Storetasker

Originally posted on Storetasker, read the full story here.

We keep a full list of our Storetasker friends here. This is a group of individuals who are pushing the boundaries of the wonderful world of eCommerce.
And every now and then, we’ll stop and take the time to highlight 3 of our friends. Who are tackling different parts of the eCommerce equation.

Today - we’ll highlight Canal, Okendo and Oddit.

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Canal

Canal enables Shopify brands to create mini marketplaces of their own. In leveraging Canal, a Shopify merchant can start selling goods from another merchant - without having to stock that item themselves. It’s simple, and genius.

Here’s an example of Fellow. Fellow is famous for their sleek electric kettle. But now, instead of just selling their kettle, they also sell coffee beans to give the customer the end-to-end experience of making coffee at home. But because Fellow’s focus is completely directed towards making the best kettle in the world, they wouldn’t be able to also become the best coffee manufacturer around. So instead, they partner with the best. That’s where the Canal marketplace comes into play: Coffee brands like Koava, and Onyx now sell their coffee beans via the Fellow website. The customer can buy both the kettle and the beans at once, and Onyx receives the order for the beans and they separately ship that out to the customer, giving Fellow a little referral fee for driving the sale.

The philosophy around Canal is that marketplaces should be considered, and carefully laid out. Not just slapped on. So every brand they work with receives advice from the Canal team on how to structure their marketplace from a design and dev standpoint, but also from a brand partner POV.

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