Where to go vendor when Amazon is too tough: we come up with a marketplace for niche gadgets
Large online trading sites deservedly took their place in the sun, but working with them has several nuances. For example, Amazon, based on its marketing strategy, is focused primarily on attracting large sellers and manufacturers. And we, hamsters , what to do?
Signature is not needed in the picture, right?
Imagine a situation: you invented a regular electric bench, with which your team entered Kikstarter and successfully collected the necessary amount for the production of thousands of products. You sold out part of it immediately within the framework of the crowdfunding campaign, and part of it “stuck” on your hands. At this point, you are faced with the main problem of most enthusiasts and small manufacturers: you are too concerned about the idea of ​​finishing the development, moving from prototyping to making working devices, and do not really think about how you will sell it.
')
In fact, almost every second start-up or small enterprise falls into a vicious circle "before you sell something, you need to make it." This is a classic disease of any small business, which ultimately leads to bankruptcy and cessation of activities. Of course, a sensible sales director can save you from such gestures, who will prepare all the necessary “airfields”, which your product will “parachute” as a result, but more often it goes completely differently. Having invested a lot of time, effort and sometimes money, having fulfilled obligations to investors, you are left with a party of useless devices, in which the profit of the whole enterprise lies a dead weight. In this situation, a small part of manufacturers launch their own retail sites on the basis of their site, and all the rest go to Amazon or other large players.
And here the most unpleasant begins.
Any large retailer earns at the expense of large sales, rather than on specific positions, as evidenced by reports from Amazon , for example, whose profit grows in proportion to sales. All other trading platforms, including those on the Web, are also focused on increasing turnover, which leads to maximum unification and imposition of a number of restrictions on manufacturers and suppliers.
Let's talk about Amazon, as a more obvious way of selling our electro-brooms. The sales system for this site is based on several key aspects. The first is a detailed description of the products in a fairly rigid and regulated form. The second - on the position of the product affects the number of positive reviews about it. Third, prime users and subscribers of Prime receive a different sample of goods (thanks to this and other marketing tricks, Amazon's turnover in money terms in 2015 amounted to $ 107 billion, and in 2016 - $ 135.98 billion ).
And if you can cope with the first requirement of the trading giant, tritely looking at other vendors, the second and third points create tangible problems. If you are engaged in short-run production and your turnover is several thousand devices per year (at best), that is, the product is niche - you have serious problems. On Amazon, as, indeed, on any other similar sites, there is a rating system based on the quantity and quality of positive feedback from real users. The minimum required number of positive product reviews in the case of the American site is 25 pieces. Without this number of reviews, your product will not be displayed in the search results, and it will need to be promoted by means of the site in the form of banner advertising or attract traffic from outside. The approach with advertising on Amazon or the Web is justified if it is a question of a serial product, which is planned to be sold for a long time and in large volumes. Then you can arrange an advertising campaign, attract the media, place ads on Google.
In the case of a small batch of a unique product, such an advertising campaign will finally consume the sales profit or drive the beginning producer to the debt trap.
Of course, there is always the option to “dump” a product at a price close to the cost price, to some large retailer that has its own sales network. However, this brings us back to the issue of profit and further growth, since in this case, the manufacturer will need to go to some more meaningful volumes than a few hundred devices per month.
Agree, a well-known brand does not always mean high quality of the final product, and offers on the market do not always satisfy the needs of a particular category of consumers. If 9 out of 10 consumers are satisfied with the functions of a certain conditional product, then a large manufacturer will not bother with piece production for the last, tenth. For the manufacturer it is unprofitable.
This niche could be occupied by small enterprises, which would be enough for a tenth of the “pie” of consumers. But it all depends on the sales markets: in order to ensure the survival of small industries, whose products are not widely known to a wide audience, they must be freely sold or promoted by the retailer. But, other things being equal, it is more interesting for large retailers to sell hundreds of thousands of well-known brands of smartphones than a hundred conditional electro-brooms.
We were faced with the situation described above, when we were engaged in deliveries, and later on production, of children's PlayPad tablets . The inaccessibility of classic sites and markets for small producers creates a paradoxical situation: there is a demand for some specialized product, there is the product itself. But the manufacturer and the buyer simply can not meet, because the latter does not know about the fact of the existence of the first.
Of course, the main sticks in the wheels of sales of small-scale products are inserted by the sites themselves and the existing doctrine of network e-commerce. The rules of placement and trade were written for them by major manufacturers and suppliers, however, they also apply to small market players. As a result, the whole mechanism of the work of modern online retail causes a stifling effect for those who are not ready to invest hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars in marketing and promotion.
We already have experience alternative to large Amazon-level internet sites. We are talking about your own website and building a personal sales channel. However, with the growth of production and market share, we came to the classical scheme of cooperation with a large offline retailer in the face of M-VIDEO.
This experience cannot be called uniquely traumatic, but it is worth understanding that in this “dance” the role of the leader is assigned exclusively to the trading network. We could only agree or disagree on the working conditions offered to us.
That is why the idea of ​​creating a trading platform , which would be a real intermediary between the manufacturer and the buyer, was born, and not a pseudo-platform, which is now Aliexpress, Amazon, E-Bay, everything else. Why are we talking about the pseudo-site? Let's just say, it's silly to deny that all the above resources and the companies behind them primarily pursue their own interests in growth and profit. Sometimes these interests coincide with the interests of sellers and manufacturers, and sometimes not. It is this dictatorship of the site for which we intend to eliminate.
What is the Hamster Marketplace ? We took the popular idea of ​​decentralization and self-government by the community through the blockchain mechanisms. In most aspects, the site copies the well-established business processes of the same Amazon, with one big exception: it will be managed not by the conditional board of directors of Amazon or Jeff Bezos, but by the sellers and producers of goods themselves. Thus, we want to achieve self-management when decisions made by the site will reflect the needs of the real majority of sellers, and not several manufacturers-giants.
Here are the basic principles of the Hamster Marketplace:
If the world is ripe for collective financing of small projects, then probably the time has come for a collectively managed trading platform.
Looking at our site with a fresh look, we suddenly realized that it was somehow completely about money. Charges are important, of course, but we also really need community feedback. Next week, we will still add a separate page for the vendors and sympathizers to our site - for now let's get acquainted in the comments. Do you need such a playground? How it should be arranged, on what conditions to work - share opinions, doubts and suggestions.
Signature is not needed in the picture, right?
Imagine a situation: you invented a regular electric bench, with which your team entered Kikstarter and successfully collected the necessary amount for the production of thousands of products. You sold out part of it immediately within the framework of the crowdfunding campaign, and part of it “stuck” on your hands. At this point, you are faced with the main problem of most enthusiasts and small manufacturers: you are too concerned about the idea of ​​finishing the development, moving from prototyping to making working devices, and do not really think about how you will sell it.
')
In fact, almost every second start-up or small enterprise falls into a vicious circle "before you sell something, you need to make it." This is a classic disease of any small business, which ultimately leads to bankruptcy and cessation of activities. Of course, a sensible sales director can save you from such gestures, who will prepare all the necessary “airfields”, which your product will “parachute” as a result, but more often it goes completely differently. Having invested a lot of time, effort and sometimes money, having fulfilled obligations to investors, you are left with a party of useless devices, in which the profit of the whole enterprise lies a dead weight. In this situation, a small part of manufacturers launch their own retail sites on the basis of their site, and all the rest go to Amazon or other large players.
And here the most unpleasant begins.
Hard to be small
Any large retailer earns at the expense of large sales, rather than on specific positions, as evidenced by reports from Amazon , for example, whose profit grows in proportion to sales. All other trading platforms, including those on the Web, are also focused on increasing turnover, which leads to maximum unification and imposition of a number of restrictions on manufacturers and suppliers.
Let's talk about Amazon, as a more obvious way of selling our electro-brooms. The sales system for this site is based on several key aspects. The first is a detailed description of the products in a fairly rigid and regulated form. The second - on the position of the product affects the number of positive reviews about it. Third, prime users and subscribers of Prime receive a different sample of goods (thanks to this and other marketing tricks, Amazon's turnover in money terms in 2015 amounted to $ 107 billion, and in 2016 - $ 135.98 billion ).
And if you can cope with the first requirement of the trading giant, tritely looking at other vendors, the second and third points create tangible problems. If you are engaged in short-run production and your turnover is several thousand devices per year (at best), that is, the product is niche - you have serious problems. On Amazon, as, indeed, on any other similar sites, there is a rating system based on the quantity and quality of positive feedback from real users. The minimum required number of positive product reviews in the case of the American site is 25 pieces. Without this number of reviews, your product will not be displayed in the search results, and it will need to be promoted by means of the site in the form of banner advertising or attract traffic from outside. The approach with advertising on Amazon or the Web is justified if it is a question of a serial product, which is planned to be sold for a long time and in large volumes. Then you can arrange an advertising campaign, attract the media, place ads on Google.
In the case of a small batch of a unique product, such an advertising campaign will finally consume the sales profit or drive the beginning producer to the debt trap.
Of course, there is always the option to “dump” a product at a price close to the cost price, to some large retailer that has its own sales network. However, this brings us back to the issue of profit and further growth, since in this case, the manufacturer will need to go to some more meaningful volumes than a few hundred devices per month.
The problem is not in the manufacturers, but in the sellers
Agree, a well-known brand does not always mean high quality of the final product, and offers on the market do not always satisfy the needs of a particular category of consumers. If 9 out of 10 consumers are satisfied with the functions of a certain conditional product, then a large manufacturer will not bother with piece production for the last, tenth. For the manufacturer it is unprofitable.
This niche could be occupied by small enterprises, which would be enough for a tenth of the “pie” of consumers. But it all depends on the sales markets: in order to ensure the survival of small industries, whose products are not widely known to a wide audience, they must be freely sold or promoted by the retailer. But, other things being equal, it is more interesting for large retailers to sell hundreds of thousands of well-known brands of smartphones than a hundred conditional electro-brooms.
We were faced with the situation described above, when we were engaged in deliveries, and later on production, of children's PlayPad tablets . The inaccessibility of classic sites and markets for small producers creates a paradoxical situation: there is a demand for some specialized product, there is the product itself. But the manufacturer and the buyer simply can not meet, because the latter does not know about the fact of the existence of the first.
Of course, the main sticks in the wheels of sales of small-scale products are inserted by the sites themselves and the existing doctrine of network e-commerce. The rules of placement and trade were written for them by major manufacturers and suppliers, however, they also apply to small market players. As a result, the whole mechanism of the work of modern online retail causes a stifling effect for those who are not ready to invest hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars in marketing and promotion.
Why did we come up with Hamster Marketplace
We already have experience alternative to large Amazon-level internet sites. We are talking about your own website and building a personal sales channel. However, with the growth of production and market share, we came to the classical scheme of cooperation with a large offline retailer in the face of M-VIDEO.
This experience cannot be called uniquely traumatic, but it is worth understanding that in this “dance” the role of the leader is assigned exclusively to the trading network. We could only agree or disagree on the working conditions offered to us.
That is why the idea of ​​creating a trading platform , which would be a real intermediary between the manufacturer and the buyer, was born, and not a pseudo-platform, which is now Aliexpress, Amazon, E-Bay, everything else. Why are we talking about the pseudo-site? Let's just say, it's silly to deny that all the above resources and the companies behind them primarily pursue their own interests in growth and profit. Sometimes these interests coincide with the interests of sellers and manufacturers, and sometimes not. It is this dictatorship of the site for which we intend to eliminate.
What is the Hamster Marketplace ? We took the popular idea of ​​decentralization and self-government by the community through the blockchain mechanisms. In most aspects, the site copies the well-established business processes of the same Amazon, with one big exception: it will be managed not by the conditional board of directors of Amazon or Jeff Bezos, but by the sellers and producers of goods themselves. Thus, we want to achieve self-management when decisions made by the site will reflect the needs of the real majority of sellers, and not several manufacturers-giants.
Here are the basic principles of the Hamster Marketplace:
- Hamster Marketplace does not aim to make a profit;
- Hamster Marketplace is managed directly by participants with the “Manufacturer” status using HMST marketplace tokens;
- The development and operation of the site is carried out on the basis of the budget adopted by blockchain voting by the owners of HMST tokens with the “Manufacturer” status;
- Budget expenses of the site are transparent and fixed in the blockchain.
If the world is ripe for collective financing of small projects, then probably the time has come for a collectively managed trading platform.
Indie electronics engineers and DIY artists from all countries, unite!
Looking at our site with a fresh look, we suddenly realized that it was somehow completely about money. Charges are important, of course, but we also really need community feedback. Next week, we will still add a separate page for the vendors and sympathizers to our site - for now let's get acquainted in the comments. Do you need such a playground? How it should be arranged, on what conditions to work - share opinions, doubts and suggestions.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/337962/
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