By Matthieu Simon and Olivier de Panafieu

• Marketplaces have been growing strongly in the B2C world over the last years. Pure players from China and the United States are dominating the landscape. And the waves of this business model are getting even bigger, as they are now extending from retailers to all players that own traffic, such as brands or social media companies. The secret recipe for marketplace growth includes three ingredients: traffic, services and data to improve customer satisfaction. As only some generalists and verticals per category will survive, the race is on.

• For brands, this means shifting their attention to marketplaces either by starting to sell on them or opening up a marketplace themselves. Digital distribution requires mastery of competencies different to that of the wholesale world – and brands now need to develop this skill set quickly. Going one step further, all distribution channels of a brand need to be handled differently in the future – shifting from channel thinking to customer thinking.

• Given the strong growth of marketplaces, its operators gain customer control and can extend their influence along the value chain, leaving brands no choice but to ride the wave as well.