The B2B wholesale landscape is growing at a frenetic pace as online sellers seek access to unique merchandise from a wider subset of brands and designers. The sector received a huge boost of confidence just last month when Faire secured a $400 million Series G investment, and now two more players—NuOrder and Joor—are giving more retailers and brands the opportunity to connect.
Hudson Bay Company’s e-commerce marketplace The Bay is partnering with NuOrder by Lightspeed in an effort to further digitize its merchandising process, directly connecting its buyers with the platform’s 3,000 brands and suppliers in real time.
Offering visual assortment capabilities including a full virtual showroom, as well as an automated purchase order and item creation process, NuOrder aims to help The Bay improve vendor collaboration and further expedite the go-to-market and delivery processes.
With the enhanced visualization capabilities, the Canadian marketplace operator says it can view its assortment across brands and categories by location, optimizing its localization strategy in delivering the right assortment to the right customers, wherever they are based.
“Delivering an assortment that reflects the brands, quality and lifestyle that our customers trust us to deliver is essential to The Bay experience,” said Laura Janney, chief merchant at The Bay. “We are driving a customer-centric approach across our business, and the NuOrder by Lightspeed platform now streamlines our internal process with significant speed and efficiency, and allows us to elevate and cater to market preferences through curated on-trend assortments.”
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Given that The Bay has only recently gotten off the ground as HBC continues to digitally transform its business, it will need as much access to new brands, compelling merchandise options and integrated technologies as possible if it wants to catch up major players in the space and capture new consumers.
“We are excited to partner with The Bay, an iconic Canadian retailer that delivers an extraordinary shopping experience to Canadian consumers,” said Olivia Skuza, co-founder of NuOrder and general manager, NuOrder by Lightspeed. “The NuORDER by Lightspeed platform has innovated the buying process to enable real-time collaboration, inventory management efficiencies and effective collaboration, all which drive meaningful business results.”
NuOrder, which was acquired by Lightspeed for $425 million in June, also made a name for itself throughout the Covid-19 pandemic by serving as the trade show operator for virtual events for Informa Fashion Markets and The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).
Joor trend report indicates bright future
Another wholesale platform that has built a strong B2B following, Joor released its industry trend report for 2022.
In the report, Joor said it experienced a 60 percent increase in wholesale transaction value this year, averaging more than $1.5 billion per month and building off a 2020 that saw the acceleration of e-commerce and virtual events. Retailer log-ins increased 27 percent, while brand profile visits are up 60 percent from last year’s totals.
The number of orders placed on the platform increased 35 percent year over year, and the average order value (AOV) increased 59 percent.
“We continue to see significant momentum in our business because we prioritize innovations that meaningfully impact the businesses of our brands and retailers,” Joor CEO Kristin Savilia said. “In 2022, we will look to build out successful offerings including a new and improved Joor Marketplace to facilitate enhanced product discovery and our electronic payment and financing capabilities.”
New completed connections on the B2B platform totaled almost 400,000. Over the course of the year, Joor’s network of brands grew to more than 13,000, while retailer accounts skyrocketed to more than 365,000—an increase of over 100,000 global retailers in the past 12 months. What’s more, the 37 percent uptick is almost exclusively driven by boutique establishments joining the platform, the company said.
The company is powered by its Joor Passport marketplace, which was launched in May 2020 and designed to create a one-stop shop for users that centralizes the trade show and fashion week experience, while catering to restricted global travel. In 2021, the Passport has powered 36 events attracting more than 150,000 retail visitors from 150 countries.
Joor has since integrated the online and in-person experiences, supporting virtual selling via its desktop platform and physical selling through its mobile apps and personalized QR codes. At the Cabana trade show in Miami, these QR codes were downloaded more than 800 times in two days, enabling users to continue engaging online with the trade show’s digital component for an additional month through Aug. 12.
On that note, heading into the spring 2022 market season, Joor’s proprietary survey found 80 percent of brands and 77 percent of buyers are opting for a hybrid approach to buying and selling.
And it’s clear that content will continue to be a massive driver for the platform’s events going forward. Brands uploaded almost 85 percent more images to Joor than they did in 2020.
Following the announcement of its Shanghai office earlier this year, Joor gave an update on its China and Asia-Pacific growth. Brands based in this region took nearly 50 percent more orders on a year-over-year basis and sold more than 80 percent more items.
The Shanghai office expanded Joor’s footprint in the region to three offices total, including Tokyo and Melbourne, Australia. Chinese brands and retailers can receive 24/7 customer support in local languages, the company said.