Mark Gray has has built his entire career around the world of marketplaces; from a side hustle operating under alias as ‘crazy stamp lady’ on eBay while working in the US Coastguard, to helping expand ChannelAdvisor’s operations from the UK to Australia, and leading the development of some of the APAC regions biggest marketplaces; Mark Gray has a multi-faceted insight into the world of marketplaces and it’s a real privilege to be able to bring him onto the show.

In this episode, expect to learn:

- How to negotiate the best rates when selling on non-Amazon marketplaces

- Actionable steps to help you expand to Australia

- What it’s like to build a marketplace from the ground up; what makes a marketplace tick, and how understanding the marketplace’s perspective on things can help you build a stronger working relationship

Today’s guest began his marketplace journey on the playground; selling secondhand phones to supplement his pocket money. More than 20 years later, Eddie Latham is now using marketplaces at scale as a way to enable international expansion both for his own business, Majority Audio, and for clients of his agency Velocity Commerce. Majority Audio recently won the Queen’s Award for International Trade and Velocity helps companies such as Rab Clothing, Brita & Sony to manage their own marketplace presence.

In this episode, expect to learn:

- Eddie’s thoughts on the increasing number of marketplaces available to sellers

- What barriers face marketplace sellers when expanding internationally and how to overcome these

- How selling on marketplaces helped prepare Majority to add a B2B arm to their traditionally D2C business and enable the next step in their journey

- How you can emulate the private-label approach to optimising your product listings when your inventory is too large to deal with individual SKUs

And much more…

Jason Wyatt is Co-Founder of Marketplacer – an Australian technology company which enables established retail businesses to open their doors to third-party sellers by becoming a marketplace. For the European listeners among you, Bike Exchange is one of their customers who you might recognise – Jason’s first company in fact, but in Australia, where there are now more than 40 notable marketplaces, Marketplacer has helped some of the country's biggest names, including Chemist Warehouse, Woolworths, Myer and more to leverage this new business model.

In this episode, expect to learn:

- How Lance Armstrong winning the Tour De France inspired Jason to quit his cushy accounting job to build a cycling marketplace

- How Myer grew their online revenue from 60 million to ¾ of a billion since working with Marketplacer

- Whether becoming a marketplace is a viable way for you to grow your own business

- Jason’s recommendations to take advantage of the 40+ marketplaces in Australia

Today’s guest has walked the halls of some of the world’s biggest companies; from Coca-Cola to Kellogs, to Nestle and Mastercard, Dean McElwee is now the Director of Global eCommerce collaboration at Stanley Black & Decker.

Expect to learn:

How much of your time you should spend focussing on marketplaces

How to ensure your presence on marketplaces aligns with the rest of your brand messaging

When and why brands should take back control from their retail customers

How to decide which products are right for which channels

And much more

Chris Dawson is the founder of the UK’s top marketplace news resource – ChannelX, formerly known as Tamebay.

Chris started his eCommerce journey selling on eBay as a way to make ends meet and quickly became so successful that his blog became known as the go-to place for all tips & resources for succeeding on marketplaces.

In this episode, expect to learn:

How Chris’s early days of selling on eBay led to him founding one of the biggest blogs for marketplace sellers in the world

How to protect your business from the sudden loss of a marketplace channel – whether through an account suspension, or as many German sellers have recently experienced with MyToys – through the news that the marketplace will close down.

The pros and cons of selling on third-party marketplaces

Which steps you should take when looking at marketplaces beyond Amazon

And much more…

Lennard Kressin is Director of the Limango Marketplace; a member's-only shopping club experience from Germany which boasts exclusive deals on curated brands for their target market - young mothers and their families.

In this episode, expect to learn:

- Why Limango is a great expansion option for your brand within the German market

- How Limango has grown from a Groupon-clone to a 9-figure marketplace and one of Germany’s top shopping destinations for young mothers

- How Limango helps brands to succeed on their marketplace with a variety of promotional campaigns throughout the year

And much more…

Ken Kline is the founder & CEO at VHC Brands from Kansas USA. Traditionally a wholesale business, selling to all the major names in the US, Ken saw the opportunities of D2C before it was trending and diversified his business across marketplaces – both B2B & B2C, before setting up a new business to really leverage the direct-to-consumer opportunity.

Expect to learn:

- How a ‘single source of truth’ for product data can help scale your business

- How to sell D2C without upsetting your B2B customers

- The difference a smooth logistics operation makes

At eCommeleon, we often recommend to our clients that they can use marketplaces as a toe-in-the-water approach when evaluating new markets; marketplaces are a great tool for enabling international expansion.

Fruugo is an international first marketplace which enables true cross-border expansion by showcasing your products in 40+ countries. With a heavy focus on SEM, Fruugo ensures that buyers around the world can find your products; you just have to be able to get the item there.

Tony Preedy is CEO of Fruugo, and former Director of Marketing and International Development at Lakeland.

Malte Karstan is currently head of acquisition at the Berlin Brands Group, one of Europe's largest aggregators. But that’s just the latest step in an eCommerce, career spanning almost as long as I’ve been alive.

If it’s a marketplace, the odds are that Malte has probably sold on it, worked with them, consulted with them or helped brands figure out how to sell there. As such, the breadth and depth of his marketplace expertise, particularly in using marketplaces as a tool for international expansion is incredible.

In this episode, expect to learn:

Today’s guest works with some of the top brands in the world to help them tackle every step of the marketplace process. Loreal, Mattel, Castrol, Unilever & Henkel all work with Rex Brown for their UK marketplace presence.

Shah Sacki, Managing Director at Rex Brown has led the team from their days as a Groupon-focussed business to a point where they now manage 50 eBay stores and are active on almost every relevant marketplace.

In this episode, expect to learn:

- How & why Rex Brown sacrificed valuable warehouse space to setup multiple studios for TikTok live

- How to build a marketplace business where Amazon only represents 40% of the pie

- How Rex Brown used other marketplaces to reduce the impact of Groupon’s strategy change

- How to use TikTok as a marketing & sales channel

- Which marketplaces have the best tools for sellers

- What trends are coming next in eCommerce

- Which marketplaces Shah believes offer the best options to promote your listings