Why Your Ecommerce Brand Needs an Ecommerce Accelerator to Grow on Global Marketplaces

If you’re in ecommerce, you’ve most likely heard of a rising category of brand partners: ecommerce accelerators. Since the term is still fairly new across marketplaces, CEOs may question the true benefits of partnering with an ecommerce accelerator to their brand.

Notable brands are experiencing significant success with ecommerce accelerators. Alone, brands often lack the right resources to gain control and execute a narrow distribution strategy. But once they partner Pattern, an ecommerce accelerator, they have access to all of the marketplace tools and expertise they need to drive results.

Ecommerce Accelerator Amplify Brands on Marketplaces

Many brands simply don’t have the bandwidth to do ecommerce the right way—it takes multiple teams of experts. An ecommerce accelerator layers on top of and amplifies a brand’s current efforts in whatever marketplaces and channels are part of its ecommerce strategy. As the world’s leading ecommerce accelerator, Pattern understands the issues facing your brand, so you get the benefit of extensive experience across multiple marketplaces, regions, and industries with one partner.

How an Accelerator Makes a Big Difference for Brands

1. Provides an Outside Solution to Execute an Ecommerce Strategy

Time and time again, we see brands don’t have the resources they need to succeed on ecommerce marketplaces. And it’s no surprise—the ecommerce space is crowded, competitive, and vastly different from a traditional, brick-and-mortar sales model.

To execute your strategy correctly, you need to have SEO experts, creative resources, data analysts, brand control experts, fulfillment specialists, legal help to maintain price consistency—the list goes on. So, brands have the choice to either ignore issues they’re experiencing or find outside help.

We don’t recommend the first option—issues that seem small now will get out of hand fast, and the further problems develop, the more difficult it is to contain them. It’s definitely doable to reverse damage due to loss of brand control, issues with brick-and-mortar distributors, price consistency problems, and the dreaded profitability death spiral. But it’s all the better to avoid them as much as possible in the first place.

2. More Cost Effective and Maintain Brand Control Better than Agencies or Aggregators

As you move forward in taking advantage of the ecommerce opportunity and gaining control of your strategy now, you’ll likely still not be able to justify building out large teams to do that. So, brands are opting to partner with an agency, aggregator, and/or an accelerator. Here’s where the first two options are falling short: Ecommerce agencies aren’t the best option for a few reasons.

For one thing, the price you pay to hire one doesn’t reflect the value you get out of the agreement. Agencies aren’t paid based on your success, they’re paid from you, a fixed rate (plus overage), regardless of how your products perform. So, they’re not invested in making a large impact for your brand. Agencies also often specialize in one aspect of ecommerce, such as SEO, making it necessary to hire multiple agencies to execute all aspects of your ecommerce strategy. Once again, this inflates your costs and causes vast alignment issues within your ecommerce plan.

‍Aggregators aren’t a great solution either. They’re interested in purchasing and growing brands, which sounds like a compelling idea, but, since all brands are unique, what works for one may not work for another. Therefore, the aggregator's universal brand playbook often leads to poor product performance for brands. Brands acquired by aggregators often lose all control and ownership to the buyer as well.

3. Amplifies Brands to Grow Revenue

That leaves brands with the option to partner with an ecommerce accelerator. In our opinion, this is the best way to gain control of your strategy and experience the healthiest and most profitable growth for your products. Accelerators work because they layer on the top of systems, processes, and teams you’re already using. If you’re experiencing success in your D2C efforts and in specific marketplaces, an accelerator won’t “rip and replace” what’s already working.

Instead, they’ll add the resources you’re missing in your strategy to fix issues and expand your presence across global marketplaces. An accelerator is also paid differently—they agree to a profit margin with your brand, then take ownership of your products and strategy by buying your inventory. As your profitability grows, theirs does, too. By structuring their success this way, they’re truly invested in fixing ecommerce issues at their core and ensuring your long-term gains.

Accelerate your Ecommerce Strategy with Pattern

As a pioneer in the ecommerce accelerator space, Pattern knows the ins and outs of great ecommerce strategy for global marketplaces. We’re fanatical about great data and obsessed with growing our partners’ ecommerce profitability. With pioneering technology, vast expertise, and highly capable internal teams, we have the resources you need to establish and grow your ecommerce presence, brand control, and profitability. Ready to explore an accelerator partnership? Set up a meeting here.