Big data marketing strategy approaches for businesses selling through online marketplace platforms

This research presents new empirical findings from an inductive analysis based on a mixed method grounded theory approach. Insights are presented into marketplace selling, marketing strategy and big data decision making using data from fifty-seven online marketplace seller organizations. The findings and subsequent conclusions were developed using a triangulation analysis, consisting of 1,249 forum posts, fifty-five questionnaire responses and five in-depth semi-structured interviews with marketplace sellers combined with the findings in the literature. The original contribution to knowledge of this research is a conceptual model for use in formulating marketing strategy when selling on online marketplaces. The conceptual model overcomes the limitations found in the literature and popular traditional marketing strategy models. The implications of this research span both theoretical and practical domains. The findings in the theoretical domain lead to the proposition that marketplace sellers are entrepreneurs, big data literate, creative, and seek out novel opportunities for products to sell. Sellers rely on big data analysis and research, obtaining market intelligence through the understanding of this data, experimentation, observation, and monitoring in the market. Big data is used to inform both business and marketing strategy, based around the marketing mix, big data is the foundation for key decisions in these areas. In the practical domain, findings showed that organizational capabilities and scale were enabled by the marketplace through their enhanced services and large customer base. Lastly, the selling environment is highly restricted with limited access to the customer, as such the findings show that sellers do not entice customers through “share of voice” or use traditional marketing messaging. Instead, their marketing strategy and leading tactics are to optimize the search rankings and convert a customer from a viewer to a buyer using a virtuous cycle of positive customer experience leading to key trust indicators that customers look for.