There are only ever three questions that matter to sellers when considering selling on a new marketplace. In order of importance they are: 1) Do they have any buyers/what are they doing to attract buyers? 2) Do they have categories for my products? and; 3) What are the fees?
With the launch of GAME Marketplace we’ve asked these questions and found out everything you need to know in order to make a decision on whether this is a venue your business should be partnering with.
1) Does GAME Marketplace have any buyers
According to Alexa, Game.co.uk is already ranked as the 374th most popular website in the UK (Play.com is ranked at 619, NotOnTheHighStreet.com are ranked 279). They have physical shops in almost every high street in the country and their website was already a transactional website before the launch of the marketplace.
Yes GAME Marketplace already has customers and having soft launched the marketplace five weeks ago, since putting a link on their home page, are driving volumes of traffic to the new marketplace.
2) Are my products suitable for Game Marketplace?
From Aliens to Zelda and everything in between, GAME Marketplace has been designed to allow customers a way to easily browse and discover thousands of unique products including current and retro games, PC hardware, electronics, toys and collectibles, gaming memorabilia, books, clothing and much more.
GAME are unsurprisingly focusing on gaming products, but they also aim to have a wide range of categories on the marketplace to supply anything and everything that gamers might want to buy. That means that whilst they might not be interested in your St Patrick’s day ear rings, if you’ve got Lord of the Ring ear rings they’ll be suitable to list.
As well as traditional GAME related products, there are already wide ranging categories so check to see if your inventory will find a place on the site.
Overall GAME Marketplace now offers a range of over 50,000 products from a range of suppliers including Yellow Bulldog, Rarewaves, Bull Shirt, Venom and Fierce PC. The number of suppliers will continue to grow rapidly as GAME on-board a huge variety of exciting and innovative new vendors and publishers.
3) What are the fees on the GAME Marketplace?
There are currently two different fee plans for GAME Marketplace, although initially they are offering three months for free. There are no minimum commitments or demands for six month subscriptions to be paid up front, once the three month promo expires Game Marketplace will simply bill your subs on a monthly basis.
GAME Marketplace Standard Rate Fees
A £25 per month subscription with fees ranging from 10% to 18% depending on category.
GAME Marketplace Pro Rate Fees
A £150 per month subscription with fees a couple of percent lower than the standard rates.
A quick calculation suggests that you’ll be better off with the Pro fees when you’re selling more than around £6250 per month on the GAME Marketplace. The important thing to remember with fees however, is that no one objects to paying them when they’re making money. If your margins are good and GAME provide the buyers, so long as you make more profit from sales then the cost in fees then it’s worth the investment.
Is GAME Marketplace for you?
Charlotte Knight, Category Director at GAME told us “Everyone at GAME is incredibly excited about our ambitions for GAME Marketplace. In the past we’ve seen a phenomenal response to the limited edition products and accessories that we have stocked and know there is huge demand for gaming accessories and memorabilia. As the leading specialist games retailer, we have developed GAME Marketplace to allow us to open up this vast new world of merchandise to our customers, offering the greatest choice to our communities, whilst also allowing them to accrue reward points they can redeem against future purchases”.
If you’ve got the products that gamers want to buy then why wouldn’t you want to sell on GAME Marketplace. As GAME have the buyers, your products fit their categories, if their fees marry with your profit margins the only remaining reason I can see for not selling on GAME Marketplace is lack of channel management.
Mirakl Marketplace Platform
GAME Marketplace, is powered by Mirakl Marketplace Platform, the marketplace solution from retail technology provider, Mirakl.
Mirakl powers Best Buy (who ChannelAdvisor support), RueDuCommerce (who Lengow support) and Galeries Lafayette (who Neteven support) in addition to the new GAME Marketplace. That suggests it wouldn’t be too difficult for the various channel management companies to integrate with GAME if the demand was there.
Sign up to GAME Marketplace
If you’d like to sell on GAME Marketplace, sign up at [email protected]
3 Responses
Interesting. £6250 t/o per mth for pro-sellers seems very high – that’s £75k t/o pa. Anyone doing that is on the verge of hitting the vat threshhold. Are they looking for big boys only – as their fee structure seems to send discouraging messages to smaller traders.
Is there an API for game market place?