What is the opposite of showrooming?

At Pattern’s quarterly Executive Acceleration Forum (EAF), at the beautiful Montage Resort in Park City, Utah, top brand leaders came together to discuss the current state of Amazon, the challenges they are facing on digital marketplaces, and identify possible solutions. We learned from the EAF attendees that regardless of the brand’s industry, the challenges many brand leaders currently face are remarkably similar. 

The common issues global brands face are preventing their growth and profitability on Amazon and beyond. As the world’s foremost ecommerce accelerator, Pattern works with hundreds of brands in similar circumstances and uses its data, proprietary technology, and expertise to accelerate the brands on Amazon. 

Want to know if your Amazon struggles align with what we are hearing? Read about brand’s top pain points and Pattern’s unique solutions: 

International Growth Struggles

Expanding your brand to global marketplaces is no easy feat. Many of the brand executives attending the EAF mentioned they struggle with: 

  • Knowing when to start selling on global marketplaces

  • Deciding which locations to start selling in

  • Cultural incompetencies and local market expertise

  • Lack of resources to compete

  • Losing revenue and funds 

Solutions

Together with Pattern experts from multiple global regions, we discussed how to be successful in international growth, a brand needs the resources necessary to design a great strategy. Some of these resources might include regional experts, international Amazon knowledge, data concerning the logistics of going global, and more. Pattern’s resources help brands make decisions for going global by providing data-driven insights of how the brand can succeed in an international marketplace, rather than losing revenue and funds. Pattern’s regional experts help brands address cultural incompetencies and provide a local market expertise. 

Lack of Marketplace Control

EAF executive attendees struggle to maintain control of their brand on Amazon and other digital marketplaces. Lack of marketplace control happens when your product finds its way into the hands of non-compliant sellers who don’t represent your brand and do not follow MAP. These unauthorized sellers lead to price erosion, poor consumer experience, negative reviews, and an overall feeling of frustration from your ecommerce team. 

Solutions

At the Montage EAF, the Pattern team referred to the lack of marketplace control as the Profitability Death Spiral, or in other words, the path brands get on when they can’t control their pricing and brand on ecommerce marketplaces. Pattern’s legal partner, Vorys eControls explained the legal foundation and broke down the steps brands need to take in order to gain marketplace control. Gaining marketplace control includes finding unauthorized sellers, which Pattern’s data can find. Once Pattern finds the unauthorized sellers, Vorys steps in and handles the takedowns of unauthorized sellers, continuous enforcement of brand management, and reseller policy enforcements.

1P vs 3P Seller

“Why should I switch to 3P?” or “How is 3P different from 1P?” are questions brands debate  when selling on Amazon. Deciding between 1P and 3P requires weighing the various pros and cons for your business.  With Pattern experts, EAF attendees discussed their difficulties of being a 1P seller and shared their hesitations of switching to 3P. Attendees expressed their concerns and questions about switching to 3P such as:

  • What are the requirements in order to switch to 3P?

  • How does switching to 3P benefit brands?

  • How long is the process for switching to 3P? 

Solutions

At Pattern, a top ecommerce accelerator and 3P partner, with deep experience on Amazon, we know there’s no “best way” to sell on Amazon—it depends on your products, long-term goals, and capabilities. Pattern helps brands weigh the pros and cons of switching to Amazon 3P, which helps executives make the best decision for their brand. 

Accelerating Growth on Amazon

As the largest digital marketplace in North America, Amazon can have an over-crowded atmosphere that makes it hard for brands to grow and stand out. With a lack of data, resources, and insights of how to grow on Amazon, brands quickly fall behind and struggle to regain a competitive advantage. 

Solutions

Pattern knows that growth on any marketplace is an equation and comes down to four main focus areas: traffic, conversion, price, and availability. Making sure each of your efforts feed into each area of the ecommerce equation can help a brand simplify and funnel their efforts toward actual profitable growth. Pattern has the proprietary technology and wide-range of creative and brand services to launch brands and reset their path to profitability on global marketplaces. 

Partner With Pattern

As we’ve heard from our brand partners time and time again, the issues brands are facing on Amazon are universal. And luckily, with the right data and technology, these issues are solvable.

As the premier ecommerce accelerator, Pattern has all the resources necessary to tackle the global ecommerce problems facing brands. With data and technology at the center of our strategy, and a proven ecommerce equation executed by a team of experts, our process will help you boost your performance on any marketplace. 

Partner with Pattern to tackle your ecommerce challenges. Contact us.

What is reverse showrooming?

A definition of reverse showrooming could be: customers who go to a physical business to purchase products and services they have met on the Internet.

What is showrooming behavior?

In showrooming behaviour, a consumer visits a physical store to experience products before placing the order at the online store (Rapp et al., 2015), thus we propose that this helps to reduce product, process and psychological uncertainties associated with directly buying online.

Why is showrooming a problem?

Showrooming causes a gap in the customer journey. If the customer has decided on a product in store their decision may well be affected by an offer or a lower price when they go online.

Is showrooming unethical?

Showrooming is acceptable consumer behavior, and it is up to the business to respond with a competitive strategy.