Michaels adds third-party marketplace
Hobby and craft retailer Michaels launch an online marketplace with an expanded assortment to better support the tens of millions of creatives visiting Michaels.com each month. Through a curated selection of third-party sellers, “the marketplace exponentially grows Michaels’ online assortment in new and existing categories to provide an even wider selection at the quality expected of Michaels within a best-in-class eCommerce experience for both creatives and third-party sellers,” the company claims.
The marketplace is the latest in Michaels’ ongoing digital transformation, increasing the online assortment of its U.S. site from 250,000 to more than 1M SKUs from sellers eager to reach Michaels’ highly diverse and engaged customer base while helping those customers find even more of what they need to bring their creative dreams to life.
Michaels has designed its marketplace to help high-quality sellers of arts-and-crafts componentry succeed in the increasingly crowded eCommerce space by focusing on curation and forgoing subscription or listing fees in favor of a standard commission rate. Michaels is accepting applications from sellers in categories including arts and crafts supplies, candle and soap making, leather and woodwork, baking, tools and tech, yarn, stitchery, kids, toys, education, journaling, seasonal products, and more.
“The launch of Michaels’ curated marketplace for arts, crafts, and décor is the next phase of our ongoing digital transformation to be the destination for all creatives to get inspired, learn, shop and create,” said Heather Bennett, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Ecommerce at Michaels. “By more than quadrupling our online assortment across categories including candle and soap making, leather work and more, Michaels will ensure every customer can find what they need to bring their creative dreams to life no matter their craft.”
Michaels has built a full-service portal for sellers to manage every aspect of their business on Michaels.com and enable direct integration, including a suite of Seller-APIs and connections with several top multi-channel integration partners like ChannelAdvisor (a CommerceHub company) and ShipStation.
“As one of America’s leading Ecommerce purveyors of craft and hobby products, partnering with Michaels in their new marketplace initiative is an exceptional opportunity,” said Natalie Baiden, CEO of Stuff4Crafts. “Their Business Development and Account Management teams were a pleasure to work with and the technical integration went smoothly. Michaels is an iconic and trusted brand and the entire Stuff4 team is excited to add our high-quality assortment to their already impressive offering.”