Collaborative Marketplace Experiments

I see the next phase in the retail marketplace coming as a result of and in reaction to the pressures of the retail marketplace as the time of the collaborative marketplace.  The market has gone through many cycles of capabilities and changes in consumer demands and now especially consumer capabilities have reshaped the market to meet their own demands.  I see this as a natural progression through growth and maturity of the market into a social commerce reality. This next reality in this progression of the collaborative marketplace incorporates the the existing capabilities with the collaborative network capabilities to create a new marketplace as the natural progression of the retail market growth.  The retail omni market is has provided an entranceway and a path to the incorporation of the collaborative network more closely into the retail marketplace as a means to sense and respond to the changing demands.

The retail omni market came as a progression of the retail omni channel capabilities and in hindsight I realize that these capabilities began the expansion into the next phase of the market.  I spoke at length previously of the social commerce aspect of the omni market capabilities and the need to extend the social networking capabilities to support the omni market demands. What I see now is the continue growth and maturity of this marketplace extending into the next phase to incorporate the extended collaborative network to support the changing demands and most importantly the increased experimentation in capabilities and new market opportunities.  I see this as a platform to support a continuous improvement process that will encourage and formalize the process to support the retail marketplace.

The retail market is well past the point where the individual retailer can hope to support the demands and the changes in the market on their own.  The introduction and growth of the collaborative marketplace provides the framework and the foundation to support and encourage the growth and the experimentation required to sense and respond to the increased demands of consumers and partners in the retail market.  As usual I see Amazon as a leader in this acceptance and incorporation of the collaborative marketplace. Amazon is probably best placed for this expansion because of their culture of experimentation and I see Amazon as filling a void and taking the step to the collaborative marketplace as a natural progression of their culture and their drive to improve the retail market to meet consumer demands or create consumer demands.

This collaborative market supports experimentation like no other market, in my opinion, and just as the omni channel and omni market drove changes through demands of consumers and acceptance of retailers the collaborative marketplace will also require a process and period of review and acceptance.  This again is being lead by forward leaning companies such as Amazon through the culture of experimentation. This culture of experimentation encourages Amazon and the collaborative network provides the framework and the technology to support experimentation. As usual though the retail marketplace in general is slow to recognize and react to these changes and unfortunately I see this same limiting wait and see culture as limiting may retailers’ acceptance and embrace of this collaborative marketplace until forced by market conditions.  This is really unfortunate because I believe the result will be further fallout and failure of retailers in this market.