Growth Story
- 40 new sellers added in first 6 months
- Over 11,000 new products now available
- 1/5 Everyday Market shoppers are new to the Woolworhts eCom offering
- Higher combined $AOV of traditional online and marketplace items, than from single category carts
Overview
Woolworths expands online offering by providing access to a range of third-party sellers
Founded in 1924, Woolworths has grown to become Australia’s largest and most trusted grocery retailer. In late 2021, the company launched Everyday Market from Woolworths which provides shoppers access to an extended range of products from various third-party sellers, big and small. To date, more than 11,000 new products are available online for customers to purchase on Everyday Market across a number of categories such as household, baby, health, beauty and pet.
Over the last few years online orders and home delivery services have grown rapidly across Australia. This trend accelerated in the wake of COVID-19, with Woolworths at the forefront of this changing customer behaviour. With an increasing number of people becoming comfortable with purchasing their groceries online at finding the Woolworths online experience convenient, easy and efficient, , Woolworths saw an opportunity to extend its range with complementary products by partnering with various 1st party & 3rd party sellers.
Challenges
- Woolworths primarily uses its own branded trucks for deliveries, unlike Everyday Market which relies on external fulfilment options. To ensure customers understood the different fulfilment options available to them, clear communication was critical to the success of the project.
- The availability of products for eCommerce orders is tied to store location and fulfilment type, whereas Everyday Market delivers all products. The Marketplacer platform needed to be customized to reflect this difference, which has now been achieved.
- Ensuring consistency in pricing and promotion data flows between the backend systems of Marketplacer and Woolworths was a major undertaking for both teams. This was successfully achieved to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience similar to Woolworths‘ existing eCommerce platform.
- Keeping customers informed about their order status was crucial, and the Marketplacer and Woolworths teams worked together to ensure that seller information, such as order shipment and delivery times, was efficiently routed through the system into the Woolworths platform.
- The integration of seller platforms into the Woolworths platform via Marketplacer was more complex than anticipated, given the differences in legacy systems. The teams were able to overcome these challenges and establish an easy integration process that meets the needs of both sellers and customers.
Solutions
After identifying an increasing demand for online shopping, the Everyday Market team set out to create a new marketplace that could feature additional products that customers would value.
After carefully evaluating a range of options, a decision was taken to build the new offering based on the Marketplacer platform for a number of reasons including:
- An Australian based company considered world class in its technical capability, team makeup and leadership
- Deep understanding of existing Woolworths systems and how to best integrate into them
- Detailed implementation plan with dedicated team to meet timelines and needs
- Well networked across Australian retail and eCommerce with ability to leverage local and global best in class approach
Results
Since going live in September 2021, Everyday Market is steadily growing in terms of revenues, new SKUs and sellers joining the platform each month.
- Over 40 sellers were added in the first six month since launch. Expansion into new categories and products is being accelerated for the next 12 months
- Grocery adjacent categories such as toys, homewares & electronics have outperformed expectations with customers appreciating the providing positive feedback about their ability to shop multiple categories alongside the groceries
- Over 20% of Everyday Market shoppers are new to the Woolworths eCommerce offering
- Customers shopping both Everyday Market and Woolworths eCom items have a higher combined $AOV than those that shop just one category of product
Testimonials
“Marketplacer has enabled Woolworths to create a curated marketplace that features a growing array of quality products which customers can purchase as easily as their weekly groceries.”
Mark Mansour
General Manager, Everyday Market from Woolworths
“Marketplacer has enabled Woolworths to create a curated marketplace that features a growing array of quality products which customers can purchase as easily as their weekly groceries.”
Mark Mansour
General Manager, Everyday Market from Woolworths