Bed Bath & Beyond is the latest retailer to introduce a digital marketplace

You get a marketplace, you get a marketplace, and *you* get a marketplace.

Bed Bath & Beyond is the latest retailer to announce it will add third-party brands to its online platform.

• The move comes as part of BBBY’s three-year transformation strategy, which has included introducing new private labels and testing shop-in-shop partnerships.
• Bed Bath & Beyond also said this week it would partner with Kroger to sell home and baby products on the grocer’s website and in stores next year.

Digital dash: Online marketplaces have become an increasingly popular strategy for companies not named Amazon (count Express and Hudson’s Bay as examples) simply because of the growth opportunity, explained Mohit Mohal, managing director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Consumer & Retail Group.

About two-thirds of consumer e-comm spending worldwide is done on marketplaces, according to Forrester.

• The pandemic has pushed even more online shoppers to these platforms.

Mohal said there are three main incentives that make online marketplaces attractive for retailers: The large selection of items, the convenience for the consumer, and the competitive pricing.

“This is the new normal. You’re going to have a bunch of dominant marketplaces, which will have the eyeballs or the traffic coming to them,” Mohal told us. “They have a wide assortment. I can buy anything and everything [that] I need at competitive pricing. And then my basket size is big. I don’t have to pay for shipping.”—KM