The Online Marketplace Advantage

Introduction: The Marketplace Imperative

Canada's Hudson's Bay boasts the deepest roots of any retailer in the Western Hemisphere. Its origins stretch back to 1670 with the fur trade. Two centuries later, the company opened its first store in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Over the following decades, it grew to become an iconic retailer in Canada. Its stores delivered unmatched variety to shoppers in major cities from Vancouver to Montreal. For millions of Canadians, Hudson's Bay delivered the world.

Yet by the spring of 2020, executives at Hudson's Bay saw the rise of a grave challenge. It had to do with the behavior and expectations of their customers. Over the previous decade, customers' shopping horizons had exploded. No matter where they happened to be, they could search online for practically anything they wanted, order it, and have it delivered to their door within days. No single retailer could possibly satisfy such boundless needs and appetites. To survive in this demanding retail environment, Hudson's Bay needed to find a way, once again, to deliver the world.

For this, the company needed to grow its eCommerce offer, and it needed a marketplace to do it. This meant adopting a bold new business model. Instead of primarily selling only its own goods, the company would create an online marketplace featuring a constellation of trusted, high‐quality third‐party sellers, including its own competitors. The objective was to add hundreds of thousands of products to its offering, giving ...