Walmart Launches Walmart Marketplace 11 comments
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Walmart.com gets in the marketplace game with Walmart Marketplace (WMMP).
- You are spending large $ to build a brand and bring consumers to your site.
- Consumers love selection
- A 'bad' consumer experience is when they come to your site and don't find what you are looking for.
- Even the mega players can only manage so much selection
- Long-tail selection can be painful and expensive (eats into warehouse space)
- You need to focus on your core (shoes or top 10 sellers or the value buyer, etc.)
The solution - partner with top/mid/smb retailers that bring some unique product lines to your e-commerce site, but instead of links are integrated at the product level. Their products are on parity with yours, in search results, checkout, etc. The consumer never has to leave your site and in many cases the experience is so fluid they don't realize they are dealing with a third party.
A tour of the new Walmart Marketplace
Amongst the marketplaces, I would say that the WMMP experience has an Amazon feel, but is much more 'closed'. For example, on Amazon, any smal business can say 'I have one of those widgets to sell' and be selling on Amazon in minutes. With Monday's launch at least, WMMP has a very limited number of 3Ps at launch: eBags.com, CSN Stores and Pro Team.
They are running a front page banner highlighting WMMP, but other than that as a consumer, your first WMMP interaction is on item pages. WMMP items are not highlighted in the search engine results pages that I can see. This figure shows an eBags items and you can see a CSN item here and a Pro Team item here. Note: to see a larger version of any of these images, click and a zoomed-in image will pop up.
In the figure right , I've added two red boxes and a big red arrow to highlight the two areas of the item page that indicate this product is sold via WMMP. First, in the upper right you see some text in he grey area that says: "Sold by Walmart Marketplace" and includes a link for more information (more on that in a sec). Below the product image is a more detailed box that has three areas - the seller, the price and the shipping details.
If you click on the 'Learn More' link in the 'Sold By Walmart Marketplace' area, you get this pop-up that gives a high level overview of what the WMMP is all about:
On the item page under the merchant's name, is a link that says: "Retailer Info" - when you click on that, you are taken to a tabbed page with all of the details of the merchant. You can see the eBags page live here, or here's a screen grab:
This is very Amazon-esque. You can see a summary for the seller, detailed ratings, shipping information, Return policies, Customer Service information and an 'About Us' section that is a catch-all for the 3P merchant to add anything not covered on other tabs. For comparison's sake, here's the same page (also for eBags) on Amazon's 3P system:
You can tell these are very similar.
Finally, when a consumer adds an item to checkout there are two more user flows of interest:
1. An interstitial is presented that asks the consumer to verify they are aware the item is not from Walmart:
2. The consumer is shown each product in a different box so they can pick from the different S+H options (Walmart's vs. the 3P):
Those are the highlights of the Walmart Marketplace. The WMMP is a clean, consumer-friendly extension of the Walmart first-party business and should give Walmart.com shoppers all of the usual 3P benefits of added selection, price and
What's not clear at this time is how Walmart will treat some of the more delicate situations that arises in the world of 3P:
- What if there is overlap in products (both Walmart and the 3P) offer it? Today WMMP appears to only have products that Walmart first-party does not offer. The corollary is - what if a 3P has a lower price than you do for the same product?
- What if a 3P's consumer ratings are lower than some threshold?
- What if consumers are confused because there isn't that much on the site that highlights they are buying from a 3P?
We'll keep an eye out and an ear open for these situations and report back here on Amazon Strategies as this fledgling marketplace gets on its legs and has to cross some of these bridges on the path to success.
The WMMP's impact on eBay, Amazon and e-commerce
What does Walmart entering the marketplace segment mean for eBay (EBAY) and Amazon? Even though Walmart is the 800lb gorilla of the offline world, it is a good bit smaller (Internet Retailer reports that in 2008 they were the 14th largest online retailer with $1.7b in sales vs. Amazon at the top with $20b). Thus, while this is a strategic move in Walmart.com's court, it would have to be massively successful to help them catch up to Amazon. Amazon already has millions of 3P's and a system that's churning through 4-6B in GMV/yr.
eBay is probably more exposed to the WMMP because they have a more nascent focus on the high-end and have some early wins with Buy.com, TigerDirect and eCost (ECST), but as they work on getting more name-brand retailers on eBay.com, they will be fighting for mind-share with this new player.
Of course, like Amazon, some retailers will be scared to death of partnering with such a giant player as walmart.com so eBay continues to have and advantage in their neutrality that they haven't been able to execute on very well yet. Long-term if they can execute, that could give them an interesting edge and draw out some unique selection (see next section).
We'll keep an eye on the eBay/Amazon impact, but what's more interesting to think about vs. this one situation of a 3P marketplace, is what if we take it a step further and assume this is the first of many new Marketplaces. Imagine a day when Target (TGT), Office Depot (ODP), Staples (SPLS), Dell (DELL), Apple (AAPL), OfficeMax (OMX), Sears (SHLD), CDW (CDWC), BestBuy (BBY), etc. - maybe the top 100 retailers PLUS Twitter, Facebook and even Google (GOOG), Bing/Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo all have some flavor of a marketplace.
If that plays out like I think it will (only a fraction of those companies need to go that way for this to happen), then selection and product differentiation become king and you will see the larger retailers snapping up via M&A or at least 'exclusives' categories of products they view as exclusive. Also you could see a price war erupt (in what marketplaces charge merchants) as marketplaces attempt to differentiate their merchant-facing opportunities in the fight for thin merchant mindshare and IT resources.
The bottom line is this is a positive for the million or so smaller merchants that utilize 3P channels because they should see more 'channels' out there fighting for their products which will create lots of opportunities for them in the form of lower prices, more paths to consumers and maybe even some M+A.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the implications of this new marketplace via the comments.
Disclosure - I am long Google and Amazon. eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor
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Scot Wingo is the CEO of ChannelAdvisor
Scot Wingo - What does Walmart entering the marketplace segment mean for eBay (EBAY)
Rah-rah for co-owner Ebay by Scot.
Scot Wingo - eBay is probably more exposed to the WMMP because they have a more nascent focus on the high-end and have some early wins with Buy.com, TigerDirect and eCost (ECST), but as they work on getting more name-brand retailers on eBay.com, they will be fighting for mind-share with this new player.
High-end?? Ebay sucks in million dollar Diamond sellers while Walmart and Amazon rake in 100 million dollar and billion dollar companies.
Early wins?? Ebay lost near billion dollar Zappos to Amazon. In your book that General Motors (feedback.ebay.com/ws/e...) deal is going swimmingly. Many great wins circling that drain of yours.
In a retail mind-share battle of wits Ebay is going in unarmed. No amount of spin from your 10% co-owner changes that.
quote*Wal-Mart firmly believes in local procurement. We recognize that by purchasing quality products, we can generate more job opportunities, support local manufacturing and boost economic development. Over 95% of the merchandise in our stores in China is sourced locally. We have established partnerships with nearly 20,000 suppliers in China. *end quote!
Now! if there be 182 country’s making items for the world to buy and they have only 5% of the pie in China…duh! This company makes the nice people of China support their currency(yuan) by keeping it in their country working for the people there…. but with the “yuan” going up in value and the US dollar going down…all the foreign items that the American consumer buys thinking it is cheap has went up in price.
People…its all about the currency and to keep a currency strong you got to keep it floating around the country you live in so it can work for you. For the past 12 years all them US dollars are being shipped overseas to a foreign bank and with the American worker not making anything for the foreigner to buy the “we the people” have to turn to the “second” largest employer in America(Uncle Sam) to sell “we the people” debt in order to get all them dollars back!
50 years ago a foreigner would had given their left nut for a US dollar or a Hershey’s chocolate bar and today the same foreigner has got Uncle Sam and the American consumer by both all the while Hershey is moving the chocolate factory to Mexico. Wake up! America and think “MADE IN AMERICA.”
quote*"Considering that there are over 30,000 ships at sea this morning," writes James Carlton, director of the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program, in an e-mail, "the total number of organisms and species in this global 'bioflow' on the morning your readers read your piece could be staggering - billions of individuals, and thousands of species."
Indeed, scientists have long considered ballast water the primary way invasive aquatic organisms are introduced. From the zebra mussel's arrival in the Great Lakes, to an American jellyfish severely disrupting Black Sea fisheries, the potential costs of accidental introduction of a species to new homes can be tremendous. Aquatic invasives cost the US $9 billion yearly, according to estimates by David Pimentel, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Zebra and quagga mussels (a cousin to the zebra) alone cost the $1 billion annually.*end quote!
tat is $9 billion a year in hidden taxes to all Americans...
cheap ain't chic and it cost America............jobs!
If we ONLY buy American, there go all those wonderful clothes that we don't make anymore, the shoes, the luggage, the furniture, the entertainment centers, computers, and the Ipods. And that's just for starters. Then we have to think about the 30% to 70% of the American cars that we don't build, those parts we get from overseas. And food... we get a LOT of things overseas that we don't grow here.
So assume we begin to build and produce and grow all our stuff (good word for this instance) here, and we stop buying any of it from other countries. We'll grow, we'll have jobs, and we'll hurt those nasty foreigners, won't we? And they'll move their nasty foreign cars (I'll really miss my MiniCooper, I swear!) and vile foreign products out of our country so we can produce more and build/grow them ourselves, jobs for our people. Right? RIGHT!
And then all those foreign countries will stop buying our products. And where will be then? Companies will cut production, jobs will be lost. And the pit will be surrounding us again.
On Sep 01 08:43 AM madmilker wrote:
> People in America need to realize jus what got America in this shape…”cheap”
> yes so-call cheap items from a foreign land.
(remainder of quote deleted in the name of space conservation!)
So you allowed your foot to be crushed by a palet mover! What were you doing so close to that machine? They make a lot of noise.Can't say you didn't hear it. Those machines are pretty bulky. Can't say you didn't see it.
I don't allow any machine of that type within ten feet of my delicate
body. When I see one inching toward me,I retreat.
But you just stood by,waiting for something to happen.
The fault is with you,Bucky.Not recognizing danger in your midst makes you accident prone.
My wife avoids shopping at Wal-Mart because of the long lines (as Yogi Berra said: "Nobody shops at Wal-Mart, it's too crowded!"). So I'm there at least 2X/mo. Usually the lines are no more than 2 deep and they have a lot of registers going.
We go to Wal-Mart for rock bottom-priced RXs (consistently beats my health plan's Medco option), other pharma items, groceries, hardware, bird seed ... anything: Wal-Mart seldom has an item with a higher price than what we'd pay elsewhere.
Nobody can compete with the internet for big-ticket items like PCs and TVs. I also think the internet will be the place to shop for a car in the future. We're already using the web to find homes.
So don't go to Wal-Mart for PCs, TVs, cars, or houses. For anything else, protect your standard of living by making a trip to Wal-Mart a regular event in your life.
Careful with those rock bottom priced prescriptions too...
www.huffingtonpost.com...
The only mistake I made was shopping there at all!
As newspapers decay / disappear, we all look to other media for real, credible news coverage. The Huffington Post will be one of the last places I'll ever go -- correct that: I'll never go there -- for truth.
As Wiki notes ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ), it gives a soapbox to the likes of Rosie O'Donnell and John Conyers. I get more opinions than I need from SA, realizing that SA also provides a forum to vapid, fringe thinkers.