Section 1 | Prepare your tools for the next steps
Begin by gathering some of the tools you need for the following steps. This is to have an organized and smooth process.
Domain and integration
You will need a domain, which will be the main URL that links to your marketplace.
What will be the name of your marketplace?
Some things to consider:
Same as your organization.
Do you already have a domain name associated with your company?
If so, you want to host your marketplace on a subdomain.
For example: marketplace.yourdomainname.com or yourdomainname.com/marketplace
A subdomain is sort of an extension of your website and comes before or after the main domain name.
Different from your organization’s name.
These are some things to consider:
Keep your domain name short, brandable, memorable, and coherent with your purpose (see section 3).
Avoid special characters and numbers.
Choose a ‘.com’ domain name (don’t worry if you don’t get one, there are alternatives such as .org).
Check for other top-level domains like ‘ccTLDs’ or ‘.shop’.
Include SEO keywords in your domain name, if possible.
Your domain name |
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Marketplace’s email addresses
A professional email address plays a crucial role in representing your organization's image. It's often the first point of contact for clients, partners, and customers.
You may already have one set up. If not, here are some things to think about when creating it:
Usually, you will be able to create your organization’s email through your domain host.
Typically, it follows the format: username@marketplacedomain.com
Create an email account for your team members. You can choose to create generic email addresses instead of employee names, such as info@yourmarketplacedomain.com.
How to create your marketplace's email addresses:
Your domain provider will supply you with email addresses matching your domain name.
Recommended tools for preparation
Contact tracking tools
It is important to have tools to track your contact with merchants. This is to ensure a smooth process and that your team is all on the same page.
Tip: consider using tools that your team is comfortable with.
Some examples are:
Google Sheets. This is a great tool as it enables seamless real-time collaboration within your team.
Excel. A traditional spreadsheet. Your team might already be familiar with it.
Survey tools
You will need to conduct buyer surveys. To do so, you will need to have an organized way to collect the data they submit, instead of having to send the survey back and forth.
Some examples are:
Google form. This tool will allow you to easily create and share online forms and surveys, and analyze responses in real-time.
Typeform. This tool gives you the freedom to customize the design of your survey forms.
Survey Monkey. They will help with templates and expert-written samples.
Section 2 | Assign your team’s responsibilities
It is important for you to clearly define the roles and functionalities that each member of your team will undertake.
This section will help us understand who to contact within your organization in different departments.
Please provide us with the following contacts for the responsibilities below:
Responsibilities - Tasks Your organization | Responsibilities - Tasks Tengiva |
Main contact for your platform’s management This person should be CC'd on all emails. | Your dedicated account manager. |
Contact with Merchants |
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Managing general communication with your merchants, initial reach out, follow-up, and display approvals.
| Initial merchant training, system presentation, setting up products, and mediating order issues. |
Contact with Buyers |
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Managing general communication with clients, initial reach out, and engagement follow-up.
| Processing sample orders, mediating order issues, and supporting them with our help center. |
Promoting your platform |
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Strategy Defining promotional strategy (Online, in-person, events…) | *Resources available in Growth & Promotion. |
Operational Deploying the promotional strategy. |
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Market positioning strategy Defining the marketplace’s main objectives and USP. |
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Platform updates, support, and maintenance |
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Implementing the marketplace, URL integration strategy, and any other technical questions Tengiva may have.
*If you lack someone, you may provide your main contact.
| Providing technical support to you, your clients, and your suppliers and continuously running technical tests. |
Accounting and logistics |
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Main contact for any accounting questions, monthly invoices, and shipping accounts. |
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Section 3 | Define your marketplace’s purpose
Defining your marketplace’s purpose will string the whole story of this project together.
Understanding your business objectives
This is the most important section of all the onboarding Playbooks.
What you define here will define everything to come and trace a clear pathway to success. Therefore, you need to be 100% honest about your goals, objectives, and expectations.
Define ONE objective you want to achieve with your marketplace.
a) Generate additional revenue from your existing audience. | b) Increase brand awareness for a specific audience. | c) Complement your existing services with a textile marketplace. |
E.g: Latin American Fashion Designer Association wants to generate revenue from connections they are already making between textile businesses and apparel brands. | E.g: A fiber brand wants to promote textiles made with their fibers, so they feature all of those textiles in a marketplace for apparel brands to discover their fiber brand. | E.g: A trade show would like to provide its clients with a 24/7 365-day digital event to promote their textiles. |
Connect your objective with your purpose
Understanding your current audience and customers will allow you to match supply and demand.
Answer the questions below to guide you.
Questions | Fill below |
3 a) If you had to describe how your organization is unique and stands out from the others, what would you say?
Result = your USP (Unique Selling Point)
| (e.g. ‘We are the largest network of high fashion Latin American brands’ OR ‘We are the main Italian-made textile association’) |
3 b)Who is your main client and what makes them unique? | (e.g. ‘Emerging fashion brands. Uniqueness: Located across Latin America’ OR ‘Textile manufacturers. Uniqueness: Producing in Italy)
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3 c)What is your mission with the marketplace? | (e.g. ‘To increase the accessibility of diverse sources of textiles to Latin American brands’ OR ‘To make Italian-made textiles more easily accessible to the world’) |
3 d)What does achieving success with your textile marketplace look like to you? | (e.g. ‘Generate 10M in transactions per year’ OR ‘Increasing our brand positioning in North America’ OR ‘Provide our visitors with a platform to extend the relationships they built during an event’.) |
Section 4 | Reach out to your suppliers
In this section, you have all the information necessary to make the first contact with the future merchants of your marketplace.
Prepare a list of merchants you want to reach out to
In this section, you have all the information necessary to make the first contact and follow up with the future suppliers of your marketplace.
Merchants* will be the ones purchasing from your marketplace
Examples of potential merchants are textile producers, mills, distributors, and suppliers.
Prior to starting this section, prepare a list of suppliers you want to reach out to.
What information do you need from them:
Company:
Contact name:
Role:
Phone number:
Email:
Attribution of SKUs
If you purchased an SKU data set-up package for the suppliers of your site, efficiently attributing the SKUs you have purchased for your suppliers is a crucial planning step
This will ensure an organized management of your resources according to your commercial strategies and existing connections with suppliers.
Communicating with your marketplace’s future suppliers
Inviting suppliers to your marketplace
Step 1: Invite Suppliers to the platform
The first step is to reach them via email. Here, you will invite them to be a part of your marketplace.
Here is a reference for email touching points:
This is a template you can use for your email:
Step 2: First meeting with a supplier.
Here are some points to consider for this meeting:
Present your marketplace and its USP.
Explain what’s in it for the supplier.
Break down the costs associated with it (if applicable).
Clarify how to get started:
“Tengiva, our technology provider, will handle the set-up, all they need is 2m of each textile in each color”
Step 3: Suppliers Onboarding with Tengiva.
Invite suppliers to start the onboarding process with us.
** ADD TENGIVA (Sales@tengiva.com) IN CC
Touchpoints for the email:
This is a template you can use for your email:
Step 4: Tengiva contacts confirmed suppliers on your behalf
After our meeting with the suppliers, we will start the onboarding process. Our team will provide them with a supplier playbook and the necessary resources. On your side, setting the right expectations and being transparent are key.
Here's how:
Communicate constantly with suppliers.
Highlight that months 1-3 heavily depend on their onboarding process.
Encourage them to send us their materials quickly.
Product data set-up
The process will begin once we receive all the details and products from suppliers.
It is the supplier's responsibility to:
Send all the necessary information.
Send 2 meters of each SKU fabric directly to Tengiva.
The product data set-up includes inputting all the material data, cutting, photographing, categorizing, and organizing the data.
Section 5 | Reach out to your buyers
In this section, you have all the information necessary to do the first contact with the future buyers of your marketplace.
Prepare a list of buyers you want to reach out to
Buyers will be the ones purchasing from your marketplace
Examples of potential buyers are apparel brands, garment manufacturers, and all other companies sourcing textiles.
Before starting this section, prepare a list of clients you want to reach out to.
Understand the interests of the future buyers of your marketplace
In this section, you will approach your future buyers as you have understood how their needs are connected to your marketplace’s main objective.
Email template
Here is an email template for the first contact with your buyers. If you want to create your own email, feel free to use this template as a foundation.
Subject:
Hello <first name>,
I hope you are well.
We have exciting news and we want to share them with our members first.
We know first-hand the pain and complexity of sourcing textiles. Having your needs as a priority, we are launching a textile sourcing platform in the upcoming months.
In order to do so, it is important we bring relevant suppliers on board. We have kept it brief with a 5-question survey at this link [survey link]. Filling it will greatly help us to help you.
Thank you for supporting our mission to make textile materials easily available to companies like yours.
Best regards.
<your name> |
Survey
This survey will help you understand your client’s needs so you ensure that your marketplace is a clear representation of that.
→ Refer to the tools provided to you in Section 2 to decide how you want to send your survey.
Full name + Email |
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Company name |
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Which specific suppliers are you interested in sourcing from or exploring their latest collections on our marketplace? |
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Among those suppliers, do you have specific contacts within these organizations you suggest we connect with? | Name and email. |
When reaching out, could we mention that you referred them? |
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What type of textiles are you interested in seeing in the marketplace? | (e.g. technical fabrics, natural fibers…) |
What is the most important thing you consider when sourcing textiles? | (e.g. quick cycle, quality, sustainability…) |
For more details on the next steps to activate your marketplace and complete the initial setup, visit Initial marketplace set-up: A complete guide.