Co-Commerce

Over the last number of years or so in the Canadian Ecommerce Market, I have been trying to foster and build win-win’s by doing Co-Branding initiatives. In theory, this concept should be simple. Those complementary brands that are not competitive should work together to communicate to each other’s audience or to leverage each other’s resources. Such marketing activities should be a no-brainer. Shouldn’t it?

I mean, we are all facing a number of the same opportunities while trying to grow ecommerce in Canada. Why is the concept of finding strategic partners so foreign to us online?

We all talk about the Canadian Marketing lagging being behind the US, but most of us still work in our silos and move things along slowly and squeak out small gains. In my opinion, Ecommerce in Canada could grow much faster if we took a collaborative approach. Why not? I think customers would have a better experience and our goals of aggressive sales increases would result naturally from being more consumer-centric and unified in our approach.

I go to network event and hear the same opportunities. Many of them I have been hearing about as far back as 2004. How many of you sit there and are saying your sales online are slow because shipping is not competitive or Canadian carries won’t give me a preferred rate until my volume grows. However your shipping volume won’t grow until your shipping rates go down.

How many of you say you can’t focus on driving online sales, as you need to continue to promote the sales at the store level. Therefore, you can’t meet your KPI’s for your website. Most likely, you are not measured on the store results..

How many of you look at your store marketing budget and compare it to your online marketing budget, but can’t seem to influence the senior executives to give you the budget that you actually need. Why do you need it? You need to integrate with the store marketing activities to maximize total company results regardless of what channel you sell through.

Do you still get compared to the US and are expected to be at 10% of your US .com’s sales? The 10% rule is ridiculous.

What is funny is we go to the same events and we never put the “moose on the table”. Where are the real conversations about what are the real obstacles of our business? How can we put plans together to turn these challenges around?

I think it is time we start to really work together and we look to Co-Commerce.

Why Co-Commerce? I see a number of very positive reasons why companies in our market need to take this approach and embrace this concept. Cooperative collaboration works!

If you are tired of spinning your wheels and are ready for a change like me, connect with me and let’s get engage in some real conversation.