The following case study features a global sporting goods brand that leverages Rithum’s Managed Services for Marketplaces to help achieve its business goals.
THE CLIENT
As a global sporting goods company offering high-performance equipment and trendy apparel, this Rithum client has a lot of e-commerce activities to manage. With millions in annual revenue on the line in a competitive market, the brand says it attracts athletes across a wide range of sports with a singular mission: growing and expanding its product line to win the sale.
THE CHALLENGE
After years of relying largely on wholesale and distribution channels, the manufacturer began to turn its attention to new opportunities for succeeding online — and for staying ahead of the latest consumer trends. For a major brand competing in the era of accelerated e-commerce, that meant finding just the right mix of specialized technology and industry expertise.
THE CHANNELADVISOR SOLUTION
From the start, this Rithum client knew that e-commerce marketplaces would be critical to success — and that online sales across key channels would involve a lot more than simply listing products and pulling together some basic promotions. For this reason, the company reports that it turned to Rithum’s Managed Services for Marketplaces— a team of experts committed to helping brands leverage as much power as possible from the Rithum platform for greater customer acquisition.
That decision turned out to be an especially strategic move for the brand in 2020. At a time when the e-commerce industry at large was facing some major shifts and transitions related to a global pandemic, the brand reports that it leaned heavily on Rithum to help alleviate the manual lift that comes with expanding to new marketplaces. According to the company, the partnership proved beneficial, allowing its e-commerce management team to respond swiftly to changing trends.
For example: Rithum’s dedicated specialists were able to identify some timely, unanticipated opportunities on major selling channels — and then assist the brand in opening up its catalog to purchase-ready consumers on those mission-critical marketplaces. With Rithum’s experts serving as a liaison between manufacturer and marketplace, the brand reports that it was able to optimize product listings and promotions, and to secure profitable placements for peak sales events including Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
These efforts, along with many others, went a long way towards boosting visibility and increasing traffic.
THE RESULT
Within a year, the brand reports that it had exceeded anticipated revenue on marketplaces. That milestone, driven largely by the team’s success on preeminent marketplaces, meant the brand’s overall annual GMV across marketplaces exceeded sales from the previous year, according to the company.
“Rithum’s Managed Services for Marketplaces allows us to extend beyond standard capabilities to go after major growth goals,” says the Rithum account manager overseeing the brand’s performance. “Because we have direct, longstanding partnerships with key players, we were able to make significant connections on behalf of an iconic brand. We set up calls with each selling channel and connected directly with their teams to help drive sales.”
Those connections definitely paid off for the big brand in some very big ways. The company reports that it experienced substantial growth in the top three marketplaces where it sells its products. Within just 12 months of connecting with Rithum’s Managed Services experts, the manufacturer says it watched GMV soar on at least three major marketplaces.
“With such a massive, established brand, we really needed to pull out all the stops,” says the brand’s account manager. “And with Rithum’s Managed Services for Marketplaces, we were able to do just that.”