SurfStitch

Implementing an online marketplace 

The Marketplacer platform offers a range of native capabilities that removes the complex task of overseeing multiple third party integrations and allows Surfstitch to easily manage their product database while focusing on the overall customer experience.

API-led and Headless Integration: SurfStitch came to Marketplacer looking for a solution that would integrate with their existing VRP platform, which they use to manage their product database, while also easily communicating with Salesforce Commerce Cloud in a seamless process.

Marketplacer worked with digital agency, Tryzens, to build the connector between SurfStitch and Salesforce for a headless integration to dramatically improve speed. Choosing a specialized API-led marketplace strategy enabled SurfStitch to rapidly onboard third-party products and dramatically increase product offerings. It would also better serve their existing drop ship network of suppliers and help onboard new drop ship suppliers to scale overall fulfillment.

Customer Experience: Maintaining a positive and seamless customer experience is the top priority when designing a marketplace strategy. For SurfStitch, after mapping the customer journey using Marketplacer’s framework, they decided to integrate all third-party marketplace merchandise among the wider catalogue for easy discoverability and a seamless experience by shoppers.

To address customer service questions about delivery tracking due to customers receiving multiple parcels at different times and with different carriers, SurfStitch created a comprehensive communications approach with messaging at the cart, in shipment notifications, and clear communication in packages and onsite to advise customers their parcel may be coming from the seller directly and to double check order confirmation emails.

Product Curation: Category and product curation is the secret sauce to a successful marketplace – and the key to growth. For SurfStitch, they were already drop-shipping products from a full warehouse which made expansion, let alone rapid scale, near impossible. As a result, SurfStitch’s product offerings and categories were limited. As much as it made sense to sell surfboards it wasn’t feasible due to physical limitations, shipping requirements, and a host of other items.

Using the Marketplacer platform, SurfStitch was able to extend existing categories and product lines that complemented their core product offerings of apparel and accessories for a coastal lifestyle – including surfboards. SurfStitch created entirely new categories such as beauty and outdoor and devised a stringent “relevance test” for every product added to the site to ensure all products they sell are inline with their customers’ high standards. Each category has assigned growth targets that are tracked regularly.

Seller Recruitment and Management: Building out categories and existing product offerings required a strategy to manage very specific targets around the quantity and quality of vendors that are recruited. For SurfStitch, that answer came in the form of strategic staff hires. First, by adding two business development hires focused on recruiting new vendor partners to expand offerings in existing coastal lifestyle categories and recruiting vendors to build out new categories like “workwear”, “activewear” and “ride” and fielding inbound enquiries from vendors wanting to join the SurfStitch platform.

Second was adding dedicated resources within the existing merchandise team to directly manage all marketplace vendor relationships and really focus on acquiring new desirable sellers. SurfStitch also recognized a need to add capacity to their tech team to assist with integrations and testing to keep up with the onboarding levels of vendors, especially those in need of technical support.