A Winning Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce Strategy
The Situation
A leading multi-category brand manufacturer in the floor covering market decided to expand its direct-to-consumer presence through marketplaces. The brand manufacturer expected significant revenue growth in the US market through a direct-to-consumer strategy. However, this client had a challenging experience selling on marketplaces working with one of Acenda's competitors; among many issues, they struggled to syndicate their product listings onto marketplaces. Further, their internal resources had limited experience working directly with marketplaces. Acenda’s platform and strategy team were engaged to execute a response to the following questions:
- What product placement strategy best fits the brand manufacturer’s business strategy (both now and in the future)?
- How do we streamline product content management and order fulfillment for multiple marketplaces?
- How do we maximize a strong advertising ROI?
- How can we ensure few human resources can address product content management, marketplace error remediation and fulfillment of thousands of orders on multiple marketplaces?
Our Approach
Acenda created a multi-phase approach to develop and support the implementation of a multi-channel launch strategy.
Onboarding
- Internal review of client needs between onboarding team and business development team
- In-depth kick-off call with the client to review product content and order fulfillment
- Product template build based on marketplace and client requirements
- Send product template with a personalized instruction manual
- Configure client webstore and marketplace and order service integrations
Production
- Analyze product data
- Send client feedback or request for additional data
- Architect API driven posting templates for each marketplace
- Customize product fields for each marketplace
Quality Assurance
- Test order flow
- Test inventory sync
- Secondary review of data
- Sign-off on data and test order
Launch and Error Remediation
- Syndicate +10,000 SKUs via API to all marketplaces
- Fix errors sent by marketplace API into Acenda
- Apply AI technology to monitor data consistency
Maintenance
- Platform training by account manager
- Weekly status calls with account manager
- Compliance and Settlement Reporting
- Quarterly sales review and seasonal product launch strategy
- Client manages data and orders within Acenda
Promotion
- Optimized product feed APIs
- Performance based campaign groupings
- Campaign management and reporting
The Results
A one-stop shop cloud-based eCommerce platform, in-depth product content management strategy and successful launch on multiple-marketplaces generated year over year triple-digit growth, trending over $15 million dollars in annual revenue, with continued growth.
