How marketplaces are evolving

America’s No. 1 retailer is taking another cue from Amazon, in catering to other businesses. The retailer earlier this month announced that it will offer fulfillment tech and delivery services to other companies through Salesforce.

Walmart on Friday launched a dedicated e-commerce site, dubbed Walmart Business, tailored to small and medium business customers. The website will offer “a curated assortment of more than 100,000 items” and is meant to simplify business-related purchases.

The site focuses on products that would appeal to small business owners, like office supplies and furniture, snacks, food and beverages, restroom supplies, electronics and facility needs. Walmart says items are organized “in a way that makes sense to organizations.”

Purchases made through Walmart Business will be available for in-store or curbside pickup, delivery or shipping.

“We know millions of small and medium businesses (SMBs) and nonprofits utilize Walmart’s stores and website to purchase supplies to support their day-to-day operations,” Ashley Hubka, senior vice president and general manager of Walmart Business said in a Friday announcement. “These customers are under more pressure than ever due to inflation and supply chain issues, adapting to a hybrid workforce and post-pandemic behavioral shifts.”

For $98 a year, customers can upgrade to a Walmart Business+ membership. The upgraded membership offers free, no minimum shipping, excluding marketplace and oversized items; free pickup and delivery from stores with a $35 minimum order; 2% rewards on orders of $250 or more; and savings of 5% on eligible items set to subscription.

Organizations can add up to five users to one Walmart Business account. Customers can also share payment information and order histories across teams. In addition, qualified organizations can enroll in Walmart’s tax exemption program. This program automatically removes applicable sales taxes during checkout.

Arkansas-based Walmart has a large brick-and-mortar footprint with 3,572 Supercenters, 600 Sam’s Clubs, and more than 5,300 retail units overall in the U.S. as of late October. That scale leads Walmart to say that it’s within 10 miles of 90% of the U.S. population.

Walmart has steadily expanded its B2B, DTC and omnichannel initiatives in recent years.

In 2021, Walmart began selling its omnichannel capabilities to other businesses. The company entered a strategic partnership with Adobe Commerce for that initiative. Also in 2021, Walmart introduced GoLocal, a white-label delivery service. One year later, the company said GoLocal exceeded 1 million deliveries.

Walmart announced a deal with Popable in November. The agreement allows small businesses to rent space inside Walmart stores on short-term leases ranging from a month to a year. In an announcement at the time, Walmart and Popable said one goal of the partnership is helping startups and small businesses reach new customers during the holiday season.

“As we continue to evolve the shopping experience, we are committed to listening to [small and medium businesses] and nonprofit customers to help them address the challenges they face today, and the ever-changing challenges that come with running an organization,” Hubka said. “We are excited to help our customers save time, money and hassle.”

David’s Bridal has introduced Pearl by David’s, a new wedding planning platform that includes a vendor marketplace for couples, the company announced Thursday. 

Through the platform, customers can view wedding advice content, access various wedding vendors, take advantage of the bridal retailer’s loyalty rewards program and get discounts on certain vendors. Couples can also manage their registry, build a wedding website, book appointments at David’s Bridal and create a wedding checklist.

Vendors can join the platform for free, create their own web pages on the site and showcase their offerings, according to the announcement. Alternatively, vendors can pay $49 per month to access trunk shows and other networking events, or $119 per month for a premium membership.

David’s Bridal has been working to improve its digital services for the past few years and step further into the wedding planning process. That has included acquiring wedding site Rustic Wedding Chic in 2020 and rolling out its own wedding planning tools. Through its new platform, David’s Bridal is connecting couples with local vendors like Bach to Basic, Nash Taps and Ravel Events.

“Pearl was developed at the request of our very own brides,” Jim Marcum, CEO of David’s Bridal, said in a statement. “Brides told us they wanted easier planning tools, a more seamless experience from planning to buying the dress, and more ways to earn Diamond points. Pearl also addresses pain points and gaps in the market couples experience when planning their wedding.”   

The platform is an extension of a series of digital efforts David’s Bridal has invested in over the years. In April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic upended the wedding industry, the company debuted virtual styling appointments. Two months later, the retailer introduced appointments via Zoom to help bridal parties plan remotely and in the fall, the company teamed up with Vertebrae to upgrade product pages with 3D and augmented reality visualizations of its best-selling dresses. 

As the coronavirus pandemic continued to increase demand for digital services, David’s Bridal continued its tech push. In May 2021, the company launched a 24-hour YouTube Live channel showcasing content from couples, vendors and photographers. Later that year, the retailer introduced the David’s Bridal Planning App, where customers could access various wedding planning tools. Last July, the retailer worked with ad agency January Digital to create and post shoppable content on TikTok.

David’s Bridal has also worked to vary its product assortment, both through launching new product lines and through acquisitions. The retailer bought the assets of Anomalie, a custom wedding dress company, for an undisclosed sum last year. As part of the acquisition, Anomalie’s co-founder and CEO, Leslie Voorhees Means, joined David’s Bridal to manage “new strategic initiatives.”

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By Ekata

Marketplaces face many challenges when it comes to platform growth and risk mitigation. First, they must ensure that there is an easy way to transact while simultaneously reducing the number of fraudulent transactions. And even when fraudsters gain access to a marketplace, they must be detected before the payment authorization. Ekata's Product Buyers Guide for Marketplaces explains how marketplace account opening, transactional risk, and platform integrity are crucial to the vendors and product solutions you choose.

Account Opening

When thinking about user experience and fraud prevention, a marketplace must use a holistic approach. After all, platform integrity is intertwined throughout every stage of a marketplace; from account opening and buyer/seller transactions to checkout, payment authorization, and shipment. For example, if a marketplace validates identities at account opening, the transactional risk can be decreased by weeding out bad users such as bots and spammers.

Account opening is a crucial piece of a marketplace — there is no marketplace without sellers and buyers joining the platform. Most marketplaces have a unique onboarding experience for buyers versus sellers. And the onboarding experience varies depending on the size of the marketplace. The Product Buyers Guide for Marketplaces explains the solutions available to your business to help ensure account opening best practices.

Transactional Risk

Transactional risk is a significant point of contention for marketplaces because transactions are the height of user engagement- transactions are where real dollars and goods are exchanged. Most marketplaces support multiple payment options to allow flexibility and ease of use for their customers. Marketplaces that enable payments must deal with fraud attempts before the payment authorization takes place. The types of fraud marketplaces must catch before payment authorization include credit card fraud, card testing, and cross-border fraud. 

Marketplaces should implement an effective solution to mitigate transactional risk and prevent payment fraud. The Product Buyers Guide for Marketplaces explores the vendors available as your business creates its strategy.

Platform Integrity

A variety of solutions are available today that help marketplaces prevent fraud and ensure the overall integrity of the platform. From Data Validation and Identity Verification, to User and Behavioral Analytics, you need insights and deep dives for manual investigation to best understand your users. The Product Buyers Guide for Marketplaces also explores vendors that are best in platform integrity.

Bottom Line

As the global sharing economy grows online, it's more difficult to quickly and accurately confirm identities. Historically useful authenticators like Social Security Numbers are no longer enough, and National IDs don't address the worldwide marketplace with much of this data being compromised in breaches. The demands of global commerce and risk management have given rise to a more sophisticated multi-layered approach to verifying identities—one that looks to correlate common key customer identity data such as emails, phones and physical addresses, with behavioral analytics, device identification, and existing user profile information. Taking a holistic approach to identity verification, utilizing multiple fraud protection and risk mitigation tools to increase customer transactions while decreasing the amount of fraud, helps keep the platform trusted and safe. This multilayered approach is critical to grow a marketplace, with a strategy more sophisticated than the fraudsters who attempt to break in. Read the Product Buyers Guide for Marketplaces to learn more.

Amazon has expanded “Buy with Prime” to all U.S. merchants as of Jan. 31. The move allows Prime members to shop on outside websites, using their saved checkout details and accessing Prime benefits like free delivery and returns. The option launched in April last year by invitation only.

The e-commerce giant also launched Reviews from Amazon, enabling merchants to display ratings and reviews from Amazon customers on their own sites for no additional cost, per a company press release.

Software-as-a-service e-commerce platform BigCommerce on Tuesday said it will integrate the Buy with Prime app in the first quarter, allowing its merchants to add the option without coding.

As Amazon scales back its retail operations to some extent, it’s looking outside for opportunities to expand.

Clicking a button to “buy with Prime” theoretically expands the suite of perks and conveniences available to Prime members. But the e-commerce company is pitching the program to U.S. merchants, including those that don’t necessarily sell through the Amazon marketplace. On Tuesday Amazon said its Buy with Prime program “has been shown to increase shopper conversion by an average of 25%.”

“We’ve been working closely with merchants since the launch of Buy with Prime and have been thrilled to hear the results it’s helped drive for them so far,” Peter Larsen, Amazon vice president of Buy with Prime, said in a statement. “We’ll continue innovating and investing in new features, such as Reviews from Amazon, to help merchants of all sizes succeed and give Prime members the shopping benefits they love, whether it’s on Amazon or beyond.”

Despite the expansion announced Tuesday, Amazon likely understands that it could take a few years to know if it will scale, according to Rick Watson, founder and CEO of RMW Commerce Consulting.

“At the end of the day, it's not going to be meaningful for some time, because this is such a small program,” Watson said by phone. “There's something like a thousand sellers every day that joined the Amazon marketplace last year. How many are going to join with Buy with Prime every day this year? Not nearly that many.”

Like Amazon Pay, which has shown up as a payment option on some websites for over a decade, the Buy with Prime button is something of a time saver for customers because their payment and shipping details are automatically available, but it’s “not terribly unique,” according to Watson.

Moreover, even some of the merchants touted in Amazon’s press materials Tuesday don’t apply the Buy with Prime option to every product they sell, he said. That introduces pain points for customers, who want to easily see shipping options and costs.

“If you look at the history of direct e-commerce, I don't think that's going to work at scale, and I think that will limit the success of the program,” he said. “And so, what percentage of merchants will let Buy with Prime have run of site? That is a question that they need to answer.”

Poshmark is officially under new ownership. South Korean internet giant Naver on Thursday closed its $1.2 billion acquisition of the resale marketplace, which was announced in October.

With the closing of the deal, Poshmark was delisted from the Nasdaq, according to a company press release. The platform will continue to operate under its existing brand and will still be headquartered in Redwood City, California. Poshmark will also maintain its employee base.

Poshmark CEO and founder Manish Chandra said he was “thrilled” to join Naver.

“As a part of Naver, we'll benefit from their financial resources, significant technology capabilities, and leading presence across Asia to expand our platform and enhance our user experience,” Chandra said in a statement.

Naver’s CEO, Sooyeon Choi, sees a number of ways that Naver can improve the Poshmark platform. Choi cited Naver’s search capabilities, e-commerce tools and artificial intelligence-based recommendations in particular as elements that will “enhance the user experience for the Poshmark community.”

The companies’ goals include increasing conversion rates, improving discovery and engagement, and creating “an industry leader in livestreaming commerce.”

Naver was founded in 1999 and says it operates South Korea’s top search engine and the country’s largest e-commerce platform. The company also offers fintech and cloud services. 

Luxury fashion platform Syky has raised $9.5 million in a Series A funding round, the company announced this week. Seven Seven Six, the investment firm created by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, led the financing round, and Brevan Howard Digital, Leadout Capital, First Light Capital Group and Polygon Ventures also participated in the round. 

The company said the funding will enable it to execute Syky founder and CEO Alice Delahunt’s plans and allow creators to curate, generate, share and trade their fashion collections, according to a company press release.

The company also said it plans to release its first non-fungible token, the Keystone, on Friday, which will act as a membership pass to access the company’s membership space and other fashion events. Keystone holders will also receive fashion and technology reports and will have access to its network of creatives. Fifty Keystones will be awarded to aspiring designers, per the announcement.

Alongside other brands and retailers experimenting with NFTs, Syky is tying exclusive benefits to its token. The company said it will offer token holders access to exclusive designer collection drops and advance notice of its alpha and beta releases and partner projects, according to the press release.

“Fashion is on the verge of a renaissance, powered by technology and the next generation of creators,” Delahunt said in a statement. “With Syky, we aim to build a platform that equalizes creative opportunity for aspiring designers, showcases the best of fashion from emerging and established brands, and cultivates a community passionate about the evolution of fashion.”

Meanwhile, other brands and retailers have been experimenting with their own virtual marketplaces. In November, Nike launched its online hub for Nike members to collect and co-create virtual goods, including shoes and jerseys. That same month, Adidas introduced a product category on its website for virtual goods. Other brands, including Puma, Lacoste and Tiffany, have unveiled NFT projects with special perks.

But as brands and retailers dive headfirst into the metaverse and launch non-fungible token projects, it remains to be seen whether consumers will fully embrace the concept and how it will develop over time. In May, Wunderman Thompson Intelligence released a survey indicating that 74% of consumers surveyed had heard of the metaverse, but just 15% felt they could explain the idea to others. And a July Forrester report cautioned that virtual shoppers won’t have interoperable experiences even a decade from now.

ORLANDO, FL. — When outgoing CEO Jerome Griffith joined Lands’ End in 2017, the brand had a big problem: “the database for our core customer was shrinking.” 

That’s bad news for any company, but Lands’ End has historically received long lifetime value out of its shoppers. A Lands’ End customer stays with the company for 18 years on average, according to Griffith, so building back up its customer base became a priority.  

“If your customer gets a year older every year, they’re all going to die, so you don’t want that to happen,” Griffith said at the ICR conference on Tuesday. “You want your database to either stay the same age or bring in younger people.” 

The company tried, at one point, to bring in millennial shoppers, but switched its approach when that didn’t work. The Lands’ End shopper is generally mid-50s, so Griffith said it made more sense to appeal to the Gen X shopper than try to go too young. That’s part of the reason the brand has partnered with the likes of Amazon, Target and Kohl’s. 

“These new customers come in through these marketplaces: 75% of them either never shopped at Lands’ End or are lapsed customers and haven't shopped at Lands’ End for five years,” Griffith said. “So we're bringing in a new customer, but it’s actually the same customer, but 10 years younger.”  

Andrew McLean, who was named CEO-designate in September, will continue that mission to grow the Lands’ End customer base as the brand’s new leader. McLean has been working alongside Griffith, who retires Jan. 27, since November. 

“We've seen pressure from how you acquire customers online: It's not getting any cheaper,” McLean said at the conference. “So we've got to look at new avenues to acquire customers, whether we pull them out of our outfitters business, or whether we're pulling them out of our stores business, or we use the catalog to prospect again … we've got to continue to renew the database. And we've been incredibly successful with that and I'm happy to say that I'm just astonished to have 7 million customers, and be able to build that.” 

Physical stores is also one of McLean’s priorities for the future, but the timing on that is uncertain, since the brand can only tackle so many things at once. McLean also highlighted that Lands’ End already has a physical channel in its catalog business, which is “an amazing physical manifestation of our brand.” 

“I think Jerome and the team have done an amazing job to convert us to a digitally native company. But the catalog is still a huge outreach for us and it’s a physical opportunity for us that many others have walked away from,” McLean said. 

Not as exciting, but still on the roadmap, is to “do something about our debt in the next couple of years,” according to McLean. In the company’s third quarter, long-term debt stood at $226 million. 

What’s not changing, at least for the most part, is Lands’ End’s other management. McLean said the company is changing its merchandising leadership, with a new merchant joining in February, but that otherwise “we feel good about our team.” 

“You shouldn't change everything in the first moment,” McLean said. “We’ve blended the organization with some new people and we’ve really elevated and retained a number of the existing. I think the balance we've got to the organization is really powerful.” 

The number of U.S. adults buying on mobile is increasing, according to Forrester’s 2023 Retail Mobile Websites report shared with Retail Dive. That data shows that 37% of U.S. adults mobile sites to transact over the past three months, an increase from 29% in 2021. 

The channel is not without its challenges, though. Citing data it collected in 2022, Forrester noted that a third of American shoppers who don’t make smartphone purchases said it’s because it’s easier to transact via computers. About a quarter (23%) said it’s because their screens are too small for shopping.

Forrester’s report pointed to some areas where retailers could improve its checkout experience. The report noted that 13% of U.S. adults said faster checkout is a critical factor in choosing where to shop. But only one of the retailers Forrester reviewed could complete a transaction in under two page loads: Nike. 

Guest checkout is key, with more than half (55%) of participants in the firm’s usability test saying it’s a critical feature for retailer’s mobile websites. Two of the 10 retailers Forrester reviewed still didn’t offer guest checkout as an option, per the report.

The 2022 holiday season illustrated how vital mobile commerce is for winning over shoppers. Mobile shopping comprised over half (55%) of overall online retail sales on Thanksgiving, up 8.3% year-over-year, according to Adobe. Shoppers went on to spend 61% of online sales through their smartphones on Christmas.

E-commerce platforms have been introducing shopping features to improve the mobile experience as well. In November, Etsy unveiled its visual image search capabilities, enabling shoppers to photograph or upload images of items they’re seeking on the marketplace. The following month, Amazon added the Inspire feature to its mobile app, where shoppers can view video and photo content about new products. 

In December, Walmart rolled out a different kind of mobile shopping experience, debuting its Text to Shop tool for iOS and Android users. Users text the name of their desired items to the retailer, which will add them to their shopping cart.

Despite increased adoption, mobile commerce has proved challenging. Earlier this month, Instagram said it is taking down its Shop tab from the homepage, eliminating a dedicated shopping destination, but users can still shop on the app. Shortly after, Pinterest announced that Julie Bornstein, the platform’s chief shopping officer, is transitioning into an adviser role. Bornstein joined the company after it acquired The Yes, the artificial intelligence shopping startup she founded.

Continuing its focus on emerging fashion designers, Shein has amassed almost 3,000 aspiring fashion designers and artists as part of its Shein X incubator program and has invested $55 million in them, the company announced on Wednesday. It celebrated the program’s second anniversary this month and said it wants to onboard 1,000 more designers this year.

As part of the initiative, the program shepherds aspiring designers throughout the fashion process, including product development, manufacturing, marketing and supply chain logistics. The company also pays for the production and logistics costs to assist designers with the financial risks of creating and debuting their fashion collections, according to the announcement.

The company does not retain the intellectual property rights of participating designers. It also has paid more than $5 million in commissions to these designers.

As it aims to bring on more designers in 2023, Shein is also working with The Graduate Fashion Foundation to host the Shein X fashion design competition for up-and-coming European designers. The winning contestants will be featured in the Shein X Fashion Show in Paris in June.

“A core pillar of Shein’s business model is to empower entrepreneurs. The Shein X program nurtures designers, helping them elevate their brands on the global stage,” Molly Miao, chief operating officer of Shein, said in a statement. “Shein is dedicated to continuing our Shein X outreach and efforts amongst designer and artist communities around the world, taking another step forward in making the beauty of fashion accessible to all.”

In 2021, Shein emerged as the top fast fashion retailer, surpassing H&M, Zara, Forever 21 and Fashion Nova, according to a June 2021 report from Earnest Research. At that time, the company made up more than a quarter of U.S. fast fashion sales, exceeding H&M’s 20% and Zara’s 11%. 

Despite its meteoric rise, the company might be reducing its valuation. According to a Financial Times report on Wednesday, the company is trying to raise up to $3 billion while valuing itself at $64 billion, down from its $100 billion valuation last year.  

One strategy the company is pursuing is resale. In October, the company debuted its recommerce platform Shein Exchange, where customers could buy and sell used items on the brand’s mobile app. The company introduced the platform in the U.S. last year and plans to offer it internationally this year.

But Shein’s rise to prominence has not been without controversy. In 2021, the company introduced its Shein X 100K Challenge featuring reality TV personality Khloé Kardashian, fashion designer Christian Siriano, fashion designer Jenna Lyons, InStyle style director Laurel Pantin and stylist Law Roach to judge the competition. However, the news generated criticism from some of the participating judges. That same year, the company was the subject of a CBC investigation that found elevated levels of lead, phthalates, PFAS and other chemicals in some tested clothing.

Adding another company to its lineup, DoorDash is partnering with Meta to pilot Facebook Marketplace deliveries, a DoorDash spokesperson confirmed via email to Retail Dive. 

The spokesperson said that the two companies are testing the service in multiple cities in the U.S., but declined to say which cities. DoorDash delivery drivers will only transport items that can fit within the trunk of a car, the spokesperson said.

Through the service, customers can order deliveries within a 15-mile radius. DoorDash delivery drivers will transport the orders within 48 hours, the spokesperson confirmed.

DoorDash declined to answer Retail Dive’s questions regarding when the pilot program between DoorDash and Meta started and their plans for expanding the service, but said instead, “DoorDash is always thinking about new ways to provide the communities we serve with access to unparalleled convenience and opportunity through our platform. We continually explore and test new innovations.”

DoorDash’s collaboration with Meta is a continuation of its expansion beyond restaurant deliveries. In December 2021, J.C. Penney enlisted DoorDash for same-day deliveries of its home products at more than 600 stores, as well as beauty and salon products in select locations. That same month, the platform debuted its DashMart virtual convenience store brand in New York City.

DoorDash faces stiff competition from Uber, which has also added more brands and retailers to its roster of same-day delivery clients. Similar to DoorDash’s partnership with Facebook Marketplace, Uber teamed up with resale marketplace Mercari in July 2021 to facilitate product exchanges between sellers and customers. Over the past year, Uber has built out its platform through partnerships with Hims & Hers, Bed Bath & Beyond and The Body Shop, among others.

The partnership between Meta and DoorDash comes as the social media behemoth faces a financial slowdown and is trying to refine its e-commerce operations. Meta reported a 36% decline in net income and a 1% dip in total revenue year over year in its Q2 earnings report. Earlier this month, the company announced that it would terminate its live shopping feature on Facebook and will instead turn its attention to short-form videos. During its Q2 earnings call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg cited Apple’s iOS changes as part of the reason the company is working to improve the customer experience of interacting with businesses on its platforms, including through business messaging and shops.

“Many of the macro factors having an impact on our revenue are continuations of things we’ve seen in previous quarters, such as the continued impact of the war in Ukraine and the normalization of e-commerce after the pandemic peak,” Sheryl Sandberg, Meta COO, said during the Q2 earnings call. “But there are also new challenges with rising inflation and uncertainty around a looming recession.”

Secondhand marketplace Poshmark launched a new program, Brand Closet, that lets big brands sell directly to Poshmark's 80 million users, according to a company release.

Brands can share limited-time products, create brand pages, conduct email campaigns, manage inventory and logistics, and do one-on-one clienteling through Poshmark services. Poshmark began a pilot of Brand Closet in 2020.

In the release, Poshmark CEO Manish Chandra called Brand Closet "a win for everyone." Brands get what Poshmark describes as a vast, engaged audience of millenials and GenZers who often buy a brand for the first time on the company's platform. Poshmark gets more sellers engaged on its platform. 

The secondhand sector is getting too large for brands and retailers to ignore. According to ThredUp's latest survey, used apparel sales are projected to reach $77 billion in five years.

In 2021, for example, Urban Outfitters launched its own secondhand marketplace, on which customers can opt to trade in clothes for virtual cash. Nike, Gap, Levi Strauss and Lululemon, among others, have to varying degrees entered the secondhand market recently. 

Poshmark lists among its brand clients Lucky Brand, Hue, Dose of Colors and Free People (an Urban Outfitters brand). Chandra said that by opening up Poshmark to big brands it is "empowering them to build loyal, lasting connections with a coveted audience, tap into a new sales channel, and bring shoppers the kind of personalized service that is all too rare in e-commerce."

Poshmark has also unveiled a new suite of services and a dedicated team, led by co-founder Tracy Sun, meant to help the millions of sellers who use its platform.

The new tools include the "My Shoppers" clienteling feature, which the company has now opened up to large brands. It allows sellers to send promotional discounts or make personalized product suggestions through Poshmark. The company also launched a dashboard, dubbed "Closet Insights," that provides sellers with real-time inventory and sales data. 

For the first half of 2021, Poshmark's revenue increased more than 30% year over year, though its operating profit turned negative, with a loss from operations of $23.6 million compared to a $10.2 million operating profit in the first half of 2020. (Excluding stock-based compensation, Poshmark's operating income was positive for 2021 so far.)

Poshmark's latest move positions the marketplace as a friend to brands, as opposed to a competitor. It's not alone in its efforts to capture the hearts and minds and dollars of brands. ThredUp, for instance, has partnered with Madewell, Fabletics and many others.