The Online Marketplace Advantage

4Designing Your Marketplace Strategy for Maximum Impact

You've made the decision. You're going to launch a marketplace. The decision itself may have taken months, featuring lots of industry analysis, scenario planning, and revenue projections, along with meetings and long discussions, perhaps some of them heated. Now you've determined that a marketplace is the best path ahead, whether for growth, customer experience, supply chain agility – or all of the above.

So what's next? Preparing for launch will bring a host of new marketplace‐specific decisions, challenges, and opportunities. The process may seem daunting. But you shouldn't have to face it alone. For this, it's important to find the right marketplace partners, including a technology provider that will lay out best practices and provide continuous guidance throughout the process.

We delve into our own detailed methodology for new customers later in this chapter. But for now, we walk you through the key decisions and actions you'll undertake during the crucial period before marketplace launch.

We like to envision each marketplace as a temple. It's a physical structure that harbors a community, one drawn to both its values and offerings. Think of the strategic vision of the marketplace as the roof of the temple. The operational decisions each organization makes support its structure. Its cultural values, including change management, firm up its foundation. And the people it attracts – those running it as well as the community ...