Maisonette marketplace case study: book a demo to start yours
Maisonette is an online marketplace that provides a carefully selected selection of premium toys, home décor, and apparel for kids. If you’d like to start your own marketplace like Maisonette, 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 the feature-rich Enterprise Edition cutting your time-to-market to a few weeks.
Build vs Buy a marketplace?
The benefits of using open-source are numerous, including complete control and the ability to customize freely. However, these perks come with significant expenses. Crafting a complete marketplace solution is a lengthy and costly process, often spanning months or even years. This is a lesson we’ve drawn from various marketplace projects.
Unless you’ve secured a hefty amount of funding, opting for a pre-built, comprehensive marketplace solution like Vendo is a wiser choice. That’s coming from someone who has been billing clients for marketplace development for years.
Back to the Maisonette marketplace case study
Maisonette, a rapidly evolving online marketplace, has carved out a unique niche in the children’s products sector. Founded in 2017 by two mothers, Sylvana Ward Durrett and Luisana Mendoza de Roccia, Maisonette has emerged as a comprehensive platform offering a curated assortment of children’s products. With more than 1,000 global brands under its umbrella, Maisonette caters to a wide range of categories, including stylish clothing, innovative toys, top gear, and home décor.
The company operates on a multi-vendor marketplace model, effectively bypassing the need for inventory management. This asset-light strategy has enabled Maisonette to quickly scale up and respond to market demands without the burden of maintaining physical stock. Maisonette’s website stands out with its user-friendly design, blending pastel colors and easy navigation, appealing primarily to modern parents. The platform aggregates approximately 170 vendors, presenting products from both well-known brands and smaller boutiques.
Financially, Maisonette has shown impressive growth, having raised over $50 million in funding. This includes a $30 million Series B funding round aimed at technology development, international expansion, and the launch of their own label, Maison Me. The company has experienced a significant uptick in growth, with a 74% year-over-year growth rate and a 20% increase in average order value, driven by the efficient use of automation tools provided by Cymbio.
Maisonette’s success can be attributed to its unique business model, diverse product range, user-centric website design, and effective use of funding for expansion and technological advancements. This case study underscores the potential of niche marketplaces in the e-commerce sector, particularly those that effectively leverage technology and understand the needs of their target audience
How to emulate Maisonette marketplace success?
To somewhat follow the path of Maisonette’s success, think about starting your marketplace in a few weeks rather than several months. Evaluate how well your product catalog approach aligns with what your customers want. Adjust how you attract customers based on actual outcomes. Try out the market before you commit to creating it on your own.
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?
