Page 9 - Cross-Border Magazine Nr.3

~ Noppies ~

retail stores and wholesale business (in 50 countries). This part of cal abilities, you cannot sell via these marketplaces.” At Noppies,
the company plays an important role for strategic decisions. In the agility is highly valued. Being able to react directly to new trends “You cannot create new
first place, the wholesale performance provides a good indication and requirements has contributed largely to the company’s success.
of the demand for the products in certain markets. Also, mar- “Noppies’ strength is that we are small enough to react flexibly,
ketplaces are a valuable channel to test whether or not products and big enough to make the right investments. Large companies pregnant women to buy
resonate well and to generate insights about the buying behaviour with traditional boards are often not agile enough to innovate in
in a certain country. If a country has a well-developed e-commerce this dynamic environment,” believes Hammer.
your products”
infrastructure and there is a reasonable business case, Hammer
will usually first take a deep look at the margins before opening Consumers adapt easily
up one of Noppies’ ‘N-shops’: “Sometimes, top line turnover is According to Erwin Hammer, consumer behaviour is constantly
not the ultimate goal. It is rather about really making money in a changing, and so does the way brands and retailers think about
market. You have to ask yourself many questions. Considering our stock, delivery times and service: “Innovations such as drones
wholesale business, a very important one to ask is: Am I cannibal- are tools used by companies to show off how fast they can bring
ising my markets by selling directly online in this country?” game changing technology to the market. Delivery is getting
faster, more direct and more convenient, which is very neces-
The online brandshop versus marketplaces sary. The new generation is programmed entirely differently
Selling through marketplaces or the online brandshop has its pros when it comes to purchase behaviour. It is much more of a ‘need
and its cons, finds Erwin Hammer. “Marketplaces have a lot of now, buy now’ process.” Faster delivery times and technological
power. They generate a lot of traffic. In many countries marketplaces advancement therefore become key. The consumer wants many
are taking over the role of Google when it comes to product search. things and easily adapts to new possibilities. Ship to store, return
The amount of traffic and visibility of a marketplace, power in ana- to a store or delivery to a friend who is having a baby party,
lytics and analysis tools, affiliate marketing and innovation is huge. whatever might be convenient at a certain moment will come up
They will always be able to beat you in terms of turnover and when as a customer expectation. Hammer says: “The buyer is moving
it comes to visibility, so you can use this to your own benefit,” he ex- all the time, and as a brand I must react: How can I manoeuvre
plains. On the other hand, brands are not the owner of the platform, in this and keep my margins at the right level? Tweaking this in
they have thus much less influence on marketing tools, AdWords the ideal way is the game that you must play in retailing today.”
strategy and communication. “Your online marketing influence is
relatively limited. With your branded site like www.noppies.com Integrating with international marketplaces
you can use all online marketing tools to interact with your target Throughout Europe, Noppies is sold in 18 marketplaces, includ-
group. On a marketplace, however, you do not have these tools. ing About You, Zalando, Amazon and Otto. On Zalando alone,
What you can do, however, is focus on content marketing, such Noppies sells in Germany, Austria, Italy and Belgium. The mar-
as magazines, influencers, bloggers or vloggers. The past years we ketplaces sell the entire Noppies catalogue, which means that
invested a lot in structure, integrations and hardware. We will now the Noppies brandstore (‘N-shop’) serves as the main source for
focus more on branding and communication,” says the manager. the data feed that is transmitted to the marketplace platforms.
“We call that content syndication,” says Hammer. However,
“It is no longer just about the product” each of these marketplaces is programmed in a different way at
According to Hammer, a company’s technological adaptability and the back-end. “For us as a company, it would be very difficult
affinity with the back-end is much more important than which to translate our data for every single marketplace.” Differences
product they actually sell: “If you want to succeed in a multi-chan- amongst marketplaces range from menus, categories and data
nel strategy selling as a third-party vendor on market places, you mapping. “Still, your content must be put in the adequate spot. It
must be willing to invest in the technical side of it. You need the would be extremely hard if you had to do this for each and every
appropriate back-end to make integrations and guarantee smooth single marketplace in each country.” In order to handle this chal-
fulfilment. You must be willing to be the stock-holding player in lenge, Noppies works with Tradebyte. This middleware partner
the game. You have to take the risks. That is more important than translates data to the format supported by the individual market-
what you sell”, Hammer is convinced. Today’s marketplaces have places. The merchant needs only one integration with Tradebyte.
high requirements. Of course, the quality for your products will Erwin Hammer claims: “It is like international plugs and elec-
be beneficial as returns will go down and quality brands will rank tricity sockets. You cannot get electricity in every country with
higher. However, marketplaces focus a lot on their NPS (Net Pro- only one plug. Tradebyte is like an adapter that fits all market-
motor Score) which indicates customer satisfaction. “Marketplaces places, whereas the brand only needs one plug to integrate the
want to be assured you can help them sell a lot without them entire data feed. That is a typical so-called ‘middleware partner’.”
having to make good investments and without having to take big Working with a middleware partner also has the advantage that
risks,” elaborates Hammer. In order to help them achieve a high Noppies can adapt content, such as the deletion of a product, by
NPS score, brands and retailers need to have very well-functioning only transmitting it once.
fulfilment mechanisms. “Zalando even wants to be able to access
your store inventory of your physical outlets to guarantee smooth Hybrid model
delivery. If you have the best product but don’t have the techni- Marketplaces like Zalando are technologically forceful, and

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