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AWS Marketplace customer success stories

Customers use AWS Marketplace to easily find, test, buy, and deploy software on AWS. Discover what customers are doing with AWS Marketplace today.

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Jollibee Group Reduces Costs by 30% Using AWS Marketplace

When it comes to big business operations, the DIY approach to technology doesn’t always cut it.

Jollibee Group is a global business with a small cloud team of five people worldwide. To achieve its business goals and drive growth through a successful digital transformation, it needed the expertise and services of an experienced managed services partner.

The company turned to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and eCloudvalley (ECV), an AWS Marketplace Skilled Channel Partner , to get more out of AWS Marketplace —where customers can find, test, buy, and deploy software that runs on AWS. By partnering with ECV, Jollibee Group reduced costs as well as accelerated and optimized its digital transformation beyond what it could have accomplished alone. Read more>>

"When working with an AWS Partner like ECV, we get the benefit of its expertise and relationship with AWS.”

Ella Salonga, Senior Manager for Business Technology, Jollibee Group

With AWS Marketplace, easyJet Accelerates Innovation and Elevates Customer Experience

easyJet’s new data platform supports multiple business functions, including passenger bookings and internal personnel scheduling. Built on the scalable and reliable infrastructure of Amazon Web Services (AWS), easyJet can handle spikes in customer traffic, such as the more than 900,000 bookings per hour it might see during peak seasons.

This digital transformation also enabled easyJet to launch new products and services faster. Previously, easyJet worked with multiple ISVs to procure new software, including Cisco , Databricks , and Splunk . Managing different billing cycles with different suppliers was labor intensive—and not conducive for quick experiments and faster implementations, which are the runways for IT innovation.

As the moment approached to renew with one existing service provider, easyJet took the opportunity to leverage the same solutions—but in AWS Marketplac e, where it could take advantage of SaaS free trials, flexible billing cycles, exclusive cost savings, and customizable solutions, terms, and pricing from preferred vendors. Read more >>

"AWS Marketplace lets us simplify the management of all of our contracts, so rather than having multiple smaller contracts with as many organizations, we've got one central AWS bill that we put everything through.”

Simon Challis, Senior Technology Manager, easyJet

Streamlining Real-World Data Extraction and Analysis by 70% Using AWS Data Exchange with Moderna

Biotechnology company Moderna is creating a new generation of transformative medicine using mRNA technology. To power its intense workflows, the company needed to make its processes for ingesting, analyzing, and storing massive scientific datasets faster and more efficient.

Moderna standardized its complete real-world data strategy with AWS Data Exchange on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Additionally, Moderna is using several AWS services alongside solutions from AWS Marketplace , a curated digital catalog that makes it easy to discover, procure, entitle, provision, and govern third-party data, software, and services to streamline data procurement. Read more>>

"We have accelerated the data acquisition process from 8–10 days to only 3 days using AWS Data Exchange. We’re empowering users to make more informed, data-driven decisions.”

Carlos Peralta, Director of Data Engineering, Moderna

Jaguar Accelerates Procurement and Innovation with AWS Marketplace Channel Partner Private Offers

Jaguar is an iconic luxury vehicle brand of Jaguar Land Rover Limited. Headquartered in Coventry, England, Jaguar continues to transform and innovate to deliver a luxury and world-class experience for car buyers. This innovation requires the ability to rapidly prototype future car buyer experiences without getting locked into capabilities not yet in place. To help accelerate this innovation, the company chose the no-code Composable Architecture Platform from TomorrowX , allowing Jaguar to quickly and securely deploy customized solutions, reuse existing code, and automate documentation with transparency.

Now, Jaguar is able to move even more quickly by procuring this and other third-party software solutions through Softcat PLC in AWS Marketplace. By leveraging the procurement expertise of Softcat PLC with the custom pricing and terms available through AWS Marketplace Channel Partner Private Offers , Jaguar is able to purchase and deploy solutions more quickly, allowing the heritage car brand to continue to innovate to deliver a world-class client experience.

“The security governance of AWS Marketplace provides us with peace of mind. These security governance benefits of AWS Marketplace coupled with the procurement expertise of Softcat PLC, resulted in the fastest quote to purchase order cycle I have seen in any company.“

Max McCormick, Luxury Services & Experiences Product Manager, Jaguar Land Rover

Better Together: Total Expert Increases Efficiency and Gains Momentum Using AWS Marketplace

Total Expert , the customer engagement platform purpose-built for modern financial institutions recognized the need to be nimble as it sought to reach new markets. It has made AWS Marketplace an integral part of its overall business strategy—as an Amazon Web Services (AWS) customer and Independent Software Seller (ISV). Building on AWS helps Total Expert to achieve faster procurement and internal process alignment while creating a new growth channel. Read more>>

CSS Centralizes Procurement and Passes Efficiencies to Its Customers Using AWS Marketplace

Common Securitization Solutions (CSS) supports a majority of US mortgage securities in the highly regulated secondary mortgage market industry. The securitization platform that CSS runs was already on Amazon Web Services (AWS) when the company decided to insource all its business functions, including procurement, to minimize risk and optimize costs. In AWS Marketplace, CSS found those benefits and more—even reducing the complexity of procuring third-party solutions. Read more>>

Tufts Medicine Turns to AWS Marketplace for Agile Solutions that Accelerate Healthcare Innovation

Across the Tufts Medicine health system, machines that help save lives are everywhere. Supported by the cloud, IT systems behind this medical technology achieve greater levels of fault tolerance and availability. And for any unforeseen challenge or long-term strategy not already served by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Tufts Medicine has an abundant resource—AWS Marketplace. There, fast access to thousands of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions helps simplify and accelerate software procurement, so Tufts Medicine can strengthen how it delivers patient services and significantly reduce costs. Read more>>

Technology that Delivers: iFood and Appoena Gain Agility Using AWS Marketplace

Brazil-based online food delivery service, iFood , is challenged to meet changing market demands while managing growth. Critical to that effort was the consolidation of its observability toolkit. iFood asked Appoena, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner with expertise in Datadog implementations and migrations, to use AWS Marketplace to procure and deploy the software on its AWS environment. Migrating to the new solution would help the company to consolidate multiple observability tools into one, giving it seamless visibility across the data infrastructure. Datadog is one of several independent software vendor (ISV) solutions iFood has transacted through AWS Marketplace. That list continues to grow as the benefits of a simplified approach to procurement, management, and reporting have begun to pay dividends. Read more>>

Naranja X Modernizes Financial Services More Efficiently with SaaS Solutions in AWS Marketplace

Naranja X is a FinTech enterprise modernizing banking and credit card services for nearly 5 million customers across Argentina. The company migrated to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to connect customers with more convenient products, services, and benefits that support financial health.

Providing excellent service to millions of customers across more than 180 bank branches and a mobile app does not happen in a single transaction, especially as Naranja X continues along its journey to become a digital banking ecosystem. IT teams rely on quick, cloud-native improvements to support a seamless, cross-channel customer experience and optimize evolving business processes.

But Naranja X teams can’t always do it alone. Working with independent software vendors (ISVs) to deploy ready made software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions can enable Naranja X developers to build and solve at speed. But managers must also protect against accelerating costs or security risks.

When leaders at Naranja X procure in AWS Marketplace, they have access to thousands of third-party cloud solutions that can be deployed almost instantly with little to no upfront commitment and are supported by powerful cost-control tools. And Naranja X doesn’t have to leave any preferred ISVs behind. Read more>>

Tide is Increasing Innovation Through Data-driven Business Decisions Built on AWS Machine Learning

Tide is the leading business financial platform in the UK. Tide helps SMEs save time (and money) in the running of their businesses by not only offering business accounts and related banking services, but also a comprehensive set of highly usable administrative solutions. Tide has around 500,000 SME members in the UK (more than 9% market share).

To leverage the advantages of cloud-based data infrastructure - such as scalability, administration, security, and ease of use for its various stakeholders - Tide has begun migrating its data operations to Amazon Web Services (AWS) over the last few years.

During the assembly of building blocks for its machine learning (ML) and data warehouse platform, Tide relied on various solutions procured from the AWS Marketplace including Snowflake , Tecton , Databricks , and Fiddler AI . By using quick payment methods and maintaining them in one central location, they can stay focused on rapidly generating new business insights. Additionally, the use of standardized contracts shortens the procurement cycle by saving weeks of upfront negotiation time. Essential features such as standardized contracts, quick payment methods, centralised contract management, and machine learning models are made more reliable and efficient with solutions from the AWS Marketplace.

“Since adopting solutions from the AWS Marketplace, the time it takes to import new data sources has been reduced from multiple days to just hours, plus our experimentation time has been reduced from weeks to a few days.”

Chanchal Singh, Head of Data Engineering, Tide

Genius Sports Finds Key Players in the AWS Marketplace to Improve Observability and Centralize Operations

Genius Sports is a London-headquartered sports technology company that provides innovative solutions for sports teams, betting operators, and media brands to help them leverage their data. Its products and services give opportunities for broadcasters, streaming platforms, or rights holders to monetize official data and video and create immersive digital experiences for fans.

Since it handles an extremely large amount of data, Genius Sports utilizes AWS and AWS Marketplace solutions to power its mission for a more sustainable sports data ecosystem. When Genius Sports wanted to increase its cloud observability and reporting, it procured services from Sophos , Splunk , CrowdStrike , and Auth0 through the AWS Marketplace private offers program, enabling it to achieve cost savings with a single AWS bill and centralized management as well.

“Going through AWS Marketplace to procure software solutions has been a straightforward task, with no fuss and no additional paperwork. It’s a clean and simple experience.”

Kristian Belov, Head of IT Service Management, Genius Sports

The DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga Accelerates Adoption of Cloud Technologies with AWS Marketplace

The DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga , also known simply as the DFL, has been responsible for the organization and marketing of German professional football since 2000. In 2020, the DFL announced AWS as an official technology provider for the league, heralding innovation in statistics, data analytics, and personalized offerings. AWS Marketplace plays a role in this innovation, enabling the DFL to accelerate the adoption of new cloud technologies that integrate with its technology stack. For example, the DFL was able to use AWS Marketplace to quickly procure an identity and access management solution that supports deeper customer segmentation and more than 50,000 weekly logins. Additionally, through AWS Marketplace’s private offers purchasing program, the DFL receives cost-saving licensing terms tailored to its unique needs.

“AWS Marketplace offers an intuitive and unified billing process across vendors. As a result, we save with procurement efficiencies.”

Moritz Mücke, Head of Digital Innovations, DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga

GBM Gains Reliability with an AWS Marketplace First Approach

Grupo Bursátil Mexicano (GBM) provides financial products and services for corporations, institutions, and investment firms. GBM wanted to strengthen the reliability of its backend system infrastructure and, through AWS Marketplace, discovered several innovative solutions that had not previously been on its radar. The company now manages 16 solutions (and counting) in AWS Marketplace and sees benefits beyond strengthened system reliability. These benefits include a 30 percent average savings across all AWS Marketplace procurements and a dramatic drop in product support resolution times. Read more>>

Sony Streamlines Security Solution Purchasing with Private Marketplace

Sony Corporation of America , located in New York, NY, is the U.S. headquarters of Sony Group Corporation, based in Tokyo, Japan. Sony's principal U.S. businesses include electronics, gaming, movies, and music. Sony was looking to make software and services more easily available to its staff. The company wanted employees to have the freedom to quickly adapt as needs changed.

With most of its needs focused around security and third-party monitoring, Sony had been working with Trend Micro , a global cybersecurity leader. The company moved purchasing of Trend Micro’s solutions from a purchase order process to an AWS Marketplace Private Marketplace , a customized, private catalog of approved products available in AWS Marketplace. By doing so, it reduced the time for users to procure approved software from 60 days to a few minutes.

“Turning to AWS Marketplace for the purchasing of Trend Micro’s solutions let us connect our AWS and Trend Micro bills to understand how the two were related. It helped us reduce procurement time on approved software from 60 days to a few minutes and made our billing and chargeback process much easier. We are now able to provide straightforward access to software in the cloud for our employees, streamlining the procurement process while still maintaining control. With Trend Micro solutions, we have improved our overall security stance as well as established an improved process for quickly and securely getting products into the cloud.”

--David Hofmann, Senior Business Manager, Sony Corporation of America

Formula 1 Increases Social Media Video Views by 245 Percent Using Grabyo

Headquartered in London, Formula 1 organizes international auto racing competitions. The company’s operations cover a wide range of disciplines and industry sectors to bring the excitement of Formula 1 to fans worldwide. To improve its social and digital workflows and distribute video highlights faster on race days, Formula 1 purchased Grabyo through a private offer in AWS Marketplace. Grabyo is a cloud video production platform that enables Formula 1 team members to collaboratively access live feeds and quickly publish highlight clips to social media. Since implementing Grabyo, the company has grown its video output by 40 percent and almost tripled the number of views its videos receive.

“Our video output has grown from 5,000 to more than 7,000 videos per year, and video views have moved from 1.8 to 4.4 billion – in no small part due to the more timely delivery and ease of access and editing afforded us by Grabyo.” --Sam Tremayne, Editor in Chief, Social, and Digital, Formula 1

OneCup AI Builds Livestock Recognition and Monitoring Platform with NVIDIA

OneCup AI provides Bovine Expert Tracking and Surveillance (BETSY), an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered, facial recognition, tracking, and surveillance platform for the ranching industry. By layering AWS services on top of NVIDIA’s solutions, OneCup AI was able to build, scale, and run hundreds of experiments. This allowed the company to create AIs that are simply fluid when it comes to processing video footage of animals. Read more>>

Beamable Achieves Business Goals and Passes Efficiencies to Customers with Tackle.io and CloudZero

Beamable provides a creator-centric platform for building live games. While looking to strengthen its relationship with AWS as both a customer and AWS Independent Software Vendor, Beamable turned to AWS Marketplace. The gaming company purchased CloudZero and Tackle.io from AWS Marketplace, solutions that allowed Beamable to optimize its AWS cloud costs and accelerate the launch of its own AWS Marketplace listing. Beamable accomplished these critical tasks nine months faster than if it had built the solutions internally and gained procurement efficiencies in the process, including streamlined purchasing, onboarding, and billing. Read more>>

Rapid Radiology Drives Growth with Native PACS  on AWS with Emergent Connect

Rapid Radiology , one of the leading tele-radiology firms in the USA, has experienced steady growth over the last several years and throughout the pandemic. At the same time, many tele-radiology firms as well as most health care systems in regards to medical imaging have experienced downturns in volume and overall growth. One of the key reasons Rapid Radiology has been able to successfully navigate and thrive during this challenging time is the ability to be highly agile, specifically from a PACS and IT perspective. Rapid Radiology relies on a 100% native cloud PACS solution is available in AWS Marketplace from Emergent Connect to power its ability to be highly agile and in turn drive significant growth. Read more>>

Globe Telecom Drives Scalability and Visibility with AppDynamics on AWS

Globe Telecom (Globe) streamlined its procurement process and increased visibility and performance monitoring using solutions from AWS Advanced Partner AppDynamics and AWS Marketplace . The telecommunications company, which delivers data services in the Philippines, wanted to modernize its technology and scale operations. Globe saw an opportunity to optimize its solution on AppDynamics by purchasing it through AWS Marketplace. Globe is now running solutions for real user monitoring, analytics, and more—as well as migrating to an AppDynamics software-as-a-service solution on AWS. These innovations position Globe to further advance its monitoring, customer service, and business capabilities. Read more>>  

Moneytree Uses AWS Marketplace Private Offers for Cost and Resource Savings

Moneytree KK (Moneytree) achieved significant cost savings by using AWS Marketplace private offers. The cloud-native financial technology company had used AWS services from the start, but its payment relationships with other vendors were a burden on the company’s finance team. By integrating billing in AWS Marketplace, Moneytree streamlined its payment processes and achieved significant time and cost savings. Now, the company can focus its resources on engineering and product design. Read more>>

Inter Expands Fintech Services and Serves 13 Million Customers on AWS

As Brazil’s first fully digital bank, Banco Inter S.A. (Inter) grew its customer base from 400,000 to 13 million in three years by migrating its computing infrastructure to the cloud on AWS. Consequently, Inter needed to assess its technology stack and identify ways to improve the customer experience. In 2020, Inter explored software on AWS Marketplace, which led it to adapt New Relic One , Amazon EKS , and Amazon Rekognition . Using this software, Inter has synthesized its data, bolstered its computing infrastructure, and implemented facial recognition technology. As a result, the company holds a Net Promoter Score of 84 and has plans to expand internationally. Read more>>

Emedgene Simplifies Bioinformatics and Security Deployment with Illumina and CIS

Guesty Consolidates Solution Payments Using AWS Marketplace

Basepaws Accelerates Genomic Data Processing Tenfold with Illumina

Octopus Energy Fortifies Application Security and Streamlines Vendor Management with HackerOne

“We’ve reduced vendor onboarding and payment times from weeks to days, as we no longer have to manually consolidate emailed invoices.” --John Storey, Head of Platform Engineering, Octopus Energy

TIER Mobility AG Reduces Costs and Prices by Procuring Solutions in AWS Marketplace

TIER Mobility AG is a Berlin-based micro-mobility company that provides people with shared modes of electric transportation such as e-bikes, e-mopeds, and e-scooters. The company utilizes software as a service (SaaS) solution to support its mission of providing sustainable, accessible, and seamless mobility for everyone. TIER Mobility AG wanted to increase its observability, site reliability, and engineering and developer experience. In addition, TIER Mobility AG enlisted the help of AWS Marketplace to bundle billing and payment procedures and to procure cost-saving software solutions. The company purchased Datadog , PagerDuty , and CircleCI solutions in AWS Marketplace. The company uses Datadog to provide metrics and observability of cloud infrastructure, PagerDuty for alerts, and CircleCI to accelerate development cycles. “Utilizing solutions in AWS Marketplace allowed us to lower our products base rates due to gaining longer customer commitments.” --Daniel Ciaglia, Director of Engineering, TIER Mobility AG

PSI Technologies Helps Customers Gain Visibility of Asset Health Data with Urban.io

After establishing Urban.io ’s offerings in their company’s AWS Marketplace Private Marketplace , PSI Technologies chose this Asset Monitoring IIoT Datastream Subscription to tackle this challenge. In combination with AWS Internet of Things (AWS IoT), this solution helped PSI Technologies support its customers by monitoring assets remotely. Customers gained visibility of asset health data, reducing the cost of constantly deploying employees for inspections across numerous sites. PSI Technologies’ customers are now able to detect failure pre-conditions, lower resource under utilisation, and reduce safety risks associated with maintenance. “Our customers... are now able to detect failures before they happen, preventing damage and thousands of hours of associated production downtime. We are also seeing their onsite human inspection costs decreasing by 50 percent or more for certain asset classes. Customers are identifying wastage and under utilisation of assets, representing up to 30 percent of operational costs in buildings and offices. Lone worker health and safety risk exposure for remote asset maintenance is also decreasing by 70 percent or more.” --James Devereux, Managing Director, PSI Technologies

Permanent TSB Increases Loan Approval Rate with Experian’s Affordability Checks from AWS Marketplace

Permanent TSB is a provider of retail and small and mid-size enterprise banking in Ireland. The company wanted to enable a richer experience for customers on digital channels by accelerating its credit decision making. Permanent TSB’s innovation team began with an on-premises proof-of-concept using Experian ’s Categorisation as a Service (CaaS) private product. However, to achieve the processing needed for real-time decision making, the company needed to move to the cloud.

Permanent TSB used AWS Marketplace to procure the CaaS machine learning model via private offer and securely deployed it into its Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). CaaS' analytics helped Permanent TSB understand whether it needs to respond differently or change logic or inputs, thereby reducing additional information requests to customers.

iPipeline Easily Tracks Software and Services Renewals via AWS Marketplace

“I have found AWS Marketplace to be relatively easy to use and very convenient for storing and tracking renewals for basic software and services. A key benefit we’ve seen since using AWS Marketplace and Private Marketplace is the software being immediately available upon procurement.” --William Redmond, Global IT and Cloud Operations, iPipeline, Inc.

Samsung Accelerates Server Monitoring with Datadog

Samsung Electronics , the world’s second-largest IT company by revenue, is the flagship company of the Samsung conglomerate. It is the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones and a major manufacturer of numerous other electronics and electronic components. The company needed to increase the speed of its server monitoring, and it turned to AWS Marketplace for its ease of procurement and deployment. Where a contract used to take six weeks to negotiate with finance and legal, Samsung used a private offer in AWS Marketplace and was able to complete a purchase with Datadog in under three weeks. The Datadog solution enabled Samsung to accelerate the monitoring of its servers, improving operational visibility.

Aioi Nissay Dowa Reduces Approval Process by 18 Months with AWS Marketplace

DataBlend Streamlines SOC 2 Compliance through AWS Marketplace

adesso Upskills Employees with AWS Certifications Using A Cloud Guru

adesso is an IT service provider for German-speaking countries. adesso needed to build up its team’s cloud competency and prepare personnel for AWS certifications. The company turned to A Cloud Guru , whose recognized skills development platform delivered effective, hands-on, and comprehensive learning to adesso’s team. Initially purchasing directly from A Cloud Guru, adesso eventually moved to purchasing through AWS Marketplace to improve efficiency and consolidate billing.

Pymetrics Achieves Data, Security, and Sales Goals with AWS Marketplace

Pymetrics is a talent matching platform that leverages behavioral science and artificial intelligence (AI) to help enterprises build diverse teams of top performers and reduce bias. The company needed a quicker way to move and transform data, more secure employee access to company systems, and faster overall time to market. Pymetrics turned to a number of solutions in AWS Marketplace to help achieve its corporate goals quickly and seamlessly. It used Talend’s Stitch Data Loader to manage data more efficiently, and OpenVPN’s Access Server provided secure employee access to internal systems. In addition, LimeSurvey Certified by Bitnami helped to quickly collect customer job questionnaire data. Through private offers in AWS Marketplace, Pymetrics brought these software features to market faster, reduced procurement time, and accelerated customer onboarding with nearly 33 percent cost savings. “Our overall experience with AWS Marketplace has been fantastic. We decided to use Marketplace for procurement to take advantage of the cost savings, speed of purchase, and the expertise and network of our AWS account team.” --Mike DePuy, Head of Product and Engineering, Pymetrics

Ambra Health Automates Customer Invoicing through AWS Marketplace

Ambra Health is a medical data and image management cloud software company committed to improving imaging and collaborative care workflows in the healthcare industry. The company needed to simplify its contracting and invoicing process to save on costs and optimize workflows. By utilizing AWS Marketplace’s Private Marketplace , along with Standard Contract for AWS Marketplace , Ambra Health was able to streamline its software procurements. Switching from a complicated product and service ordering process to a simplified approach using AWS Marketplace cut procurement time in half.

“The use of one process for getting the contracts and invoices signed, paid, and fulfilled cuts our procurement time in half.” --Fima Furman, VP of Operations, Ambra Health

CircleCI is one of the world’s largest shared continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platforms and the central hub where code moves from idea to delivery. The CircleCI platform processes more than one million builds a day. The company has unique access to data on how engineering teams work and how their code runs. CircleCI wanted to simplify the administration of its vendors and accelerate the purchasing process. To meet this challenge, the company moved most of its software and services procurement to AWS Marketplace. CircleCI quickly realized benefits, including simplifying vendor payments, removing complexity from its internal procurement process, and reducing purchasing timelines from three weeks to one week. “ We decided to rely on AWS Marketplace as part of our procurement process. Our goal was to consolidate vendor management and contribute to the burn down of our spend commitment. We’ve started to move the larger vendors we work with over to AWS Marketplace as contracts come up for renewal. The process is simple and our support team at AWS Marketplace has been there to assist every step of the way. Our team has succeeded in streamlining vendor management .”— James Wagner, Director of Engineering, CircleCI

OneCup AI provides Bovine Expert Tracking and Surveillance (BETSY), an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered, facial recognition, tracking and surveillance platform for the ranching industry. A pipeline of interconnected AI models, BETSY monitors bovine health, activity, nutrition, and growth. Needing to scale production and save time, the company chose to procure software products from AWS Marketplace. AWS Marketplace, in conjunction with NVIDIA solutions, enabled OneCup to quickly create custom models and visual identification algorithm for each customer. Using AWS Marketplace and NVIDIA’s container solutions, OneCup reduced its model training time from hours – sometimes days – to 15 minutes . That reduction allowed OneCup to retrain its models daily at the customer level, providing the company with a “massive” competitive advantage. OneCup uses several NVIDIA products, including Deep Learning AMI , Transfer Learning Toolkit for Video Streaming Analytics , DeepStream SDK , and Triton Inference Server . “Using AWS Marketplace and NVIDIA's container solutions reduced our training time from several hours at best and days at worst down to 15 minutes, giving us a massive competitive advantage.” — Geoffrey Shmigelsky, Chief Technology Officer, OneCup AI

Genesys provides cloud-based customer experience and contact center solutions to mid-sized and large businesses. AWS Marketplace proved to be a standout option when Genesys needed to negotiate more favorable contracts and consolidate billing for application and infrastructure monitoring tools. Through AWS Marketplace and the Enterprise Discount Program (EDP), the company reduced its procurement cycle from days – sometimes weeks – to just hours, consolidated on a single AWS bill. This accelerated procurement became even more valuable when combined with AWS Marketplace private offers, which allow Genesys to negotiate directly with independent software vendors (ISVs). With private offers, Genesys retired 50 percent of its EDP commitment and simplified its billing with contracts tailored to its business needs . “ Using AWS Marketplace private offers, we secured better contracts for application and infrastructure monitoring solutions that met our technical and compliance requirements. The Enterprise Discount Program allowed us to save money and consolidate billing for these tools .”

The Globe and Mail is a Toronto-based news organization and one of Canada’s biggest outlets for national, international, and business news, available both online and in print. The company needed a payment card industry (PCI) compliant product to allow customers to safely enter credit card payments during agent assisted customer services on the phone. The Globe and Mail turned to Payshield’s Payline for Amazon Connect , which allows clients to enter payment details without customer agents seeing sensitive credit card data. Through a private offer in AWS Marketplace, The Globe and Mail was able to procure a service level agreement (SLA) based on customized pricing options. In addition, the implementation of agentless credit card payment processing has helped to improve PCI compliance and reduce risk across the organization. “ With easy integration via AWS Connect, Payshield has enabled us to increase the security of our card payment processing while cutting risk across the organization. It has been a win-win at every level .”— Susan Kelly, Managing Director, IT Infrastructure & Business Applications

With the goal of transforming the driving experience, Agero supports automotive manufacturers and insurance providers with software-enabled driver safety services and technology. Agero wanted to reduce the operational burden tied to software procurement and turned to AWS Marketplace in hopes of streamlining its software procurement process. The company increased its spend commitment in AWS Marketplace to obtain a greater discount percentage on its AWS Enterprise Discount Program (EDP). As a result, its EDP helps Agero achieve annual savings on a year over year basis. Additionally, with the use of the AWS Marketplace Management Portal, which provides a view into the flexible payment schedule for each product procured through the marketplace private offer program, the company has reduced monthly invoice review and approval time by 75% and realized greater visibility of cash flow. “ AWS Marketplace makes it easier to do business with our vendors in everything from simplifying our licensing to streamlining billing to accelerating procurements. This has alleviated a major operations burden and given us time back to focus on more innovative tasks. ”— Stephen Pearson, Head of IT Vendor Management, Agero

SiteKick is a technology company that uses 4D simulation, digital workflow management, site security, and real-time camera monitoring and progress to optimize construction site management and reporting. The company needed the You Only Look Once (YOLO) pre-trained model for real-time object and person recognition. SiteKick procured Apache MXNet ’s version of YOLO model in AWS Marketplace. Procuring and testing the model took only 15 minutes compared to a week of development effort to download and host the model on their own. “ Choosing Apache MXNet’s machine learning solution was really an easy decision. Onboarding the product was equally as seamless, so that everything from procurement to deployment to testing was smooth and straightforward. We basically just flipped the switch, and it was done. ” — Michael Shishkin, CTO, SiteKick

App Mastery provides businesses with strategy and technology consulting to accelerate digital transformation and improve customer experiences. To help its clients increase worker safety, App Mastery needed a machine learning (ML) model to detect personal protection equipment (PPE). Most solutions required upfront artificial intelligence (AI) training, making them both time and cost-prohibitive. Turning to AWS Marketplace, the company found VITech Lab ’s pre-trained, pay-as-you-go ML model for PPE non-compliance detection. App Mastery then configured and deployed the ML model in Amazon SageMaker with no prior experience in under ten minutes. Having saved over $80,000 with AWS Marketplace and VITech Lab’s solution, App Mastery now plans to convert other services to this procurement model. “ You don’t need to have previous ML experience to get started with AWS Marketplace and SageMaker. We're migrating from competitor's solutions because of SageMaker’s ease of use and interconnectivity. ”— Brinthan Yoganathan, Co-founder, App Mastery

RealAML is a New Zealand-based identity and biometric platform that provides global real-time identity checks and fully outsourced Anti Money Laundering (AML) checks. In need of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) templates for over 100 passport types, the startup knew that its speed to market hinged on the speed of its development process. To ensure the timely launch of its FaceMatch solution, RealAML procured GTRIIP’s Passport Data Page Detection API pre-trained machine learning model from AWS Marketplace, which is deployed in Amazon SageMaker. GTRIIP’s model eliminated the need for RealAML to develop the OCR templates for individual countries, saving the company an entire year in development time. AWS Marketplace also provided flexible pricing without minimum monthly commitments or setup costs, shoring up funds that RealAML reinvested into product development. “ Using the ML models from AWS Marketplace allowed us to develop the bulk of the technology in house and be more competitive with a lower price point than our competitors. GTRIIP helped us launch 12 months earlier than if we had built the templates ourselves .”— Jordan McCown, Managing Director, RealAML

Spireon, Inc. is a North American connected vehicle intelligence company, providing businesses and consumers with powerful insights to track, manage, and protect automobile assets. The company supports nearly four million subscribers across its suite of products for car dealers, financial institutions, rental car agencies, fleet operators, and consumers. Spireon wanted to ensure that it could efficiently evaluate, procure, and deploy AWS services to standardize its development practices and improve business outcomes. AWS Marketplace allows Spireon to manage a portfolio of vendors, including Snowflake , Harness , and MongoDB , and solve multiple business problems in one place. Learn more»

CloudCheckr Reduces Security Review Time with Cloud Storage Security

CloudCheckr is a cloud management solution that unifies IT, security, and finance teams by providing insights, automation, and governance. As an AWS Partner Network (APN) Advanced Technology Partner, maintaining security is critical for the company. CloudCheckr needed a solution to help secure external data ingested and stored within the Amazon S3 buckets for its platform. CloudCheckr chose Cloud Storage Security ’s real-time file scanning service for public cloud object storage. The service’s centralized dashboard allows CloudCheckr to reduce security review time from two days to one hour by displaying multiple application data sets in one place. Amazon S3’s flexible security features, along with centralized dashboards, assures CloudCheckr that data from outside sources is free from any threats. " Cloud Storage Security helps CloudCheckr reduce security reviews from two days to 60 minutes by actively scanning terabytes of data across multiple AWS accounts and presenting issues in a single dashboard that easily displays issues that we need to investigate ." - Bob Pease, Chief Architect, CloudCheckr

Paf Analyzes Data Logs in Minutes Instead of Days with Sumo Logic

Paf is an international gaming company founded on the Åland Islands. The company uses funds generated from online gaming to benefit the Åland community. When Paf needed a better way to analyze data logs from several applications, the company turned to AWS Marketplace and its vast array of independent software vendors. Paf chose Sumo Logic ’s cloud-native analytics platform to better understand all the metrics and logs collected. With this increased software visibility, Paf shifted its logging process from a central team that took days to fill a request to a self-service model that takes users a few minutes. Additionally, Sumo Logic’s prebuilt dashboards saved time and resources, increasing Paf’s time to insight. " With Sumo Logic, sizing up our log collection infrastructure is now done in minutes instead of days, compared to running it in-house, and no new physical infrastructure is required .” - Fredrik Wiklund, Head of IT Operations, Paf

GetYourGuide Reduces Time to Contract with AWS Marketplace Private Offers

GetYourGuide is a travel agency and online marketplace for tour guides, where travelers book professional tours and activities in major cities worldwide. When the company needed help migrating Spinnaker’s continuous delivery (CD) application management tool from on-premises servers to the AWS cloud, GetYourGuide turned to AWS Marketplace. Armory ’s Spinnaker All-in-One solution enabled GetYourGuide to seamlessly migrate to the cloud and receive consistent, streamlined updates with commercial support. AWS Marketplace’s private offer program and simplified purchase and setup reduced GetYourGuide’s time to contract from two months to two weeks and its internal approval process from weeks to days. " Using Spinnaker on AWS Marketplace rather than running it on-prem was a natural choice. AWS Marketplace applications integrate easily with our setup with less to configure and worry about ." - Alex Eftimie, Staff Software Engineer, GetYourGuide

Greenway Health Achieves Quick, Easy Partner Onboarding through AWS Marketplace

Greenway Health is a health information technology (HIT) company that provides electronic health records (EHR), practice management, and revenue cycle management solutions. Greenway needed to streamline its integrated health technology infrastructure and data management capabilities. AWS Marketplace was a natural choice for Greenway because it offers an easy way to find solutions preconfigured for AWS. To meet its corporate IT goals and boost its procurement process, Greenway chose MongoDB to provide a global cloud database and commercial platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution. It also turned to New Relic for its observability capabilities. Through these private offers in AWS Marketplace, Greenway is able to optimize its infrastructure and data management while streamlining the procurement process from seven days to just a few minutes. “AWS Marketplace not only makes it easy to find partners, but ones that are already pre-certified by our preferred cloud partner, AWS.” -  Shivaji Sarkar, Senior Director Architecture, Greenway Health

Cloudar Accelerates Software Procurement 30 percent with AWS Marketplace

Cloudar is an AWS Premier Consulting Partner that designs, builds, and operates highly available and scalable cloud infrastructures based on Amazon Web Services. The company needed a proper Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) platform to keep its cloud environments secure. In addition, Cloudar needed a more reliable way to check customer accounts for security best practices and major compliance frameworks. NetApp’s Cloud Volume Service provided a fully-managed cloud storage solution, while Trend Micro offered comprehensive data protection and cloud compliance. Through these private offers in AWS Marketplace, Cloudar is able to provide its customers with secure cloud and compliance solutions, faster software procurement, and easier payment options. "Thanks to our engagement with AWS Marketplace, we have accelerated our software procurements by 30 percent, increased our security posture, and simplified our billing process, reducing the number of vendors we interact with. One of the biggest benefits of AWS Marketplace is centralized billing for all our customers, so everyone has a clear view of what they’re paying for at all times.” - Tom De Blende, Managing Partner, Cloudar

Simple SEO Group Improves Speed of Insurance Verification with Change Healthcare API

Simple SEO Group is a design, development, and marketing agency that helps companies streamline operations through customized software solutions. The company needed a secure healthcare API solution that was Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant and could improve insurance verification for its healthcare clients. By procuring Change Healthcare’s insurance API in AWS Marketplace, Simple SEO Group was able to achieve its corporate goals. The API enabled the company to develop custom software solutions for medical professionals that reduced administrative headcount, saved money, and enhanced the patient experience. The tool was easy to deploy from AWS Marketplace and is one that Simple SEO Group expects to use for future integrations. “Change Healthcare’s Insurance Eligibility API automated the insurance verification process – reducing it from 30 minutes to 30 seconds or less.” -  Brendan Egan, Founder and CEO, Simple SEO Group

Baobab Reduces Production Time and Costs by Procuring through AWS Marketplace

Baobab Group is a digital financial inclusion company that focuses on serving individuals, micro-entrepreneurs, and small businesses in Africa and China. Initially purchasing solutions directly from independent software vendors, Baobab discovered several benefits to licensing software through AWS Marketplace. Not only was the company able to accelerate production from one week to four hours, but it also reduced its annual licensing cost by 12 percent. After the smooth and easy installation of Palo Alto Networks ’ firewall, the company plans on transitioning its procurement of Splunk’s solution through AWS Marketplace as well. “We were able to install the Palo Alto firewall software without the hassle of having to configure it ourselves. This reduced the time to put it into production from one week to four hours.” -  Gerald Patterson, Senior Cloud Engineer, Baobab Group

Compass Bioinformatics Improves NGS Analysis Speed and Reduces Costs with Illumina

Compass Bioinformatics provides next-generation sequencing (NGS) services for biotechnology, science research, and other life science organizations. The company sought to improve the speed and accuracy of its NGS data analysis. After evaluating various solutions with the assistance of its consulting partner, eCloudvalley , Compass Bioinformatics selected Illumina Dynamic Read Analysis for GENomics Complete Suite (DRAGEN CS). Compass Bioinformatics chose to procure DRAGEN CS via AWS Marketplace to gain more flexibility in building web applications and a more simplified integration with existing AWS services. As a result, Illumina enables Compass Bioinformatics to reduce the time to generate variant calling results by over 90 percent—from 16 hours to one hour. Additionally, on-demand pricing helped the company lower its costs compared to its previous platform. “We have seen a huge improvement in our NGS analysis with DRAGEN. Our previous computing platform took about 16 hours to generate results. Now, we only need about one hour for the same results.” -  Chenyu Chen, Co-founder and UI/UX Designer, Compass Bioinformatics

Digital Virgo Centralizes Contract Management with AWS Marketplace

Digital Virgo is a telecom payment, monetization, and digital marketing provider that needed a better way to manage its software and platform vendor contracts. By adopting several strategic solutions in AWS Marketplace, Digital Virgo was able to boost efficiencies and meet corporate goals. Snowflake provided data storage and data lake capabilities, castLabs ’ DRMtoday provided the gateway to protected digital content, and Unified Streaming managed the video transcoding. Fortinet ’s FortiGate provided the Virtual Private Network (VPN) for connecting to telco billing systems. Together, these solutions helped Digital Virgo better manage its direct contracts while enabling the company to retire 50 percent of its Enterprise Discount Program (EDP) commitment. “Thanks to our engagement with AWS, we were able to streamline our direct contracts management while adding 50% of our turnover to our EDP commitment.” - Julien Menard, Chief Technology Officer, Digital Virgo

Taplytics Selects Snowflake in AWS Marketplace to Scale Database Performance

Taplytics is a mobile A/B testing, push notification, and analytics platform that helps companies create personalized and engaging customer experiences. After rapidly growing to process data from billions of devices worldwide, the company sought a database solution that could help it continue to scale. Taplytics evaluated numerous products in AWS Marketplace and selected Snowflake for its blend of performance, industry adoption, and cost effectiveness. Taplytics quickly aligned on terms with a private offer from Snowflake and consolidated the cost of Snowflake onto its existing AWS bill, saving five percent on costs. With Snowflake and AWS Marketplace, Taplytics gained speed and efficiency in both its database performance and procurement process. “As our business grows, we seek to find performance increases wherever we can. The speed of Snowflake and ability to consolidate our billing with AWS Marketplace saved five percent on software costs and brought new ways to scale efficiently.” - Andrew Norris, COO, Taplytics 

FactSet Increases Engineering Proficiency with Customized Training from A Cloud Guru

As a provider of financial data and analytics, FactSet is used by bankers, hedge fund managers, and chief financial officers to provide insights into constantly shifting markets. After migrating its infrastructure to the cloud, FactSet turned to AWS Marketplace for a solution to address learning gaps and support AWS certification for its engineers. A Cloud Guru not only designed educational paths for the company’s teams, but also provides FactSet with ongoing training, support, and administration tools to track learning trends for over 70 engineers. Furthermore, AWS Marketplace private offers allowed FactSet to customize pricing, consolidate billing, and simplify its deployment of A Cloud Guru’s training platform, accelerating its transition to a cloud-first future. “A Cloud Guru is a very robust and content-rich platform. We’re able to understand patterns and trends and what courses are being taken. We see individuals evolving from taking basic classes to more advanced classes and we’ve seen a maturation on our teams with A Cloud Guru.” - Demetry Zilberg, Chief Technology Officer, FactSet

Tackle Slashes Software Procurement Time by 50% with AWS Marketplace

Tackle.io understands the importance of AWS Marketplace. As an AWS Marketplace seller, the startup helps onboard and optimize other independent software vendors (ISVs) to list products on the very same AWS Marketplace where Tackle procures software. When Tackle was working hard to meet deadlines around Security and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 compliance, the company turned to AWS Marketplace and Blackberry to procure its Cylance Endpoint solution. Within a few days, Tackle sourced and deployed the solution across its entire organization. For Tackle, Blackberry and AWS Marketplace validate the company’s entire business model by proving that cloud marketplaces provide superior sales, support, and implementation processes for all customers. “AWS Marketplace standard contracts have reduced the cycle time for deals by well over 50%. We no longer engage with legal teams either as a seller or a buyer. When we look for software to procure, we immediately filter by ‘AWS standard contract’— One of the largest time savers for procurement related to AWS Marketplace.” - Brian Denker, Founder and COO, Tackle

ActiveProspect Deploys Datadog Monitoring to Servers in Seconds Instead of Minutes

ActiveProspect is a marketing software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that provides lead optimization and compliance solutions for organizations engaging in online lead generation. Seeking to increase the reliability of its services, the company turned to Datadog in AWS Marketplace. Implementing Datadog provided ActiveProspect with a single platform that helped it identify, address, and stay ahead of problems with real-time alerting. Datadog’s 400+ integrations made it possible to deploy monitoring to new servers in seconds instead of minutes, keeping the company’s team focused on product innovation instead of configuration. With AWS Marketplace private offers and flexible payment scheduler, ActiveProspect procured Datadog with favorable contract terms to preserve cash flow. “ We’ve seen a lot of benefit in the short amount of time we’ve used Datadog. Every layer of their monitoring solution offers additional insight to help us stay ahead of issues. We are excited to see what else we can learn going forward. ” - Dean Daskalantonakis, Sr. DevOps Engineering Team Lead, ActiveProspect

Redsson Streamlines HIPAA Compliance and Policy Management with AWS Marketplace

Founded in 2001, Redsson helps companies maximize revenue through identity verification, returned mail processing, electronic billing, medical claims processing, and document management services. Redsson needed to ensure its healthcare applications adhere to all Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations. In 2019, Redsson decided to procure Dash in AWS Marketplace, allowing the company to triple its monthly application deployments and achieve 50 percent savings in engineering time. Dash also helped Redsson centralize its policy information while ensuring each scanned policy met all HIPAA standards. “ AWS Marketplace provides a quick and seamless way to deploy to the cloud, with the ability to purchase and launch a wide range of add-on tools easily and with pay-as-you-go options in many cases. ” - Jacob Parsell, CTO, Redsson

Holler Reduces Incident Resolution Time with Logz.io

Holler is a messaging technology company that enriches people's conversations by creating and delivering visual content that adds texture and emotion to messaging environments. Holler sought a managed Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana (ELK) provider that would enable its engineering resources to focus on product goals instead of in-house ELK management. Turning to Logz.io, Holler was able to increase observability and reduce incident mean time to resolution (MTTR) from weeks to minutes. By procuring through AWS Marketplace and using private offers, Holler reached a favorable agreement that included monthly billing on an annual contract. In addition, Holler streamlined its contracting process and spent less time in legal reviews by using standard contracts for AWS Marketplace solutions. " As a startup, we want to spend more time building our product rather than our own observability stack. Logz.io not only provides the ELK management we need, but also expertise we can rely on. ” - Daniel Seravalli, Lead Engineer, Holler Technologies, Inc.

Lightspeed Saves 15% in Costs by Procuring through AWS Marketplace

Lightspeed POS is an all-in-one, cloud-based point of sale (POS) system for retail, restaurant, and hospitality businesses. Through AWS Marketplace, Lightspeed POS can now oversee all of its infrastructure solutions in one convenient location. From identity management through Auth0 to performance monitoring from New Relic to Logz.io ’s log management, it has a single place to facilitate its infrastructure costs and invoices. This has enabled Lightspeed POS to cut purchase time, finalize deals with one click, and realize a 15% savings. “ Through our engagement with AWS, we were able to significantly reduce our customers’ purchase time, while also saving 15% off subscription costs. ”  - Didier Ernotte, Senior Director of Infrastructure, Platform, and Quality, Lightspeed POS

Vonage Releases New Features 2x Faster with Epsagon

Petplan Deploys New Software Faster with AWS Marketplace

Petplan is an insurance company that provides comprehensive insurance for pet owners to cover costly veterinary bills. Already building on AWS, the company purchased solutions from Talend and Snowflake to support its growing data management needs. With private offers, the company’s internal teams can centralize their requirements and approvals, avoiding time-consuming negotiations. To simplify Petplan’s accounts payable, the new products are added to its monthly bill rather than invoiced separately. For the implementation, Petplan deployed the AWS CloudFormation template for Talend Remote Engine and began using it within an hour of contract acceptance. “ The simplicity of using AWS Marketplace has made our lives a lot easier. Being able to purchase and deploy AWS CloudFormation templates in under 10 minutes helps our teams quickly get the tools and software they need. ” -  Adam Cortez, IT Infrastructure Manager, Petplan

Motion Auto Insurance Streamlines Time to New Software Adoption

Motion Auto Insurance strives to break through the traditional insurance pricing models that rate drivers based on location and credit score. The company’s smartphone app tracks driving behavior to help consumers save on insurance costs. Already an AWS customer, Motion Auto looked to AWS Marketplace for preconfigured software solutions to optimize its AWS cloud. By sourcing software from AWS Marketplace, Motion Auto found that it could reduce research and evaluation times for new acquisitions. Using AWS Marketplace reduced the time and effort required to adopt new software by 50% when compared to direct vendor sales. Additionally, Motion Auto gained flexibility in pricing and favorable contract terms through AWS Marketplace private offers. “ I am excited that AWS Marketplace looks for and houses all of these products. This gives me the support and confidence I need to make decisions on new tools and software. ” - Brooks Benson, VP of Internal Strategy, Motion Auto Insurance

Chrome River Saves Over $30,000 Per Month with AWS Marketplace

Cimpress Technology Accelerates Procurement through AWS Marketplace

Cimpress Technology, an Ireland-based conglomerate of businesses that design individually customized orders for a broad spectrum of print, signage, and apparel products, needed to simplify its procurement process as well as manage external partner commitments. AWS Marketplace solutions like Coupa’s procure-to-pay (P2P) enabled Cimpress to shorten its payment cycle and increase accountability. As AWS usage increased, Cimpress turned to private offers from New Relic, Sumo Logic, and CrowdStrike to procure enterprise security controls for its software partners. Because of AWS Marketplace, Cimpress has optimized its workflows significantly with easier procurement integration of products and services, faster payment cycles, and better transparency.  "Because of AWS Marketplace, Cimpress has been able to shorten procurement cycles of software and services needed to build solutions effectively in AWS by putting Marketplace’s expansive catalog directly in autonomous teams’ hands. This has shortened the time teams spend discovering and procuring solutions, and has produced faster payment cycles thanks to integration with AWS."  – Jeremy Potash, Director of Technology, Cimpress Technology

Siemens Energy Accelerates Application Development with metaphactory Knowledge Graph

iFeu Helps Customers Achieve Robust Backup and 60 Percent Reduction in Compliance Costs

i360 Relies on AWS Marketplace for Fast, Compliant Software Solutions

Founded in 2009, i360 sought to fill the innovation gap between political campaigns and organizations that promote free-market candidates. The company offers actionable insights on voter behavior using real-time analytics and predictive modeling. When i360 needed to consolidate its billing and more easily maintain compliance standards, the company turned to AWS Marketplace. Procuring software through AWS Marketplace allows i360 to find prepackaged solutions and have everything billed through a single source, creating less paperwork for the accounts payable team. AWS Marketplace and solutions like Qualys, CrowdStrike, and Patch Manager allow i360 to maintain its SOC 2 certification with ease. Purchasing on AWS Marketplace also makes deploying to AWS easier with little to no setup. " The greatest benefit is that it is easy to use. Our data services or infrastructure teams can browse AWS Marketplace and find preconfigured applications with licenses included. Orders require fewer touches to complete, and everything is on a single bill." - Ian Binder, Director of Infrastructure, i360

RebelMouse reduces costs by 25% with CloudZero private offer

The platform offers users distributed content strategies, editorial tools, and analytics to improve content creators’ marketing efforts across social sites. Relying on AWS services for scalability and security, RebelMouse needed to better monitor its AWS budget. When the company needed a faster turnaround for service pricing changes, it turned to AWS Marketplace to find a solution. CloudZero ’s real-time cost anomaly and waste detection tool enables companies to identify why a resource price has changed within minutes. This capability has allowed RebelMouse to optimize its systems and reduce AWS service costs by 25 percent. The software, procured via a seller private offer, has reduced analysis time for price changes on all AWS services from one day to one hour. " We’ve reduced overall costs on AWS services by 25 percent, and now we’re able to react to service changes within minutes." – Roman Manchenko, Chief Technology Officer, RebelMouse

Zalando simplifies data processes and procurement with AWS Marketplace

The company adopted Databricks in 2018 and Starburst in 2019 to optimize and simplify its data processes. Zalando chose to procure Databricks and Starburst from AWS Marketplace to streamline their supplier base by procuring several solutions from one supplier and getting unified payment terms. In addition to receiving a single bill for AWS Marketplace services, the company could apply 50 percent of the charges towards its annual volume commitment. Starburst has enabled data analysts to access and combine data from all data sources more efficiently, without the need for customized extract, transform, and load (ETL) pipelines to ingest data into a data warehouse first. Databricks helped Zalando increase overall productivity of its data engineers and analysts due to its large-scale data transformation capabilities. " With Databricks, we observed increased productivity in our data builder community, and appreciate the simpler payment experience of procuring this product through AWS Marketplace ." – Djordje Stevanovic, Director of Indirect Procurement, Zalando

Wag! turns data into actions with AWS Marketplace

AWS Marketplace private offers enable BankUnited to negotiate more favorable terms from software providers

BankUnited, an American financial services company, embraces cloud computing to provide both consumer and commercial banking services. The company depends on various cloud features, ranging from security tooling to Amazon Machine Images to maintain its agility. However, BankUnited needed flexible pricing to sustain its business model and procurement workflow. The ability to engage with independent software vendors, as well as integration with the bank’s accounts payable system, made AWS Marketplace the perfect solution. "BankUnited was looking for more flexible pricing and engagement terms than what was offered via the public marketplace. AWS Marketplace private offers provides a more mature procurement workflow and approval process than the point, click, purchase methodology of the public marketplace." – Michael Lehmbeck, Cloud Architecture and Operations Manager, BankUnited

OuiCar uses New Relic on AWS to decrease performance troubleshooting from hours to minutes

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Software AG Cuts Costs by 50% with Trend Micro

Software AG provides end-to-end software, platform, and infrastructure services to help enterprises execute their digital transformation strategies. To maintain its competitive edge and save costs, Software AG needed to secure its AWS infrastructure and move away from a perpetual license model. After evaluating vendor options, it turned to Trend Micro because of its mature suite of tools and pricing options available in AWS Marketplace. Trend Micro Deep Security offered Software AG the full range of infrastructure security capabilities from staging all the way down to production. Furthermore, by switching its licensing framework and procuring directly from AWS Marketplace, Software AG was able to realize 50% cost savings in well under a year. "We secure our systems with a single suite from Trend Micro. It not only secures us from malware but also prevents malicious behavior and delivers insights into security related events from a single console. Due to the adaptive scaling of our production environment, we have encountered an ever-changing number of systems to protect. Procuring the software and support services in AWS Marketplace offered us the needed flexibility and helped us to realize massive cost savings—up to 50% compared to our classic procurement model." – Alexander Schnellhardt, Head of Cloud Service Operations, Software AG

Veolia Improves Recovery Point Objective Values with NetApp

Veolia Deutschland GmbH provides water, waste, and energy management solutions for building sustainable communities and industries worldwide. Veolia needed a way to migrate its on-premises filing system to the cloud while also expanding its managed services offerings. After evaluating other solutions, Veolia turned to NetApp’s Cloud Volumes ONTAP in AWS Marketplace because of its ease of synchronization with the cloud. The storage tiering feature enabled Veolia to cut costs for data not immediately in use. As a result, Veolia achieved better Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) values in its disaster recovery strategy. "With NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP from AWS Marketplace, the setup and migration from on-premises to cloud was very smooth. Thanks to NetApp, we've moved the needle in our digital transformation journey and cut unnecessary costs." – Patrick Sann, Head of IT Operations, Veolia Deutschland GmbH

Aria Systems Increases Uptime to 99.995 Percent with FlashGrid

Aria Systems provides a cloud-based billing and monetization platform for enterprises. The company needed to run Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) on native instances in AWS, but options were limited. To manage its requirements for high availability and performance functionality, Aria Systems procured FlashGrid’s SkyCluster for Oracle RAC, available in AWS Marketplace. This enabled the company to add capacity and perform maintenance on its Oracle cluster without any outages. As a result, Aria Systems has increased its cluster uptime from 99.9 to 99.995 percent. "With FlashGrid and AWS, we can now deploy a new application within two weeks instead of six months, without compromising our availability Service Level Agreement." – David Urban, VP Operations and Security, Aria Systems

Wyndham Ensures a Better Guest Experience with AppDynamics from AWS Marketplace

Brillio Uses AWS Service Catalog to Help TrueBlue Release Quality Code Faster

University of Notre Dame Protects Critical Systems Using N2WS Solution from AWS Marketplace

Ströer Reduces Development Time with Matillion ETL for Amazon Redshift 

Ströer SE & Co. KGaA provides out-of-home media and advertising solutions to its customers. The company must extract data from a variety of sources and load that data into its Amazon Redshift data warehouse. To manage this extract, transform, and load (ETL) workflow, Ströer used Matillion ETL for Amazon Redshift, found in AWS Marketplace. Matillion’s data integration tool offers a fast, easy, and inexpensive way to load and transform data. Ströer deployed the solution in under three weeks. "Since implementing Matillion ETL for Amazon Redshift, we’ve reduced our development time by 50 percent, and we serve business data to our customers more quickly. We can now handle large data transformations with ease and use visual representations to solve our most complex workflows. " – Lars Reimann, Senior SysOps Manager, Ströer

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Amazon Case Study: 13 lessons for online marketplace startups

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Table of contents.

A cursory look at Google will reveal thousands of case studies and analyses that have tracked Amazon’s rise as a global hegemon. This Amazon case study is different in an important way – it focuses on the specific processes and principles that have kept its iconic online marketplace at the leading edge of e-commerce.

And at the leading edge they definitely still are:

In the last quarter of 2021, Amazon reported revenue of $138 billion, the company’s highest quarter ever. The following quarter, Q1 2022, revenue of $116 billion delivered its highest Q1 on record.

To put that into perspective, if Amazon was a country, its 2021 revenue of $470 billion would have made it the world’s 31st largest economy! That is more than the GDP of medium-sized countries like Nigeria, Egypt or Malaysia.

The online marketplace model remains the engine of Amazon’s growth strategy

E-commerce, especially its Marketplace for third-party sellers, still brings in the lion’s share of revenue and profit, despite the success of its other services like AWS and Prime. It is estimated that Amazon Marketplace generated $24 billion profit in 2020, compared to $13.5 billion for AWS.

In the US, Amazon accounts for 49% of all e-commerce sales , with its marketplace contributing almost 70% .

Globally, as of November 2022, Amazon is still the world’s most popular online marketplace based on traffic.The popularity of Amazon’s marketplace has also made it the world’s third largest search engine, after Google and YouTube. In fact, half of all product searches in the US start on Amazon.

That’s great for Amazon, but what’s the relevance for online marketplace startups today?

We usually put the conclusion at the end of an article, but for this case study it makes sense to make a bold statement right at the beginning:

Prospective marketplace entrepreneurs can learn more about building a successful multi-vendor platform by studying the ‘how’ and ‘why’ rather than the ‘what’ of leading marketplaces like Amazon.

A marketplace’s core function ( the why ) is to connect buyers with sellers of goods or services. Over time, this basic value proposition has evolved from simple “classified” services, such as those on Craigslist, to sophisticated value chains ( the how ) that make it easier, faster and more cost-effective for sellers and buyers to connect.

And Amazon has been right at the cutting-edge of each step in this evolutionary process. So continue reading this marketplace case study as we illuminate the thinking and mechanics behind some of this online retail phenomenon’s most important growth strategies.

Solving real problems one at a time

Amazon has solved a number of problems for consumers by making it easier for them to shop online. Some of the key problems that Amazon has solved include:

• The inconvenience of having to physically visit a store to make a purchase
• Limited product selection at brick-and-mortar stores
• High prices at traditional retailers
• Difficulty comparing prices and product features
• The hassle of carrying heavy or bulky items home from the store

By offering a wide selection of products at competitive prices, and providing convenient delivery options, Amazon has made it much easier for consumers to shop for what they need. Additionally, Amazon’s customer-friendly policies, such as its return policy and customer service, have helped to build trust and confidence among its customers.

Testing the waters for product-market fit

However , Amazon did not become the everything store overnight; they started with one product type – books. At the time (1994), the internet was still relatively new and not many people were shopping online, with most books only available in brick-and-mortar stores.

Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos chose to sell books as the platform’s first product because they were easy to ship and had a wide appeal (there were 3 million books in print back then). Books are also a relatively low-cost item, so customers didn’t have to spend a lot of money to make a purchase. Additionally, the online book market was relatively small at the time, so Amazon had the opportunity to establish itself as a dominant player in the space.

“Our timing was good, our choice of product categories – books – was a very good choice. And we did a lot of analysis on that to pick that category” Jeff Bezos

Amazon’s entry into the book market in the 1990s had a significant impact on the cost of books. By selling books online, Amazon was able to offer a wider selection of titles at lower prices than traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores. This increase in competition helped to drive down the price of books, making them more affordable for consumers. Additionally, Amazon’s efficient and low-cost distribution network allowed the company to offer free shipping on many orders, further reducing the overall cost of books for customers.

How Amazon solved the chicken and egg problem

Identifying the right product doesn’t help if you don’t have suppliers. In turn, sellers are hesitant to join a marketplace without buyer traffic. This was even more of an issue in the early days of the internet when there was still widespread suspicion of online transactions.

Amazon also couldn’t afford that rogue sellers damage its young brand with bad customer service. Especially since today’s sophisticated third-party payment systems and anti-fraud mechanisms didn’t exist then.

The solution was to be an aggregator of third-party products , rather than a conduit for third-party sellers. So instead of onboarding wholesalers and publishers, Amazon simply listed their books. Orders from buyers were routed via third-party suppliers, but fulfilled by Amazon.

That last bit is important. By not going the drop-shipping route (where the third-party supplier handles shipping), Amazon was able to build its brand and control the customer experience.

This growth strategy solved the buyer vs seller conundrum and helped Amazon to build America’s largest online shopping audience. This of course made its platform extremely valuable to sellers. In 2000, Amazon Marketplace opened its doors, allowing small businesses, as well as established brands, to sell their goods directly on the platform. The resultant influx of sellers ignited massive network effects which played a big role in the company’s first ever profit the following year.

Amazon Lesson #1 for marketplace startups

Validate your marketplace idea with a selection of carefully vetted products, a viable and clearly defined (small) target audience, and a core value proposition (e.g. price, selection, convenience). This will give you the opportunity to gauge if your solution is in fact what consumers want, without blowing your budget and struggling to establish product-market fit by trying to accommodate everyone and everything.

As Jeff Bezos said in his 1998 letter to investors,

“We will continue to measure our programs and the effectiveness of our investments analytically, to jettison those that do not provide acceptable returns, and to step up our investment in those that work best. We will continue to learn from both our successes and our failures.”

A value proposition that doubles as a flywheel 

“Huge choice selection, at low prices, with fast delivery.”   Amazon’s core value proposition has remained constant since its foundation for a very good reason.

Amazon’s flywheel, also known as the virtuous cycle, is a term used to describe the company’s business model, which is designed to continually drive growth and improve the customer experience. The flywheel consists of three main components: attracting new customers, retaining existing customers, and increasing the value of customers over time.

The idea behind the flywheel is that each of these components feeds into and supports the others, creating a self-sustaining, positive feedback loop. For example, when Amazon attracts new customers, it can use their data to improve its recommendation algorithms and provide a better shopping experience for those customers. This in turn leads to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, which can drive more sales and attract even more new customers.

As the flywheel continues to spin, the company can use the data and insights it gathers from its customers to improve its operations and efficiency, driving down costs and increasing its profitability. This allows Amazon to reinvest in its business and continue to drive growth, creating a virtuous cycle that drives long-term success.

To ensure that its flywheel operates optimally and keeps pace with evolving consumer behaviour, Amazon has ensured that its value proposition doesn’t remain static. The platform constantly adds quicker and easier ways to browse, select and order an ever growing catalogue of products and services. In addition, new products like the Kindle (e-reader), Echo (smart speaker ) and Alexa (virtual assistant) expand an ecosystem that makes it easier to purchase Amazon products.

Amazon Lesson #2 for marketplace startups

Kickstart your marketplace’s flywheel by igniting network effects . This happens when the perceived value received from a product or service becomes greater than its cost. For instance, by vetting your initial sellers and their products manually you can create a system that is valuable to early adopters.

The myth of building a complex digital platform on a shoestring budget

The garage motif features prominently in many successful founders’ origin myths. Jeff Bezos is no exception. The hackneyed tale of how he and his ex-wife rented a garage near Seattle, after a cross-country drive from New York, during which they slapped together a business plan, features in almost every hagiographical recounting. 

What is not always made clear is that Bezos raised substantial seed funding to start his new platform with. There was $300,000 from his parents, as well $1 million from friends and acquaintances. Most of this was pumped into marketing, infrastructure and testing.

It is worth noting that Amazon was in beta phase with 300 test users for a year before it went live on 16 July 1995. That initial investment paid off though. Within its first six months Amazon pulled in over $500,00 in revenue. In 1996, the platform’s first full year, it made an astounding $15.7 million in sales. 

This early success made Amazon an attractive proposition for institutional investors. In 1996, venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers came calling with $8 million in funding. Another year later (less than two years after launching), Amazon listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange at $18.00 per share, raising $54 million. The rest is history.

Amazon Lesson #3 for marketplace startups

Technology may have become more accessible since the 1990s, but combining the right marketplace software with well-designed user flows, analytics and iterative processes is still a major undertaking. The bottomline is, if you don’t invest in suitable technology and development processes that deliver productive user feedback loops, you are going to struggle to establish product-market fit and your marketplace platform is probably not going to survive.

BONUS TIP: It is therefore critical to understand the difference between the cost of a marketplace platform and a budget for marketplace development .

The right technological foundation will deliver a competitive edge

Amazon was initially built using a combination of technologies and software. Some of the key technologies that were used to build the early versions of Amazon’s website and online services include the Linux operating system, the Apache web server, and the MySQL database management system. 

Additionally, Amazon likely used a variety of programming languages and frameworks to develop the custom software that powers its various features and functions. Some of the languages and frameworks that may have been used include Java, PHP, and Ruby on Rails.

Overall, Amazon has continued to evolve and expand its technology stack over the years, adopting new technologies and software as needed to support its growth strategies and meet the changing needs of its customers. This includes using custom software development to build a competitive advantage in several ways. 

For example, they have developed custom algorithms and systems for optimising their inventory management and distribution processes, which has helped them to deliver products faster and more efficiently than their competitors. They have also developed custom user interface elements, such as their one-click ordering system, which has made it easier and more convenient for customers to shop on their platform. 

Another example is their use of personalised recommendations, which are based on the sophisticated algorithms that are able to analyse customer data and make recommendations for products that are likely to be of interest to them. This has helped Amazon to drive customer engagement and increase sales. 

There’s a saying in investment circles, “On a long enough timeline, competitive advantages erode and returns normalise.”   This also applies to technological advantages. 

Amazon has therefore invested heavily in developing new product technologies that have helped to improve the customer experience. For example, the company has developed Amazon Prime, a subscription service that offers customers free two-day shipping, access to streaming video and music, and other benefits. 

The use of AI and machine learning in its own products, such as its personal assistant device, Alexa, and its recommendation algorithms, has helped to improve the customer experience and drive sales. This has given Amazon a competitive edge and helped to solidify its position as a technology leader.

Amazon Lesson #4 for marketplace startups

Very few successful online marketplaces are built with off-the-shelf solutions . One size fits all simply doesn’t cut it when it comes to the often complex user flows that a specific marketplace idea requires. A custom MVP may seem more expensive at first glance, but your chances of success are exponentially higher and you will avoid a costly (in terms of both time and money) tech u-turn.

Leveraging customer feedback to boost seller performance and revenue  

One of the key ways Amazon revolutionised customer reviews was by making them an integral part of the shopping experience. Before Amazon, customer reviews were not widely available for most products, and it was difficult for shoppers to find reliable information about the products they were considering purchasing. 

Amazon changed this in 1995 by allowing customers to leave reviews for products on its site, providing shoppers with a wealth of information about the products they were interested in. This made it easier for shoppers to make informed decisions and helped Amazon establish itself as a trusted source of product information.

To create a smooth feedback loop, Amazon made it easy for customers to leave reviews by automatically sending them a request to review a product after they had made a purchase with clear instructions on how to do so. The review submission form is easy to find and fill out, and customers can simply click a few buttons to submit their review. This makes it easy for even the most technophobic customers to leave a review, which encourages more people to do so and helps Amazon collect a large volume of customer feedback.

In 2019 Amazon launched its “One Tap Review” system, which allows customers to leave a star rating without having to write a review. This feature has removed additional friction from the feedback loop.

Amazon also uses customer feedback to help sellers improve their performance and increase sales in a number of ways. For example, Amazon may use customer feedback to help sellers identify common problems with their products or services, such as poor packaging or slow shipping times. This information can then be used by sellers to make improvements that will help them provide a better customer experience and boost sales. 

Additionally, Amazon may use customer feedback to help sellers improve their product listings, by highlighting the most popular features or benefits of a product, for example. This can help sellers attract more customers and increase their sales.

One challenge that Amazon has faced with customer reviews is ensuring that the reviews are authentic and not fake or manipulated. Because customer reviews can have a significant impact on a product’s sales and reputation, there have been instances of businesses trying to boost their own products by leaving fake positive reviews or damaging the reputation of their competitors by leaving fake negative reviews. 

To combat this, Amazon has implemented various measures to detect and remove fake reviews, such as using machine learning algorithms to identify unusual patterns in review behaviour. 

Amazon Lesson #5 for marketplace startups

Customer feedback is an indispensable tool for improving your marketplace platform and building trust with your users. Which format it should take will depend on the nature of your marketplace. Retail marketplaces would structure their feedback mechanisms in a different way than a service marketplace, for example. 

A logistics phenomenon 

Amazon became a leader in ecommerce logistics through a combination of factors, including a strong focus on providing excellent customer service, a commitment to continuous innovation, and a willingness to invest heavily in building out its logistical infrastructure. This included building its own warehouses and fulfilment centres, as well as developing its own delivery networks and transportation systems. 

The company has made a number of innovations in ecommerce logistics that has allowed Amazon to control every step of the ecommerce process, from the moment a customer places an order to the moment they receive their package. It has developed advanced technologies like robotics and machine learning to automate and streamline its fulfilment and transportation processes, making them more efficient and cost-effective. 

New services like Prime (free, fast shipping on millions of products) and Flex (allows independent contractors to make deliveries on behalf of the company) have further grown its logistical reach.

Amazon has also made strategic acquisitions and partnerships over the years to expand its logistical capabilities and reach. One recent example is warehouse machinery and robotics maker Cloostermans, which will help its existing robotics division automate aspects of its warehouse operations.

Amazon Lesson #6 for marketplace startups

Your shipping strategy can have a huge impact on your marketplace and should be built into your overall growth strategy. The unique shipping needs of each retail marketplace is yet another good reason why it’s better to use custom solutions for marketplace development. 

Revenue before profit ; frugality before bells-and-whistles

Bezos understood the importance of achieving economies of scale as the foundation for a sustainable business model. This is why Amazon did not report a profit until 2001, its seventh year of operation, despite phenomenal growth in revenue. 

The company reported a net income of $5 million in the first quarter of 2001, and has been profitable every year since then. However, it is worth noting that Amazon’s profitability has varied over time, with the company sometimes prioritising growth and investment in new areas over short-term profitability.

In his own words,

“We will balance our focus on growth with emphasis on long-term profitability and capital management. At this stage, we choose to prioritize growth because we believe that scale is central to achieving the potential of our business model.” 

Amazon is known for using a lean approach in its business operations. This approach is based on the idea of maximising customer value while minimising waste. In other words, Amazon is always looking for ways to do more with less, in order to provide the best possible experience for its customers.

One way that Amazon applies a lean approach is by using data and analytics to make informed decisions. This allows the company to identify areas where it can streamline its processes and eliminate waste. For example, Amazon uses data to optimise its supply chain and logistics operations, ensuring that products are delivered to customers as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Another way that Amazon applies a lean approach is by being agile and responsive to customer needs. The company is known for its ability to quickly iterate and introduce new products and services, based on customer feedback and market trends. This allows Amazon to stay ahead of the competition and offer customers the products and services they want.

Bezos says,

“We will work hard to spend wisely and maintain our lean culture . We understand the importance of continually reinforcing a cost-conscious culture, particularly in a business incurring net losses. “

Amazon Lesson #7 for marketplace entrepreneurs

Combine a Lean process with Agile practices to help your development team focus on those aspects that will grow your marketplace best.  

Choose  the right metrics  

Amazon has a team of data analysts and business strategists who work together to determine which metrics are most important for the company to track. These metrics are based on the overall goals and objectives of the business. The specific metrics that Amazon tracks may change over time as the company’s business priorities evolve.

Amazon divides metrics into two types: 

Controllable input metrics and output metrics, also known as leading and lagging indicators . 

It’s approach to metric management also has two components:

• First, it defines and tweaks each metric through a process called DMAIC – Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.
• Second, it presents its metrics in something called a ‘Weekly Business Review’ meeting, or a WBR meeting – which is fractal: top leadership does a full-company WBR every week, followed by every department and operational team on down.

A well-known example are the five key customer metrics Amazon uses to calculate seller ratings: Order Defect Rate, Cancellation Rate, Late Dispatch Rate, Policy Violations, and Contact Response Time.

Amazon spends hundreds of man-hours iterating on the right input metrics to use. When it comes measuring them the company applies 3 important rules:

• Remove any bias in your metrics (don’t use vanity metrics)
• Audit your metrics (make sure they are measuring what they are supposed to measure, because over time metrics tend to drift )
• Choose and implement the right analytical tools

As an example, in 2004, Amazon’s customer satisfaction metrics included the following process: 

“Each site is closely monitored with standard service availability monitoring (for example, using Keynote or Mercury Interactive) site availability and download speed. Interestingly it also monitors per minute site revenue upper/lower bounds. Round describes an alarm system rather like a power plant where if revenue on a site falls below $10,000 per minute, alarms go off!”

From the 1998 investor letter,

“We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term. This value will be a direct result of our ability to extend and solidify our current market leadership position.  The stronger our market leadership, the more powerful our economic model. Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital.  Our decisions have consistently reflected this focus. We first measure ourselves in terms of the metrics most indicative of our market leadership: customer and revenue growth, the degree to which our customers continue to purchase from us on a repeat basis, and the strength of our brand.“

Amazon Lesson #8 for marketplace entrepreneurs

Choose and track the right metrics that align with your marketplace business goals and growth strategies.

3 Powerful Philosophies that underpin a long-term growth strategy

“The three big ideas at Amazon are long-term thinking, customer obsession, and a willingness to invent,” Amazon Founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, 

A Long and Winding Road Map  

Amazon’s long-term vision is to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, and it has pursued this goal through a variety of initiatives and strategies. 

A key aspect of its long-term vision is to continue expanding and improving its e-commerce platform, which is the core of its business. This includes continuing to add new products, locations and categories to its online marketplace, as well as developing new technologies and features to improve the customer experience.

On the horizon: 

• Low carbon emission initiatives like e-cargo bikes and on-foot delivery
• A partnership with GrubHub that will add additional value (unlimited free food deliveries) to Amazon Prime subscriptions
• Further AI integration with its Alexa voice assistant that will make interactions more responsive and natural. Alexa Care Hub already allows a vulnerable person’s device to be paired with a family member’s, making it easier for people to keep in touch with elderly or infirm relatives.
• Geographically, Amazon is placing a massive bet on India by spending $1 billion on digitising small- and medium-sized businesses across the country to help them trade online.
• The The Ring Always Home Cam is home security drone that will link with Amazon’s existing Ring surveillance technology
• Further expansion into health and wellness sectors with initiatives like AWS Healthcare Accelerator, a programme provides training, support, and guidance to  medical start-ups. Halo Rise is a new sleep tracker that uses a combination of sensors and machine learning.

Putting suppliers and buyers first

Customer centricity has been a key pillar of Amazon’s success since its inception. In 2004 the American Customer Satisfaction Index gave Amazon.com a score of 88 which was at the time, the highest customer satisfaction score ever recorded in any service industry, online or offline.

Buyer features

Amazon has introduced a number of features over the years to enhance the customer experience on its platforms. Noteworthy examples include:

• One-click ordering: This feature allows customers to place an order with just one click, making it easier and more convenient to shop on Amazon.
• Amazon Prime: This subscription service offers customers benefits such as free two-day shipping, access to streaming content, and other perks. This helped to drive traffic to the site and increase customer loyalty. It also increased the average order value since customers have to spend over a certain amount to receive free shipping. 
• Amazon Fresh: This service offers customers the ability to shop for groceries and other household items online and have them delivered the same day or next day.
• Amazon Pay: This feature allows customers to use their Amazon account to make purchases on other websites and apps.
• Customer reviews and ratings: Amazon allows customers to leave reviews and ratings for products they have purchased, which can help other customers make informed buying decisions.
• Personalised recommendations: Amazon uses customer data and machine learning algorithms to provide personalised product recommendations to customers based on their past purchases and browsing history.
• Amazon Customer Service: Amazon offers a range of customer service options, including live chat, phone support, and email support, to help customers with any issues or questions they may have.

The platform has used features like free shipping and a fast checkout process to create large defensive moats that are incredibly difficult for competitors to attack.

It communicates the fulfilment promise in several ways including the presentation of the latest inventory availability information, delivery date estimates, and options for expedited delivery, as well as delivery shipment notifications and update facilities.

Seller features

Its customer focus is not limited to the buyer experience. Amazon provides various tools and resources to help sellers manage and grow their businesses on the platform:

• Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA): This service allows sellers to store their products in Amazon’s fulfilment centres and have Amazon handle the shipping and customer service for their orders.
• Advertising: Amazon provides various advertising options, such as sponsored products and sponsored brands, to help sellers promote their products and increase visibility on the platform.
• Inventory management: Amazon provides tools to help sellers manage their inventory, including forecasting tools and automatic restocking options.
• Order management: Amazon offers tools to help sellers manage and fulfil orders, including tools for tracking and processing returns and exchanges.
• Customer service: Amazon provides resources and support to help sellers handle customer inquiries and complaints effectively.
• Business intelligence: Amazon offers tools to help sellers analyse and understand their sales data, including tools for tracking sales trends and identifying opportunities for growth.

By providing a supportive and customer-focused environment for sellers, Amazon can help them succeed and drive more sales for their products, which of course boosts its own revenue. That’s why seller fees contributed $120 billion out of total revenue of $386 billion in 2020.

Innovation nation  

Amazon is a company with a long history of innovation. Over the years, Amazon has consistently pushed the boundaries of technology and business models to stay ahead of the competition.

In 2004, Amazon established Lab126 , a dedicated research and development laboratory. It is responsible for the development of Amazon’s hardware products. The lab is known for its secrecy, and little is known about its inner workings or the projects it is currently working on.

One of Amazon’s early innovations was the introduction of its customer review system, which allowed users to leave reviews and ratings for products. This helped to build trust and credibility with customers, and has since become a standard feature on many e-commerce websites.

In 2002, Amazon introduced its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division, which provides a range of cloud-based services to businesses and organisations around the world. This has been a major contributor to the company’s success, and AWS is now one of the leading cloud computing providers in the world.

One of Amazon’s groundbreaking innovations was creating a new way to sell an existing product. In 2007, the company introduced the Kindle, a popular e-reader that has since evolved into a range of devices including tablets and smart speakers. 

Preferred book formats of US readers from 2011 to 2021.

In 2014, Amazon introduced its Prime service, which offers free two-day shipping and a range of other benefits to subscribers.

Some specific areas that Amazon has been known to be interested in or invested in include:

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning: Amazon has a number of research groups focused on developing and applying AI and machine learning technologies to a variety of areas, including natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning models for prediction and decision making.
• Robotics: Amazon has a number of initiatives related to robotics, including the development of autonomous mobile robots for use in fulfilment centres, as well as the development of drone technology with the goal of improving efficiency and reducing costs of delivery.
• Cloud computing: Amazon’s cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is a major contributor to the company’s success and is a leader in the cloud computing market. AWS offers a wide range of cloud-based services, including computing, storage, and database management.
• Internet of Things (IoT): Amazon has a number of initiatives related to the Internet of Things (IoT), including the development of connected devices such as the Echo smart speaker and the Ring home security system. The company also offers a range of IoT-related services through its AWS division.

Amazon Lesson #9 for marketplace entrepreneurs

Build your marketplace business with a clear vision, map out your growth model in detail, and follow a proven process to test and implement it.

Diversify revenue streams by bringing them back for more

Amazon has diversified its revenue streams through a number of different strategies. 

Expanding beyond online retail: Amazon started as an online retailer, but it has since diversified into other areas such as cloud computing (Amazon Web Services), digital media (Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Music), and advertising.

Developing new products and services: Amazon has introduced a wide range of new products and services, including the Amazon Echo and other smart home devices, the Amazon Fire tablet and other hardware products, and the Amazon Marketplace for third-party sellers.

Acquiring other companies: Amazon has made a number of acquisitions over the years, including Whole Foods, PillPack, and Zappos.com, which have helped it to diversify its revenue streams.

Sometimes Amazon prefers to invest in new ventures instead of buying existing ones: such as its Amazon Studios division, which produces original TV shows and movies, and its Amazon Music service. These investments have helped the company to diversify its product offerings and stay at the forefront of innovation.

Entering new markets: Amazon has also expanded into new markets, such as India and Southeast Asia, to tap into new customer bases and increase its revenue streams.

Paid subscription service :  Amazon Prime has had a huge impact on boosting Amazon’s retail revenue streams. It provides a number of benefits to members, including free two-day shipping, streaming of movies, TV shows, and music, and other exclusive deals. Amazon has used Amazon Prime to diversify its revenue streams in several ways:

• Increase customer loyalty: Amazon Prime has helped to increase customer loyalty by providing a range of exclusive benefits and perks that are not available to non-members. This has helped Amazon to build a loyal customer base that is more likely to make repeat purchases, which in turn has helped to increase its overall revenue.
• Expand into new markets: Amazon has used Amazon Prime to expand into new markets by offering the service in countries outside of the United States. This has allowed Amazon to tap into new customer bases and increase its revenue streams.
• Diversify its product and service offerings: Amazon Prime has allowed Amazon to diversify its product and service offerings by adding streaming services such as Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Music to its subscription offerings. This has helped Amazon to generate additional revenue streams from its customers.
• Increase average order value: Amazon Prime has also helped to increase the average order value of its customers by providing free two-day shipping. This has encouraged customers to add more items to their orders, which has increased Amazon’s revenue.

There are an estimated 126 million American Prime members , making it the most successful loyalty program of all time. Amazon continues to expand the use cases for Prime to leverage it as a barrier to entry.

Figures from polling firm Kantar show how dominant Prime is in Amazon’s largest European markets. Over half of British households and 46.4 percent of German households have an Amazon Prime membership.

Its foray into business-to-business services is equally disruptive. For small businesses, Amazon is providing a novel offering with Launchpad, a service designed specifically for startups. One would expect Amazon to offer more financing to new ventures which will augment various ecommerce services. 

Overall, Amazon’s diversification strategy has allowed it to become a more resilient and sustainable business, as it is not reliant on any single source of revenue. A case in point – when other dot-coms went bust after early growth in awareness, Amazon managed to pull through due to its investment in customer loyalty and repeat purchases.

Amazon Lesson #10 for marketplace entrepreneurs

Focus on retaining and growing your customer base with new features that add extra value to their shopping experience. Test and refine your product catalogue, quality control process and target audience on a continuous basis. This will help you avoid platform leakage and increase your marketplace’s liquidity . 

If you can’t beat them; buy them

In recent years, Amazon has grown its business through acquisitions by acquiring companies that align with its strategic goals and can help it expand into new markets or improve its existing products and services. 

Some examples of acquisitions that have helped Amazon grow its business include:

Whole Foods Market : In 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market, a leading natural and organic grocery store, for $13.7 billion. This acquisition allowed Amazon to enter the grocery market and expand its distribution network.

Zappos : In 2009, Amazon acquired Zappos, an online shoe and clothing retailer, for $1.2 billion. This acquisition allowed Amazon to expand its presence in the fashion industry and improve its customer service offerings.

Twitch: In 2014, Amazon acquired Twitch, a live streaming platform for video games, for $970 million. This acquisition allowed Amazon to enter the gaming industry and expand its video streaming capabilities.

PillPack: In 2018, Amazon acquired PillPack, an online pharmacy, for $753 million. This acquisition allowed Amazon to enter the healthcare industry and improve its delivery and logistics capabilities.

Other acquisitions include: Harvest.ai, a cybersecurity player, GameSparks, a game development platform, and Blink, a developer of home security cameras, while also expanding geographically with its acquisition of Souq.com, a Middle Eastern e-commerce site.

Some of the key factors that Amazon considers when evaluating potential acquisition targets include:

• Fit with Amazon’s business: Amazon looks for acquisitions that will complement and enhance its existing business and contribute to its long-term growth.
• Innovation: Amazon is always looking for companies that are developing innovative products or technologies that can help it stay ahead of the competition.
• Customer base: Amazon values companies that have a strong and loyal customer base, as this can help it expand its reach and increase its customer base.
• Synergy: Amazon looks for acquisitions that can create synergies by combining the strengths of both companies.

Amazon Lesson #11 for marketplace entrepreneurs

Well, this one is pretty obvious. Don’t start dreaming about acquisitions and world denomination before you have ignited the core growth of your marketplace 🙂

Leveraging a data goldmine

Amazon has leveraged user data in a number of ways to improve its services and drive business growth:

Personalised recommendations : Amazon uses data on customers’ past purchases, searches, and browsing history to provide personalised product recommendations. This helps Amazon drive sales and improve the customer experience by showing customers products they are likely to be interested in.

Advertising : Amazon uses data on customers’ past purchases and browsing history to show them targeted ads for products and services. This helps Amazon generate additional revenue through advertising and helps advertisers reach a highly targeted audience.

It has developed a number of advertising products and platforms that make it easy for advertisers to reach a targeted audience on the Amazon website and mobile apps. These products and platforms include:

• Amazon Advertising: This platform allows advertisers to create sponsored product ads that appear in search results and on product detail pages on Amazon.com. Advertisers can target their ads based on keywords, product categories, and other factors.
• Amazon Marketing Services: This platform allows advertisers to create sponsored product ads and display ads that appear on Amazon.com and other websites. Advertisers can target their ads based on a range of factors, including demographics, interests, and purchase history.
• Amazon DSP: This platform allows advertisers to create and manage programmatic advertising campaigns on Amazon and across the web. Advertisers can use Amazon DSP to target their ads based on a range of factors, including demographics, interests, and purchase history.

This has helped Amazon to rapidly catch up with the two leaders in digital ad spend: Google and Facebook.

Product development : Amazon uses data on customer behaviour and preferences to inform product development and improve existing products. For example, Amazon may use data on customer reviews and ratings to identify areas for improvement in a product.

Supply chain optimisation : Amazon uses data on customer demand and shipping patterns to optimise its supply chain and improve efficiency. This helps Amazon reduce costs and improve delivery times for customers.

Key elements in Amazon’s data pipeline:

• Tracking customer behaviour: Amazon tracks a wide range of customer behaviour data, including past purchases, searches, and browsing history. This data is collected through Amazon’s website and mobile apps, as well as through other channels such as Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant.
• Storing and processing data: Amazon stores and processes customer data in its massive distributed data centres, which use advanced data storage and processing technologies such as distributed databases and big data analytics tools.
• Data security and privacy: Amazon takes data security and privacy seriously and has implemented a number of measures to protect customer data. These measures include encryption of data in transit and at rest, as well as strict access controls and monitoring to prevent unauthorised access to customer data.
• Data integration and analysis: Amazon integrates customer data from a variety of sources, including online and offline sales data, customer service data, and data from third-party sources. Amazon uses advanced analytics tools and machine learning algorithms to analyse this data and extract insights that can be used to improve its products and services.

Amazon Lesson #12 for marketplace entrepreneurs

Good business decisions are based on the ability to collect and interpret the right information. Marketplace entrepreneurs that integrate a data analytics pipeline from the outset have a distinct advantage.

Challenges ahead

Amazon’s competitive landscape is getting more complex.

New technology and old foes are ganging up to take market share away from Amazon. These include physical retailers, meta e-commerce platforms, and vertical startups. 

Traditional retailers are latching onto the marketplace phenomenon by leveraging their existing bricks-and-mortar footprints as distribution hubs. Walmart launched Walmart Marketplace, while Target opened its Target+ marketplace for selected sellers in 2019.

All-in-one ecommerce platforms like Shopify offer sellers an alternative way to reach customers by allowing them to set up and manage their own online stores. This allows Shopify merchants to have more control over the look and feel of their stores, as well as the customer experience.

Shopify also offers a range of tools and services to help merchants manage and grow their online stores, including tools for managing inventory, processing orders, and tracking shipping and handling. These tools and services can be an attractive proposition for merchants who want to have more control over their online sales processes.

Specialised marketplace that focus on specific product categories or geographical locations have also been eating into Amazon’s marketplace pie. Notable examples include Etsy, a marketplace focused on handmade, vintage, and creative goods and Best Buy, which specialises in electronics and home appliances.

On the global front, Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba operates a number of online and mobile marketplaces, including Taobao and Tmall that are particularly strong in the areas of wholesale and bulk purchasing.

Global recession

Weak sales forecasts triggered by the current (2022) global economic slowdown has forced Amazon to freeze its warehouse expansion, shut down research projects, and cut 10,000 jobs – the most in its history. In response the share price has tanked by more than 50% this year.

A usually sanguine Jeff Bezos has also advised caution by warning everyone to ‘batten down the hatches’.

Antitrust lawsuits

Antitrust legislation is designed to protect consumers by promoting competition in the marketplace and preventing companies from becoming too powerful. These laws aim to ensure that companies do not engage in monopolistic practices, such as price-fixing or exclusionary behaviour, that can harm consumers.

Amazon has faced increasing scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers who are concerned about its potential to engage in monopolistic practices. This has led to calls for antitrust action against the company, with some arguing that it has become too dominant in the online retail space and needs to be reined in.

One of the main concerns about Amazon is that it has become so dominant in the online retail market that it is able to dictate terms to both buyers and sellers. This has led to accusations that the company is using its power to squeeze out competitors and engage in unfair practices, such as charging higher fees to smaller sellers or promoting its own products over those of its rivals.

There is also concern about Amazon’s growing power in other areas, such as cloud computing and advertising. The company’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) division is by far the largest provider of cloud computing services, and its advertising business is rapidly growing. This has led to fears that Amazon could use its dominance in these areas to further squeeze out competitors and engage in anti-competitive behaviour.

Overall, it is clear that antitrust legislation has the potential to have a significant impact on Amazon. If the company is found to be engaging in monopolistic practices, it could face significant fines and other penalties, which could have a major impact on its bottom line. However, it is important to note that antitrust action is often a slow and complex process, and it is not clear at this time how it will ultimately affect Amazon.

Resilience is baked in

Amazon has weathered plenty of storms in the past. Notably, the company almost went bankrupt in 2002 due to overspending without commensurate revenue growth. A brutal regime of cost-cutting was put into place with 14% of employees laid off. This tough medicine resulted in a massive turnaround, resulting in a $400 million profit in 2003.

The global recession that began in late 2007 had a significant impact on Amazon, as it did on many companies around the world. Demand for Amazon’s products and services decreased as consumers tightened their spending, and the company’s stock price and profits took a hit as a result.

However, Amazon was able to weather the recession better than many other companies due to its strong financial position and diversified business model. The company had been steadily expanding and investing in new areas, such as cloud computing and digital media, which helped to offset some of the impact of the recession on its core retail business.

In the years following the recession, Amazon’s business continued to grow and the company became even more dominant in the retail industry.

Amazon Lesson #13 for marketplace entrepreneurs

Building an online marketplace is tough. But there are some basic values that can help founders get through the tough times:

• Stay focused on your long-term goals
• Apply self-discipline throughout your business
• Make the tough changes when necessary, e.g. know when to pivot

Any questions about this Amazon case study? Get in touch

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Originally published January 13, 2023, updated August 9, 2023

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Ecommerce: 10 mini case studies of successful marketing for online shopping

This article was originally published in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter .

While ecommerce has been growing rapidly, it still only comprised a small percentage of overall retail sales. For example, in the U.S., on an adjusted basis, ecommerce accounted for 11.8% of all retail sales in the first quarter of 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau .

That was for Q1. Then in Q2, the number jumped to 16.1% – a 44.5% change from the same quarter a year ago. To put that number in perspective, Q2 2019 grew “only” 13.8% over Q2 2018.

What changed? The COVID-19 pandemic, of course. Even with ecommerce’s double-digit growth over the years, brick-and-mortar retail still had many advantages over ecommerce. Some products (like groceries) are hard to ship and easier and less expensive to buy in person. Brick-and-mortar retail has an experiential draw that ecommerce can’t match – from trying on a shirt to being wowed by an in-store (and Instagram-worthy) display. The ability to make a human connection and learn about a product or service.

Suddenly everything changed. That human connection became a detriment. And a no-touch version of goods and even services was preferable if not essential.

And that’s where we are in 2020 folks. A sad statement on human existence, yes. But as marketers, we must answer a practical question. How do we ensure our companies can continue to create value for customers in this changed world? Ecommerce can play a critical role. To help spark ideas for improving your company’s ecommerce efforts, here are specific examples from your peers in a wide range of industries.

Mini Case Study #1: Adding credibility generates a 46% increase in conversion for mattress company

A mid-sized furniture company selling organic latex mattresses engaged with MECLABS Institute to increase the overall number of mattress purchases (MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa). It is one of only a few mattresses that is GreenGuard Gold certified.

The team conducted an experiment to determine which credibility approach would produce the highest rate of mattress purchases and ran an A/B split test.

The control landing page mentioned the certification, but it was de-emphasized.

Creative Sample #1: Control landing page for organic latex mattress

The treatment landing page added a section entitled “What is the GreenGuard Gold Seal?”

Creative Sample #2: Treatment landing page for organic latex mattress

The treatment landing page generated a 46% increase in conversion in the A/B test. The tangible value created by the additional copy helped the customer determine that the mattress was worth purchasing.

You can learn more about this experiment, and see other ecommerce experiments, in Optimizing Ecommerce Experiences: 25 valid ecommerce experiments to ideate your next A/B test from MarketingExperiments (MarketingSherpa’s sister publication).

Mini Case Study #2: Dunkin’ increases gift card sales 300% by quickly tapping into changing customer motivations

The way customers perceive your products and service can change over time. The COVID-19 pandemic is a great example. For most companies, if they just treated customers the same way they did before the pandemic, they would have overlooked customers’ changing motivations. And those changing motivations affect how potential customers perceive your offer.

Dunkin’ is an example of a company that moved swiftly to tap into new customer motivations. “As COVID-19 struck, Americans wanted to find ways to help and to show support for the frontline heroes. Dunkin’ wanted to give people a way to do so, even without being able to leave home,” said Justin Unger, Director, Strategic Partnerships, Dunkin'.

Created in just days, the DunkinCoffeeBreak.com ecommerce site gave customers a way to show appreciation by sending a virtual coffee break in the form of a Dunkin’ e-gift card. Dunkin’ donated $1 (up to $100,000) for every card purchased at this site to the Dunkin’ Joy in Childhood Foundation emergency funds, specifically for non-profits helping families affected by COVID-19.

“Since the initial launch, Dunkin’ has used the site for multiple moments that matter to people, such as Teacher Appreciation Week, National Nurses Week, and Mother’s Day,” Unger said.

The site is driving incremental digital gift card sales and has generated a 300% increase in year-over-year gift card sales for certain events.

“ I think ecommerce, especially in the gift card space, is a key [you can use to] unlock growth. We saw a tremendous lift in online gift card sales with the addition of DunkinCoffeeBreak.com without any cannibalization to our existing online gift card program. It allowed us to reach new guests and tap into the wealth of information and targeting in the digital world, which you just cannot do with plastic gift cards hanging on pegs ,” Unger said.

“Online and mobile shopping surged when social distancing was introduced…based on Blackhawk Network’s partners’ sales data, gift cards sales made directly from a restaurant’s or merchant’s website since mid-March are up 92% from last year,” said Brett Narlinger, Head of Global Commerce, Blackhawk Network , Dunkin’s gift card program partner.

Mini Case Study #3: Home décor company generates $734.40 in sales from “penny campaigns”

“Throughout my ecommerce career I have successfully implemented what I call ‘penny campaigns’ within numerous Google Ad accounts for a large number of different businesses,” said Patrick Connelly, co-founder, Stellar Villa .

Most businesses focus their ad spend on a select few products or services that account for the majority of the company’s revenue, he says. The idea with a penny campaign is to go deeper into your product set and offer very low bids for the ads.

“Penny campaigns can work with both text ads and Google Product Shopping ads, although I prefer Product ads,” Connelly said. Once you have the products added to a campaign, simply set a very low bid. While this can vary by industry, Connelly typically sets bids between five and twenty cents and uses broad match for a larger reach if targeting keywords.

For example, from May through July the wall art company ran a Shopping campaign with Product Listing Ads) for its “Nursery Wall Art” collection. The team set a maximum cost-per-click of $0.20 with a daily budget of $100. “We knew we wouldn't spend close to that, but I like to let Google know we're willing to pay for as many clicks at $0.20 or less as they can give us,” Connelly said.

Over the course of three months the ad produced 354 clicks at a cost of $60.18. The ad generated $743.40 in sales.

“The penny campaign strategy can be implemented on more platforms than just Google Ads. It also works great with Amazon Advertising,” Connelly said.

Mini Case Study #4: Vegan blog grows traffic to 50,000 monthly visits with more diverse SEO outreach strategy

Thrive Cuisine had more than 25,000 backlinks but was plateauing at about 30,000 monthly unique visits.

The team was building links and publishing content on the same schedule as before and wasn’t sure why they weren’t seeing more traffic and conversions.

George Pitchkhadze, CMO, Thrive Cuisine tried a new approach. Instead of focusing on getting more backlinks he decided the site need a bigger variety of backlinks. Pitchkhadze stopped outreach efforts that were targeting the same kind of website over and over again and spent two months creating a completely new link-building and outreach strategy. This time, the team specifically focused on websites in adjacent niches instead of the vegan blog’s own niche. They started the outreach effort in May after spending two months creating more diverse content to link back to.

The new out outreach targeting more diverse websites increased the number of referring domains by more than 50%. This resulted in traffic going from about 30,000 to more than 50,000 monthly visits from unique visitors and increased “traffic value” by more than $10,000.

“If you’re looking to get ecommerce traffic, focus on backlink variety and quality; not only quantity. This will massively improve your results. Where possible, create new content on your own website to really showcase your own expertise across diverse subjects,” Pitchkhadze said.

Mini Case Study #5: Footwear store increases conversion 21.5% with clearer communication on website

KURU Footwear places a high emphasis on customer service and ease of experience by offering free shipping, free exchanges, and free returns. While this messaging did exist on the footwear brand’s website in various places, the team launched a test exploring four options that inserted those value messages higher in the customer experience.

Creative Sample #3: Control homepage for footwear brand

The top-performing treatment had a black bar with simple white text at the top of nearly all pages outside of the checkout funnel. It increased conversion 21.5%.

Creative Sample #4: Top-performing treatment for footwear website

Other treatments that included the customer service message but added in a message to reassure customers that Kuru was open and operating during COVID-19 did not perform as well. “We found simplicity performed best,” said Kelly Stanze, Manager, Marketing & Communications, Kuru.

Creative Sample #5: Lower-performing treatment for footwear website

“Making sure potential new customers know just how much we prioritize customer satisfaction can be difficult. While the proof is in the shoes, we're constantly seeking ways to elevate just how passionate about our customers we are as a company. This was just one step in that never-ending effort,” Stanze said.

Mini Case Study #6: Facebook Live show quadruples online orders for gourmet deli and marketplace

Big Bottom Market is a gourmet deli and marketplace in the heart of Sonoma Wine Country. In addition to its retail presence, the team also manages an Etsy Shop where they sell Big Bottom Market-branded products and the work of local artisans.

“We've been in the e-commerce game since 2016 when we were designated one of Oprah's Favorite Things and had to use the Amazon platform for national sales,” said Michael Volpatt, owner, Big Bottom Market. “From orders and shipping to returns and everything in between, Amazon was a great partner at the time. That changed when our sales volume slowed down so we crunched the numbers and realized that Etsy would be a better partner as we ramped up our growing product line with items that we created or partnered with someone to create for us…My point in this is that being flexible at all points in your e-commerce journey is important.”

Volpatt would be forced to be flexible once again. On March 18 th , the county of Sonoma locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the in-person retail market closed. All of a sudden, ecommerce became a much more important component of Big Bottom Market’s sales

“As a chef and cookbook author, I decided to continue engaging with our customers and launched a Facebook Live cooking show called Cooking In Place,” Volpatt said.

Volpatt cooked and showcased local wines for fans along with other products that the market sells, encouraging viewers to buy them online.

In addition, after each show he posted the video replay across all of its social media channels and shared recipes and details about the food he cooked and wine he tasted on the show.” I would broadcast on Facebook Live and save the video feed. Then I would repost a link to the video on my personal page, on Instagram TV, and then also on YouTube,” he said.

Creative Sample #6: Facebook Live cooking show from gourmet deli and marketplace

In addition to customer engagement and increasing social media followers, the goal was to drive ecommerce sales as a way to augment lost revenue from in-store foot traffic.

“We used to see three to five orders per month in our Etsy shop. In the first week of doing the show we saw three to five per week and that increased to five to ten orders per week. To some, those numbers may seem low, but for a small business located in a tourist town, these numbers were great. Our sales ended up paying for our monthly fixed expenses, which was very helpful for a business that relies on foot traffic,” Volpatt said.

Mini Case Study #7: Retail company increases revenue 311% with website redesign

The Barbecues Galore website had a low conversion rate due to technical, usability and value communication issues. For example, when a product was added in different product categories the URL slug of the product itself would change. “This presented us with issues we needed to address immediately, as a product that constantly changes in URL is not SEO friendly and would present with unwanted 301 redirects and in some cases 404s,” said Andres Aguero, Senior SEO Specialist, Barbecues Galore.

The new site fixed those technical issues, and also did a better job of communicating value to the customer. For example, the product listing page on the old website had very few pictures and did not prominently feature reviews.

Creative sample #7: Previous product listing page on retailer’s original website

“We ended up figuring out that when people are making a large purchase online they want to feel safe and secure that their money is being well spent,” Aguero said.

The team invested in adding additional photos to the product listing and reached out to previous customers from both the online and brick-and-mortar locations to request a product review.

Creative sample #8: Product listing page on retailer’s new website

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the team had to push the live date of the website to April 2020. “This was a big risk at the time as we were at the peak of COVID-19 and all of our brick-and-mortar locations had been closed. Our only source of income at that time was our online revenue,” Aguero said.

The redesign paid off. Revenue from April to August 2020 increased 311% compared to the same time frame in the previous year and revenue from organic traffic increased 172%. (Much of that increase likely has to do with the site improvements, however this reporter questions if increased demand for backyard products due to COVID-19 lockdowns may have also played a role in the revenue increase.)

“My advice for other marketers would be to focus on your website’s existing traffic first before you make any other investments. Our PPC specialist was spending a crazy amount of money on a monthly basis only to see low conversion rates. If your conversion rate is low then try to figure out why. Take a look at your competitors and see what they are doing. After you’ve done that, then you can start making investments into PPC or SEO,” Aguero advised.

Mini Case Study #8: 3D models platform increases clickthrough 12% with A/B testing

Sketchfab operate a 3D content marketplace where people can buy and sell 3D models. It features some of these designs on its landing pages. The team decided to test the effect of different background designs for the header block, which contains a search bar and other navigation menus.

The background of the landing pages consisted of colorful, contrasted 3D models of animals and characters.

Creative Sample #9: Control landing page for 3D content models platform

The team tested less prominent backgrounds to provide more emphasis to the search bar and rest of the page’s user interface. Here is the highest-performing treatment, which produced a 5.3% increase in page engagement and 12.4% increase in clickthrough rates when compared to the original version.

Creative Sample #10: Treatment landing page for 3D content models platform

“Backgrounds [with] a low contrast image that blends with the rest of the page tend to perform much better than vivid, more contrasted ones. In our case, rather than wowing customers with a spectacular image or video, having a more modest graphic allowed them to take action and flow to other internal pages,” said Guillermo Sainz, Digital Marketing, Sketchfab.

Mini Case Study #9: Automating organic Pinterest postings generates $56,000 per month for women’s clothing store

This next example may not work for every company, but it was successful for a niche brand with a very visual product.

“We used to post manually on Pinterest every now and then and didn't attract any customers/visitors to our ecommerce portal. A few months ago, we installed a Shopify plugin to automatically push product images to Pinterest,” said Akram Tariq Khan, CTO, YourLibaas .

Creative Sample #11: Automated Pinterest post from women’s clothing store

“The results were unexpected,” Khan said.

The women’s clothing store now has about 930,000 monthly Pinterest viewers with 26,000 followers and average monthly sales directly attributable to Pinterest of $56,000 within the last quarter without spending a penny on Pinterest.

YourLibaas is based in India and offers international shipping. Most of the Pinterest customers are located internationally, primarily within the US, UK and Canada with a sizeable number in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

“The majority of our international orders are customers who discovered our brand through Pinterest. We have a significant presence on Instagram and Facebook too, but the user base at these platforms is primarily located domestically within India,” Khan said.

Mini Case Study #10: Female wellness product overcomes ad ban with SEO-focused content creation and attracts 9,248 organic visitors in latest month

As digital advertising platforms work to improve their image by banning industries and products deemed harmful, some less nefarious brands are getting caught as well.

For example, Chiavaye sells an all-natural, vegan personal moisturizer. Kaylyn Easton started the company because she has endometriosis.

The company was making approximately $14,000 per month in revenue by promoting the product with paid ads. However, about two years ago its ad account was shut down for “adult content.”

“Paid ads was a strategy that worked well for us until it didn’t. Meaning, the moment we got shut down, we lost more than 90% of our monthly revenue,” said Kaylyn Easton, CEO & Founder, Chiavaye.

At the time, organic traffic from Google was only about 20 visitors per month, and 98% of its was branded searches like “Chiavaye lube.”

The company decided to pursue a strategy of SEO-focused content creation. “We wanted to implement a strategy that would build our brand long-term so that after we turn off the investment, it could still bring in value. If we were to stop writing SEO articles today, we’d still get the benefits from what we’ve done for years to come. Versus, if we turn off a paid ads strategy, we immediately see a huge negative impact,” Easton said.

The primary focus of the content is not the promotion of the product, but instead helping the target audience overcome key pain points.

“We've been creating four SEO-focused pieces of content per month targeting endometriosis-related queries. Things like ‘endometriosis diet grocery list.’ We found that women with endo are craving any type of information to help them. And, if the info is good, they'll trust that person – and even buy their products,” said Joey Randazzo, Founder and CEO, Portland SEO Growth .

After 18 months of creating four pieces of content per month, the site went from about 20 visitors per month to, in the most recent month, 9,248 organic visitors.

Every piece of content has two CTAs (calls to action). The first is to buy the product. The second CTA is for a free e-book, which is generating 250 downloads per month – building the email list.

Creative Sample #12: Email signup form for e-book from female wellness product company

“We discovered that [competitors] have salesy email campaigns – every other email is a 30% off coupon. [Chiavaye's] is designed around adding value more than anything,” Randazzo said.

The team discovered the top burning questions the target audience is asking around endometriosis, like “is dairy okay to eat with endo?” Easton answers these questions in text and video in a clear, straightforward way. The email body is succinct in answering the question linking to articles on the company’s website for more information.

“Figure out who your target audience is and then create content that adds value to them and their lives. We’ve discovered that 95% of the content we create should be adding value to the reader. The final 5% should pitch us as a solution. It builds trust and entices them to opt in for our free e-book, which consequently builds a super valuable email list for us,” Easton said.

Related resources

Research-based Ecommerce Swipe File

Ecommerce Marketing Research: To be truly successful, you must step out of the ecommerce bubble

Ecommerce Research Chart: What makes customers more likely to buy online?

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Meet the Makers May 2021: Blooming Marketplace Success Stories

How’s it going, Sumo-lings?! Welcome back to our Meet the Makers series , where we round up our favorite Marketplace success stories and talk to the brilliant founders behind some of your favorite tools.

If you don’t know much about AppSumo Marketplace , here’s the inside scoop. Marketplace is a hustling, bustling, collaborative community where creators seamlessly launch and sell their best digital downloads, courses, and apps to fellow entrepreneurs.

Want in on the action? Submit your product here!

It’s May, which means spring is in the air and we all want to bloom and grow.

Scroll down to read some of the best Marketplace Case Study stories, hear about their launches, and learn their tips for success!

Sell on the leading digital marketplace for entrepreneurs

With AppSumo, you don’t have to be a marketing pro to boost your sales and connect with excited new customers. Focus on building the best product you can. Let us be your engine for growth.

Start selling on AppSumo

PDFBear is an all-in-one PDF SaaS tool that handles all your PDF needs, allowing you to split, converge, merge and compress any of your PDF files.

Compared to other platforms that seem to take, take, take, AppSumo favors the SaaS business.

Meet Henrick

I’m Henrick and I’m the Director of PDFBear.

We have been doing business on the Internet for the past 20 years. We are currently a team of 15 people, all self-funded, no VC or external parties involved, developing this product that we want to see succeed.

Our goal is to become a household name for all PDF requirements . We constantly develop our product with the users in mind. We take all the suggestions we get and add them to our roadmap.

How did you find out about AppSumo Marketplace?

Good old Google!

Tell us about your launch! Any challenges?

It was pretty straightforward once we were discovered and reviewed after we submitted our application. Because our product is so universal and necessary, we didn’t really need to adopt a particular marketing strategy. Since people need to use PDFs daily, they’ll purchase our lifetime deal, which is significantly more affordable than our competitors’ products.

What value did you receive from your promotion?

The best value is that our end-users are satisfied. The biggest reason we know that? We’re seeing their daily use!

What advice would you give to anyone interested in Marketplace, so they can get the most of their launch?

The most important thing you should do is answer people’s questions. It really helps give clarity and also helps you improve upon your tool.

What’s been your favorite thing about launching with us?

Honestly, the profit-share has been incredibly fair. Compared to other platforms that seem to take, take, take, AppSumo favors the SaaS business.

What’s your company vision? Tell us what’s next for you!

We have big things around the corner! We are rounding off our features, launching on Android/iOS and Desktop, and selling B2B.

2. LeadScripts

LeadScripts is a fill-in-the-blank copywriting engine that helps you finish your funnels in minutes with fewer brain-freezes and ruts.

The Sumo-ling community has been amazing—very friendly, helpful, and respectful.

Meet Craig:

I’m Craig and I’m the Founder of LeadScripts.

As a solopreneur for a few SaaS applications, I design each system to be as much on auto-pilot as possible. I also have a few dedicated freelancers that assist me. I’m always on the lookout for great people to add to the team. I automate as much as possible and focus on what matters the most for our users. LeadScripts launched in 2020.

I was browsing a deal on AppSumo one day and noticed the link at the bottom. I submitted my app immediately. I honestly didn’t know the process to get into the AppSumo marketplace. I was stoked when we went live!

The process for me was easy. The instructions were clear and it was a super smooth launch. I was and still am extremely grateful to be in such a solid Marketplace.

LeadScripts has undergone a huge transformation. Everything we added has been based on user feedback from Sumo-lings. The users appreciate the quick turnaround and that we’re actually listening. We’re real people you can reach out to and that care if you succeed

The biggest advice I would offer is to remember your position: to help others. Your product needs to solve a problem for your user. Sumo-lings will give you feedback. Don’t ignore it. Use it to shape your product into something great.

The user feedback, without a doubt. The Sumo-ling community has been amazing—very friendly, helpful, and respectful.

Since numerous users have requested it, we’ll definitely be adding AI to LeadScripts. It will be unlike all of the other current AI offerings. Our application is more than just a copywriting engine. LeadScripts offers the complete package for funnel builders. And as we grow, I’ll continue to look for more amazing copywriters and developers.

3. Word of Mouth BOT

Word of Mouth BOT funnels in new customers ready to buy from your business effortlessly, so you can get more online reviews than ever for your business or your clients.

Word of Mouth BOT also lets you automate a big portion of SEO! You can even resell the included three white-labeled locations to make recurring revenue running your own reputation management SEO agency.

AppSumo is absolutely a great example of guerilla marketing and a terrific win/win distribution platform.

I’m Mike and I’m the founder and creator of Word of Mouth BOT.

I am a bootstrapped solo founder and I’ve always been a “marketing nerd,” reading about guerilla marketing as a teenager. The low-cost/high-impact tactics and strategies have always been the foundation of my perspective on effective marketing.

With this in mind, I created the first version of the software about 6 years ago. The goal was to make the most powerful marketing tool available to small businesses and I know I have succeeded!

I decided to learn as much as I could about coding and Google SEO and ended up hiring a great team of developers who have been with me for nearly six years now.

As a business owner, I understand the marketing challenges that local businesses face. Word of Mouth BOT enables thousands of businesses to take control of their online reputation and SEO by turning their happy customers into content-creating machines. That means better keywords, higher rankings, great ratings, and a ton of reviews all on auto-pilot!

As a marketing nerd (see above), I’ve been aware of AppSumo and Noah for years. It is quite amazing they’ve been created! In my opinion, AppSumo is absolutely a great example of guerilla marketing and a terrific win/win distribution platform.

The biggest challenge for me was creating the content, it’s just not my thing, unfortunately. Conveying the real value of Word of Mouth BOT as a marketing tool and as a business opportunity wasn’t easy. Luckily, I work with a great marketing guy, David Dubbs, who was an absolute asset through the initial process. Another challenge was to figure out how not to cannibalize my monthly recurring revenue business model while providing an awesome LTD for Sumo-lings . So far, my strategy is working well for us and for Sumo-lings!

We are on our way to signing up thousands of partners through AppSumo. The real value to Word of Mouth BOT as a business is to be able to get these partners profitable and want more locations and features to resell and upgrade to our monthly plan. With this LTD, you can make $1,000 or more per month, every month— if that’s enough, great!

But if you want more, we offer upgraded plans for $199 per month that empower you to make over $20,000 per month. Through AppSumo, you can simply try before you buy. This is our business strategy: get thousands of partners to be successful and making money. The hope is they’ll want to upgrade, so they can make even more!

I would say to think through your pricing strategy so that it only adds to your users, instead of taking away from your core business. AppSumo is a powerful distribution platform for any tool or piece of content that interests marketing professionals.

Hands down, AppSumo’s willingness to work with us and get through the growing pains.

My goal is to have over 1,000 partners making over $10,000 per month each. At that point, I will have done my job and it’ll be on to the next project!

4. Watermarkup

Watermarkup is a quick watermarking application that is suitable for all businesses and professionals. It helps users watermark photos in batches without losing image quality.

Launching on AppSumo is one of the best ways to market your product.

Meet Jerry:

I’m Jerry and I’m the founder of Watermarkup.

Watermarkup is a small team and we often work remotely. Some members of our team live in Europe and Asia. We launched Watermarkup in December of 2019.

I am a frequent user of AppSumo. One day I received an email from your team about AppSumo Marketplace. After one or two months, I decided to apply to list Watermarkup on your Marketplace.

Actually, in our experience, the process of launching on Marketplace was very easy. We didn’t run into any problems.

The biggest value is that we have more connections with other people and partners. Some partners have even contacted us to collaborate. It’s incredible!

Prepare for the launch carefully and always support users as soon as possible. I recommend that makers always focus on answering questions from their users.

We really enjoyed the smooth and easy process and the help from the entire AppSumo team! It’s been a great experience. Launching on AppSumo is one of the best ways to market your product.

We plan to release the next version of Watermarkup in the near future. We’re also creating other SaaS products and will launch them soon.

5. Studiocart

Studiocart is a simple, powerful plugin that has everything you need to build funnels directly on your WordPress site.

My business would not be where it is right now if I had not launched on AppSumo.

Meet Nicole

My launch started with AppSumo in late 2020. Studiocart is my first ever plugin/software commercial product. It’s mainly myself plus three contract developers.

I found out about AppSumo from an article on Freemius, my plugin distributor.

It was nerve-wracking because this is my first product and I had no idea what to expect as far as providing support.

My biggest challenge was getting people to trust me. I would go into Facebook groups and community forums asking people to beta-test my product. I had this thing that people said they needed and wanted but people were turning me down. It was hard to get anyone to say yes, and it was incredibly frustrating.

Launching on AppSumo gave my product a huge credibility boost and opened the door for me to gain the trust I needed from the community.

Definitely the user feedback. Without that feedback, I wouldn’t be able to improve the plugin as quickly and I wouldn’t know which new features to prioritize.

My business would not be where it is right now if I had not launched on AppSumo. The amount of exposure, sales, customers, and feedback I got from the platform enabled me to not only launch my business successfully but continue to grow it.

You definitely need to engage as much as possible. You should answer questions and ask for reviews wherever you can. I’d recommend AppSumo Marketplace to anyone who’s trying to launch a new software business and struggling to make any traction on their own.

Launching with AppSumo jumpstarted my WordPress plugin business. It’s literally the reason my business exists! AppSumo has been a godsend— it provided instant credibility for my product to potential customers.

I’m really excited to create additional resources for my community that will help them show off their skills and knowledge and hopefully increase their visibility. The plan is to continue to enhance Studiocart and implement feature requests. I’m also working on building our community and creating more community-based resources. The goal is to have training/mini-courses and an experts directory, so our users can showcase and highlight their expertise.

Sell on AppSumo Marketplace today

Thank you to all the awesome creators and founders for taking the time to catch up with us and sharing your journeys! We’re thrilled to watch your businesses prosper and flourish!

Inspired to create a product of your own? Want to help users troubleshoot some age-old problem?

Our community of hustlers, entrepreneurs, and leaders can’t wait to see what you come up with. Submit your product to AppSumo Marketplace today!

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The Ultimate Guide to Data Marketplaces in 2024

Data and information are the most important assets for most businesses. While organizations can use their data to improve their businesses, their data can also have significant value beyond their business. With data marketplaces, buyers can purchase datasets to enhance their analytics and offer new services to their customers while sellers monetize their data

What is a data marketplace?

A data marketplace is a platform where users buy or sell different types of data sets and data streams from several sources. Data marketplaces are mostly cloud services where individuals or businesses upload data to the cloud. Those platforms enable self-service data access while ensuring security, consistency and high quality of data for both parties.

Why is it important now?

Data marketplaces’ emergence is related to the growth of Big Data . Organizations start to acknowledge data as an asset. Businesses are generating more data either internally or collecting external data through web scraping and other initiatives. Some of this data is valuable for other companies, too. Data marketplaces enable organizations to monetize the data. They monetize the data by offering it to other companies or individuals. With data marketplaces, monetization can be in the form of:

• Subscription as in ZoomInfo, Bombora etc.
• Selling the datasets as in Streamr
• Purchasing data from a marketplace to train and sell an AI-based product
• Using external data internally to generate value: Adding another dataset to your own business data to create better insights or new work stream

How does it work?

Data marketplaces offer incentives such as cash or gifts to promote data sharing. For example, Freckle IoT offers individuals cash-out once you have at least $5 accumulated, using an Amazon gift card or $10 using PayPal. Another example is ZoomInfo which provides users of its community edition access to 10 data points per month in exchange for getting contact information data from their emails.  

With the advancements in Blockchain, data marketplaces are evolving to be more secure. Data marketplaces like Datapace  and Ocean Protocol integrated the technology into their solution. They use blockchain to encrypt and anonymize access to the submitted data streams from data providers. Then buyers purchase data stream through an automated smart contract . Once the transaction is completed the tokens are distributed among the parties according to agreed prices.

What are the types of data marketplaces?

Personal data marketplace

Individuals monetize their own data by selling it to these platforms. Data they shared can be related to anything such as location, food preferences, website designs they enjoy, and so on. Individuals either set the price for their data and wait for a buyer or accept incentives such as sign-up cash or gift cards provided by marketplaces. Personal data marketplaces are fully GDPR-compliant since individuals are sharing their data purposely.

B2B data marketplace

B2B Data Marketplaces collect and store company data from a multitude of data providers onto one platform. They enable data consumers (other organizations) to access an aggregate of pre-curated information from multiple sources that can be used for marketing, sales, and BI purposes. Larger amounts of datasets are shared compared to personal data marketplaces.

Sensor/IoT data marketplace

According to Gartner, 80% of companies fail to monetize their data. One effective way to cash in IoT data is by selling information to third parties. With a sensor or IoT data marketplace, organizations can buy or sell real-time data that is collected from an IoT device. Data collected from sensors help organizations understand consumer behavior, improve sales, and build better marketing strategies.

What are the leading data marketplaces?

Data providers.

These platforms are go-to places to purchase data when an organization is searching for external data to enhance business functions by combining them with their enterprise data. Data that is provided from these platforms are useful to enrich B2B account-based marketing.

Company level intent data

These data providers offer behavioral information collected from an individual’s online activities so that organizations can better target accounts.

• Duns and Bradstreet

Company employee contact information

These vendors provide contact information for individuals in companies including their role, email and phone information as well as social media accounts.

Company financial information

Financial information datasets create a competitive advantage for investors, hedge funds, market analysts, retailers and corporates while they make data-driven decisions.

• Crunchbase (focused on startups)

Company Technographic Data

If you are a SaaS provider, you need to know the technology stack of your potential customers because your solution should be integrable into the existing technology of the client. You also need to target the audience that doesn’t have the technology you are offering, otherwise, you waste your time for marketing to organizations that are less likely to convert.

Customer/business location information

Location data provides a toolset that marketers can use to fill in the gaps of a consumer’s profile. Marketers can leverage location data to grab the attention of new prospects with a geotargeting strategy. These datasets also include locations of businesses.

Data Marketplaces

In these platforms, marketplace vendors as an intermediary between buyers and sellers.

Personal Data Marketplace (Individual to business)

These use blockchain to enable individuals to benefit from sharing their data. Their current usage levels are lower compared to the data providers listed above.

Business Data Marketplace (Business to Business)

• Ocean Protocol
• Informatica B2B Data Exchange

Sensor Data Marketplace (Machine-to-machine)

How do data marketplaces differ from data warehouse and data lakes.

Data warehouses and data lakes are on-premise solutions to manage and analyze data. they are useful for processing data that is within the enterprise. Range of data in data marketplaces is broader, you can buy any type of data such as customer behavior, financial, geolocation & technology stack data depending on the marketplace you choose.

Data marketplaces provide data that is ready to be used by diverse businesses thanks to its level of data quality and metadata. Internal data sources like data warehouses include data that can be harder to understand (e.g. due to lack of metadata) since they are stored for internal use. Marketplaces catalogs data and describe its attributes and how it can be used to help users so that data scientists don’t need to spend time on ETL processes and focus on gaining insights from it.

What are alternatives to data marketplaces?

Many companies that rely on data in their operations (e.g. hedge funds) have sophisticated data scraping operations to collect data from various sources. However, data scraping is significantly more difficult than getting data from marketplaces as most website owners aim to block automated access to their content ( with the exception of search engine bots ).

You can use our prioritized, data driven list of data scraping vendors to identify the right partner to set up robust data scraping operations as a SAAS.

What are example case studies?

Australia and new zealand banking group (anz).

Challenge: ANZ is a financial services provider that wanted to innovate and drive internal exploration of its corporate data. They realized that data sharing can help them drive better business decisions. However, creating a data-sharing partnership with another organization may take from 12 to 18 months to agree on technology, contracts, and methodologies.

Solution: ANZ uses Data Republic Senate platform to secure data sharing and accelerate new data partnerships. The Senate platform provides data sharing, data access controls and user permissions, governance workflows, shared analytics workspaces, and full licensing audit trails. ANZ can customize the visibility of data sets for internal and external parties, handle data requests from an internal marketplace, and control licensing terms specific to how and why data is provisioned.

Results:   ANZ reduced the time to create a shared data asset 93% and enabled more accurate customer matching between datasets.

What are its benefits?

• Access to outside data : Data marketplaces enable organizations to reach data from other sources. This data is optimized for use of external organizations so it tends to be clean and come with extensive metadata to enable.
• Faster insights or product development: Companies can spend more time on data processing than data collection.
• Safer data sharing: Organizations share their data with trust thanks to blockchain technology.

Data marketplace is a data-as-a-service application; feel free to read our article about DaaS.

You can also check our sortable/filterable list of marketplace software to find the most suitable option

If you still have questions about data marketplaces, we can help:

Featured Image Source

Cem has been the principal analyst at AIMultiple since 2017. AIMultiple informs hundreds of thousands of businesses (as per similarWeb) including 60% of Fortune 500 every month. Cem's work has been cited by leading global publications including Business Insider , Forbes, Washington Post , global firms like Deloitte , HPE, NGOs like World Economic Forum and supranational organizations like European Commission . You can see more reputable companies and media that referenced AIMultiple. Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised businesses on their enterprise software, automation, cloud, AI / ML and other technology related decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He also published a McKinsey report on digitalization. He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem's work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider . Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

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I’d say the summary of interfaces is a bit short. From my pov I think that data marketplaces provide three ways to access data: – query endpoints – API, and – analysis-ready datasets

In addition to that, data marketplaces also publish their domain data models. – Why? because a marketplace is integrating or linking data from multiple data providers, yet has to present this as if it were coming from a single knowledge graph. When a data consumer queries for data about say Apples, the data consumer should really also be given a definition of the meaning of Apple that is being used by the data marketplace.

Case studies of data market place

https://agrimetrics.co.uk : Find, manage and monetise agricultural data

Case studies

Giving Audi the confidence to air new creative

With real audience insights, we helped the auto brand improve (and shorten) a TV ad that wasn't getting them the results they needed.

Putting a fresh face on new product development for No7

After realising the power of agile concept testing, No7 developed a robust insights programme with the Kantar Marketplace platform at its core.

Schneider launches a successful FIFA World Cup campaign

Discover how the sponsor of Argentina’s national football team capitalised on qualitative studies and LINK on Kantar Marketplace to deliver a moving World Cup campaign.

Optimising concepts with speed for a successful global brand launch

Improving market penetration in Australia for Jarrah and Ovaltine

Learn how BrandEvaluator on Kantar Marketplace helped identify ways to acquire more customers by positively changing customer perceptions.

Driving ambitious global growth with agile brand measurement

Zespri is a fast-growing, fruit marketeer using agile brand equity measurement on Kantar Marketplace to support their ambitious global growth plans in emerging markets.

Confirming bold campaign decisions for PepsiCo’s Rockstar

Levelling up brand performance in the bread spreads market

Discover how Arla Cheesy Spread turned to BrandEvaluator on Kantar Marketplace to gauge progress against their brand goals in the Philippines.

Helping BrewDog convey sustainability credentials via packaging

Discover how we helped BrewDog convey their sustainability credentials more effectively through their packaging.

Innovating Ferrero’s holiday concepts for sweet success

Learn how the Kinder brand used agile insights from ConceptEvaluate on Kantar Marketplace to gauge consumer interest in three new holiday concepts and build differentiation.

Fast-tracking beverage innovation at Spindrift

Unlocking scalable digital creative intelligence for Unilever

LINK AI forms the backbone of a global system for testing digital ads across the organisation's markets, categories and brands.

Agile new product development for Kraft Heinz in China

Communicating Vino Colon’s brand positioning more effectively through advertising

How we challenged a wine purveyor to rethink gender stereotypes in their communications.

From insights to winning concepts for Danone in days

A breakthrough innovation was needed for Danone’s Activia brand – and Kantar delivered in super-quick time with ConceptEvaluate.

Validating Google’s ABCD framework with the power of artificial intelligence

Learn how Google used LINK AI to analyse over 11,000 ads in less than a month, revealing key drivers of effective creative.

Helping Kez’s Kitchen range their products in the biggest retailers in Australia

How the brand successfully extended their snacking SKUs and got their products ranged in two leading Australian retailers.

Understanding global creative to tailor to local market context and life stage

Helping White Claw optimise global creative for the Australian market with LINK on Kantar Marketplace.

Helping Tassal to support new product development with consumer insight

How Tassal has renovated the way that they develop and launch new products using IdeaEvaluate and ConceptEvaluate on Kantar Marketplace.

Helping coffee brand Nova Brasilia develop more effective creative in Bulgaria

Learn how the brand used iterative testing throughout the creative development process to maximize ad impact.

Helping a finance brand build better ads with tailored insights

How Banco Galicia managed to communicate a new product in its brand ecosystem in an impactful and efficient way.

How to optimize the presentation of a new release with agile insight

Helping Cervecera de Canarias to maintain brand authenticity during a new product launch with idea screening and concept testing.

Helping Twinings with end-to-end creative development

How ensure success from idea to finished film; early-stage development combined with optimisations through LINK+.

Launching Yakult’s European campaign with confidence

Test your campaigns in-market to maximise their impact

How Banco Galicia used BrandCampaign on Kantar Marketplace to redefine its media strategy and focus on its most relevant messages.

Using AI to scale creative effectiveness

How Genomma Lab Internacional confidently reshaped and scaled their ad testing and optimisation approach with LINK AI on Kantar Marketplace.

Client testimonials

"Kantar’s Marketplace system is super quick, easy to use and very intuitive. Even in its lowest cost solution it delivers so much more for your money than competitors, more flexibility with sample, best in class system 1 emotional measures & a wealth of other metrics. It gave me the confidence to have a really robust read on the strengths & weaknesses of our ads & make the right decisions moving forward."

Louise Abbott Consumer Insights Manager  |  BRITA Water

"I have been sincerely impressed with the speed that Kantar Marketplace can deliver results. My organization moves at such a fast pace that most premium suppliers' solutions are not even close in meeting; this platform has unlocked all the Kantar agility needed to match our rigorous internal timelines and enable research informed decisions as quickly as required."

Georgios Papadopoulos Senior CDI Manager, Hygiene  l  Reckitt Benkiser

"When we wanted to ensure that our new advertising campaign was well poised to meet our brand building goals for Johnson and Johnson, we needed results fast. We were extremely impressed by the speed in which Kantar Marketplace delivered, enabling us to see results from 15 digital and TV assets in just three working days after launch. While the platform unlocked a core need to deliver results in almost real time, it didn’t take away from the valuable insights and expertise that Kantar brings; it was this expertise which propelled the team and agency to make informed decisions and drive success. All in all, a fantastic combination."

Michael McCaffrey Global Head, Strategy and Insights Corporate Affairs  Johnson & Johnson

"The concept screening programme we’ve implemented in partnership with Kantar has given us a fully validated new product development pipeline. We’re confident in the products we’re launching and know how to optimise the concepts to maximise commercial potential. Kantar Marketplace is such an agile approach, and the analytics dashboard is really convenient for accessing results. The expertise and interpretation we get from the team at Kantar has added so much value."

Caroline Morley No7 Global Insights Manager l Walgreens Boots Alliance

How to Build a Marketplace Website in 15 Steps: Ultimate Guide

Starting your online marketplace is an exciting experience, but it might feel confusing. Surely, a marketplace website launch can be chaotic, especially when you do not know where to start.

To make things easier, we created a list of steps to take when you consider going into the ecommerce business. From this article, you will know the main stages of building an online marketplace. These are choosing the required features, the development approach, and the software consultancy that will help create your platform. You will also find out how to improve and promote your online marketplace website.

Here's a brief guide on crafting a marketplace website:

• Identify the core functionalities your marketplace needs, catering to both buyers and sellers.
• Decide between building from scratch, using existing platforms, or a hybrid approach based on your unique requirements.
• Prioritize an intuitive and visually appealing design.
• Integrate reliable and secure payment gateways.
• Build a reliable review and rating system.
• Familiarize yourself with and adhere to legal regulations related to ecommerce and online marketplaces in your target regions.
• Develop a comprehensive marketing plan to promote your marketplace and attract a steady stream of buyers and sellers.
• Provide responsive customer support.
• Implement analytics tools to track user behavior, transactions, and overall marketplace performance, enabling data-driven decisions.
• Regularly update and optimize your marketplace based on user feedback, technological advancements, and evolving market trends.

Armed with this thorough guide, you will learn how to create a marketplace website that both your buyers and sellers will love.

Definition and main types of a marketplace

A marketplace is a platform where stores of various sellers are presented. An online marketplace connects sellers and buyers of goods and services and helps them process transactions.

Currently, there is a shift in online sales from individual online stores to marketplaces. It happens because trading on marketplace websites has many advantages over online stores.

There are many types of online marketplaces. In general, these platforms can differ by types of products, interactions, and participants.

We recommend you look at the table below about overall marketplaces’ classification with examples.

Speaking about the types of marketplace platforms based on the participants, these websites are divided into the following varieties:

• B2B (business-to-business). They offer services and products for business. Wholesale dealers also use such online marketplaces.
• B2C (business-to-customer). The classic of global trade. In this case, online sales are calculated for individual buyers. For example, the Amazon marketplace platform works on this system.
• C2C (customer-to-customer). Business is built between private individuals, both for money and through barter. A similar principle is implemented on eBay and Airbnb online marketplaces.

The thorough table below will help you distinguish between the outlined marketplace types. Let’s look closely at each type (B2B, C2C, B2C) to learn more about their sales value, length of the sales process, goal tasks, and more.

Related reading: Key Trends in Digital Marketplace Industry in 2024

Key benefits of building a marketplace website

Creating a marketplace is a great way to create your offline business on the web and make it profitable. Let’s consider the key benefits of building a marketplace platform for all sides: a platform owner, sellers, and buyers.

Benefits for founders

• Revenue options. Marketplace owners can choose revenue models like listing fees, subscriptions, or commissions, offering flexibility and the potential for combining multiple schemes.
• Scalable business. As marketplaces expand, adding more sellers meets growing demand, maintaining a balance between supply and demand for sustained growth.
• User and investor interest. A wide array of offerings attracts user interest, while marketplace investments, exemplified by Uber's success, draw significant attention from investors.

Benefits for buyers

• Extensive product range. Online marketplaces provide buyers access to a broad spectrum of products in one place.
• Trusted platforms. Ratings and reviews enhance buyer trust in marketplaces compared to standalone firms.
• Promotions and convenience. Marketplaces often offer discounts, attracting and retaining users, while the one-click booking process enhances convenience.

Related reading: Top Online Marketplaces in Australia 2024: All You Need to Know About Leaders

Benefits for sellers

• Elimination of self-promotion. Sellers avoid needing independent promotion, saving on development, support, and SEO costs.
• Enhanced search ranking. Marketplace listings consistently rank high in search results, providing better visibility than standalone online stores.
• Increased promotion opportunities. Sellers benefit from increased brand recognition on marketplace platforms, resulting in a higher flow of customers.
• Access to analytics. Sellers gain insights into product views, purchases, and other statistics through their marketplace accounts.

You may also like: How to Create an Online Service Marketplace: Ultimate Guide

Essential features to create a marketplace website

Building a successful marketplace website requires a thoughtful combination of functionality, user experience, and strategic planning. Let's check specific fundamental features that are pivotal to your platform's success.

• User-friendly interface. A positive first impression is vital. Achieve it with intuitive navigation, clear categorization, and an aesthetically pleasing design for seamless interactions. Users must easily find what they need.
• Mobile responsiveness. Optimize your marketplace for mobile devices. A responsive design ensures seamless access and navigation, broadening your user base.
• Community and social integration. Foster a sense of community with social features. Users should follow sellers, leave comments, and share products on social media, enhancing engagement.
• Customer support and dispute resolution. Prioritize prompt customer support and a transparent dispute resolution system for fairness, ensuring a positive user experience.
• Scalability and performance. Design your site for scalability, handling increased traffic without compromising performance. Regularly update and optimize for a smooth user experience.
• Legal compliance and security. Ensure compliance with laws, implementing robust security measures for user data trust and long-term success.
• Analytics and insights. Integrate analytics tools for valuable insights into user behavior, products, and marketplace performance. Make data-driven decisions to refine strategies and optimize functionality.

So, you can create a dynamic online space that attracts users, facilitates transactions, and establishes itself as a trusted platform in the competitive world of ecommerce.

15 essential steps to create a thriving online marketplace

Creating a booming online marketplace involves some crucial steps. Whether you're creating the e-commerce website from scratch or improving an existing platform, it's vital to focus on things like making it easy for users, following the rules, and keeping everything secure.

1. Research and choose your niche

Before building a marketplace, define what products or services will be available on your platform. In simple words, conduct market research.

You have two options to choose from:

• Create a horizontal marketplace.
• Create a vertical marketplace.

The first variant is a horizontal marketplace website launch. Such platforms cover a variety of items. For instance, Amazon spreads over a great number of categories and products, from books to electronic devices.

You may be interested: AliExpress Clone Website: How to Build Similar Ecommerce Platform

The clear benefit of this approach is greater coverage. At the same time, pinballing between several market segments, you lose a chance to become a leader in a specific domain.

Alternatively, you can build a vertical ecommerce platform. It supposes the focus on a specific niche or a particular user category.

Why is the vertical marketplace launch a more sensible choice?

First, the narrow focus allows you to highlight the benefits and specific features of each item you provide. You can attract new potential users with detailed product or service descriptions. It is a good way of making your offerings more useful and valuable for the target audience.

Second, niche marketplaces give users a more personalized customer experience. Buyers can find a specific solution to a particular issue on these websites.

Further reading: How to Create a Multi-Vendor Marketplace Website

2. Learn your target audience

Define your target user category for your marketplace. Understanding your audience is crucial for effective marketing. Tailor your value proposition based on customer needs to address specific problems. When creating an online marketplace, focus on meeting consumer expectations for a positive user experience and emotional satisfaction with your product.

Use Steve Blank's customer development approach to survey user pain points, motivations, and habits at product inception, post-commercial use, and consistently over time. Apply Rob Fitzpatrick's Mom Test principles to create questions revealing genuine thoughts, ensuring accurate and valuable insights into your product.

Recommended reading: C2C Marketplace Development: Why Invest in Your Own Platform

For instance, our Codica team recently developed an Australian online marketplace for boats , Trade A Boat. This is a platform to sell new and used boats and marine equipment. People in Australia are great lovers of the sea. Focused on selling boats and marine equipment, Trade A Boat has become one of the favorites for shoppers and vendors all over the continent.

Our team helped add valuable solutions to the platform, sustaining its successful course. This case study demonstrates that analyzing the local market is of great need.

Finally, the analysis of your target audience and market research helps solve the chicken and egg problem. Also, it helps get the buyers and sellers to use your platform. This analysis allows for choosing the right communication channels, content, and marketing strategies. As a result, you will be able to promote your products and services more effectively.

When defining your target audience, take into account the following factors:

• Occupation;
• Potential pain points.

You may also like: Online B2B Marketplace Development: Step-by-Step Guide

3. Define the required functionality

Let’s start with the basic features any marketplace should have. These functions will make your ecommerce marketplace software solution for both parties.

Product page. Give a comprehensive description of selling items to potential buyers. High-quality photos and videos, detailed descriptions - everything matters.

Shopping cart. As you are developing an ecommerce platform, this option is a priority.

Security options. Make your marketplace website as secure as possible. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates, multi-factor authentication, and firewalls will help you protect your product.

Payment methods. Enable users to choose amongst a variety of payment options . The most popular payment gateways are PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, and WePay.

Search feature. The chances are that your multi-vendor platform will offer a great number of products. So, it would be reasonable to add a search box when creating a marketplace website. By the way, this is a must-have for the marketplace, and now, the platforms use semantic search with AI for personalized needs.

Place the search bar where users expect to find it. According to Able , the most suitable place for the search box is in the top right or top left of the pages on your site.

Admin panel. Simply put, an admin dashboard helps manage everything related to your ecommerce website. For example, this functionality allows you to track orders, payments, and shipping. Moreover, you can view abandoned checkouts and create draft orders.

Source: Tradeaboat case study

Wishlists. With this feature, shoppers can create collections of items they would like to buy later. When users are ready to make a purchase, they quickly find the product needed in the wishlists.

Sign in/sign up form. First, registered users can choose the platform role - a vendor or a buyer. Second, sign-up improves customer experience. It enables customers to track order processes or view previously purchased items. Finally, registration allows customers to get personalized on-site recommendations.

Source: eBay.com

Shipping. With this feature, shoppers can choose the preferred delivery option offered by vendors.

This is functionality you should consider in the first place when building a marketplace. With these features, you will get a convenient and easy-to-use web solution.

4. Select the development platform

When it comes to creating an online marketplace, you have two options. You can buy a ready-made solution or build a marketplace website from scratch. The final choice depends on your budget, time, and plans for further scaling the platform.

Consider buying ready-made software if you aim to save money initially, if off-the-shelf solutions meet your business requirements, or if you seek a quick marketplace development solution that aligns with your startup needs.

By the way, custom software development services take into account your specific business needs.

Education, healthcare, and finance benefit most from this approach due to industry-specific regulations and unique business requirements, including audit trials, automated workflow, and role-based access.

If you wonder how to build a marketplace that will stand out from the competitors, you should consider the option of creating a custom platform.

Let’s take a look at the main advantages of the approach:

• Meeting specific requirements. Bespoke software helps you cover the demands unique to your business. You can be sure that all your fine points and hidden risks will be counted.
• Startup growth. Tailored solutions are famous for their flexibility. It means that you can always add new functionality when needed.
• No needless features. With customized software, you will not have to pay for the extra functionality you will never use. This way, you can reduce the development expenses greatly.

If you choose to build your own custom platform, most likely your development partner will offer you to begin with a product discovery stage. Here’s what you should know about it:

Related reading: Spree Commerce: How to Quickly Build an Ecommerce Website

5. Choose the best tech stack

A technology stack is a toolset used when working on projects. It includes programming languages, database management systems, frameworks, etc. In fact, the chosen tech stack determines the performance and reliability of the online marketplaces.

At Codica, we conduct software development that suits the best client’ project. Our software development approach is to fully understand the customer’s business case and its customer journey. After that, we pick a technology stack to create a marketplace website of the highest quality.

There are some general criteria that all marketplaces shall conform to.

• Scalability. Marketplace websites should be scalable. It is crucial because they need to accommodate increased user loads as your platform becomes more popular. Also, marketplaces should be of high performance.
• Flexibility. Moreover, your technology stack should be flexible to support user flows and provide a great user experience. Adding new features should be easy. Clearly, the impossibility of adding the functions that your users need is a big problem for any online marketplace website.
• Security. Certainly, security is one of the most crucial factors you should consider when you build an online marketplace. Why? Because the marketplace will deal with confidential information about users.

You may also like: Question and Answer Website Development: Functionality and Best Practices

At Codica, we have selected a list of tools assisting us to develop scalable, secure, and high-quality online marketplaces. Now, we will share with you which tech stack we use. Also, you will learn what integrations we recommend for your future successful marketplace.

Front-end tech stack

The frontend of the tech stack is the visual part of your web platform. Visitors see and interact with this part of your solution. So, developing this part for an online marketplace website demands a deep understanding of users’ needs. For the frontend side, we use:

Backend tech stack

The backend of the tech stack is the software part responsible for functioning the internal part of a web solution. Of course, software of high quality should have a solid ‘backbone’ to function smoothly. When creating a marketplace website, for the backend, our experts use:

• Ruby on Rails

DevOps tech stack components

Companies use the DevOps tech stack for continuous integration of operations. DevOps tools automate many recurring tasks. Thus, they improve overall performance. Also, these tools decrease the likelihood of manual faults during the development lifecycle. Our choice of DevOps tech stack when creating a marketplace includes the following tools:

Databases tech stack

Databases are a significant part of the backend ecosystem. In brief, the database is an accumulation of data, specially organized for fast search and removal from a computer. They deal with maintaining and processing a lot of data points. Here are the databases we use for building a marketplace:

• ElasticSearch

Infrastructure software stack

At Codica, we prefer the following application deployment, provisioning, and configuration management tools:

• Digital Ocean

Integrations

In general, integrations enhance the functionality of the existing system. Thanks to their features, it becomes possible for the system to automate and complete a broad range of tasks. In brief, with the following integrations, we will help you create a marketplace website of high quality:

• Google Analytics
• Uptime Robot

The process of picking a tech stack can be quite challenging. It requires careful discussion with stakeholders and thoughtful planning. Also, your development team should have vast practical experience.

Further reading: What Makes Ruby on Rails Perfect for Marketplace Development?

Choosing the right tech stack contributes to your platform's success

At Codica, our experts use a certain tech stack to develop web solutions of the highest quality. For example, we are glad to share with you our work on the first automotive marketplace in Africa. The client wanted us to develop a complex marketplace website.

The project was intended to cover many South American and African regions. Also, it was supposed to connect purchasers with auto dealers and private sellers.

We chose our proven tech stack, with Ruby on Rails as a core technology to build a marketplace, and were right. So, our client got a quality web solution with a fast load, simple workflow, and mobile optimization.

6. Select a business model

Your marketplace website should bring you a stable profit. For this reason, you have to choose a suitable revenue model. Remember that it should offer reasonable conditions for your potential vendors. Also, it needs to help grow your marketplace.

Let’s take a closer look at the best monetization strategies used by the ecommerce giants, such as Amazon, eBay, and others:

• A commission cuts a part of each transaction made through your platform.
• A listing fee is a sum charged from a vendor when they publish their items on the marketplace. The higher the product or service cost, the higher the listing fee.
• A subscription fee is a marketplace business model when a seller pays a charge to get access to your ecommerce platform. It contains monthly or yearly fees for a definite set of benefits.
• An advertising fee is about promoting items on your marketplace by third-party advertisers.
• Lead fees. This revenue model means that users pay for access to detailed information about the desired item.
• Premium membership gives users access to extra features and exclusive content.

Below are examples of monetization strategies and well-known companies that use them.

To wrap up the topic, choosing the right revenue models is crucial for making a profit on your platform. Starting with one monetization strategy, you can progress to complex models. This way, you will also help vendors make the most of your marketplace.

7. Write a business plan for the marketplace launch

Creating a business plan is crucial before starting online marketplace development . It outlines goals, tracks progress as the platform grows, and reduces risks by anticipating issues. Also, it serves as a must-have document when seeking third-party investors, demonstrating the viability of your marketplace idea for long-term success.

These are the main points your multi-vendor marketplace development business plan should include:

• Review of your enterprise as a whole;
• Your marketplace description, including your goals and objectives;
• Description of products and services your vendors provide;
• Information about your target audience, the niche you chose, and competitors;
• The online marketplace strategy and ways of its implementation;
• Your team’s organizational structure;
• Financial plan with a revenue model and projections.

8. Search for compatible investors

If you decide to build a marketplace website, you need money to translate your project into reality.

What if you don’t have enough funds to finance your online marketplace idea? What should you do? In this case, you have to turn to other funding sources and seek outside investors.

In this regard, it would be a good idea to find investors who may be interested in your kind of business. For example, visit events, conferences, and meetings they hold or attend.

Can you find an investor online? Sure, you can visit specialized professional platforms, like Wellfound (former AngelList) or Crunchbase . The latter allows customizing your filters to find the right depositor.

It is worth noting that finding an investor is not only about injecting funds. This person can become a source of advice and strategy.

Find the right funders interested in your marketplace success, and they will speed up the marketplace launch. With their help, the projects of business owners will grow faster.

You may also like: Market Networks: the Future of Service Marketplaces

9. Select the right development team

Partnership with the proper development firm is crucial for a successful marketplace launch. Therefore, you should choose the software developers responsibly.

For instance, PayScale shows that a web developer's average hourly rate in the USA can be about $100 per hour.

So, using the average rate of Eastern European development firms, the approximate cost to develop a website like eBay will be a minimum of $64,600. If you want a rental marketplace like Airbnb, it will cost you about $65,600.

The tips below will help you find a dedicated agency to build an online marketplace that satisfies all your needs.

Visit research and rating platforms like Clutch , GoodFirms , and Appfutura . They will provide you with detailed information about the team needed. You can read reviews of their existing clients on such websites.

Check their clients' references.

Ensure the chosen team knows how to build a marketplace that brings value to both buyers and sellers.

Pay attention to the organization of the development process and the technology applied. At Codica, we use Ruby on Rails to build reliable and fast-loading marketplaces.

Give preference to companies that adopted the agile methodology . This approach helps make alterations at any development stage. Besides, you can respond faster and more effectively to market demands with agile methods. This way, you eliminate the risk of expensive market misses.

Check the software company’s portfolio to make sure they will create user-friendly online marketplaces.

By the way, you can look at the detailed articles on how we deliver marketplaces at Codica:

• How We Delivered Boat Selling Website for Tradeaboat
• How We Delivered MVP for PlanMyKids - Kids Activities Marketplace

Starting a new project is rather a challenging process. To make things easier, choose an established team that knows how to build an online marketplace website of the best quality. Thus, you will receive a fast, scalable, and user-friendly web solution.

10. Develop an MVP first

Building a minimum viable product (MVP) is the easiest way to save money, time, and effort. To build marketplace, we recommend starting with MVP development services .

Let’s look at the main reasons to build a minimum viable product before rolling out a full-featured platform.

• An MVP allows you to release your marketplace idea in the shortest period.
• With this approach, you can significantly save costs. It works the following way: you verify your idea first, then create a product. Thus, you can make sure that you are investing in a project attractive to your potential customers.
• An MVP helps you find early adopters. Their feedback will show how to build marketplace that is attractive to potential customers. Besides, the pioneer users will tell what features should be added, modified, or removed.
• In building an MVP, you focus on the basic features required for a marketplace launch. You can always extend the functionality as your platform scales. Don't worry that your product is not perfect. In the first iPhone project, there was no Wi-Fi at all.

Below you can see the MVP prioritization matrix offered by Clearbridge Mobile . This chart can help you define the features that should be included in the MVP.

To sum up, the idea of building an MVP comes down to testing your business idea first. You find early adopters and meet their demands with one or two key features. After receiving valuable feedback, you can improve your product by adding new features. Gradually, you will learn how to build marketplace that will attract new users.

Codica is a reliable MVP software development company for startups with years of practice. Our team has worked on a broad array of projects. We pride ourselves on our expertise in helping startups launch their products and grow their businesses.

Related reading: How to Build a Marketplace Website MVP and Not Fail

For instance, one of our MVP projects was developed for an online booking platform . Our client, David Watkins, faced the problem of planning his own kid’s activities after school. Like many other parents, he was busy with work, and finding time to look for activities on the web was quite tricky.

We started the development process with MVP building. Our specialists use proven technologies and practices to create a product with minimum features that meets all needs.

Thus, with the help of the minimum viable product, our client could check the business idea with the least effort and investment.

At Codica, we know that the success of your startup idea depends on how well you define what features to include in your MVP. Our development team will assist you to make a considered decision. For this, we provide an in-depth analysis of your project environment.

Related reading: How to Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

11. Acquire users

We have discussed a strategy to build an online marketplace. The next question is how you can promote your brand-new ecommerce platform.

An efficient marketing tactic helps attract vendors and buyers to your online marketplace. Of course, solving the chicken and egg problem can be a bit effortful. Let potential customers know about your startup from the planning stage.

Use the following tips to gain sellers' and buyers' attention:

• Promote your platform via ads on social media, including Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
• Become a part of workshops or educational meetups. Attend these events to connect with your potential vendors and buyers.
• Visit trade fairs to search for sellers. Find a subtle way to get their contact information. Thus, you will be able to reach them afterward.
• Organize live events and collaborate with celebrities.

Further reading: How to Create a Micro-Job Marketplace Like Fiverr

12. Platform promotion

To promote a marketplace platform, you need a team of experienced SEOs and content experts.

The task of SEOs is to find where to grow traffic. The task of content managers is to fill potentially traffic pages with relevant and high-quality content.

To make the work as efficient as possible, adhere to the following algorithm:

• Search and development of potential traffic pages.
• Technical optimization of the marketplace.
• Identification of competitors and refinement of the semantic core.
• Analysis and compilation of metadata.
• Compilation of technical requirements to content.
• Drawing up a link promotion strategy.
• Analysis of promotion results and optimization of the workflow.

You may also like: 6 Top Multivendor Marketplace Features for Sellers

13. Build trust between sellers and buyers

When building an online marketplace, don’t underestimate the importance of UX design . Pretty often, it helps prove to your customers that it is completely safe to buy and sell products and services on your platform.

Do you want to know how to create a marketplace website that your customers will trust? Take into account the following points:

• High-quality photos and videos allow buyers to view items from different sides and angles. So, why not allow sellers to provide as many details as possible?
• A thorough product description gives customers comprehensive information about the desired item.
• Reviews and ratings prove that customers can rely on a specific vendor for the quality of the product they are going to buy.
• A refund policy is a must-have for an ecommerce platform. With this option, customers feel safer when purchasing.

Source: Amazon.com

Focus on building a well-arranged and easy-to-navigate marketplace. Thus, you will offer a seamless user experience to bring new customers to your platform.

Further reading: 5 Main Online Marketplace Features to Make Buyers Happy

14. Find tools to monitor different aspects of your marketplace

Starting a new business is always tough. However, the working process will be well-organized with the right tools, and your enterprise will run smoothly.

So, what are the most widely-used applications and tools:

• Google Analytics is used to analyze your marketplace traffic. This tool helps better understand your audience and more.
• Salesforce is a powerful CRM (customer relationship management) tool. It allows you to connect to your users and organizes your clients' pipeline from the first contact to making a deal.
• Google Drive is the storage for your materials with vast functionality. The system offers collaboration with other people and convenient editing of documents.
• Mention is a great marketplace app for showing mentions of your project on different resources.
• Buffer is a great assistant for scheduling posts on social media. This marketplace app development solution makes your promotion campaign as smooth as possible. All you need is to buffer a blog post, and the service will publish them automatically.

You may also like: Best Examples of PWA for Ecommerce Marketplaces

15. Protect your intellectual property

Now it’s time to protect your business legally. Define if you need to set copyrights, patents, trademarks, or special licenses. Why is it important?

Other people can make a profit from your idea if you do not protect your concept. So you should have the documentation that proves you own the assets mentioned.

Here are the ways which will help you make your product idea safe and sound:

A patent is a set of exclusive rights. It is granted to an inventor for a restricted period in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention.

A trademark is used to represent a company or product. It can be a symbol, word, or several legally registered words. For instance, you need it to protect your project name.

A copyright is a collection of exclusive rights granted to an inventor and spread over a literary work, song, movie, or software. For example, you can protect your website content, including articles, descriptions, etc.

A domain name is the part of a network address that identifies it as belonging to a particular domain.

Applying these methods, you can ensure that your marketplace is highly protected. Additionally, your web project will be recognized by the courts and competitors.

Read also: Codica Named a Top Ecommerce Web Development Company

Costs to build a marketplace website

The cost of creating a marketplace totally depends on many aspects. It may significantly vary depending upon the functionality you select. The online marketplace development process requires the coordinated efforts of many specialists. This process includes backend and frontend development. Also, it comprises project management, UX and UI design creation, and quality assurance.

Notably, the location of your development team will also influence their hourly rates. So, you should bring this aspect into focus, when you decide to build a marketplace website.

So, how much does it cost to build a web solution from scratch?

Further reading: How Much Does It Cost to Build an Online Marketplace in 2024

Our extensive expertise in building a marketplace

The Codica team consistently delivers innovative solutions that redefine the ecommerce landscape. With a proven track record of delivering successful and scalable marketplace websites, Codica brings a wealth of experience and expertise.

Tailored solutions for diverse industries

By understanding each client's unique needs, Codica customizes solutions that meet and exceed expectations. Moreover, our team has demonstrated the ability to adapt and thrive in various domains.

Strategic planning

Before diving into development, Codica team collaborates closely with clients to understand their business goals, target audience, and unique selling propositions. This thorough planning ensures that the resulting marketplace aligns with the client's vision and resonates effectively with end-users.

Innovative features and advanced functionality

Codica is at the forefront of integrating cutting-edge features and advanced functionality into marketplace websites. We employ the latest technologies to enhance the overall user experience.

Responsive and cross-platform compatibility

Codica prioritizes responsive solution and cross-platform compatibility when providing UI/UX design services . Whether users are browsing on a desktop, tablet, or smartphone, Codica's marketplace websites offer a consistent and enjoyable experience.

Robust support and maintenance

Codica's commitment to client satisfaction extends beyond the launch of a marketplace website. The company provides ongoing support and maintenance services, addressing any issues promptly and proactively.

In a testament to Codica's prowess in web development, the company launched on a transformative journey with Dan.com, a leading online platform for selling domain names. Codica's mission was clear: to breathe new life into the platform by rebuilding old functionalities and introducing innovative features.

In this online marketplace platform, our specialists successfully implemented several business solutions, including:

• Enhanced domain options editing: Implemented the capability to edit domain options, providing users greater flexibility and control over their domain management.
• Optimized platform performance: Executed comprehensive improvements to enhance the overall optimization of the platform, ensuring a smoother and more efficient user experience.
• Revamped mobile designs: Launched a complete overhaul, prioritizing enhancing user experience on mobile devices. The updated designs contribute to a more user-friendly and visually appealing mobile interface.

As a result, this platform is modern and superfast. For instance, you can download 1000 domain names in less than 2 seconds.

We hope that this thorough guide will answer the main question: how to build marketplace convenient for buyers and sellers.

Define the required functionality. Choose a reliable custom software development company and proper methodology. These are the core points that help marketplaces succeed.

As a Chinese proverb says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Let this article inspire you to create an online marketplace like Airbnb or Etsy.

If you are looking for a reliable ecommerce marketplace development company , we are here to bring your ideas into reality. Contact us to discuss your project idea and get a free quote.

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Creating a first-to-market one-stop digital marketplace

Accenture helped Telkom Business transform the ecommerce experience for merchants and consumers through the Yep! digital marketplace platform.

10-minute read

Call for change

Doing more than digital service.

South Africa has some of the lowest startup success rates in the world, with 75% of new businesses failing within 36 months.* Telkom Business caters to this community, offering small enterprise voice, data, and broadband services, along with the Yellow Pages directory. Digitization of the Telkom Business model focused on finding a convenient way to serve small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and help them beat these discouraging odds. Telkom Business teamed up with Accenture to launch a user-friendly online commerce site in early 2020, where SMEs could easily shop the full range of offerings: connectivity products and plans; software, hardware, and devices; and marketing solutions.

Accenture delivered the front-end experience for Telkom Business’s ecommerce site but also saw the opportunity for a digital marketplace where merchants could more easily buy and sell their own products and services, and get the advice they need to build their businesses. Many of South Africa’s SMEs are run by small business owners who don’t have the acumen or time to create their own ecommerce offering. Telkom Business was uniquely positioned to provide such a service through its existing relationships with SMEs.

*Expert Journal of Business and Management,  “Fortifying South African Small Medium and Micro Enterprise Sustainability through a Proposed Internal Control Framework: The Sustenance Framework,”  2020.

When tech meets human ingenuity

From paper registry to growth platform.

The marketplace project began with a fresh reimagining of the company’s printed Yellow Pages into a platform, app and community proposition named Yep!, a play on the popular South African phrase “yep” and a shortening of the Yellow Pages name.

Accenture worked with local vendors whose insights informed blueprints for user journeys and the platform experience. It had to be simple for a small business to create a mini-storefront, upload a company logo and contact details, and communicate and transact with customers—ideally within a few quick steps. To shorten the learning curve, Accenture incorporated UX from familiar apps, like WhatsApp, and gave it a sleek and colorful look.

Merchants can set up a storefront, manage appointments and schedule bookings via the Yep! dashboard. The app alerts business owners to new customer requests for quotes. Customers can find a vendor, ask for a quote and chat with the merchant inside the app.

Because much commerce in South Africa is handled in person, Yep! can help SMEs bring business to their stores as well. In-person agent visits from the Yep! team provide digital guidance and business advice in a familiar and relatable setting. In the future, merchants may tap into an online academy on the platform to learn how to set up a great storefront and edit their service and product images.

SMEs can also use Yep! to quickly buy and sell services to other merchants. A forthcoming feature enables SMEs to bid for supply contracts offered by larger firms, furthering the Yep! platform as an integral part of the fabric of the South African economy. 

Yep! is changing the way small and midsized businesses link up with customers by offering a suite of products and services they can use to drive in-store traffic and online sales. Telkom is on a path to fulfill our mission to help businesses create sustained growth. It took a commitment to a digital transformation at Telkom to get us there.

Kenneth Kayser / Executive of Digital Channels and E-Commerce, Telkom Business

A valuable difference

Thriving through scale and growth.

In less than a year, Accenture and Telkom Business conceived, designed, and implemented the company’s ecommerce site, as well as the Yep! online marketplace platform and app.

By May 2021, an impressive 280,000 stores had been set up on the Yep! online marketplace, more than half of the 500,000 listed SMEs in the Yellow Pages, and it had attracted 320,000 people actively using the service.

Yep!’s appealing and user-friendly design inspires South African SMEs to rely on the one-stop platform to drive sales, increase reach, and build valuable business relationships.

By partnering with Accenture, Telkom Business reimagined the ecommerce experience for merchants and consumers, establishing a vast ecosystem of thriving businesses on the Yep! marketplace. Together, Accenture and Telkom Business helped set the stage for large-scale digital transformation and innovation across all of Telkom.

What is a Data Marketplace? What's The Future of the Data Marketplace

Marketing Manager

The future is looking big for data marketplaces. The global data marketplace platform market size is anticipated to reach USD 5.09 billion by 2030 (Research and Markets) . But as more marketplaces enter the space, the tougher the competition, and companies are finding it increasingly difficult to run a successful data marketplace which can withstand these overcrowded conditions. TL;DR: companies operating data marketplaces must be more opportunistic, scrappy, and, above all, solution-orientated to build a business that really works.

We’ll take a look into the state of the data marketplace today, the different kinds of data marketplaces you’ll encounter in the industry, and some possible trajectories for data marketplaces - and their various users - in the future.

Let’s begin with the most prevalent kind of data marketplace, and their core user group: public data marketplaces, and the commercial data providers which sell via them.

1. Data marketplaces are hugely popular amongst data providers

75% of major data providers are using a public data marketplace (Harbr)

By now, the provider-facing benefits of public data marketplaces are common knowledge to most in the data industry. Firstly, they’re one of the best demand generation platforms for data providers. Public data marketplaces are mostly industry-agnostic, so the total addressable market (TAM) of buyers using a public data marketplace is huge. Companies large and small, from cybersecurity to consultancy firms, are using public data marketplaces for data sourcing. This gives data-as-a-service (DaaS) companies a huge pool of potential buyer leads spanning many verticals.

Secondly, data integration is not a pre-requisite for selling via a public data marketplace. Many, like Datarade Marketplace , enable providers to list data products which market their offering without having to sync their data to the marketplace. They need only upload a sample preview. This way, providers can collect inbound leads with no delay or painful integration. In this sense, public data marketplaces work just like B2C marketplaces. A retailer selling shoes can create listings for their various product to be published on the marketplace, but the stock itself resides with the provider. They retain full control over their product and there’s no complication associated with getting the product to the marketplace. When the listing is ‘purchased’, the provider is responsible for fulfilment. The same is true for data providers, who are able to deliver the data to the buyer without third-party interference, via the method which works best for them.

This brings use to a final important value proposition of the public data marketplace. It is a secure means of data exchange. Either public data marketplaces don’t host providers’ data, just their listings, so there’s no risk of a security breach. Or they’re integrated with blockchain technology to ensure that all data streamed over the platform is encrypted. Nokia Data Marketplace is a good example of a blockchain marketplace. These data marketplaces are referred to as ‘decentralized data marketplaces’. They’re powered by the blockchain so as to project the anonymity of users, making buying and selling data more safe for both parties.

Which brings us to an obvious but crucial consideration. Data marketplaces are two-sided markets , where commodities are exchanged. We’ve looked at the supply-side beneficiaries of data marketplaces; now let’s look at the demand-side.

2. Public data marketplaces are famous for ease

Public data marketplaces are making it easier than ever for buyers to find the right data

A key factor driving the data marketplace’s ease of use is automation. Again, the B2B data marketplace is following the B2C marketplace’s lead and applying familiar ecommerce concepts to buying data. To make the data procurement as simple as possible, public data marketplaces are standardizing data products and moving even further away from the data brokerage model, instead favouring a buyer experience which is automated and fast. For example, buyers can purchase datasets instantly from public data marketplaces like Datarade Marketplace using a normal credit card. This is thanks to data marketplaces working with payment processors like Stripe.

It’s not just data purchasing which public data marketplaces are getting better at facilitating. Data sourcing has also become a more automated process on the public data marketplace. The likes of Nomad’s Connect allows buyers to describe their data use case, which the marketplace’s algorithms analyze in order to automatically send the request to providers which might fit the bill. This drastically reduces the time spent in data discovery and comparison stages, and the matches will only get more relevant as the algorithm improves.

And when it comes to use cases for data, none is receiving more attention at the moment than artificial intelligence. Countless articles have been written about the importance of external data for training generative AI models. In response to this, public data marketplaces are developing with this specific use case in mind. Databricks, for example, is directing its open data marketplace squarely towards buyers’ AI, ML and analytics use cases. Databricks allows buyers to access data, ML models, notebooks, applications and dashboards in clicks thanks to its Delta Sharing software. We’ll look into how AI is hastening the evolution of the data marketplace in more detail further on.

A final development we’re seeing occur with public data marketplaces is an increase in the free data products they offer. For example, Snowflake Marketplace offers free data products sourced from the IMF, Knoema and CARTO . A great consequence of data democratization, public data marketplaces are promoting data for good by welcoming free datasets. Open access to external data is fuelling research and innovation both within and outside of the private sector. For example, health authorities and health startups alike could use the dataset ‘COVID-19 Epidemiological Data’ for free from Snowflake to inform policy and improve medical treatment. Forward-thinking data marketplace companies have recognised the public sentiment shift towards data for good and attached their brand to it by supporting free datasets. In the long run, these marketplaces enjoy a positive public perception because they’re helping drive social and scientific development by making crucial data accessible.

Contemporaneously to this, however, we’re seeing more businesses build their own private data marketplace, thanks to the SaaS companies making this build possible.

3. Private data marketplaces on the rise

More SaaS providers are enabling businesses to build a private data marketplace

A private data marketplace is owned and operated by the data provider, who controls access permissions and parties granted access to their data. It’s a model that’s expected to grow in popularity in the future, as new software is making it easier to build a private data marketplace. For example, Harbr has helped CoreLogic and Moody’s Analytics launch their own private data marketplace and populate them with products.

Data providers have many reasons to start their own private data markepltace. For one thing, the marketplace is proprietary, meaning the provider can obtain deeper analytics into user behavior, demand fluctuations, popular categories, and purchasing habits than from a public data marketplace.

Also, a private data marketplace is typically catered towards a specific industry or niche use case. Although this limits the audience so it’s far smaller than the TAM of a public data marketplace, this specificity works for some data providers. For example, certain financial data providers don’t offer data for which there’s mainstream demand. It makes more sense for such providers to run a private data marketplace, accessible only to investment and accountancy firms whose need for this data is sustained and dependable.

In future, as more companies establish themselves as successful data-as-a-service providers, we’ll see providers launch their own data marketplaces, stocking their own products and those of strategic partners. We saw this with CoreLogic , a real estate provider. More DaaS companies, providing data from geospatial to pharma, are likely to follow suit and build private data marketplaces for greater control over the end-to-end commercialization of their data.

4. The white label data marketplace model is emerging

Alongside an increase in the number of private data marketplaces, we’re also seeing more of a newer still kind of data marketplace: the white label data marketplace

A white label data marketplace is platform which a company builds using an existing marketplace architecture, owned by another entity. The company then pays to brand the marketplace as their own - it’s ‘white label’ in the sense that it’s a blank canvas for customization. For the company buying the rights to use the marketplace, the agreement makes sense because it enables them to fulfil their clients’ need for data. For one thing, this creates on-platform stickiness: these clients no longer need to use other sources to get their external data. It’s readily available in the software they’re already using. So there’s more incentive for clients to stick to one platform that does it all.

Secondly, a white label marketplace provides businesses with a fresh branding opportunity , without having to build the marketplace themselves. Usually, it’s large enterprises who start white label marketplaces. It allows them to develop the ‘tech’ arm of their business and brand with relatively little engineering effort. You can get a white label marketplace going in as little as weeks.

Lastly, the ROI of a white label data marketplace can be huge. Once the initial investment has been made and the marketplace is up and running, the company can begin charging their existing clients for using data from the marketplace. With this comes a net-new revenue stream with low customer acquisition costs (CAC), because the customers have already been acquired and are using the company.

Arguably, it’s a bit of a misnomer to call white label data marketplaces ‘new’; they’re the same marketplaces that have been around for years which have just undergone a rebrand after changing hands. There are other, totally newly-conceived data marketplaces appearing more regularly than we could’ve anticipated years ago.

5. New data marketplaces appear every week

And this trend doesn't show signs of slowing yet

One of these new data marketplaces is being built by data industry veteran, Snowflake, which is building a retail media data marketplace - in addition to its existing public data marketplace, which is data category generic. Another new marketplace, Mobito , specializes in mobility data. There are still more generic data marketplaces throwing their hat into the ring: New York-based Taktile recently launched its data library which is suitable for widespread use.

The proliferation of data marketplaces is just one indicator of an entire industry entering hyper-growth. There’s more in store for the future of the data industry than could be covered in this guide alone.

6. Data marketplaces are part of an industry in flux

The data marketplace is one piece in an industry undergoing seismic change as AI has forced data marketplaces to expand their capabilities

The data industry is experiencing rapid growth, which has been catalysed by new market challenges, software innovation and the advent of AI and analytics. The data marketplace provides one of the best case studies for examining the evolution of the industry, and how it’s been affected by wider technological progress.

The data use case of the age has prompted many smart data marketplace companies to expand their product to facilitate said use case. Yes, we’re again talking about artificial intelligence.

AI training and Machine Learning are fuelled by external datasets. Both require quality data, lots of it, in a format that teams can use collaboratively. For this reason, companies whose central product is a data marketplace are expanding the capabilities of the marketplace platform to include solutions for ensuring data quality, annotation, and sharing. These are some of the steps towards data governance which data experts are citing as essential for AI use cases ( West Monroe ).

Traditionally, data marketplaces focus solely on data monetization and acquisition. But AI has put greater emphasis on what’s happening with the data pre- and post-purchase. Namely, there’s now the question of whether the data is high quality enough to train an AI model. And after that, how easily data scientists, developers and product managers can collaborate to build an AI program using the data. For example, Narrative’s flagship product is its Data Streams Marketplace . However, they’re adding a new product, Rosetta , which standardizes data so that it can be put to cross-departmental use.

What’s certain is that AI will continue to direct product development at data marketplaces. Exactly what the future holds for new marketplace features, products and capabilities which arise as a result of AI remains to be seen.

The data marketplaces we’ve mentioned in this article barely scratches the surface when it comes to the total number of marketplaces out there. Shopify saw that the range of ecommerce sales channels available to online retailers was bewildering. And that to list products on each marketplace was painful and time-consuming. With this mass of marketplaces comes a need for new software which unifies the chaos, just as Shopify did for B2C commerce: the data commerce platform. Data Commerce Cloud™ (DCC) enables data providers to sync products to multiple marketplaces at once. In other words, data providers will be able to generate leads from each kind of data marketplace, via a platform which makes running an omni-channel business easy.

The future of many data marketplaces will include collaboration with data commerce platforms like DCC. Already, leading data marketplaces including Databricks Marketplace, Google Cloud Analytics Hub, Datarade Marketplace and SAP Datasphere are integrated with DCC to expand the supply of data products available on their platform and to provide more value to their customers. As we’ve seen, the competition for data marketplace businesses is only increasing. Those which can stand out in terms of provider and product supply have a better chance of success.

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List your data in the most popular marketplaces.

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The Indian Government's E-Marketplace (GeM)

Jump to a section.

The initiative

The challenge

The public impact

• Stakeholder engagement Good
• Political commitment Strong
• Public confidence Good
• Clarity of objectives Good
• Strength of evidence Strong
• Feasibility Strong
• Management Strong
• Measurement Fair
• Alignment Good

Bibliography

Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is a marquee initiative launched by the Government of India to usher an era of e-governance in the nation. India's public procurement spend stands at ~ 340 bn GBP (~15-20% of its annual GDP) and faces several inefficiencies owing to a complex policy landscape, manual inconsistent processes across Central and State buying organizations and long lead times. Addressing these issues can unlock significant value and help channelize resources for various development schemes and projects.

GeM is an online, end-to-end marketplace reform that provides an open, efficient & transparent solution. The platform was launched on 9th August, 2016 and is managed by GeM Special Purpose Vehicle, a 100% Government Owned, Section 8 Company under the Department of Commerce. Since inception, GeM has been able to achieve significant scale in operations and has taken many strides towards optimizing the operations on the platform. It has already achieved a cumulative GMV of close to 4 bn GBP, and is expected to grow 10X over the next 2 years. In the long run, over next 5-7 years it is expected to achieve its potential GMV of ~ 90 bn GBP equivalent to 4-5% of India's GDP. 

A private consortium comprising of an e-commerce player, a systems integrator and an IT infrastructure provider, which operates under the stewardship of the GeM Special Purpose Vehicle, is accountable for maintaining and developing the technology platform. The platform is presumed to have led to overall savings of up to 25 percent in government expenditure while enhancing transparency and efficiency in public procurement. At full scale of operations, the savings from the platform will have a significant impact on lowering the fiscal deficit of the country.

In order to improve transparency of decision-making in the public procurement process and to reduce malpractices, India's government, i.e. the Ministry of Commerce and Industries and the Department of Commerce, decided to set up an online marketplace for public procurement, a Government-to-Business platform (G2B). An online marketplace (or e-commerce marketplace) is a type of e-commerce site where products or services are offered by a number of sellers and all the buyers (i.e. the government agencies and departments) can select the products and services offered by any of the sellers, based on their own criteria. This enables a competitive pricing structure and implies the government procures more cost-efficiently. 

The Indian government introduced the Government E-Marketplace ‘GeM' in August 2016 as an end-to-end online marketplace to facilitate online procurement of common use goods and services required by central and state government ministries, departments, public sector undertakings, autonomous institutions, organizations, and local bodies at the right price, right quality and right quantity in a transparent and efficient manner. [ 1 ] Within less than three years since its implementation, about 290,000 sellers & service providers have signed up to the platform. They sell more than 1,400,000 products to more than 39,000 buyer organization across Central and State Government Ministries, Departments and their affiliates [ 2 ].

In parallel, the Indian government amended the GFR (General Financial Rules) and brought about a change in procurement directives that mandated all organizations and departments under the Central Government to procure from GeM.

GeM aims to enhance transparency, efficiency and speed in public procurement. It provides the tools of e-bidding, reverse e-auction and demand aggregation to help governments achieve the best value for their money and hence, use taxpayers' money efficiently. GeM also provides the buyers with an option to select only MSMEs and choose a seller from amongst them. This has helped buyers in significantly increasing share of MSME purchases in their overall procurement of goods and services.

GeM is a dynamic, self-sustaining and user-friendly portal that is open to sellers of all sizes. It encourages MSME sellers through special filters on the portal. GeM aims to help all the government officials in purchasing goods and services that are of common use like air conditioning and heating equipment, writing instruments, water, projectors, desk and computer supplies and services like security, human resources, housekeeping, among others. [ 3 ]

Purchases up to Rs 25,000 (around 280 GBP) can be made from any of the available suppliers on the GeM directly by any ministry or department, meeting the requisite quality, specification and delivery period. For anything that costs beyond Rs 25,000, purchases have to be made through price comparison, bidding or reverse auction, where the criterion of the lowest price among available suppliers on the GeM has to be followed to ensure price efficiency. [ 3 ]

Government organizations and agencies around the world procure a wide range of goods and services from the private sector in order to run their country.

Given the scale and geographic spread of public procurement in India across Central and State Ministries, Departments and their affiliates, before GeM, India's public procurement landscape was marred by many inefficiencies, a few of which are listed below:

• Geographic coverage of standardized procurement limited to localized vendor base
• Non-availability of granular data/ MIS on public procurement 
• Limited range of product categories under standardized rate contracts
• Lack of price reasonability (either individually selected vendors OR prices locked for 1 year under rate contracts)
• Limited demand aggregation/ benchmarking across organizations to optimize for bulk purchases
• Admin overhead for buying organizations in terms of manpower & effort required
• Time consuming, cumbersome registration & verification processes for sellers
• Manual process inefficiencies such as offline payments processes
• Manual rate negotiations resulting in opacity and possible cartel formation
• Complex policy landscape with potential for conflicts - Many purchase preference policies exist in India today at both Central & State level resulting in complicated decision making for buyers. 

While a private buyer can choose his purchasing strategy flexibly, the public sector had limited options to respond dynamically to anti-competitive behaviour due to strict regulatory and legislative framework as well as detailed administrative procedures on multiple levels of government.

A transparent public procurement system not only improves the government functioning but also helps boosting innovation within the private sector. A fair and transparent public procurement system in India has encouraged greater participation from firms in the bidding process as well as ensuring a competitive bidding process between various firms. [ 4 ]

So far, 23 states & 6 union territories (out of 29 states and 7 union territories), like Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Gujarat who have signed MoUs with the central government for getting on board the GeM, and many dealers and small businesses across the state reveal a growing interest in becoming a part of the portal. For them, the portal provides an opportunity to scale up their business and increase sales. [ 5 ] Procurement for all World Bank funded projects in the country has now also been enabled on GeM. 

On a state level, the government's e-marketplace has significantly improved transparency of government purchases because almost all common use items like computers, printers, photocopiers, paper and stationary, as well as other office items like furniture, and bottled water for example are being purchased through GeM. Since its opening, this Business to Government (B2G) platform, has eliminated multiple levels of manual, sequential verification and decision-making, leading to dramatic reductions in lead-time in government procurement. For suppliers, too, this has opened attractive new options by eliminating intermediaries and guaranteeing prompt release of payment.[ 0 ]

This is especially remarkable for small Indian states. According to Srikanth Douripalli, regional manager for GeM in Goa, in its less than two years of existence there are around 5,000 products available for online purchase in Goa (one of the smallest Indian states) with 37,000 government organizations and Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) registered and 250,000 sellers and service providers. The portal supported 2.1 mn  orders worth 3.5 bn GBP as of August 2018, with an average overall savings for the buyers (mainly the government agencies) of 25 percent. [ 6 ] The Bihar government has bought various items valued at Rs 423 crore via the GeM portal and saved between Rs 70,000 to Rs 1 lakh for every vehicle purchased for the police department, as on July 2019.[ 24 ]

The Union Government on January 14, 2019 launched the ‘Womaniya on Government e Marketplace (GeM)', an initiative to enable women entrepreneurs and Women Self-Help Groups (WSHGs) to sell handicrafts, handloom, accessories, and other products directly to Government departments and institutions. Nearly 80% women-owned establishments in India are self-financed and more than 60% of 8 mn units are owned and led by women entrepreneurs from socially-challenged sections. Womaniya on GeM will spur hyper-local economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs and achieve gender-inclusive economic growth.[ 25 ]

The Ex-CEO of GeM, Radha Chauhan, states that the goal of engaging more sellers from small and medium sized enterprises as well as from isolated regions to advertise their products on the platform, has been successful so far: “Since its inception in 2016, GeM has today over 15% of its sellers as micro, medium and small enterprises who contribute more than 45% of sales by value on the platform, creating opportunities for small manufacturers in remote hinterlands of the country to sell and to interface with the government, directly”, she says. 

Exact numbers on the quantitative savings impact of GeM however vary between sources and are thus not fully conclusive.

Written by Julia Schnatz

Stakeholder engagement

Relevant internal stakeholders were mainly the different government organizations and departments on central, state, and local level. GeM was created by the Directorate General Supply and Disposal (DGS&D) for online purchase of commonly used goods and services by various central government ministries and departments.[ 7 ] The DGS&D was managed under the Commerce Ministry, which was at the core of developing the different features of the platform. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry suggested later during the development phase of the portal that the GeM also provides tools for online bidding and online reverse auction which can be used by the purchaser.[ 7 ] Eventually DGS&D, a department that had its origins in the India Stores Department, which was established in 1860 in London by the British for centralised purchase of goods for India, was shut down on 31st October 2017, and was entirely replaced by GeM. [22]  

External stakeholders included mainly vendors who want to sell their products on GeM. In order to include them better into the design of the marketplace, study groups were formed in different Indian states to enhance local vendors' participation and get their input on the proposed creation of the e-marketplace. Special initiatives such as ‘Womaniya' to enable women entrepreneurs and women-led self help groups to showcase and sell their products on GeM have been undertaken by GeM in the last year. GeM has also undertaken similar initiatives to promote MSMEs and Startups on the platform. [ 10 ] [21]

In addition to this, “Startup Runway” - a unique concept initiated by GeM to promote entrepreneurship through innovation was launched on 19th February 2019. This program is an opportunity for agile and lean Startups to reach out to the universe of Government Buyers by offering products and services that are unique in concept, design, process and functionality through StartUp Runway corner. DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade) certified Startups are invited to offer their products/services for procurement on Government e Marketplace (GeM). The objective of the program is to enable startups and spur hyper-local job-creation, wealth generation to achieve inclusive growth. More than 1500 startups have registered on GeM, offering over 12,000 products; more than 5000 orders have been given to startups on the GeM platform. Some of the unique and innovative products offered by these startups include Motorbike Fire Engine, Health kiosk, rescue water craft etc.[ 2 ]

Firms offering their products on GeM also showed confidence when they evaluated the policy on state level: “Most of the firms and suppliers offering their products on GeM are happy with the service, according to the feedback received from them in Goa”, says Douripalli. The entire process of joining the marketplace and registering products is very smooth, transparent and very productive to all the buyers. The whole registration process for sellers takes just 10 minutes. A typical concern of local sellers prior to the creation of GeM was of payment getting delayed or not having enough inventory to process the order. Under the GeM framework, sellers receive the payment within 10 days of the buyer accepts the goods. The goods have to be supplied within 15 days of getting the order; this further increases efficiency and transparency. [ 6 ] 

Further to this, GeM also offers ‘Business Cockpit' - a value-add service for the OEMs, enables the businesses to get deeper insights by providing relevant statistics such as coverage analysis, buyer information, value & volume of business etc.[ 2 ]

Political commitment

Ever since its development, commitment to the efficient and wide-spanning use of the platform has been strong: With the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announcing the proposal to reform government procurement in a budget speech in February 2016 [ 8 ], the idea was to aggregate demand from government offices and use the power of bulk buying to get better cost advantages from electronic goods suppliers. The proposal was also presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as one of the avenues to drive operational efficiencies. [ 9 ]“The government is committed to curbing corruption. One of the key aspects of this objective is to minimize Governments human transactional interface”, said Narenda Modi, the Indian Prime Minister in the course of GeM's implementation. [ 10 ]

Shortly after the launch of GeM, the Finance Ministry amended the General Financial Rules and has made it mandatory for all the departments and ministries to source common goods and services from GeM. [ 2 ] To further accelerate the adoption and use of e-government services by major national ministries as well as their local counterparts across the states, a National Mission on GeM was launched in September 2018 by India's Commerce and Industry Minister, Suresh Prabhu. [ 10 ]

Public confidence

The platform was developed in a span of five months and the Special Purpose Vehicle is now responsible for ensuring adequate publicity, including periodic advertisements in newspapers of the GeM and the items to be procured through GeM, for prospective suppliers. [ 10 ] This has eliminated all any human interface for vendor registration, order placement or payment processing and has removed entry barriers for suppliers who weren't able to conduct business with the Indian government. Indian businesses and the MSME sector in particular perceived this to be the greatest benefit of GeM besides increasing transparency and reducing corruption in the procurement process. In general, the business community seems to be in favour of this new procurement system. [ 20 ]

GeM set up a twitter account for their operation where they inform the general public regularly (~ once every two days) about the most recent developments and news related to the marketplace. The next goal is to localise the markets by scaling GeM up to incorporate at least 13 other languages apart from English to make the market more accessible throughout India. [ 17 ] To further simplify the platform & make it more user-friendly, the platform has launched a chat-bot - GeMmy - to assist the users and quickly resolve their queries to expedite the process. In addition to this, GeM also launched a Learning Management System (LMS) on its website, which serves as a training tool and facilitates intermediate processes like registration training, live training using webinar, certification, feedback, FAQs and other user specific journeys.[ 2 ]

Recently, Startup-Lobby groups in India as well as the think-tank IndiaTech have requested the government and regulators to allow them to list their “home-grown” products and services on GeM. IndiaTech CEO Rameesh Kailasam told Indian News Outlet Times of India that this would allow startups to access new market opportunities while at the same time, government departments could benefit from the pricing advantages that many start-ups offer. This could include services like cabs as well as flight and hotel bookings. [ 15 ] 

In early 2019, GeM has launched an initiative to enable female entrepreneurs and self-help groups across India to advertise their products on the platform. This is part of an effort of GeM to enable more inclusive growth and make the procurement platform accessible to vendors of all backgrounds and regions, especially women, start-ups and young businesses. [ 18 ]

The Minister of State for Commerce and Industry also released a movie on GeM, , and expressed hope that its national launch would further seek to promote inclusiveness by catapulting various categories of sellers and service providers, take proactive steps to facilitate the training and registrations of such specific category of manufacturers and sellers, develop women entrepreneurship and encourage participation of MSME sector and Start-ups in public procurement.[ 19 ]

Clarity of objectives

Procurement through GeM has been authorized as per the General Financial Rules, 2017 Rule 149, where also the marketplace's broad objectives were stated. The announcement was released shortly before the launch of the platform and defines the overall objectives of the GeM as follows: 

• Transparency and efficiency in public procurement; corruption free governance
• Remove entry barriers for bonafide sellers
• Increase overall efficiency leading to significant cost savings on government expenditure in procurement
• Maximizing the ease in availability of all types of products and services bought by government buyers
• Promote inclusiveness by opening the platform to a vast array of sellers and buyers
• Achieve cashless, contactless, and paperless transactions

Even though the objectives were stated clearly, they do not include more specific numerical goals as to the extent to which GeM should be used across government entities. The objectives of the procurement policy were also not changed over the time period and were not adjusted to more specific challenges that arose, especially regarding the engagement of local vendors. [ 10 ] Many of the products on offer on GeM are produced in urban regions with high economic activity, rather than in remote regions, weaker sections and medium small enterprises, or even more locally manufactured goods and services. [ 12 ]

Strength of evidence

While developing GeM, the Indian government used other countries' similar platforms as examples and drew on the learnings from these global Government-To-Business (G2B) platforms, in particular Chile's “Chile Compra”, South Koreas “KONEPS”  and Singapores “GeBiz”. The Indian government linked up with the procurement agencies of these three countries (and the World Bank) to obtain information on their pricing data for the platform. The defined five dimensions for which they defined best-practices from around the world: Buyer and Seller management, platform features, policy and management, revenue and operations model. Once they had identified the best practice in the global G2B arena, they defined its implications for GeM and strategized how to implement GeM in line with these best practices. 

The Indian government also rolled out an extensive pilot version to test the platform before it fully went online. After the Finance Ministry announced the development of the GeM, the pilot was rolled out in July 2016 with the Department of IT preparing the interface of the platform, before the main site went online in January 2017. The GeM was rolled out in two phases. In the first phase, only two, more general product categories that are used most widely by various Government Ministries, Departments, and Organizations: Computers and Vehicle management (e.g. Taxi) service were being offered. [ 7 ] During the pilot, it was free of charge for sellers to advertise their products on GeM. 

After the pilot period of six months, in January 2017 the software developers added more functionality of the website by including more product categories, allowing more sellers to advertise their products and they also created a mechanism that informs sellers about the reasons for losing a bid. It remains free of charge for sellers to advertise their products on GeM, only a small vendor registration fee is necessary.  

Feasibility

To make the introduction of the platform feasible, the central government organized the implementation in close cooperation with state and local departments. In 2018, trainings for key stakeholders such as government and Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) officers were organized across locations and covered at least 187 districts. This was accompanied by mentoring of buyers and sellers for their registration on the GeM portal. [ 10 ]  Each of these training sessions were attended by more than 60 procurement officers from about 20 Central government organizations based in Delhi; each such training programme took place in a series of similar pan-India training sessions for all the Central government procurement officers, said a government statement. [ 3 ]

Emphasising on the importance of the programme, GeM's Ex-CEO Radha Chauhan said that the feedback that the officers provide and share will be used for further enhancement of the site. She added that more training sessions are planned for both government buyers as well as sellers in the coming months. [ 3 ]

Also, District and Sub-District road shows were organized to create grass-root level information and bring local buyers and vendors on board to GeM to increase its range of products.  

The software for the e-market platform is mainly used by procurement officers in central and state government departments. These officers are extensively trained by the training team at GeM, the National Institute of Financial Management (NIFM) and National e-Governance Division (NeGD). 

The software for GeM is being upgraded constantly to make it glitch free. The portal is managed by a local team in each state as well as Union Territories (UT).  Many states now buy goods such as laptops, car rental services, and medicines on the GeM portal. [ 5 ] 

In April 2017, the Cabinet decided to set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV), a not-for profit company to operate GeM, making it an autonomous body. This decision followed a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The GeM is headed by CEO Talleen Kumar, who resumed his position in GeM in Aug 2019. Prior to this, GeM was led by Radha Chauhan, who started GeM with a small team of 15 people which was constantly expanded in the course of implementation. GeM has adopted an HR policy that enables it attract talent from the private sector, to come and work cohesively with the government officials to man and manage the marketplace. This facilitates in bringing best-in-class industry expertise into the organization. The management team at GeM also governs a large private sector consortium with specialist vendors that is responsible for developing and maintaining the platform 

GeM SPV also appointed a nodal officer in order to better address complaints and grievances in time while constantly improving the technological workings of the platform. For example, two years after launching of the platform, they introduced a price comparison function for up to three items as well as an improved search function for purchases made through GeM. [ 10 ]

A National Mission on the GeM was launched in September 2018, two years after its implementation, to further inform the approach.  This led to a significant rise in registrations of buyers and sellers as well as a positive trend in spread of transactions, both in volume and value, across buyer organizations. Three UTs signed MoUs with GeM during the mission and it brought more width and depth to the product offers on GeM by collecting and listing user requirements, thus enhancing adoption and use of GeM for procurement.[ 10 ] 

Measurement

Measurement of the impact GeM has had so far are mainly measured in how much turnover the platform has seen and how many different stakeholders have actively engaged GeM in the procurement process. 

The economic effects of GeM have been substantial: The average prices on GeM are lowered by at least 15-20%, up to 56%. Demand aggregation for a lot of the goods and services results in an annual savings of up to Rs. 40,000 crore per annum for the Government. [ 20 ]

Fighting corruption and increasing transparency of public procurement transaction is a mutually shared interest between the Indian government and civil society. To successfully run the e-marketplace platform and ensure its usage and user-friendliness, the government partnered with numerous actors across India: Academic Training institutions, Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL), a platform for citizen engagement (MyGOV), as well as local manufacturers, Indian businesses and government departments that procure their goods through GeM. [ 10 ]

The GeM is strongly tied to the “Make In India” initiative, aimed at fostering the idea of producing with local manufacturers within India. The Heavy Industries Ministry has now mandated that preference is to be given to domestically-manufactured vehicles with a minimum 65 per cent local content in public procurement of automobiles, “to promote manufacturing and production of goods and services locally, preference shall be provided by all government procuring entities to domestically manufactured automobile and automotive components", as stated in the government announcement. [ 16 ] 

In addition to this, GeM, through its offerings, has also emphasized on the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, by discouraging the use of plastic and encouraging buyers to opt for environmental friendly products for a cleaner India. On the World Environment Day - 5th June 2019- GeM took the initiative to urge governments, industry, communities and individuals to come together and explore renewable energy, green technologies in order to improve air quality in cities and regions across the world. GeM contributes to this initiative by being cashless, contactless and paperless in its operations.[ 2 ]

The creation of GeM was also embedded into the “Digital India” initiative that seeks to put emphasis on e-governance and transform India into a digitally empowered society. It is to ensure that government services are available to citizens electronically. It aims to transform ease of doing business in the country as a whole, so these initiatives are interlocking in the sense that they mutually try to curb corruption within the government. [ 11 ]

[0] https://blogs.worldbank.org/governance/how-government-e-marketplace-revolutionizing-procurement-india

[1] https://www.indiatoday.in/pti-feed/story/spv-to-operate-government-e-marketplace-portal-for-purchases-907356-2017-04-12

[2] https://www.gem.gov.in

[3] https://yourstory.com/2016/08/indian-govt-e-marketplace/

[4] https://www.livemint.com/Politics/bCIm1uXvObSFVImfU3PvJM/Public-procurement-can-boost-innovation.html

[5] http://www.navhindtimes.in/local-business-keen-on-coming-on-board/

[6] http://www.navhindtimes.in/the-state-has-to-take-the-initiative-to-popularize-gem/

[7] https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/275379

[8] https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/mindandbody/arun-jaitleys-2016-budget-speech/vi-BBq8A7V

[9] https://yourstory.com/2016/06/government-portal-procurements/

[10] National Mission E-Book published by the Indian Government, accessible at https://assets-bg.gem.gov.in/resources/pdf/national-mission-report.pdf

[11] http://www.ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT1704123.pdf

[12] https://doe.gov.in/sites/default/files/Manual%20for%20Procurement%20of%20Goods%202017_0_0.pdf

[13] Official twitter account of GeM India,  https://twitter.com/GeM_India

[14] Official government website for GeM,  https://gem.gov.in/

[15] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/startups-want-government-e-market-to-list-their-services-give-business/articleshow/67017932.cms

[16] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/government-mandates-preference-to-india-made-vehicles-in-public-procurement/articleshow/67009970.cms

[17] https://govinsider.asia/inclusive-gov/radha-chauhan-ceo-government-e-marketplace-india/

[18] https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/womaniya-on-gem-govt-initiative-to-enable-women-entrepreneurs-to-sell-items-online/1443636/

[19] http://www.uniindia.com/prabhu-launches-swayatt-on-gem/business-economy/news/1504967.html

[20] https://medium.com/mojoverse-the-business-weekly/government-e-marketplace-gem-everything-msmes-need-to-know-4ed4234afbd9

[21] https://yourstory.com/2019/06/startup-india-gem-portal-orders-dpiit-secretary

[22] https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/govt-to-shut-down-dgsampd-this-month/article9893118.ece

[23] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/71485893.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

[24] https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/bihar-to-reconstitute-treasury-accounts-directorate-119070201378_1.html

[25] https://www.jagranjosh.com/current-affairs/government-launches-womaniya-on-government-e-marketplace-1547538520-1

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28 Case Study Examples Every Marketer Should See

Published: March 08, 2023

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These marketing case studies with solutions show the value proposition of each product. They also show how each company benefited in both the short and long term using quantitative data. In other words, you don’t get just nice statements, like "This company helped us a lot." You see actual change within the firm through numbers and figures.

You can put your learnings into action with HubSpot's Free Case Study Templates . Available as custom designs and text-based documents, you can upload these templates to your CMS or send them to prospects as you see fit.

1. " How Handled Scaled from Zero to 121 Locations with the Help of HubSpot ," by HubSpot

What's interesting about this case study is the way it leads with the customer. That reflects a major HubSpot cornerstone, which is to always solve for the customer first. The copy leads with a brief description of why the CEO of Handled founded the company and why he thought Handled could benefit from adopting a CRM. The case study also opens up with one key data point about Handled’s success using HubSpot, namely that it grew to 121 locations.

Notice that this case study uses mixed media. Yes, there is a short video, but it's elaborated upon in the other text on the page. So while your case studies can use one or the other, don't be afraid to combine written copy with visuals to emphasize the project's success.

Key Learnings from the HubSpot Case Study Example

• Give the case study a personal touch by focusing on the CEO rather than the company itself.
• Use multimedia to engage website visitors as they read the case study.

2. " The Whole Package ," by IDEO

Here's a design company that knows how to lead with simplicity in its case studies. As soon as the visitor arrives at the page, they’re greeted with a big, bold photo and the title of the case study — which just so happens to summarize how IDEO helped its client. It summarizes the case study in three snippets: The challenge, the impact, and the outcome.

Immediately, IDEO communicates its impact — the company partnered with H&M to remove plastic from its packaging — but it doesn't stop there. As the user scrolls down, the challenge, impact, and progress are elaborated upon with comprehensive (but not overwhelming) copy that outlines what that process looked like, replete with quotes and intriguing visuals.

Key Learnings from the IDEO Case Study Example

• Split up the takeaways of your case studies into bite-sized sections.
• Always use visuals and images to enrich the case study experience, especially if it’s a comprehensive case study.

3. " Rozum Robotics intensifies its PR game with Awario ," by Awario

In this case study, Awario greets the user with a summary straight away — so if you’re feeling up to reading the entire case study, you can scan the snapshot and understand how the company serves its customers. The case study then includes jump links to several sections, such as "Company Profile," "Rozum Robotics' Pains," "Challenge," "Solution," and "Results and Improvements."

The sparse copy and prominent headings show that you don’t need a lot of elaborate information to show the value of your products and services. Like the other case study examples on this list, it includes visuals and quotes to demonstrate the effectiveness of the company’s efforts. The case study ends with a bulleted list that shows the results.

Key Learnings from the Awario Robotics Case Study Example

• Create a table of contents to make your case study easier to navigate.
• Include a bulleted list of the results you achieved for your client.

4. " Chevrolet DTU ," by Carol H. Williams

If you’ve worked with a company that’s well-known, use only the name in the title — like Carol H. Williams, one of the nation’s top advertising agencies, does here. The "DTU," stands for "Discover the Unexpected." It generates interest because you want to find out what the initials mean.

They keep your interest in this case study by using a mixture of headings, images, and videos to describe the challenges, objectives, and solutions of the project. The case study closes with a summary of the key achievements that Chevrolet’s DTU Journalism Fellows reached during the project.

Key Learnings from the Carol H. Williams Case Study Example

• If you’ve worked with a big brand before, consider only using the name in the title — just enough to pique interest.
• Use a mixture of headings and subheadings to guide users through the case study.

5. " How Fractl Earned Links from 931 Unique Domains for Porch.com in a Single Year ," by Fractl

Fractl uses both text and graphic design in their Porch.com case study to immerse the viewer in a more interesting user experience. For instance, as you scroll, you'll see the results are illustrated in an infographic-design form as well as the text itself.

Further down the page, they use icons like a heart and a circle to illustrate their pitch angles, and graphs to showcase their results. Rather than writing which publications have mentioned Porch.com during Fractl’s campaign, they incorporated the media outlets’ icons for further visual diversity.

Key Learnings from the Fractl Case Study Example

• Let pictures speak for you by incorporating graphs, logos, and icons all throughout the case study.
• Start the case study by right away stating the key results, like Fractl does, instead of putting the results all the way at the bottom.

6. " The Met ," by Fantasy

What's the best way to showcase the responsiveness and user interface of a website? Probably by diving right into it with a series of simple showcases— which is exactly what Fantasy does on their case study page for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They keep the page simple and clean, inviting you to review their redesign of the Met’s website feature-by-feature.

Each section is simple, showing a single piece of the new website's interface so that users aren’t overwhelmed with information and can focus on what matters most.

If you're more interested in text, you can read the objective for each feature. Fantasy understands that, as a potential customer, this is all you need to know. Scrolling further, you're greeted with a simple "Contact Us" CTA.

Key Learnings from the Fantasy Case Study Example

• You don’t have to write a ton of text to create a great case study. Focus on the solution you delivered itself.
• Include a CTA at the bottom inviting visitors to contact you.

7. " Rovio: How Rovio Grew Into a Gaming Superpower ," by App Annie

If your client had a lot of positive things to say about you, take a note from App Annie’s Rovio case study and open up with a quote from your client. The case study also closes with a quote, so that the case study doesn’t seem like a promotion written by your marketing team but a story that’s taken straight from your client’s mouth. It includes a photo of a Rovio employee, too.

Another thing this example does well? It immediately includes a link to the product that Rovio used (namely, App Annie Intelligence) at the top of the case study. The case study closes with a call-to-action button prompting users to book a demo.

Key Learnings from the App Annie Case Study Example

• Feature quotes from your client at the beginning and end of the case study.
• Include a mention of the product right at the beginning and prompt users to learn more about the product.

8. " Embracing first-party data: 3 success stories from HubSpot ," by Think with Google

Google takes a different approach to text-focused case studies by choosing three different companies to highlight.

The case study is clean and easily scannable. It has sections for each company, with quotes and headers that clarify the way these three distinct stories connect. The simple format also uses colors and text that align with the Google brand.

Another differentiator is the focus on data. This case study is less than a thousand words, but it's packed with useful data points. Data-driven insights quickly and clearly show how the value of leveraging first-party data while prioritizing consumer privacy.

Key Learnings from the Think with Google Case Study Example

• A case study doesn’t need to be long or complex to be powerful.
• Clear data points are a quick and effective way to prove value.

9. " In-Depth Performance Marketing Case Study ," by Switch

Switch is an international marketing agency based in Malta that knocks it out of the park with this case study. Its biggest challenge is effectively communicating what it did for its client without ever revealing the client’s name. It also effectively keeps non-marketers in the loop by including a glossary of terms on page 4.

The PDF case study reads like a compelling research article, including titles like "In-Depth Performance Marketing Case Study," "Scenario," and "Approach," so that readers get a high-level overview of what the client needed and why they approached Switch. It also includes a different page for each strategy. For instance, if you’d only be interested in hiring Switch for optimizing your Facebook ads, you can skip to page 10 to see how they did it.

The PDF is fourteen pages long but features big fonts and plenty of white space, so viewers can easily skim it in only a few minutes.

Key Learnings from the Switch Case Study Example

• If you want to go into specialized information, include a glossary of terms so that non-specialists can easily understand.
• Close with a CTA page in your case study PDF and include contact information for prospective clients.

10. " Gila River ," by OH Partners

Let pictures speak for you, like OH Partners did in this case study. While you’ll quickly come across a heading and some text when you land on this case study page, you’ll get the bulk of the case study through examples of actual work OH Partners did for its client. You will see OH Partners’ work in a billboard, magazine, and video. This communicates to website visitors that if they work with OH Partners, their business will be visible everywhere.

And like the other case studies here, it closes with a summary of what the firm achieved for its client in an eye-catching way.

Key Learnings from the OH Partners Case Study Example

• Let the visuals speak by including examples of the actual work you did for your client — which is especially useful for branding and marketing agencies.
• Always close out with your achievements and how they impacted your client.

11. " Facing a Hater ," by Digitas

Digitas' case study page for Sprite’s #ILOVEYOUHATER campaign keeps it brief while communicating the key facts of Digitas’ work for the popular soda brand. The page opens with an impactful image of a hundred people facing a single man. It turns out, that man is the biggest "bully" in Argentina, and the people facing him are those whom he’s bullied before.

Scrolling down, it's obvious that Digitas kept Sprite at the forefront of their strategy, but more than that, they used real people as their focal point. They leveraged the Twitter API to pull data from Tweets that people had actually tweeted to find the identity of the biggest "hater" in the country. That turned out to be @AguanteElCofler, a Twitter user who has since been suspended.

Key Learnings from the Digitas Case Study Example

• If a video was part of your work for your client, be sure to include the most impactful screenshot as the heading.
• Don’t be afraid to provide details on how you helped your client achieve their goals, including the tools you leveraged.

12. " Better Experiences for All ," by HermanMiller

HermanMiller sells sleek, utilitarian furniture with no frills and extreme functionality, and that ethos extends to its case study page for a hospital in Dubai.

What first attracted me to this case study was the beautiful video at the top and the clean user experience. User experience matters a lot in a case study. It determines whether users will keep reading or leave. Another notable aspect of this case study is that the video includes closed-captioning for greater accessibility, and users have the option of expanding the CC and searching through the text.

HermanMiller’s case study also offers an impressive amount of information packed in just a few short paragraphs for those wanting to understand the nuances of their strategy. It closes out with a quote from their client and, most importantly, the list of furniture products that the hospital purchased from the brand.

Key Learnings from the HermanMiller Case Study Example

• Close out with a list of products that users can buy after reading the case study.
• Include accessibility features such as closed captioning and night mode to make your case study more user-friendly.

13. " Capital One on AWS ," by Amazon

Do you work continuously with your clients? Consider structuring your case study page like Amazon did in this stellar case study example. Instead of just featuring one article about Capital One and how it benefited from using AWS, Amazon features a series of articles that you can then access if you’re interested in reading more. It goes all the way back to 2016, all with different stories that feature Capital One’s achievements using AWS.

This may look unattainable for a small firm, but you don’t have to go to extreme measures and do it for every single one of your clients. You could choose the one you most wish to focus on and establish a contact both on your side and your client’s for coming up with the content. Check in every year and write a new piece. These don’t have to be long, either — five hundred to eight hundred words will do.

Key Learnings from the Amazon AWS Case Study Example

• Write a new article each year featuring one of your clients, then include links to those articles in one big case study page.
• Consider including external articles as well that emphasize your client’s success in their industry.

14. " HackReactor teaches the world to code #withAsana ," by Asana

While Asana's case study design looks text-heavy, there's a good reason. It reads like a creative story, told entirely from the customer's perspective.

For instance, Asana knows you won't trust its word alone on why this product is useful. So, they let Tony Phillips, HackReactor CEO, tell you instead: "We take in a lot of information. Our brains are awful at storage but very good at thinking; you really start to want some third party to store your information so you can do something with it."

Asana features frequent quotes from Phillips to break up the wall of text and humanize the case study. It reads like an in-depth interview and captivates the reader through creative storytelling. Even more, Asana includes in-depth detail about how HackReactor uses Asana. This includes how they build templates and workflows:

"There's a huge differentiator between Asana and other tools, and that’s the very easy API access. Even if Asana isn’t the perfect fit for a workflow, someone like me— a relatively mediocre software engineer—can add functionality via the API to build a custom solution that helps a team get more done."

Key Learnings from the Asana Example

• Include quotes from your client throughout the case study.
• Provide extensive detail on how your client worked with you or used your product.

15. " Rips Sewed, Brand Love Reaped ," by Amp Agency

Amp Agency's Patagonia marketing strategy aimed to appeal to a new audience through guerrilla marketing efforts and a coast-to-coast road trip. Their case study page effectively conveys a voyager theme, complete with real photos of Patagonia customers from across the U.S., and a map of the expedition. I liked Amp Agency's storytelling approach best. It captures viewers' attention from start to finish simply because it's an intriguing and unique approach to marketing.

Key Learnings from the Amp Agency Example

• Open up with a summary that communicates who your client is and why they reached out to you.
• Like in the other case study examples, you’ll want to close out with a quantitative list of your achievements.

16. " NetApp ," by Evisort

Evisort opens up its NetApp case study with an at-a-glance overview of the client. It’s imperative to always focus on the client in your case study — not on your amazing product and equally amazing team. By opening up with a snapshot of the client’s company, Evisort places the focus on the client.

This case study example checks all the boxes for a great case study that’s informative, thorough, and compelling. It includes quotes from the client and details about the challenges NetApp faced during the COVID pandemic. It closes out with a quote from the client and with a link to download the case study in PDF format, which is incredibly important if you want your case study to be accessible in a wider variety of formats.

Key Learnings from the Evisort Example

• Place the focus immediately on your client by including a snapshot of their company.
• Mention challenging eras, such as a pandemic or recession, to show how your company can help your client succeed even during difficult times.

17. " Copernicus Land Monitoring – CLC+ Core ," by Cloudflight

Including highly specialized information in your case study is an effective way to show prospects that you’re not just trying to get their business. You’re deep within their industry, too, and willing to learn everything you need to learn to create a solution that works specifically for them.

Cloudflight does a splendid job at that in its Copernicus Land Monitoring case study. While the information may be difficult to read at first glance, it will capture the interest of prospects who are in the environmental industry. It thus shows Cloudflight’s value as a partner much more effectively than a general case study would.

The page is comprehensive and ends with a compelling call-to-action — "Looking for a solution that automates, and enhances your Big Data system? Are you struggling with large datasets and accessibility? We would be happy to advise and support you!" The clean, whitespace-heavy page is an effective example of using a case study to capture future leads.

Key Learnings from the Cloudflight Case Study Example

• Don’t be afraid to get technical in your explanation of what you did for your client.
• Include a snapshot of the sales representative prospects should contact, especially if you have different sales reps for different industries, like Cloudflight does.

18. " Valvoline Increases Coupon Send Rate by 76% with Textel’s MMS Picture Texting ," by Textel

If you’re targeting large enterprises with a long purchasing cycle, you’ll want to include a wealth of information in an easily transferable format. That’s what Textel does here in its PDF case study for Valvoline. It greets the user with an eye-catching headline that shows the value of using Textel. Valvoline saw a significant return on investment from using the platform.

Another smart decision in this case study is highlighting the client’s quote by putting it in green font and doing the same thing for the client’s results because it helps the reader quickly connect the two pieces of information. If you’re in a hurry, you can also take a look at the "At a Glance" column to get the key facts of the case study, starting with information about Valvoline.

Key Learnings from the Textel Case Study Example

• Include your client’s ROI right in the title of the case study.
• Add an "At a Glance" column to your case study PDF to make it easy to get insights without needing to read all the text.

19. " Hunt Club and Happeo — a tech-enabled love story ," by Happeo

In this blog-post-like case study, Happeo opens with a quote from the client, then dives into a compelling heading: "Technology at the forefront of Hunt Club's strategy." Say you’re investigating Happeo as a solution and consider your firm to be technology-driven. This approach would spark your curiosity about why the client chose to work with Happeo. It also effectively communicates the software’s value proposition without sounding like it’s coming from an in-house marketing team.

Every paragraph is a quote written from the customer’s perspective. Later down the page, the case study also dives into "the features that changed the game for Hunt Club," giving Happeo a chance to highlight some of the platform’s most salient features.

Key Learnings from the Happeo Case Study Example

• Consider writing the entirety of the case study from the perspective of the customer.
• Include a list of the features that convinced your client to go with you.

20. " Red Sox Season Campaign ," by CTP Boston

What's great about CTP's case study page for their Red Sox Season Campaign is their combination of video, images, and text. A video automatically begins playing when you visit the page, and as you scroll, you'll see more embedded videos of Red Sox players, a compilation of print ads, and social media images you can click to enlarge.

At the bottom, it says "Find out how we can do something similar for your brand." The page is clean, cohesive, and aesthetically pleasing. It invites viewers to appreciate the well-roundedness of CTP's campaign for Boston's beloved baseball team.

Key Learnings from the CTP Case Study Example

• Include a video in the heading of the case study.
• Close with a call-to-action that makes leads want to turn into prospects.

21. " Acoustic ," by Genuine

Sometimes, simple is key. Genuine's case study for Acoustic is straightforward and minimal, with just a few short paragraphs, including "Reimagining the B2B website experience," "Speaking to marketers 1:1," and "Inventing Together." After the core of the case study, we then see a quote from Acoustic’s CMO and the results Genuine achieved for the company.

The simplicity of the page allows the reader to focus on both the visual aspects and the copy. The page displays Genuine's brand personality while offering the viewer all the necessary information they need.

• You don’t need to write a lot to create a great case study. Keep it simple.
• Always include quantifiable data to illustrate the results you achieved for your client.

22. " Using Apptio Targetprocess Automated Rules in Wargaming ," by Apptio

Apptio’s case study for Wargaming summarizes three key pieces of information right at the beginning: The goals, the obstacles, and the results.

Readers then have the opportunity to continue reading — or they can walk away right then with the information they need. This case study also excels in keeping the human interest factor by formatting the information like an interview.

The piece is well-organized and uses compelling headers to keep the reader engaged. Despite its length, Apptio's case study is appealing enough to keep the viewer's attention. Every Apptio case study ends with a "recommendation for other companies" section, where the client can give advice for other companies that are looking for a similar solution but aren’t sure how to get started.

Key Learnings from the Apptio Case Study Example

• Put your client in an advisory role by giving them the opportunity to give recommendations to other companies that are reading the case study.
• Include the takeaways from the case study right at the beginning so prospects quickly get what they need.

23. " Airbnb + Zendesk: building a powerful solution together ," by Zendesk

Zendesk's Airbnb case study reads like a blog post, and focuses equally on Zendesk and Airbnb, highlighting a true partnership between the companies. To captivate readers, it begins like this: "Halfway around the globe is a place to stay with your name on it. At least for a weekend."

The piece focuses on telling a good story and provides photographs of beautiful Airbnb locations. In a case study meant to highlight Zendesk's helpfulness, nothing could be more authentic than their decision to focus on Airbnb's service in such great detail.

Key Learnings from the Zendesk Case Study Example

• Include images of your client’s offerings — not necessarily of the service or product you provided. Notice how Zendesk doesn’t include screenshots of its product.
• Include a call-to-action right at the beginning of the case study. Zendesk gives you two options: to find a solution or start a trial.

24. " Biobot Customer Success Story: Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida ," by Biobot

Like some of the other top examples in this list, Biobot opens its case study with a quote from its client, which captures the value proposition of working with Biobot. It mentions the COVID pandemic and goes into detail about the challenges the client faced during this time.

This case study is structured more like a news article than a traditional case study. This format can work in more formal industries where decision-makers need to see in-depth information about the case. Be sure to test different methods and measure engagement .

Key Learnings from the Biobot Case Study Example

• Mention environmental, public health, or economic emergencies and how you helped your client get past such difficult times.
• Feel free to write the case study like a normal blog post, but be sure to test different methods to find the one that best works for you.

25. " Discovering Cost Savings With Efficient Decision Making ," by Gartner

You don't always need a ton of text or a video to convey your message — sometimes, you just need a few paragraphs and bullet points. Gartner does a fantastic job of quickly providing the fundamental statistics a potential customer would need to know, without boggling down their readers with dense paragraphs. The case study closes with a shaded box that summarizes the impact that Gartner had on its client. It includes a quote and a call-to-action to "Learn More."

Key Learnings from the Gartner Case Study Example

• Feel free to keep the case study short.
• Include a call-to-action at the bottom that takes the reader to a page that most relates to them.

26. " Bringing an Operator to the Game ," by Redapt

This case study example by Redapt is another great demonstration of the power of summarizing your case study’s takeaways right at the start of the study. Redapt includes three easy-to-scan columns: "The problem," "the solution," and "the outcome." But its most notable feature is a section titled "Moment of clarity," which shows why this particular project was difficult or challenging.

The section is shaded in green, making it impossible to miss. Redapt does the same thing for each case study. In the same way, you should highlight the "turning point" for both you and your client when you were working toward a solution.

Key Learnings from the Redapt Case Study Example

• Highlight the turning point for both you and your client during the solution-seeking process.
• Use the same structure (including the same headings) for your case studies to make them easy to scan and read.

27. " Virtual Call Center Sees 300% Boost In Contact Rate ," by Convoso

Convoso’s PDF case study for Digital Market Media immediately mentions the results that the client achieved and takes advantage of white space. On the second page, the case study presents more influential results. It’s colorful and engaging and closes with a spread that prompts readers to request a demo.

Key Learnings from the Convoso Case Study Example

• List the results of your work right at the beginning of the case study.
• Use color to differentiate your case study from others. Convoso’s example is one of the most colorful ones on this list.

28. " Ensuring quality of service during a pandemic ," by Ericsson

Ericsson’s case study page for Orange Spain is an excellent example of using diverse written and visual media — such as videos, graphs, and quotes — to showcase the success a client experienced. Throughout the case study, Ericsson provides links to product and service pages users might find relevant as they’re reading the study.

For instance, under the heading "Preloaded with the power of automation," Ericsson mentions its Ericsson Operations Engine product, then links to that product page. It closes the case study with a link to another product page.

Key Learnings from the Ericsson Case Study Example

• Link to product pages throughout the case study so that readers can learn more about the solution you offer.
• Use multimedia to engage users as they read the case study.

Start creating your case study.

Now that you've got a great list of examples of case studies, think about a topic you'd like to write about that highlights your company or work you did with a customer.

A customer’s success story is the most persuasive marketing material you could ever create. With a strong portfolio of case studies, you can ensure prospects know why they should give you their business.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Myer launches enticing online marketplace for discerning retail customers

In 2017, Myer partnered with Marketplacer to create a curated lifestyle destination: the Myer Market.The e-commerce website is designed to broaden the direction of the traditional business, whilst retaining and supporting the retailers loyal, fashion-oriented, Myer One members.

Myer Market customers have access to 75 retailers through a single website.

A range of 60,000 products is available for purchase and home delivery.

The website is attracting more than four million visitors each month

How to win with a marketplace strategy

The challenges

When the project was first envisaged, a decision had to be made on whether to initially create a new, separate marketplace or enlarge the company’s existing online presence at myer.com.au. It was soon recognised that the former approach would be easier, more cost-effective, and provide a lower-risk solution.

• The Marketplacer platform provides frictionless integration with a variety of other platforms most commonly used by the third-party sellers, including Shopify, Magento and Woo Commerce. These APIs do not exist within myer.com.au.
• The platform provides an opportunity to create no-risk, endless aisles across a number of product categories.
• Marketplacer was mandated to deliver demonstrable customer service and new business growth, which was achieved.

The Marketplacer solution

The Marketplacer and Myer teams began preparation for the migration early in 2017. The plan was to separate the Marketplacer back-end and integrate it over to Myer’s primary platform in a process commonly referred to as ‘headless’ operation.

• The plug-and-play functionality offered by Marketplacer offered a sizable saving in both time and cost.
• The platform provided a complete offering from product development through to ongoing back-end management.
• Additional retailers can be readily added to the site, expanding the number of offerings for customers.
• Customers enjoy a seamless experience which provides access to a diverse range of products from leading providers across a diverse range of categories.

The website migration has enabled Myer to maintain all the benefits of its original marketplace with one very important distinction: everything now appears as a single, seamless offering on myer.com.au.

• The ‘headless’ operation provided a quick and frictionless migration that avoided unnecessary cost, delays, and cumbersome technical issues
• Some 75 retailers and 60,000 products have been simply switched ‘on’, with more expected to join
• Myer’s enhanced digital presence provides an exceptionally lower cost alternative to building new bricks-and-mortar stores
• Overheads are reduced and flexibility is increased. Myer can quickly test new products and categories to meet changes in customer demand and taste
• Customers have access to a huge and growing number of new products and entire new categories not previously seen within the retailer
• A single Myer platform avoids any confusion, and all purchases from marketplace sellers contribute to Myer One points
• Purchases are also all covered by Myer’s refund policy

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Florida Community Health Centers enhances patient care, engagement and accessibility with Qure4u’s virtual capabilities

At a glance.

telehealth visits via the Qure4u platform

unique patients using virtual care options

patients enrolled in a hypertension remote patient monitoring program

The digital health and telehealth capabilities provided by Qure4u allowed providers to seamlessly transition from in-person to virtual visits, without any impact on the quality or patient experience. And, the patient interfaces are so easy to use. Even in our most underserved populations, the patients were still able to successfully schedule and obtain a telehealth visit.

— Dr. Alejandro Miquel, Chief Medical Officer, Florida Community Health Centers

Pandemic limits patient access

Florida Community Health Centers is a federally qualified healthcare center providing comprehensive primary, dental, pharmacy, and behavioral health services across 14 locations in six Florida counties. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for patients to physically receive care safely. Due to state regulations and social distancing guidelines, it wasn’t uncommon to see patients delaying preventative care during the height of the pandemic. FCHC’s 500 employees and clinicians needed to identify safe, new ways to maintain care delivery.

“We needed to evolve to a digital engagement strategy that not only captured patients’ attention, but kept them fully engaged in their care,” said Dr. Alejandro Miquel, chief medical officer.

Qure4u supports digital strategy

FCHC looked to athenahealth Marketplace partner Qure4u to implement a virtual care strategy, and launched telehealth services in August 2020.

The addition of Qure4u DriveUp™ functionality enabled the FCHC to add COVID screenings to digital workflows to further reduce the risk of exposure. Staff are able to send a quick link once a patient arrives to get real-time responses to a screening questionnaire. Any potential COVID-positive responses are immediately converted to a telehealth visit using the same Qure4u platform.

FCHC bolstered the safety of in-person visits once those resumed. Qure4u digital check-in offers patients a way to easily sign in for appointments, fill out paperwork, and pay copays, all from their mobile device — further limiting physical in-office interactions.

In July 2021, FCHC started a remote patient monitoring (RPM) program focused on hypertension patients. Each is given a kit with a scale and blood pressure cuff to use to monitor and report blood pressure readings from home. The goal is to keep patients connected between visits for proactive monitoring and early intervention.

Enhanced patient engagement and care.

Since offering telehealth visits through Qure4u platform’s platform, FCHC has delivered more than 5,100 unique patient visits, with over 8,000 total encounters performed using that modality. More than 200 patients are now enrolled in the RPM initiative. “With Qure4u, we were able to significantly increase the number of patients we were able to enroll in the program, as well as better focus care managers on the patients who were non-compliant or out of range,” said Miquel.

Besides limiting exposure to COVID-19, the virtual care initiatives helped keep visit volume stead and increase access for a patient population that frequently encounters transportation issues.

The results of using Qure4u are both quantitative and qualitative, Miquel said. Qure4u is fully embedded within the athenahealth EHR, so there are no disruptive workfl ow changes, or new systems for clinicians to learn. “The digital health and telehealth capabilities provided by Qure4u allowed providers to seamlessly transition from in-person to virtual visits, without any impact on the quality or patient experience. And, the patient interfaces are so easy to use.”

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