In today’s InternetRetailing newsletter we’re reporting as retailers and brands find new ways to get close to existing and potential new customers.
Decathlon is doing that through a new UK marketplace, part of a strategy to see sales worth €1bn taking place over the site in the next five years. It aims to use the new part of its site, built with marketplace provider Mirkl, to broaden its range for shoppers in a way that also enables niche brands to sell direct to its customers on its website.
Grocer Ocado Retail, meanwhile, is enabling the brands that sell on its website to take a more active part in managing online campaigns on its website through the development of a new retail media platform, in association with CitrusAd.
Ultimately these stories are about a network effect that comes as retailers give brands more access to their customers, in exchange for becoming the platform where more sales take place. This generates extra revenue for the retailer but can also give brands the opportunity to take more control over the way that their products are sold on another website. Timely advice on the subject comes in today’s guest comment, from Marjorie Borreda-Martinez of Jellyfish.
In related news, JD Sports has bought a Catalan sports retailer as part of its global expansion that aims to make it more attractive to the brands that it wants to sell.
Today we’re also reporting on a ChannelAdvisor study that suggests that UK brands are gaining in online direct sales as a result of Covid-19 lockdowns, but that they are also losing EU customers as delivery takes longer post-Brexit.
And a Which? report into the fake delivery texts that have proliferated during lockdown, as more shoppers turned online, finds that 61% have received such a text, delivered to computer-generated mobile numbers, and that 3% of those people have been scammed as a result. Which? has recommendations for delivery companies to take action to counter this activity.
