Macy’s is a renowned retail chain in the United States, offering a diverse array of items such as apparel, household items, beauty products, and accessories. If you’d like to start your own marketplace like Macy’s, you’re facing a buy vs build decision. So before you decide to build it in-house on top of Spree open-source, consider using Vendo, which is a marketplace SaaS. Go live, start selling, iterate.
Build vs Buy a marketplace?
The use of open-source brings several advantages, such as total ownership and the ability to adapt as needed, but these benefits have their own costs. Developing a comprehensive marketplace solution is a lengthy, expensive endeavor, usually taking several months to years, as learned from various marketplace projects.
If you haven’t raised a significant amount of money, you’re much better off choosing a complete, off-the-shelf marketplace solution like Vendo, as recommended by someone experienced in invoicing for marketplace development efforts.
Back to the Macy’s marketplace case study
Macy’s, a renowned name in retail, has embarked on a significant digital transformation with the launch of a curated digital marketplace. This strategic move aims to enhance Macy’s position as a digitally led omnichannel retailer.
The marketplace is designed to substantially broaden Macy’s product range in existing categories and introduce new ones, leveraging the offerings of select third-party merchants on macys.com and bloomingdales.com.
Matt Baer, Macy’s Chief Digital and Customer Officer, highlights the marketplace platform as a key driver in the company’s Polaris strategy, aimed at fostering sustainable and profitable growth. Macy’s digital business is projected to generate $10 billion in sales by 2023, with the marketplace expected to contribute additional revenue beyond this target.
This platform is poised to allow Macy’s to expand its assortment with minimal incremental costs, providing customers with an even more diverse range of products to meet their varied needs.
To realize this vision, Macy’s has partnered with Mirakl, a leading enterprise marketplace technology provider. Mirakl’s expertise in marketplace growth and its dynamic platform capabilities are set to seamlessly integrate with Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s architectures. This collaboration will facilitate evolving strategies and provide top-tier seller tools, enabling sellers to effectively monitor, drive, and expand their businesses within Macy’s curated framework.
How to emulate Macy’s marketplace success?
If you’re aspiring for success akin to Macy’s, plan to open your marketplace swiftly, preferably in weeks instead of months. Examine the compatibility of your product offerings with your audience’s demands, and adapt your customer acquisition techniques based on tangible outcomes.
Hence, it’s wise to gauge the market’s potential before fully investing in its development.
Here’s what you’d be getting with a Vendo free trial:
- Book a marketplace demo call: We’ll set up your demo marketplace and populate it with products, so you could give it a try and start selling in 14 days
- Customize your Storefront: Use the drag & drop page builder or custom CSS
- Onboard Brands: Invite your brands or choose brands from our catalog
- Select Products: Curate products and collections manually or automate it
- Embed products: Make your content, newsletters, social media shoppable
- Get Paid: Get paid as soon as products are shipped by the brands
- End-to-end automation: brands sync, fulfillment, payouts, invoicing, taxes
When you’ve tried all that and it works, start thinking about building your own, custom-made marketplace project based on Spree Commerce. First, by decoupling the storefront and going headless with Vendo marketplace API, and later with your own backend, if you decide you really need it. Just lift and shift the storefront.
Nobody has to know what’s under the hood, right?
