Tesco has apparently confirmed rumours that they are to open up a new 3rd party marketplace and allow merchants to sell on Tesco Direct. Selected retailers will be allowed to list non-food products on Tesco Direct alongside Tesco’s own offerings.
It’s expected that the long awaited launch of the new marketplace will go live in the first half of 2012. This isn’t that much of a surprise, the news has been out that Tesco has been planning a marketplace since this time last year.
We’ll reserve judgement until we hear more details – when exactly will the marketplace launch? How will the “selected” retailers be chosen? What will be the fees for selling on Tesco Direct? And how will those retailers selected to participate manage their inventory across yet another channel or will some of the existing 3rd party management platforms expand to add Tesco as a venue?
There’s little doubt that Tesco have a large enough active customer base to make this an interesting proposition, but currently there are too many unanswered questions for it to be worth more than a passing interest.
13 Responses
Only selected retailers? That’s not going to worry eBay, Amazon or Play.com. If they want to do a marketplace, they should open it to everyone.
“Selected”. I must admit that I wonder about that term. Will they be “Selected” by Tesco-In other words they are invited to Sell on Tesco marketplace. Or will it be that the Sellers have to apply and then be chosen(or rejected). I find myself wondering is Sainsbury, Morrison, Asda etc be “Selected” or will they be excluded. I also find myself wondering if Tesco marketplace might have a filter built in to exclude all those sellers that are regularly critisised on Tamebay such as those based in China and other Far Eastern Countries yet appear on ebay to be located in Manchester, London etc. Now there must be many Sellers on ebay who would not be competition to Tesco. I sell Books(mainly specialist books) So I am no competition to Tesco so I wonder if I would be chosen to sell on Tesco marketplace(subject to being able to meet all their various qualifications). Hopefully Tesco will soon be giving details of what is required to be “Selected”. Now to the big question. If “Selected” would I be happy to concentrate my efforts on Tesco or ebay. The answer at this stage must be No Idea but if the costs are sensible and there are plentiful customers I think that I would be happy to give the majority of my efforts to Tesco. I must admit that I am disappointed that the announcement was not that it was to open in time for Christmas 2011. After all this is the busiest time for Sellers and a very busy(and profitable) Christmas is the dream of every seller(and with all the bad news about the economy(both domestic and EU and indeed Worldwide) it would have been fantastic to have a massive and very bright light at the end of the tunnel.
Unless they mean “selected” like pixmania, we had to go through a sort of online interview (tons of emails backwards and forwards) before we were granted an account, they had loads of questions about our back office system, our staff, warehouse, suppliers, how long been trading, they wanted info from ebay and amazon also (our feedback), plus many other questions about our policies etc.
In my view something ebay and amazon should be doing, maybe then there would be less wideboys on there setting up take the cash and disapear leaving customers high and dry – which would them make ebay and amazon a more trustworty place to shop.
All this buyer protection is pointless, stop the bad retailers selling on their websites in the first place, I know it wont catch all, but it would help.
You dont get a job without an interview, why should you sell on ebay or amazon without one. (business sellers only)
Just my thoughts….
Selected Retailers ?
I wonder if ebay’s TRS will receive an e-mail from Tesco not disimilar to the one that Amazon is sending out at the moment.
Chris – wud luv to see a like button on tamebay (sorry im a facebook addict lol)
Hi chris, well like tamebay sounds gud and on a story, possibly on the comments also, just “like” facebook, sorry for the pun lol