Fast Five Shorts | What Excites You Most About Lowe’s New Marketplace Partnership With Mirakl?
Takeaways:
Lowe's is collaborating with Miracle to enhance its online marketplace capabilities significantly.
This partnership enables Lowe's to accelerate its e-commerce business while improving customer service.
The expansion of Lowe's Marketplace now includes a diverse range of products from third-party sellers.
Members of the Milo's Rewards loyalty program can earn points on Marketplace purchases.
All Marketplace items are available for home delivery and can be returned to Lowe's stores.
The initiative aims to broaden Lowe's customer base by offering more product choices and price points.
Thanks to Alvarez & Marsal Consumer & Retail Group, Simbe, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, ClearDemand and Infios for making this episode possible. For the full episode, head here: https://youtu.be/Ujbv_kIGzUk
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Transcript
Lowe's is partnering with Miracle to accelerate its online marketplace, according to a Lowe's press release.
Speaker A:Through its partnership with Miracle, Lowe's is positioned to scale its e commerce business faster while allowing trusted marketplace sellers to easily manage their catalogs on lowe's.com better serving customers wherever they are in their home improvement journey.
Speaker A:Since launching its Marketplace, Lowe's has expanded its offerings from third party sellers, including indoor and outdoor furniture, kitchen and bath, home home decor, power in hand, tools and more.
Speaker A:The benefits of Lowe's Marketplace extend to members of Milo's Rewards loyalty program, with members accruing points on any Marketplace purchases.
Speaker A: tly to any one of Lowe's over: Speaker A:Chris, I'm guessing you're going to be as excited as you were for the Sam's Club story, but are you, are you excited about the Lowe's new Marketplace partnership with Miracle?
Speaker A:And what excites you most?
Speaker B:What excites me most about it?
Speaker B:I think you hit it right in.
Speaker B:The headline read honestly and it's the, it's the combination of Lowe's using and talking about loyalty and the value of their stores within the creation of their digital marketplace, because that is how you differentiate an online marketplace and, and Lowe's is clearly thinking smartly in that direction.
Speaker B:The other point I would make is that an online marketplace is particularly important in home furnishings because of what I've said before on this show a thousand times.
Speaker B:Furnishing a home is a massive chore and the more you can get done in one space, the better.
Speaker B:Whether you're a homeowner or even a contractor, even a pro looking to buy many things all at once.
Speaker B:All of which then comes back to, as I said at the outset and, and can be augmented by the loyalty incentives you're doing to incent that behavior.
Speaker B:So that's why I love this move from Lowe's.
Speaker B:And again, you can't, can't discount the fact too that you can bring these products back to the store, which is also an important factor in driving loyalty as well and driving reuse.
Speaker B:So, so net net.
Speaker B:I love this as well.
Speaker B:I think it's great.
Speaker B:And kudos to our sponsors, Miracle for, for becoming the platform for Lowe's.
Speaker B:It's awesome.
Speaker A:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker A:I think I'm, I'm less, I think this will have less of an impact on the pro customer because most of those customers need to go get something same day like get that kind of thing.
Speaker A:But what I really think this opens up is a, is an extended audience for the Lowe's home improvement customer.
Speaker A:The, the regular people out there who need these products, especially when we start looking at what, you know, Dave Schneidman is going to come on and talk about in a little bit, is changing consumer sentiment.
Speaker A:You are now opening up the Lowe's world of products to all sorts of options.
Speaker A:It's giving customers choice when they don't have as much money.
Speaker A:If they go into the Lowe's store and they see two, you know, drills that they might need for an upcoming project, and then they can go online and they can still get their rewards points at Lowe's, but they can, they can find some other options that might be lower price or more middle of the road that Lowe's just can't carry inventory for in store.
Speaker A:You're, you're hanging on to that customer and you're getting them to come to you for more things because they know that you're going to give them the assortment and a price point for the, for a good, especially in all the categories that we just covered off on, from home furnishings to power tools, they will have the customer coming there first, and they own that relationship with the customer at the end of the day, too, which, that's, what more could you ask for?
Speaker A:It's a, such, such a smart, smart move from Lowe's.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And, and when you think about it too, like, who they're really trying to differentiate against here is Amazon on the one off, you know, pickoffs, you know, and Amazon, for the most part, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't have a loyalty program.
Speaker B:In fact, I pay $99 a month or a year?
Speaker B:No, like $139 a year to Amazon to be loyal to it.
Speaker B:And so now you're, you're, you're taking that out of the equation.
Speaker B:And Lowe's is smarter than thinking about how do I use loyalty to build an online marketplace so that people realize that that's dumb and I can get the same level in quality of service and better discounts and more affordability by shopping with Lowe's.
Speaker B:So I think I, I, I think that's the point that I hadn't thought about until you just said what you said.
