as follows: 1. A seller would create shipments on a front-end system and on requesting a carrier to collect the same - the Marketplace carrier would collect and deliver the product to the customer address. 2. A Customer would create return parcels on a front-end system and on requesting a carrier to collect the same - the Marketplace carrier would collect and return the product to a return address.  

Continue reading "Online Logistics/Reverse Logistics Marketplace - The concept" »

Posted by Sanjeev Kulkarni at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In one of my earlier blogs on rediff i had discussed this concept of a socially networked marketplace. I had discussed the concept of a market-place like Amazon or Ebay with an embedded functionality of social networking. Therefore, sellers and customers end up socially networking - Sellers to promote their services and products and customers would network with other customers and sellers. Also there was another idea envisaged there - A scocial networking site with the functionality of an e-commerce website (e.g what happens if Orkut / facebook / Myspace - enable their users to list products and services with a basket checkout functionality). There are other nuances to be considered as well, when we talk of a socially networked marketplace - Would an ecommerce retailer ever want such a functionality to be built into their website, where customers can network amongst each other? 

I happened to come across this artice http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/securityfraud/setting-limits-on-customers-talking-with-each-other-in-e-commerce/ last week. Amazon has made its first move against customers and sellers getting in touch with each other directly. This only means that Amazon is now moving into a phase where they want customers and sellers to network through the amazon network and not through personal email, as before. Once the communication between users of the marketplace goes out of the network, Amazon looses all control. Having said this, we may assume that amazon would want to enable the feature of social networking on its own network - rather than customers joining the sellers personal twitter, myspace or linkedin networks and letting amazon loose all control over its customers.

This is probably the first move of its kind and in the days to come other retailers would take cue and follow.  

Posted by Sanjeev Kulkarni at 05:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I have always been advocating the point of providing physical store experience over the online stores. The idea is to provide great usability experience. A customer entering the stores normally looks after the labels and gets the product. He might flip- flop through various brands within the store.

Continue reading "flip-flop-flit" »

Posted by Manish Goyal at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Much has been written about the need for customer understanding and indeed, customer intimacy.  We hear from all quarters about how we need to know who is buying our products, in what combinations and why.  We can then target our marketing at them with a laser-like focus providing them with offers and information that will be interesting to them.  This benefits the customer by reducing the amount of marketing that we are sending them and saves money for the organization by reducing the total number of marketing items.

Continue reading "Knowing the Customer" »

Posted by Stephen Alan Potts at 04:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Most of the large retail enterprises start multi channel commerce transformation initiatives with a strategizing and package evaluation phase - the idea being that the selected ecommerce package would act as the center pin of their multichannel strategy. But is it really about the package or is it about what is done over and above to what the package provides that really matters?

Continue reading "Growing out of ecommerce packages" »

Posted by Mohan Kumar Krishnan at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Marketplace is the buzz word these days. Sears recently announced the launch of the Sears marketplace which was preceded by Walmart a couple of months back. Play.com, the Jersey based online retailer of music and electronic products also has its own third party marketplace where one can sell DVDs, CDs, Games, Books etc. And ofcourse we have Amazon and eBay which has been around for so many years now. No doubt this gives ample opportunity for everyone to sell and most importantly a wide and competitive choice for the consumers thus giving the right thrust to the Long Tail economics that Chris Anderson proposed a couple of years back. Talking about Long Tail, this is one thought that has been going around in my mind for sometime now. Marketplace has evolved in Retail as well as in the Entertainment space. What about Banking? Is a third party marketplace possible for the Banking industry as well? Can there be a one stop shop for consumers that would address all their banking needs? A marketplace where, not only banks, but individuals can come and sell customised banking products and other individuals come and buy them? Looks improbable ...

Continue reading "Banks and the Third Party Marketplace" »

Posted by Rrituraj Sharma at 05:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)