Viewpoints Digital Marketplace
The future
of buying? As more and more buyers turn toward the digital space – we speak with Philipp Ferger of Messe Frankfurt – the force behind NexTrade and Bill Furlong, CEO of the newly launched Juniper by IMC – to learn more about how these uniquely positioned marketplaces are walking the line between physical and digital Bill Furlong CEO, Juniper by IMC What, in your opinion, are the benefits of businesses using a digital marketplace? Simply stated, buyers and sellers can connect anytime and everywhere. Discovery is easy and transactions are efficient (and affordable, with JuniperCredit’s net 60 terms). JuniperMarket has a breadth and depth of proven products and trusted brands, and Juniper’s fully-integrated ecosystem allows business to be conducted seamlessly at market, on the road or online.
Philipp Ferger Member of the Board of Management of nmedia GmbH and Vice President Consumer Goods Fairs at Messe Frankfurt
and its websites attract 5.5 million visitors annually. We are mindfully leveraging the unique value of our physical markets and the power
“All of our research indicates that buyers desire a mixedchannel sourcing model” Can digital B2B marketplaces work successfully in tandem with trade shows? IMC registers 250,000+ buyers and contracts with 13,000 brands annually for its physical markets,
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and potential of our database of 600,000+ qualified buyers as we develop JuniperMarket. The business landscape is both changing and increasingly digitized, with buyers and sellers looking to connect and transact not only at market, but also on the road and online. By bridging our digital and physical markets, IMC is uniquely to positioned to meet our customers wherever and whenever they want to transact.
What, in your opinion, are the benefits of businesses using a digital marketplace? Nextrade, as a digital order platform, offers a wide range of services and all this with just one log-in for brands and retailers. Nextrade supports the internal sales force, the field sales force and the e-commerce in a targeted manner. I would like to illustrate this with three examples that are relevant for many brands. For the internal sales force, process efficiency is increased and costs are reduced by taking over and digitizing customer follow-up orders by fax, mail or telephone to Nextrade. The manual processing of an order costs between ten and 17 Euros. In the field services, costs are reduced and turnover increased by automating customer follow-up orders from the existing merchandise management system. This means an increase in turnover of around 20 percent if the articles are permanently available on the shelf. In e-commerce, there is also an increase in process efficiency and reduction in costs by taking over the
management of all item information, especially for the high-maintenance B2C marketplaces and chain stores. For all these requirements, the Nextrade team helps to quickly identify the potentials of the respective brand with concrete starting points and starts directly with the implementation. In this way, the best possible results can be achieved if the brand is actively involved in the process. Nextrade offers dealers the possibility to have all article and image data of the relevant brands