Marketplaces Key to Ecommerce Platform’s Growth Strategy
London, 1 September 2015, Spreadshirt, the ecommerce site which makes it easy to spread, share and sell ideas on merchandising, has opened an online store on Rakuten USA. The global marketplace is the third largest internet retailer in the world.
Spreadshirt CEO, Philip Rooke, explains, “Marketplaces are often the starting point for ecommerce, with people searching on their favourite shopping sites, rather than search engines, for the sort of products our partners sell. So expanding our presence on marketplaces is a key part of our growth strategy and more marketplaces will follow as we become a billion dollar, game-changing business.”
A presence on external marketplaces like Rakuten increase the visibility of Spreadshirt partner products and give users different routes to market. Some of the initial products, including a No Humans Before Coffee t-shirt can be seen on the site already.
Spreadshirt is now active in seven external marketplaces, in addition to Rakuten USA, Spreadshirt products are available on: Amazon UK, US, Germany and France, plus eBay in the US and Germany. A recent Tech Trader survey revealed that 38.2% of respondents started their search an online marketplace, which were the most popular amongst the under 35s.
Tino Liebich, Head of External Marketplaces at Spreadshirt adds, “This is a learning process for us as well. We note that the individual marketplaces have different orientations and address different audiences. To meet the needs of customers and the demands of the marketplace operator Rakuten.com, we initially start with a small, selected product offer. This assortment will be expanded successively.”
Rakuten offers more than 17 million products to more than 18 million customers on its USA platform.