Selling on the B&Q Marketplace
B&Q is one of the UK’s leading home improvement retailers. With 94% UK brand awareness and £4.18 billion annual sales, the popular DIY store is a well-established and respected household name. As with many large high street retailers, expanding their online presence has been a top priority over the last decade. In 2014 B&Q invested £60 million into the development and optimisation of their website diy.com – an investment that no doubt paid off. Diy.com is now the third largest online DIY retailer in the UK, with 24 million monthly visitors.
In 2022 B&Q announced they would be expanding their online offering to consumers by launching their own marketplace using Mirakl technology. A logical move considering 68% of UK consumers find online marketplaces to be the most convenient way to shop.
Why list on B&Q Marketplace?
Home improvement brands operating and succeeding on other marketplaces have a good chance of securing a share of B&Q’s traffic. A few of the benefits for listing brands:
- Possibility to increase sales
The crux of a good multichannel sales strategy is positioning your brand on platforms that can actively grow sales. Several of B&Q’s sellers have reported that their revenue through the new online marketplace has outgrown even their most established sales platforms. - Specialised channel coverage
Channel coverage is a key lever in ecommerce growth. The quantity of channels your brand is listing on is certainly important, however the channel relevance should always be the key consideration. B&Q is the first UK home improvement retailer to launch their own marketplace. As an eCommerce brand in the DIY category, B&Q’s online marketplace offers a highly relevant specialised sales platform likely to reach consumers at the point of need. - Simplified returns process for customers
Unlike many online marketplaces, B&Q benefits from a vast number of physical store locations. These physical stores can be used to return many of the products bought on the marketplace. A simplified returns process for customers removes a barrier to sale. Customers can feel reassured when using the platform that the items will be easy to return if not suited to their needs. - Brand visibility
Brand visibility continues to be one of the greatest struggles for eCommerce SMEs. Despite marketing efforts, it’s hard to compete with the budgets available to larger enterprises. Choosing the right sales platforms can be a great way to improve brand awareness cost effectively. The B&Q marketplace has over 250 million online visits per year and is one of the top visited UK retailers for home improvement consumers. - Brand authority
High street brands have a huge competitive advantage when launching online marketplaces – consumers already trust them. B&Q has been operating on UK high streets for over 50 years and is positively received by UK consumers with 55% of all DIY and garden online shoppers having shopped there. Associating your brand with the retailer could be hugely beneficial to brand perception and supporting your brand authority.
How to list on B&Q Marketplace
To begin the process of becoming a B&Q merchant partner, brands are required to complete an application form. Once the application form is accepted, you’ll need to confirm that your end-to-end system integrates with marketplaces built creating Mirakl. If they do, you’ll be able to add listings to the site in the same way you do any other marketplace.
As retailer marketplaces continue to grow in popularity, we recommend continually looking to improve your channel coverage across category-specific marketplaces relevant to your brand. When doing so, keep in mind which channels can be integrated into your systems and processes.
Volo integrates any marketplaces using the Mirakl platform. To find out more about how Volo could help your business scale, please get in touch.
