The Ultimate Guide To Unlocking The Power Of Modern Multi-Vendor Commerce

Executive Summary

With $7.24 trillion in retail sales in the U.S. alone and a meteoric 222% rise in Customer Acquisition Costs, eCommerce is at an interesting intersection of competing in an ever-increasing market while losing margins to ever-increasing input costs. Unfortunately, many organizations fall to these cost increases believing their current commerce platform is simply all there is; Accepting outdated, legacy platforms that pigeonhole product discovery behind weeks to onboard new suppliers leading to months or years to see returns. In this comprehensive look at modern Multi-Vendor Commerce, Logicbroker shares how we are helping retailers and brands meet the continuously evolving demands of eCommerce. The report highlights how five key pillars—Eliminating barriers to supplier and product onboarding, implementing rapid speed-to-market tools, increasing efficiency and control for customers, enhancing lifetime customer value, and improving ROI through dedicated support—have shaped Logicbroker’s ability to provide flexible and scalable MVC solutions. With a comprehensive table of contents, explore how each pillar impacts enterprise retailers and discover how customers like BBQGuys, Samsung, and MRCOOL are capitalizing on their target audience, acquiring new customers, and providing state-of-the-art consumer experiences that drive sales.

Table of Contents

 

Introduction

In this guide, we will show you how Logicbroker is modernizing the concept of multi-vendor commerce to help retailers, suppliers, and brands take their commerce programs to the next level. We will discuss what multi-vendor commerce is, how organizations can take advantage of our tools and processes to capitalize on continuous eCommerce growth, and the five ways modern MVC can solve all commerce pain points. 

First and foremost, let’s start with the obvious: What is multi-vendor commerce? And how does it differ from the traditional eCommerce models of dropship and marketplace selling? 

Defining Multi-Vendor Commerce

In a traditional selling environment, whether in-store or online, a consumer buys their product from a single seller. In general, this is referred to as “single-vendor commerce”. Whether that retailer sourced the product from a supplier (as is the case in big box stores) or from its owned inventory (think Walmart selling its “Great Value” brand), the consumer is buying one source of products. 

In a multi-vendor selling environment, that same consumer is introduced to the world of dropshipping and marketplaces. This online selling isn’t directly supported by retailer-owned inventory, but rather by what the retailer can strategically source from vendors worldwide. When a customer checks out online, they may never know that the product is shipping from a supplier vs. the retailer’s distribution network. Think Amazon, eBay, TikTok Shop, and more.

However, the next step in multi-vendor commerce (MVC), and what Logicbroker refers to as a true modern MVC, is defined by orchestrating your eCommerce strategy based on consumer preferences, rather than predetermined boxes set up by legacy MVC providers.  

This is done by evolving into a commerce platform that creates an “all-encompassing” solution that merges a customer’s dropship, curated marketplace, and owned inventory fulfillment models into a solution that flows effortlessly through physical and online commerce channels. 

Modern MVC doesn’t rely solely on merchandising to scour the internet in search of willing and capable suppliers or hoping you have the stock in your owned inventory but rather builds a comprehensive network of thousands of suppliers and endless data points to ensure that every decision is made to fit the right strategy. 

Why Retailers and Brands Need Modern Multi-Vendor Commerce

Here’s the truth—eCommerce is growing and, will continue to grow indefinitely as more consumers look to purchase more products online. In the U.S. alone, retail sales hit a staggering $7.2 trillion in 2023. In that same year, eCommerce retail sales surpassed $1 trillion. Skipping beyond consumer spending, B2B eCommerce sales in 2022 topped $3.8 trillion.

 

 

However, these numbers represent half the story and, unfortunately, are the only story legacy MVC platforms are willing to consider. The other side of the coin is that with consumer acquisition costs (CACs) rising 222% in the last 8 years alone. Accompanying those rising costs,  89% of large organizations globally have invested in large digital transformations around eCommerce and personalization, while only 31% of those have seen the expected revenue lift and only 25% have seen any cost savings associated with their new programs. Retailers and brands have to move towards something new. And that new focus is modern multi-vendor commerce. 

MVC should be about consumer needs, speed-to-market aspirations, and lifetime value. To better help outline what a modern MVC platform can and should do, Logicbroker has outlined 5 key “pillars.” These pillars define what we do and how we do it. 

What Modern Multi-Vendor Commerce Can Solve

Our five key pillars dive specifically into how Logicbroker expands the value of your brand while meeting and often exceeding your customer’s expectations.  

Our key pillars are:

1. Eliminating all integration barriers and streamlining the onboarding process
2. Capitalizing on speed-to-market tools
3. Increasing efficiency and control over your commerce programs
4. Enhancing lifetime customer value and experiences
5. Supporting every transaction both internal and external throughout the fulfillment process. 

These five pillars make up Logicbroker’s core focus and are ultimately what helps our organization support both small, influencer-lead startups to some of the largest retailers and brands in the world including Samsung, Victoria’s Secret, Ace Hardware, BBQGuys, Walgreens, and more.

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Pillar #1 – Eliminate All Barriers To Supplier and Product Onboarding

Executive Summary: Onboarding new vendors and products takes time and labor that many retailers and brands can’t afford to spare. Let us help you onboard suppliers in hours, not months; Bring entire product catalogs online in minutes, not weeks; and, most importantly, integrate with the business systems you rely on in under 6 weeks. Enable your suppliers with the automation tools needed to meet the market at the speed it demands, rather than what legacy tech partners provide. 

There is one simple truth in eCommerce—MVC sales can’t happen until your vendors are onboarded. In reality, there are many ways to accomplish this inherently simple task. The traditional method of vendor onboarding is asking the supplier to connect to your preestablished EDI connection. This method is labor-intensive, slow, and requires the supplier to have the technical sophistication necessary to make that connection in the first place.

Therefore, the first and most important pillar of modern Multi-Vendor Commerce is eliminating all barriers to onboarding via unlimited connections. Eliminating barriers, in both vendor and product onboarding, is the fundamental groundwork to the Logicbroker platform. 

On-Demand Onboarding

Logicbroker approaches eliminating integration barriers first and foremost through our core onboarding offering—On-Demand Onboarding. Logicbroker’s solution not only automates a vast majority of the work that goes into successfully onboarding suppliers but also takes under an hour. In minutes, a new vendor can be onboarded from any location, at any time.

We built this solution from the ground up utilizing our unique ability to connect with any vendor regardless of technical sophistication. The Logicbroker platform allows retailers, brands, vendors, and suppliers to connect and communicate through the entire order lifecycle with any vendor, seller, or 3PL, regardless of their integration type: API, EDI, XML, CSV, JSON, and more. In addition, we supply out-of-the-box connectors to common eCommerce platforms like Shopify and SquareSpace, along with various fulfillment platforms like ShipStation. (We will cover the power of Native Connectors more in the next subsection!)

The ability to onboard new vendors quickly is great and saves our customers time, but building a system that works for retailers isn’t just about speed. Logicbroker worked closely with our customers to advance our onboarding process to cover seven key areas: delivering faster speed to market, eliminating manual errors, eliminating supplier contracts, improving documentation visibility, giving greater control to retailers, having dedicated onboarding support, and, above all else, accuracy. 

For every retailer Logicbroker supports, there are dozens of horror stories where suppliers go live without the proper testing. Logicbroker’s supplier self-testing capabilities allow suppliers to test their data in a retailer’s format, ensuring that there are no surprises when the supplier goes live. Delivering groundbreaking speed-to-market wouldn’t be complete without accurate onboarding and this is part of the reason onboarding is the first fundamental pillar of modern MVC. 

 

These key areas have drastically eliminated the time for our customers to onboard new suppliers utilizing this solution and for organizations like BBQGuys, it has helped them onboard new suppliers in just 54 minutes leading to a staggering 600 individual suppliers working through their ecosystem. 

Native Connectors

One key aspect of eliminating barriers is taking down integration barriers with native connectors. Multi-vendor commerce is about enabling a perfected commerce system, one that doesn’t rely on outside help to run a well-designed program. This has led to the development and introduction of connections to Shopify, Magento/Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, and the Salesforce Commerce Cloud. 

With these connectors built into the Logicbroker platform, key customers can drive more traffic to their site, enable additional commerce capabilities globally, or expand their assortment with new and transformative products that meet their target customer’s needs. 

For example, Amazon recently reported that over 40% of their total sales come from offsite search channels. With pre-built native connectors, retailers and brands can capitalize on the immense potential of driving traffic to your site through third-party suppliers, channels, and more. 

This culminates in the belief that a modern multi-vendor commerce solution must offer a robust range of native connectors, and Logicbroker offers the widest range of prebuilt native connectors for our customers and will.

It’s About Control

As the first pillar of multi-vendor commerce and the foundation of the other 4, it’s important to note that eliminating barriers is the key way retailers are “taking control” over their eCommerce programs. A well-executed commerce strategy is built upon a carefully vetted network of vendors and suppliers to fuel a well-functioning dropship or curated marketplace program. 

With On-Demand Onboarding, and by eliminating integration barriers for retailers and brands, Logicbroker is not only giving control back to the operators but also providing control for suppliers. While an operator needs to understand how the program is performing, a supplier’s control over the ability to onboard quickly and effortlessly ensures that, regardless of how established they are, they can meet market demand. 

This level of control leads nicely into the second pillar of multi-vendor commerce.

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Pillar #2 – Implement Rapid Speed-To-Market Tools

Executive Summary: In an age where customer acquisition costs continue to skyrocket and trends move faster than ever, getting to market quickly is a must. Our tools can help you not only publish new product catalogs in as little as 5 minutes but also discover and introduce products that match your goals & values.  With detailed compliance guidelines and validations in place, the Logicbroker portal can help you find and quickly go to market with thoughtful add-ons that will entice customers to make repeat purchases.

Once you’ve eliminated the barriers to entry for your commerce program, ensuring that you can get products quickly to market can make or break capitalizing on trends, sales, and more becomes your second pillar of multi-vendor commerce.

Advanced Speed-to-Market Tools

Offering the correct speed-to-market tools is paramount. Logicbroker developed our suite through our incredible Customer Advisory Board, which helped us hone interests and ideas along with the acquisition of Cortina, an up-and-coming curated marketplace solution provider. Due to both of these factors, Logicbroker’s platform now hosts three incredible tools—our Product Onboarding Center, Product Discovery Portal, and additional native connectors. 

The Product Onboarding Center

Logicbroker’s Product Onboarding Center enables retailers to load entire product catalogs in as little as 5 minutes. With its easy-to-use interface, retailers can eliminate the dependence on spreadsheets, reduce manual touchpoints, and increase speed-to-market as they review all of their dropship and marketplace products through one pane of glass.  

The Product Onboarding Center was built to maximize a retailer’s ability to go to market and be at the forefront of consumer preferences. 79% of new products fail to launch on time, resulting in 27% lost selling time. Product Onboarding Center empowers retailers to explore their entire supplier network. Retailers can cherry-pick products that align perfectly with their brand and customer demands by seamlessly searching across their entire network. The process is intuitive, enabling retailers to rapidly expand their product assortment and delve into previously unexplored revenue streams. Every SKU shared by vendors becomes a valuable asset, opening doors to opportunities for growth and innovation. 

However, this data isn’t like the old way of scanning a spreadsheet. Each SKU has its own page and its own set of information, so you aren’t left wondering if all the information is ready for onboarding. If there are new products you want to enter manually, we also give you the tools to quickly and compliantly upload SKUs at will. 

To better compliment our automation capabilities, Logicbroker now allows the suppliers to upload their product content in the supplier’s existing format or through one of our eCommerce connectors. Unlike legacy providers that demand suppliers adhere to their strict onboarding formats, Logicbroker’s platform gives the supplier the ability to quickly and easily map their product content to the retailer’s desired format and continue to add new products frictionlessly without having to make changes to internal systems.

Logicbroker’s Product Discovery Portal

One of the most unique tools to accompany the Cortina acquisition was the introduction of the Product Discovery Portal. 

Through Logicbroker, retailers can check out other products various Logicbroker suppliers are selling elsewhere, allowing them to easily select new products or suppliers to work with simply by selecting the supplier. These discovery tools still require contracts to be signed, but because of Logicbroker’s advanced toolset, the discovery of new products, partners, suppliers, and more is as easy as browsing through the Logicbroker Product Discovery Portal. 

This level of product discovery will further enhance visibility into Logicbroker’s trusted Supplier Network. Our combined network features 9,000 suppliers from all industry verticals, ensuring retailers in our network have more ways to develop an endless aisle of curated, in-demand products. 

Commerce Connectors

We’ve already covered Logicbroker’s exciting native connectors, but these culminate into more of an idea than a tool. Logicbroker’s commerce connectors are a suite of pre-built connections that give retailers and brands more control than ever before. 

If a retailer or vendor was working with a legacy technology provider, there is most likely a lot of friction. New vendors have to log into endless portals, sync product content across dozens of channels, and figure out ways to get data out of these portals to better understand their customers. Retailers have to not only manage, monitor, and maintain all of these connections but, in many cases, individually interact with each supplier to ensure they are even onboarded in the first place. 

Logicbroker’s unique native connectors, specifically through our Shopify and Squarespace connections, give vendors and retailers the added ability to sync product content from Shopify into the retailer’s ecosystem. We’ve removed the friction associated with new vendors participating in marketplaces by ensuring that all product content was synced from their Shopify account and sent directly to the retailer using a few simple tags. 

For example, Fran Berger Living was looking to onboard new vendors for its array of specialty home goods products. With a legacy provider, Fran Berger Living’s target suppliers would probably have had to upload a spreadsheet into their ecosystem and hope the data came through as intended. With Logicbroker’s Shopify connection fully integrated into the Logicbroker ecosystem, new suppliers can now simply tag their Shopify products with “Logicbroker” to automatically sync across systems into Fran Berger Living’s incredible aisle of home merchandise. 

More importantly, once the product is launched in Fran Berger Living’s ecosystem, inventory availability, orders, order updates, and shipping details are automatically synced, so the new supplier can work directly within their internal systems. This saves both the retailer and supplier time versus using a portal or taking on another IT integration project for just a small team. 

Building a Well-Functioning Product Suite

Ultimately, pillar 2 is about capitalizing on a well-functioning suite of products that give retailers and brands unparalleled access into all aspects of their commerce program. The first pillar gives operators control while the second pillar dives deeper into what that control can accomplish. 

What it boils down to is our toolset gives operators the ability to start selling products in record time. With Logicbroker at the helm, and our advanced cloud-based ecosystem handling the workload, customers can now enjoy tools that rapidly onboard new customers & vendors, showcase 9,000 suppliers’ worth of product data, and sync fulfillment data across every necessary channel in record time. 

With On-Demand Onboarding getting new suppliers up and running in a retailer’s ecosystem in under an hour, and product discovery tools showcasing thousands of suppliers’ products at the click of a button, retailers now have unparalleled power to make rapid speed-of-market decisions that will impact their bottom line and drive revenue growth for years to come. If someone in the Logicbroker network is selling a product they want to feature, a few button clicks will show them everything they need to know to get connected to start building a commercial relationship and selling those products on their site.

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Pillar #3 – Increase Efficiency and Control For All Customers

Executive Summary: Unlock the visibility and control you need to optimize your fulfillment with Logicbroker at the center of your commerce program. Exception management tools, vendor scorecards, and the ability to harness first-party data sit at the heart of our offerings. We give customers unmatched control over their program and, most importantly, the visibility they need to understand their vendor supply and order fulfillment status to effortlessly switch business models between owned inventory, dropship, and marketplace.

The beauty of a well-functioning multi-vendor commerce platform is the ability to build upon each pillar effectively. As an organization eliminates the barriers to participate in its program and as supplier recruitment becomes simplified through easy product discovery, the next logical progression is increasing the efficiency and control over your entire eCommerce ecosystem. 

Dramatically decreasing the time to onboard new suppliers and products, and reducing the barriers to integrating those suppliers, is inherently already a great measure of success. Where the turning point in MVC truly takes place, however, is diving deeper into the data. 

Harnessing The Power of First-Party Data

Many brands and suppliers can no longer receive third-party data. That isn’t just an idea, it’s a fact. The intrinsic value of harnessing third-party data to understand customer wants, intent, and purchasing history is a thing of the past. 

To compensate, many traditional brands are looking to capitalize on first-party data through DTC channels of their own. The simple truth is that with 81% of customers wanting personalized experiences, understanding first-party data is vitally important.  

The “Cookie Wars” and Consumer Privacy Protection

The “Cookie Wars” began as a calculated effort to reduce, or at least give consumers the option to reduce, the data that they share with third-party entities. Privacy regulations like GDPR in the EU and CCPA in California gave websites an ultimatum to provide options to opt out of third-party data sharing. Thus, consumers have become more selective about how and where they share their data, and with whom. Consumers expect companies to respect their data and will only share it if they believe you will store it securely and are transparent on how you will use it. Google and Apple have already instituted plans to limit access to third-party cookies, ending an important and impactful stream of data brands and suppliers relied on. 

So? What’s the Value of Utilizing First-Party Data?

You may be thinking: “Why do I even need that first-party data? I know who my customers are, and I know why they shop for my products.” Well, the reality is that the data collected from consumers isn’t just about what they are shopping for but when, how, and through which channels. First-party data can help you maximize your customers’ shopping carts, explore new target demographics, and make informed product decisions that are fluid and change throughout the year, rather than relying on archaic sales cycles. 

The Benefits of First-Party Data

With that established, let’s dive into the intrinsic benefits of utilizing first-party data and how that correlates to MVC. The simple truth is, and something you may be wondering, many organizations don’t currently have access to first-party data. Many brands act as suppliers. Organizations like Samsung, GE Appliances, and more have traditionally relied upon big box stores like Best Buy, Walmart, and Target to sell their products. 

Where Multi-Vendor Commerce comes in, and where Logicbroker is finding the most success, is helping these name brands build their own dropship and curated marketplace program to capitalize on the benefits of first-party data. 

So, without further ado, let’s jump into the benefits. 

1) Maximizing Needs and Wants

By building your own eCommerce solution, one focused on providing your brand a way to carefully navigate first-party data and bring your loyal customers to your site, you can return to maximizing your target demographics’ needs and wants. This level of access is only attainable through carefully curated first-party data. 

Major brands across the industry are making this revolutionary data-focused shift. Brands like Samsung, the largest consumer electronics manufacturer in the world, realized the value of selling their products on a first-party site rather than exclusively through major retailers. 

Samsung was able to build out global online marketplaces that capitalized on the full shopping experience. Consumers visiting their new marketplaces can purchase a Samsung computer monitor, but can now also build the complete work-from-home package with new mice, keyboards, and webcams from major distributors to round out that customer’s shopping cart. 

Before building out these marketplaces, Samsung had no direct visibility into customer use cases. If a consumer bought a Samsung TV from a third-party retailer, they had no insight into whether that TV was going to be used primarily for sports or streaming, or in some extreme cases, Samsung didn’t even know who they were or where they were making the purchase. Purchasing decisions and data from that purchase were left in a void of uncertain and unmarketable metrics.

With first-party data streaming through their platform, and access to expanded shopping cart information, Samsung can do more targeted marketing and sales campaigns directed to the appropriate consumers while also developing products that align with what their consumers are looking for. This level of first-party data ensures that Samsung knows what their target consumers are looking for, purchasing, and exploring on their website to provide a more curated shopping experience to drive loyalty and coax larger baskets. 

2) Capture New Sales

For established eCommerce operators, or for those who launched their own operation to capitalize on this data, capturing new sales is more straightforward. First-party data gives your organization insight into purchasing patterns, hit products, and even sales windows to maximize profits and “social buzz.” 

Once organizations feel comfortable utilizing this data to make informed product decisions, exploring new avenues to market, service, and sell products becomes less arduous. This data can help you explore new ways to market toward your current customers by expanding your assortment of goods to better serve their entire shopping cart or even providing new sales windows to maximize trends your organization sees across social channels.  

3) Informed Decisions

This access to first-party data is the first step to exploring unique cross-sell and up-sell opportunities as well. With detailed information about purchasing patterns and data-driven insights into when and why consumers are purchasing certain products, your organization can better explore the perfect times to recommend up-sell products. This same logic applies to cross-sell add-ons like additional warranties, peripherals for a desk setup, or even white-glove installation services. 

Trust and new product movement strategies are just ways to drive a perfected shopping experience and maximize consumer experience management. Brands and suppliers that relied on retailers to market and display their products can now build their own eCommerce site and control the entire brand narrative. Everything from the shopping experience to customer support after the sale can be run through a first-party channel entirely designed by the brand’s team. 

Getting Started

Third-party cookies aren’t returning. Due to data security concerns, and a mountain of new consumer data security bills, exploring ways to utilize customer data must be done through first-party sites. But where do you start? First things first, you must sit down and organize your thoughts on the value of target first-party data. Once you understand your goals (whether to sell more products, acquire new customers, or embrace new strategies), you can map out the tasks needed to get there. 

Our team of experts can provide insight into how your program would look, what your ROI would be, and how exactly eCommerce solutions, whether it’s Logicbroker or not, can help shape your data and revenue strategies. 

Once a solution is reached, Logicbroker’s industry-leading, automated onboarding speeds helped retailers like Boscov’s get up and running in under 6 weeks. With automated onboarding being done in under an hour for retailers across our network, Logicbroker blends speed with accuracy regardless of the supplier’s level of technical sophistication and connection types. 

Solutions like ours are designed to provide a total shopping cart experience—one focused on providing unmatched visibility into orders, invoices, and your whole supply chain. We’ve helped organizations like Samsung and Boscov’s realize their first-party goals, and we work with all organizations looking to capture wallet share, personalize their eCommerce approach, and facilitate long-lasting consumer interactions. 

Utilizing Data to Score Vendors and Build Detailed Reports

First-party data and the benefits that go along with utilizing a true MVC solution are great steps to securing your place in the market, but there are further steps to take to maximize all the data flowing through your site. Namely, by utilizing the tools that modern MVC platforms have to offer via scorecarding and monitoring. 

Native Scorecarding

Logicbroker’s native scorecarding capabilities allow the operator of a dropship or curated marketplace program to have full transparency into supplier performance as it relates to on-time, in-full, and cancellation performance across your dropship and curated marketplace program. The overall scores are based on a letter grade ranging from A+ to F and are weighed based on three parameters: shipment time, percent shipped, and percent canceled. 

The scorecards are visible directly in the Logicbroker portal for both the retailer and supplier, can optionally be emailed to a user or group of users at the retailer and supplier on a regular cadence, and can even be exported to consume into your existing data warehouses or analytics platforms for aggregate reporting. 

As your dropship or curated marketplace program scales, managing supplier performance becomes increasingly complex, scorecards help you maintain efficiency by keeping performance front and center with your supplier community in real-time, at all times. For more mature dropship and curated marketplace programs, Logicbroker’s scorecards allow you to prioritize high-performing suppliers over low-performing suppliers that sell the same item to ensure the order gets placed with the supplier that offers your customer the best possible experience. 

Alert & Monitoring Capabilities

With endless dashboards providing you an at-a-glance view of your business, how do you find the “needle in the haystack”, or the “issue in the orders”?  As your order volume and supplier network become larger, the ability to manage by exception is business-critical because no one person or team of people can watch every order.  

While many platforms offer management by exception, Logicbroker uniquely ensures that each exception is routed to the right user. This reduces the resources required to manage the program and improves your customer’s experience by ensuring each exception is proactively sent to the right person to fix it. 

With Logicbroker’s Notifications letting you know how business is performing in real-time, Logicbroker’s Monitoring Reports lets you easily download metrics to share with the supplier for them to fix. Our clients can download monitoring reports to include in supplier emails or for review in their next 1-1 supplier meeting. 

For example, a Merchandiser can share their order history performance with the Supplier to avoid future impacts on customers. In the case of an inventory issue that needs to be resolved, both parties can work out if it needs to be resolved immediately or during the next meeting.

Using This Data to the Fullest

First-party data, alerts, scorecards, all of these data-utilization tools culminate into the essence of MVC—building a program that allows the operator to switch effortlessly from a dropship, owned inventory, and curated marketplace model at will. This data should allow you to make snap decisions on whether to move product A into your owned inventory, or product B into a dropship model based on sales, performance, and lifetime value. 

At Logicbroker, we call this the hybrid approach. A one-size-fits-all approach to dropship or marketplace solutions is no longer effective. Simple eCommerce solutions will leave you trailing behind your competitors. By combining dropship and marketplace into a single eCommerce solution, businesses can optimize their operations and deliver exceptional customer experiences—which is what eCommerce is all about.

But we will touch on these points more in future pillars. 

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Pillar #4 – Enhance Lifetime Customer Value and Experiences

Executive Summary: Samsung, MRCOOL, Ingram’s Water and Air, and more are rapidly changing their fulfillment models to maximize customer lifetime value and enhance experiences both on and off their websites. This is only possible through an omnichannel Multi-Vendor Commerce experience that effortlessly blends owned inventory, dropship, and curated marketplace fulfillment models. 

This may seem simple, but the fourth pillar of Multi-Vendor Commerce is keeping customers engaged. Each aspect of eCommerce is about satisfying the customer, but the advantage of a well-functioning MVC platform is that creating an “all-encompassing” solution, one that blends dropship, curated marketplace, and owned inventory, gives the operator an immense amount of control over their customer’s shopping experience. 

To illustrate this point, let’s look at some customer examples. 

Harnessing the Power of DIY With MRCOOL and Ingram’s Water and Air

MRCOOL and Ingram’s Water and Air are two sister organizations that leverage Logicbroker to sell their HVAC equipment across the country. HVAC is not something that families typically think about. A traditionally B2B-focused suite of products, HVAC equipment would be sold to distributors across the country and installed by experts in the field. Nowadays, Ingram’s (and their suite of MRCOOL products) are changing the game through their online marketplace. 

Consumers can not only buy full DIY HVAC sets to install themselves but also can buy every accompanying piece of equipment needed for the care and maintenance of their systems that could last upward of 30 years. 

Ingram’s didn’t worry about their core product being on such a long replacement lifecycle. They tackled the problem through a D2C selling environment that is now poised to offer even more add-ons like air filters, replacement parts, extended warranties, on-site support, same-day deliveries, and more, all while keeping their brand at the forefront of both business and customer minds. 

Capitalizing on New Revenue Streams

When looking at these customer examples, it’s important to realize that these solutions aren’t industry-vertical specific. You don’t have to be a mega consumer electronics brand like Samsung, or an established HVAC brand like MRCOOL, to change your consumer lifetime value. Many other operators, retailers, brands, and even suppliers are leveraging MVC to enhance their customer value through additional fulfillment options  like Buy Online, Pickup In-Store (BOPIS) or even, Buy Online, Deliver From Store (BODFS). 

These “add-on” fulfillment offerings, solutions that typically weren’t even on an operator’s radar, now help dramatically reduce shipping costs, delight customers via convenient product pickup/delivery options, and even entice customers to come back for more due to trust and reliability. 

How Product Discovery Enhances Lifetime Value

The last piece of the “lifetime value” puzzle lies in product discovery. And for this, we turn to our customers BBQGuys. BBQGuys has worked tirelessly to utilize its connections and the Logicbroker supplier network to connect to over 600 suppliers. These suppliers help BBQGuys sell products their customers expect like grills and outdoor equipment. 

For BBQGuys, however, it’s not about the volume of suppliers but rather the customer experience. The reality is that BBQGuys’ core offerings (grills, fire pits, and outdoor furniture) can be purchased at most major box stores. What customers can’t find anywhere is what sets them apart. Logicbroker’s onboarding tools and product discovery capabilities give BBQGuys the edge needed to continuously curate fast-moving, trending products that keep BBQ and outdoor aficionados coming back for more. 

This value lies in Logicbroker’s native connectors. Instead of a supplier entering the network, uploading thousands of goods, and hoping additional retailers see the value, Logicbroker offers suppliers the ability to fulfill orders directly to a retailer or brand’s dropship or marketplace program. 

 

For example, let’s say a new type of pizza oven is trending on TikTok or Instagram. Traditionally, and through many legacy providers, BBQGuys would have to specifically onboard that new supplier. They’d have to ask the supplier to build an API or invest in a legacy EDI solution just to onboard their products. This process could take months and by then peak demand is most likely waning or gone completely. With older legacy solutions, some suppliers even need to connect to a third-party portal which would take thousands of man-hours away from both BBQGuys and their new supplier.

With Logicbroker, the connection isn’t just instantaneous, it’s effortless. After a contract is signed, suppliers can simply connect to Logicbroker via their current eCommerce platform and directly fulfill any order requests. With pre-built connectors to every major eCommerce platform, Logicbroker takes all the pain points away and lets retailers do business. So, in this case, BBQGuys can sign a contract with their latest pizza oven supplier and within hours accept orders on their website. There is no back and forth. No blind hope that the supplier has the technical sophistication or manpower needed to build a connection. Logicbroker ensures that once a deal is in place, the sale will be made. 

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Pillar #5 – Dramatically Improve ROI Through Dedicated Support

Executive Summary: Your commerce ecosystem needs to be running 24/7/365. Period. Logicbroker’s Azure-based cloud platform includes dedicated client operations, success managers, and project managers to ensure all projects are organized, on time, and set up for scalable growth.  We call our services “White-Glove” because they are truly best-in-class at providing the support and automation needed in today’s modern commerce landscape.

Logicbroker is far from the only commerce platform to offer support. But, as a pillar of Multi-Vendor Commerce, support is a necessity for retailers and brands working to perfect their capabilities. At Logicbroker, we feel support shouldn’t come from an automated ticket system, or thousands of manhours dissecting and discussing problems, but rather from an organic “white-glove” ecosystem that has checkpoints throughout every transaction to ensure compliance, security, and effectiveness. 

Redefining White Glove Service

Logicbroker built its “white-glove” support to offer unmatched, premium service through onboarding, support, and long-lasting partnerships that go beyond the use of our platform. 

Onboarding and Vendor Support

Logicbroker’s commitment to providing top-notch onboarding and vendor support is a major advantage for retailers. Our team helps vendors navigate the process of onboarding on our platform. This level of support is crucial for retailers looking to build and maintain a strong vendor base, as it helps to ensure a smooth and successful marketplace experience for both the retailer and the vendor. 

When starting a marketplace, oftentimes organizations overlook that they now have to provide excellent service not just to their customers, but also to their vendors. With Logicbroker’s approach, we offer support to the vendor network, so the marketplace operator doesn’t have to. Our competitors will often ask your own supplier help desk to provide vendor support, which leads to increased costs, headaches, and confusion for those vendors looking for simple answers. Logicbroker’s white glove vendor support, on average, allows customers to reduce their marketplace operations load by three Full Time Employees (FTEs).

This use case can be seen in how Logicbroker worked closely with Boscov’s to perfect their onboarding process. 

The Boscov’s Success Story

The most important aspect of the onboarding process revolved around the ability to match Boscov’s existing integration formats and contents. Logicbroker assured Boscov’s’ IT team that no new changes would be required to switch to our agile drop shipping platform and even included the clause in our partnership contract. Logicbroker’s famous “white glove treatment” prevailed, as Boscov’s successfully connected their backend with Logicbroker’s platform without a single document being lost or reformatted.

“Dropship has proven itself as an efficient means of fulfillment for our company and our customers… Logicbroker’s technology has modernized and streamlined this process, connecting us to our suppliers faster than ever and with a lower cost of ownership. We have better vendor management capabilities now, and with complete visibility of our digital supply chain, we are positioned for great scalable growth.” – Jen Redcay, Manager of Supplier Direct Fulfillment at Boscov’s

A Long-Lasting Partnership

Logicbroker doesn’t take off our gloves when retailers and brands have become fully integrated. We pride ourselves on providing service before and after the sale that extends beyond an automated ticket system. When there is a problem, Logicbroker’s team is available by phone, email, or through our platform to timely resolve any issues. 

But support isn’t always about resolving issues. Logicbroker’s product and development team builds the products that they need, rather than what third-party experts think they need. Our product teams sit down with clients every quarter to discuss new features, products, or even simple management tools they’d like to see. We want our clients to grow, and our white glove service capitalizes on your connections and expertise to make that happen. 

The Client Success Team

As a Logicbroker client, you’re paired with a dedicated Client Success Manager (CSM) whose job is to help you get the best possible value from your eCommerce program. Your CSM will work with you to assess your current state and goals, hone your strategy, and identify opportunities to increase efficiency, spur growth, and scale successfully. They can also connect you with our network of eCommerce technology and strategy partners. 

24/7/365

As the final pillar of Multi-Vendor Commerce, It’s important to note that every aspect of your fulfillment program must run 24/7/365. Consumers shop on their own time. You can’t expect a consumer to return to your website and purchase a product if it was down the first time they tried to order. 

With Logicbroker, and for the brands utilizing our MVC platform, we harness the power of Microsoft Azure. Through Azure, Logicbroker ensures there will never be downtime allocated to updates, unlike legacy providers. The only downtime for your site is the microseconds it takes to update the platform in between security checks. These security measures built into the Azure platform give Logicbroker and its customers the peace of mind that once an operator’s program is up and running, all your data that passes through their system is secured against any attacks or breaches. 

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Let Us Help You Get Started

If you’re reading this and are stuck wondering what the best course of action you can take would be, we’ve got you covered. Not every organization is designed to embrace Multi-Vendor Commerce, and Logicbroker can’t offer every solution on the market, but what we can do is sit down and discuss the problem. 

The Logicbroker Solutions Engineering team is built to help prospects understand, think through, and maximize their eCommerce solution. In a sit-down discussion, we can help any organization uncover what their ROI would be switching to Logicbroker, discuss the problems your organization faces and how they can be solved, and get you set up for the future. 

The first step, and we always hope it’s the final step, would be to schedule some time with a Logicbroker representative. Reaching each of the five pillars of Multi-Vendor Commerce and truly taking control over your fulfillment strategies can make or break your eCommerce operation. It’s not about becoming our client, it’s about finding the solution that works for your organization rather than despite it like some legacy providers. 

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The Ultimate MVC Checklist

The five pillars of Multi-Vendor Commerce don’t exist in a vacuum. We’ve developed this handy checklist for you to quickly peruse that helps you determine if you’re ready to re-platform your program on the most robust MVC platform on the market, or if your program isn’t supporting your needs like a modern MVC platform could. 

Current Challenges

• Suppliers
  • Suppliers are complaining of too high of fees to continue operating in your fulfillment strategy
  • Suppliers cannot connect in an adequate time to meet market demand
  • Suppliers often complain of manual efforts required to connect to your platform
  • Rigid connectivity is limiting the growth of your program

• Barriers To Business
  • Often struggling to onboard new products
  • Customer acquisition costs remain too high to explore unique procurement opportunities
  • Demand changing faster than you can evaluate market needs

• Incumbent Provider Evaluation
  • Signed a contract within the last year which has yet to be fully executed
  • Fallen into a solution that prioritizes catch-all vs. curated assortment
  • Lacks the tools to fully evaluate and measure vendor performance, negatively impacting your customer’s experience 
  • No clear ROI on your programs due to high cost of doing business

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About Logicbroker

Logicbroker is a premier multi-vendor commerce platform that seamlessly connects trading partners regardless of integration types. Our modern solutions empower retailers and brands to take control of their customer experience by harnessing and analyzing vital first-party data, reducing inventory risk, and curating their expanded assortment. By improving the visibility into our client’s commerce programs, Logicbroker can better position retailers and brands for transformative growth.

As business needs and demand shift, Logicbroker provides the ability to quickly switch suppliers and product fulfillment between 3P to 1P and responsibly find new sources of inventory that uphold your brand integrity and meet your delivery promise. ​We work with mid-market and Enterprise manufacturers, brands, and retailers across a number of verticals including Health & Wellness, Home Improvement, Consumer Electronics, Toys & Babies, and Consumer Packaged Goods and service brands such as Samsung, Victoria’s Secret, The Vitamin Shoppe, Walgreens, Ace Hardware, and BBQGuys.