Beard Game Strong
How might we attract vendors to a new marketplace?

Context

Beard Game Strong had already proceeded with a rebuild of their online presence, but they were unsure as to how they would attract vendors, as well as what that process would look like. The company also wanted information as to why potential vendors would choose an online marketplace to sell their products.

Brand Attributes:
Bold, Masculine, Authoritative, Shows Leadership

Product Attributes:
Healthy, Natural, Artisanal, Functional

Duration:
40 Hours

Team:
Carlos Moore, Nathan Chan, & Harold Lewis

My Role:
Secondary Research, Heuristic Analysis, & Journey Mapping

The Problem:
How might we attract vendors to a new, niche, marketplace?

Understanding

My colleagues and I met with Beard Game Strong to gain more understanding about their company, as well as their goals for the future. We wanted to understand the brand’s beginnings, which would also help understand where they want to go.

Beard Game Strong started as a side project, mainly because the owner, Shaun, couldn’t find beard products he liked. Some felt too oily, some oils felt like they were laying on top of the hair, and some could

He then decided to start Beard Game Strong, a brand that could help the modern man find great grooming products. After the initial concept of selling a single brand’s products, he decided to offer vendors a platform to sell their grooming products for men.

Shaun told us the site’s new screens were ready, and a vendor backend had been built as well. This process allows vendors to sign up, have their information reviewed, then begin selling. After learning a wealth of information about BGS brand’s background, Shaun expressed his excitement about this project, but he didn’t have any prior knowledge of finding vendors, and he wasn’t sure what a vendor would need to be set up for success.

After meeting with Shaun, our team came to the conclusion that we needed answers to a few questions.

- What kinds of opportunities would attract vendors to an online marketplace?
- How to go about approaching potential vendors
- What features would vendors be looking for?

I was pretty excited about researching this topic because I recently acquired my first beard during the pandemic. After having a beard for some time now, and after trying numerous beard oils, serums, and shampoos before finding the products that work for me, it’s been a journey, that’s for sure.

So, let’s dig in.

Research

What kinds of opportunities would attract vendors to an online marketplace?

I learned new vendor members expect the usual marketing opportunities - advertising in various ways (social media platforms, email, direct mail). But, you can also show them additional ways to increase brand awareness, share their knowledge and expertise, and establish a reputation for thought leadership, for example:

Write articles and blog posts
Speak on podcasts
Help deliver webinars and online learning programs
Make presentations at educational events and conferences

Learn about their membership and business goals. Discuss ways they can provide value to their target audience—your members—while increasing brand awareness.

Fostering a membership culture that accepts vendor members as valuable contributors to the brand is important. When you help vendor members become successful by giving them opportunities to share their time, energy, and expertise, you’ll also strengthen your brand’s community.

Provide a special orientation session for vendor members. In this quarterly in-person or online session, invite veteran members—both vendor and regular members—to share networking and relationship development tips, for example:

Best volunteering opportunities for relationship-building, both ad hoc/micro-volunteering and committee service
Dos and don’t’s of networking at events
Best ways to get their name out there
Advice from successful vendor members on how they increased brand awareness and cultivated a professional network

Record these sessions and share the recordings on your website. Encourage new and veteran vendor members to listen to the advice given by their fellow members during the different sessions.

How do we approach potential vendors?

Every online marketplace starts out empty. The main differentiator of those that attract thousands of visitors daily, is the ability to get the multi vendor e-commerce marketplace magnet for customers - quality sellers.

First, we had to figure out who our vendor was. We came to the conclusion that the ideal BGS vendor is a combination of:

The Creative:
Creatives are usually new to marketplaces/online selling and have turned a hobby or passion into a business. They operate a manual sale-by-sale strategy and tend to focus on a single marketplace. Their products are typically handmade and they operate out of their own home.
The business may be a side project or second source of income for them. Creatives need to seek out how-to advice on using marketplaces and listing items. They need to look for guidance on marketplace regulations and barcoding. By focusing on producing targeted content and formatting they can drive more traffic to listings.

The Innovator:
Innovators are focused on building a brand. They started out online and are looking to increase awareness. Typically, they target niche markets and adopt a ‘start-up’ culture. Innovators trade through their own website to develop their brand. They focus on a niche idea or a smaller range of products, often invented by them.

Innovators employ a small team with the same mind-set and are committed to delivering their vision and taking the business forward. To be successful, the best Innovators will concentrate on channel integration and their marketing and sales. They need to focus on how best to build their brand and develop their seller profile. They should also prioritize linking marketplace profiles to their own website and integrating sales and product stock updates.

The Pioneer:
Pioneers are experienced users of online marketplaces and are comfortable with their current level of online sales. They use marketplaces selectively based upon product type and are likely to have been early adopters of marketplaces. Pioneers enjoy stable growth and are looking at their internal processes to automate further – they could also be considering offline channels as part of their expansion. Shifting emphasis to push their brand and use online marketplaces for selective products only.

To get the most out of marketplaces, Pioneers should invest time and resources into automated solutions that reduce cost. They also need to give more focus on marketing and sales, leveraging brand awareness and maintaining brand appeal.

With this information at hand and in mind, our teammate, Nathan developed our vendor & user portraits:

I learned that potential sellers that would be newcomers in e-commerce can be found in offline and online business directories, online forums, offline stores, and workshops.

Established sellers already work on the internet and are presented with their products on other marketplaces, platforms, social media, and communities.

Existing communities represent a highly-targeted group of potential sellers that match your online marketplace concept but don’t sell products online yet.

It’s important to dig into sellers’ expectations and needs to form a perfect offer.

Beard Game Strong could use a few common advantages that help with attracting vendors to an online marketplace:

an opportunity to embrace new markets and gain a wide customer audience
ability to use a marketplace with advanced features and infrastructure
a new sales channel and additional promotion
a chance to try out online sales and start their business - for newcomers.

We discussed how, with this information, Beard Game Strong could attract vendors, as well as customers via:

Social meda platforms (Instagram, Facebook (groups), direct mail to stores (artisanal) that sell men’s grooming products, surveys, & email marketing.

However, once the vendors come, what will they find?

What features would vendors be looking for (that can add value)?

For a B2C seller, going global usually requires a large budget and significant infrastructure changes. Emphasize the advantages of working through an online marketplace to convince B2B-sellers:

- minimum costs
- ability to use existing infrastructure and ecosystem to tap into new markets
- first sales come much sooner than if a B2C-seller is expanding business in a traditional way, and building its own local infrastructure.

A flawless ecosystem differentiates the experience on your multiple supplier marketplace in comparison to other e-commerce platforms and can convince sellers to stay on your site.

Offer free-trial runs for sellers to try out your multi-vendor platform features before they join, to compare them to the ones they currently use.

Offer support and solutions to logistic issues. While marketing and promotion is a vital part of attracting online vendors to a marketplace, this is only the beginning. If the process then involves dispatching a large amount of products to the customer, you may need to provide the sellers with solutions for the likes of storage and packaging.

Find shipping partners that will be able to offer delivery logistics to make the process as stress-free as possible for both companies. If you can offer sellers with low-cost, well thought-out and easy logistics, they will be very grateful and it will set you aside from your competitors. Sellers need an easy experience as much as their customers, so it would be important to provide the vendor with this.

Heuristic Analysis

After going through the information we had collected until this point, we started to take a look at the new screens of Beard Games Strong, to see if the new design aligned with some of the research we gathered.

We as a team talked about how we liked the new Beard Game Strong screens - the look is clean, with a masculine color palette that provided consistency throughout the site.

The textual content provided on the screens, even though it isn’t the final copy to be used, feels like the appropriate tone is being taken, speaking to potential vendors. Explaining things for the vendor in a way the vendor can understand and relate to is very important for BGS brand, as well as for any site or marketplace. Speaking in the user’s tone is important for connecting and engaging the user/vendor.

I felt the tone of the information falls in line with the user personas Nathan created. Also, providing the visual information throughout the flow of the vendor’s introductory page - the information where the vendor is given reasons as to why thought should sell with Beard Game Strong, then the information regarding the Listing Fees & Cost, as well as the Product Approval Process shows transparency from Beard Game Strong.

I wanted to get into the vendor signup flow to see if it was an efficient process.

It begins with the collection of information one would expect from a potential vendor - Name, Description of the Shop, Location, and Currency used.

Then, the vendor could begin creating product listings for their items. I was a little unsure about this flow. If the vendor hasn’t been approved yet, why would they be allowed to Create Product Listings this early?

I felt like this part of the flow is something that could be iterated on - the vendor might not want to begin creating product listings until after the approval process. Or, what if the vendor spends time creating product listings but isn’t approved as an appropriate seller on Beard Game Strong’s marketplace.

This could leave a bad taste in a vendor’s mouth, possibly driving them to discourage other vendors from engaging with the BGS platform.

Suggested changes for the BGS vendor signup flow:

- Remove the Create Product Listing part of the flow, allowing the vendor to provide all information except for a product listing, for the approval process. We have to remember that some vendors might be new to an online marketplace and not have images or information for their product(s) at that time.

- Allow the vendor to provide a product listing for 1 product for the approval process. This would save time for the vendor while signing up for the approval process.

- Or, give the vendor an option, where they can choose to create a product listing, or continue without creating a product listing. Allowing the vendor some flexibility during the signup flow could put them at ease, allowing them time to gather their product information while waiting for the approval process.

Journey Mapping

After going through the vendor flow, I decided I wanted to create a journey map. I wanted to research and illustrate the steps a vendor would take in searching for, and deciding upon, using Beard Game Strong as a platform for selling their products.

Along with the steps the vendor might take in choosing Beard Game Strong, I provided steps Beard Game Strong can take (touchpoints) to help acquire and retain vendors. Goals for the brand itself were provided, showing an example of goals that align to the vendors’ needs at each stage of the process, from signup to retention.

Action Items

We came up with a series of possible steps Beard Game Strong can take to begin engaging vendors, as well as customers, to start the process of becoming an online marketplace where curated men’s grooming products are found.

Once the new site for Beard Game Strong is in place, the following should take place to establish itself as a premiere men’s marketplace:

- Email marketing
- Create and maintain a social media presence (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat)
- Online advertising
- Create an online community
- Beard Game Strong should create and share blog posts to build a sense of connectedness with vendors and customers
- Create videos, or schedule introductions with new vendors
- Have a pitch and negotiation strategy in place for vendors
- Have a strong dashboard for vendors in place
- Establish training for vendors
- Establish programs to retain vendors

Conclusion

Working with Beard Game Strong was an awesome experience. Learning about their goals, as well as the story behind the brand, was really cool. They have a long road ahead of them, but we as a team feel like we provided Shaun with a lot of insight that can help him proceed to push the new Beard Game Strong site into development. Then, after the new site is live, we provided steps he can take to acquire and retain vendors. This isn’t an end-all, be-all list of action items for Beard Game Strong. Providing an effective online marketplace is work that takes time (think long game).

We concluded that:

- Usability testing will need to be done, on both the customer and vendor sides, to receive more insight from actual users. Beard Game Strong needs real users to interact with the site to see if the user experience is a frictionless process, or if the experience needs to be enhanced.

- Since we were not building, or iterating upon the new Beard Game Strong screens, we wanted to provide Shaun with a wealth of information; information that could help him succeed moving forward with the BGS brand. We made suggestions regarding marketing of the site, acquiring users, as well as ideas for content that could enhance both the customer and vendor experience.

- Aside from building and developing an online presence, more things must be in place to begin gaining traction in a niche marketplace (email marketing, social media).

- We learned that building an online marketplace is a very ambitious undertaking that requires a lot of detail, information, and a lot of trial and error. With that said, we wanted to make sure we did our part to make the process a little smoother for Beard Game Strong.