Collaborative Marketplace Direction

The retail collaborative marketplace is now on a trajectory to encourage and support more disruptive change in the retail market and I believe that Amazon is at the forefront of this disruption again.  This place leading the disruption is a comfort zone for Amazon and the collaborative marketplace is really the next logical step in the progression of Amazon drive to lead the market and deliver a shopping experience that supports the demands of the consumer shoppers.  This collaborative market extends the social commerce capabilities into the next level of interaction and also provides the framework to interact with other networks as necessary to support the shopping experience. This connectivity is especially exciting for the types of opportunities from the supply chain collaborative network that can support and drive further change in the market.  

The fascinating thing about the impact of Amazon on the market is their focus on changing the shopping experience almost at any cost.  This focus on change provides suggestions and creates the market through experimentation which I do not remember and not aware of other retailers in the market that are focused so single mindedly on changing the shopping experience.  The difference between Amazon and other retailers is really the confidence that Amazon shows in their capabilities and the trust in the consumer that wherever the market goes that Amazon will be able to meet and even create the new expectations. This almost single minded focus on change permeates across all Amazon practices, not only driving their commerce capabilities but also driving product development and other services, Prime being a great example of a market changing program that allowed Amazon to not only mainstream the eCommerce purchase but also tie together other Amazon capabilities and services to provide a value add, outside the box, proposition.

The direction of the collaborative marketplace, plain and simple, is to disrupt the retail marketplace through reshaping and encouraging new connections to support and develop new interaction and shopping methods.  The importance of the framework cannot be underestimated, this framework encourages connectivity across not only partners within the retail market but also partners across the supply chain and partners such a service providers that can support the purchase.  We have seen this pockets of these capabilities depending on the retailer, for instance Best Buy offers and encourages support and installations services from the Geek Squad. I can see the potential for home services and expansion of these services such as the services offered through Lowe’s and Home Depot for installation.

Imagination and confidence will fuel these changes and retailers with the confidence in their ability will be open to the consumer and retailer to imagine a new marketplace that creatively supports, and creates, consumer demands and expectations.  Frankly, this has been a key strength of Amazon, the imagination to create new services and marketplace along with the confidence that they will succeed in this new market wherever the changes take them. This has been a key strength of Amazon and a weakness in many other consumers.  I see this single factor of confidence as the key to the success and failure for many retailers. Many of the larger retailers have been hesitant to embrace change that could disrupt their culture and their current reality. We have seen though over and over that the larger retailers have been hesitant to embrace these new developments because of the impact on their existing practices.  This will be changing and reshaping the market as we move forward.