Top Directors Discuss the Relevancy and Importance of Personalization, Marketplaces, and Merchandising
The importance of continual reinvention for sustainable business relevancy is a core value at Spreadshirt, the global self-expression e-commerce company. Celebrating their 15th year as an enterprise, Spreadshirt has always been organized around multiple business units – the need to restructure came about when the level of overlap between many of these existing models became apparent to Hugo Smoter, Chief Commercial Officer, in his 2016 analysis.
Smoter simplified the organization into three business units – Personalization, Marketplaces, and Merchandising. Each was constructed according to their most basic and intrinsic features – who the target audience and sellers really are. The new structure was the basis of the 2017 grand plan, which has ultimately exceeded expectations to date with an 80% increase in new Marketplace Sellers and had a 35% increase in all Seller earnings. Hugo empowered the Director of each unit to deliver sales and revenue goals with accountability for the unit’s performance and direction. Each Director now focuses their complete attention on their business unit, while Hugo ensures that all efforts are seamlessly tied into the larger commercial vision of Spreadshirt. This ensures that Spreadshirt remains one unified company in the eyes of their customers and the internal units work together cohesively.
Personalization Unit
The Personalization unit enables individuals and businesses to express themselves with custom-decorated products for any occasion – big or small. Tobias Beutel has been with Spreadshirt since 2015 and was named Director of Personalization Services with a mandate to eclipse CustomInk. He took on the role with great joy and humbleness to contribute to the ongoing company success. He understands that the Create-Your-Own market for on-demand self-expression is still very fragmented offline, but is growing steadily.
Beutel shares, “Our goal is to become the global market leader with Spreadshirt’s Create-Your-Own – to overtake the competition by successfully binding customers to us in order to strengthen and expand our market position. In 2018, we must expand our global market leadership, our market position in the EU, and win vital market share in North America. We will get there with significantly improved customer loyalty and customer acquisition.”
Marketplace Unit
The Marketplace unit serves as the world’s marketplace by connecting designers that are publishing, sharing and selling their messages with buyers who are shopping for unique, expressive products. This unit is led by Director of Marketplaces, Mareike Goedemann, with a focus on beating Redbubble. Joining Spreadshirt in 2010, her approach is to give both the consumers and the designers in the Marketplace the same level of dedication. Her team offers customized and tangible marketing strategies that reflect defined target markets. The Spreadshirt Marketplace has proven its potential with a continuous growth during the last several years despite some sizeable competitors.
Goedemann shares, “A marketplace is already a very attractive business model because it’s a win-win situation for the consumer and the partner – i.e., the Marketplace designer. The Spreadshirt Marketplace has proven its potential as it continued to grow in the last few years and the size of competition demonstrates that this is a huge market, which we aim for gaining a bigger share of in the future. For the rest of the year and 2018, we will continue to invest into our designer community activity to stabilize and increase this important side of our Marketplace business.”
Merchandising Unit
The Merchandising unit is the world’s leading self-service platform for easily managing an online merchandising business. It is the only print-on-demand drop-shipping platform which has the point of sale already included – no need to pay any fees. Michael Johannes is the Director of the Merchandising unit, and his goals are to beat TeeSpring and catch up to all existing competitors.
“Our shop owners are the ones selling the shirts – we don’t earn anything if they don’t sell. This is why we need to attract shop owners who enjoy our service and also want to succeed. Attaining success only works through brand awareness and visibility in the market. We are strongly pushing for the use of content marketing and its distribution via a constant evolving mix of marketing channels,” says Michael Johannes.