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The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

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The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding Rick Watson, CEO at Merchantry October 16th, 2014 @ 1:00 pm EST Today’s Speakers: Rick Watson - CEO, Merchantry Randy Smythe - Senior Director, Marketplace, Bluefly John Carles - VP of Product & Client Services, Merchantry Who Is Bluefly? - Founded in 1998 and headquartered in New York City - Targets successful, single career women (75% female customer base) - Carries over 50,000 styles and 350 brands - Has served over 1.5 million customers in 13 countries The Challenge: How do we onboard vendors more efficiently and centralize their data to get more products to market faster? Bluefly Supplier Onboarding Before Merchantry: - Suppliers more varied than previous in-house systems - Manual process of data validation - In-house solution for drop-ship, but limited and manual - Manual process of exporting data to ATG platform Problem Specifics: - Wanted to add a Marketplace model to traditional selection - Needed to increase assortment dramatically via supplier expansion - Needed to improve product data attribute quality Search for Solutions: - Continue with one-off integration for each supplier? - Build a proprietary solution internally? - Search for an experienced software partner? Merchantry Product Information Management Platform Supplier Onboarding Flow Results: Since launching with the Merchantry PIM platform four months ago, Bluefly has: - Started onboarding new suppliers and products on a weekly basis. 235 to date. - Added revenue by collecting, validating, and integrating product data within the centralized portal and then seamlessly distributing it to Oracle ATG. 82,000 products added in 4 months. Gotchas to Look Out For: Things to remember about your own program: - Software can only do so much—supplier communication and training can be hard work - 3-4 Bluefly/Merchantry people dedicated to the program at scale - Drop-ship program must be coordinated through merchandising teams, or you invite conflict or turf battles Bluefly’s Reaction: "It’s a lot of work to build a marketplace infrastructure internally. While bigger marketplace retailers often have the internal IT resources to take on complex development, most small-to-medium-sized business that are looking to develop a marketplace eCommerce model find it highly beneficial to leverage a partner. With partners like Merchantry, eCommerce retailers can streamline the onboarding process and accelerate time to market."  - Randy Smythe, Senior Director, Marketplace at Bluefly Omnichannel at Shop.org Summit 2014: - Retailers “must evolve or die” - Consumer expectations have changed the name of the game to creating a smooth overall shopping experience, regardless of channels - Building brand loyalty and customer retention is key - Big data will drive personalization and provide valuable shopper insights Questions? Connect With Us
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The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding Rick Watson, CEO at Merchantry October 16 th , 2014 @ 1:00 pm EST
Transcript
Page 1: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

The Future of eCommerce:

How Bluefly Excelled at

Supplier Onboarding

Rick Watson, CEO at Merchantry

October 16th, 2014 @ 1:00 pm EST

Page 2: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

Today’s Speakers

Rick WatsonCEO

Merchantry

John CarlesVP of Product & Client Services

Merchantry

Randy SmytheSenior Director, Marketplace

Bluefly

Page 3: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

Who Is Bluefly?

• Founded in 1998 and headquartered in

New York City

• Targets successful, single career women

(75% female customer base)

• Carries over 50,000 styles and 350 brands

• Has served over 1.5 million customers in

13 countries

Page 4: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

How do we onboard vendors more

efficiently and centralize their

data to get more products to

market faster?

The Challenge

Page 5: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

• Suppliers more varied than previous in-house systems

• Manual process of data validation

• In-house solution for drop-ship, but limited and manual

• Manual process of exporting data to ATG platform

Bluefly Supplier Onboarding

Before Merchantry

Page 6: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

Problem Specifics

• Wanted to add a Marketplace

model to traditional selection

• Needed to increase assortment

dramatically via supplier

expansion

• Needed to improve product

data attribute quality

Page 7: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

Search for Solutions

• Continue with one-off

integration for each supplier?

• Build a proprietary solution

internally?

• Search for an experienced

software partner?

Page 8: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

Merchantry Product Information

Management Platform

Page 9: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

Supplier Onboarding Flow

Page 10: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

• Since launching with the Merchantry PIM platform four

months ago, Bluefly has:

Started onboarding new suppliers and products on a weekly

basis. 235 to date.

Added revenue by collecting, validating, and integrating

product data within the centralized portal and then seamlessly

distributing it to Oracle ATG. 82,000 products added in 4 months.

Results

Page 11: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

• Things to remember about your own program:

Software can only do so much—supplier communication and

training can be hard work

3-4 Bluefly/Merchantry people dedicated to the program at

scale

Drop-ship program must be coordinated through

merchandising teams, or you invite conflict or turf battles

Gotchas to Look Out For

Page 12: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

It’s a lot of work to build a marketplace infrastructure internally. While bigger marketplace retailers often have the have the internal IT resources to take on complex development, most small-to-medium-sized business that are that are looking to develop a marketplace eCommerce model model find it highly beneficial to leverage a partner. With With partners like Merchantry, eCommerce retailers can can streamline the onboarding process and accelerate time time to market.

Randy Smythe

Senior Director, Marketplace at Bluefly

Bluefly’s Reaction

Page 13: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

Omnichannel at Shop.org Summit 2014

• Retailers “must evolve or die”

• Consumer expectations have changed

the name of the game to creating a

smooth overall shopping experience,

regardless of channels

• Building brand loyalty and customer

retention is key

• Big data will drive personalization and

provide valuable shopper insights

Page 14: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

Questions?

Page 15: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

Connect With Us

• Our website: www.merchantry.com

• Follow us on Twitter: @merchantry

• Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Merchantry

• Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/merchantry

Page 16: The Future of eCommerce: How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier Onboarding

Thank You!


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