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IDC Spotlight Report: The Power of a PX Strategy in Omnichannel Commerce

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Activate your product story across every channel for consistent, compelling product experiences

Third-party marketplaces offer brands an opportunity to reach new, loyal audiences while maintaining control over things like pricing, marketing collateral, and shipping fulfillment. But activating your product record on a marketplace that’s not owned by you can be tricky, and requires a strong foundation of product information management in order to create truly omnichannel experiences.

Leading Enterprises Choose Akeneo for their 3P Activation Requirements

Reach new audiences at scale without sacrificing experience

What is a 3P Marketplace?

A third-party (3P) marketplace refers to utilizing a retailer as a channel to sell your products directly to their consumers. You (the brand) are responsible for the product listings, marketing and advertising, as well as the fulfillment of any and all orders.
High-quality images, videos and information such as technical documentation are table stakes for today’s buyers, especially if they’re discovering you on a third-party site. Consolidate these digital assets within Akeno PIM’s Asset Manager to link assets to the appropriate products and deliver to all your marketplaces.

Difference between 1P & 3P

In a 3P marketplace, the brand is in control of the entire end-to-end process, and the retailer serves as more of an impartial place for brands to list their products. In a 1P (first-party) marketplace, products and product information are supplied by the brand and managed, distributed, and sold by the retailer. Many retailers, such as Amazon, offer both 1P and 3P options for brands.

When the brand is responsible for providing a strong customer experience on a third-party site, it’s important to ensure your product information is complete and up-to-date. Akeneo Data Quality Insights reviews product data for completeness and consistency to flag missing information, formatting issues, and spelling mistakes before products are published to third-party sites.

3P & PIM

With the retailer taking the backseat in a 3P marketplace, your team needs to have the infrastructure in place to take full advantage of this selling channel. Having a strong foundation of product information management (PIM) means that your business will have everything you need to create a compelling, consistent customer experience, even if the selling platform isn’t owned by you.
Once your product information has been consolidated, enriched, and completed in Akeneo PIM, you can quickly distribute this data to unowned third-party sites. Akeneo leverages partnerships with Productsup, Intelligent Reach, Feedonomics, Lengow, and Channel Advisor to support the channels you are working with today and expand to new ones as you grow.

Benefits & Drawbacks of 3P Activation

Pros

  • Greater margins, creating increased profit
  • More control over product, brand voice, and customer experience
  • Greater insights into customer behavior

Cons

  • Time-consuming to keep product catalogs up to date
  • Manage shipping and inventory logistics
  • Reduced access to retailer launch, selling, and marketing programs

Key Akeneo Capabilities for 3P Activation

Are you ready to take the next step?

Our Akeneo Experts are here to answer all the questions you might have about our products and help you to move forward on your PXM journey.