At the B&Q Seller Conference last week, the company were remarkably upbeat in their numbers, and justifiably so – they’ve had a storming success since launching their marketplace and all the metrics are moving in the right direction, perhaps better than any could possibly have hoped!
B&Q also announced that Retail Media advertising is coming to the marketplace in the near future – this is one we’ll watch with interest, with Lynn Beattie, Director Of Technology & Product at B&Q, promising that their implementation won’t be like some marketplaces where the top of search results are swamped with paid for listings.
B&Q Marketplace numbers
- 1.2 million products listed on the B&Q marketplace – the ambition is now to exceed 2 million products
- 1,100 third party sellers are now onboarded onto the B&Q marketplace
- In total there are now 3,200 brands for sale on the marketplace
- 38% of online sales are marketplace sales – up from 22% a year ago
- 320 million visits to diy.com in 2023
- 50% of customers buying a marketplace product have never shopped with B&Q before – Marketplace is driving new traffic to diy.com
B&Q are focusing on service with free nationwide shipping on all marketplace products with 90% of orders shipped within 48 hours of purchase. They also offer convenient returns at over 300 stores nationwide.
B&Q is a massive success story and if you have products for the home or diy market and don’t currently sell on the platform it’s time to get started…. although you may have to wait for your category to open. At the start of the conference, Graham Bell, CEO of B&Q set out his desire for the marketplace to offer anything and everything that you might purchase for your home or to improve your home. And yes, one retailer in the audience decided to push and ask if this would include products never before sold on B&Q like televisions… and the answer was that yes, they’d love to include categories like this in the future.
