What is Collaborative Commerce?
Collaborative commerce (or c-commerce) has moved into more mainstream awareness, but what is it exactly?
There are some overly complex explanations but in basic terms, it's about companies using technology to work together.
COVID has turbocharged digital adoption, resulting in more noise and increased competition for customer attention. The cost of customer acquisition is rising. Added to this, you have more customers focusing on privacy and environmental concerns. All of this is driving a need for c-commerce businesses to find new strategies to reach and keep customers.
At Alvio Network we know that enabling better collaborative commerce is a key part of this. Alvio enables companies to add the power of networking into their existing infrastructure. Businesses can create direct partnerships, quickly access new product lines and find new distribution opportunities, all with much of the traditional risks removed.
Many well known brands collaborate in the modern era. Notable examples are Nike and Apple's co-branded iWatches and the marketing collaboration between GoPro & Red Bull. Yet beyond these mainstream examples, there is a lot more potential for collaborative commerce.
The Shopify & Apple App Store are less obvious examples of collaborative commerce. These platforms have created standardised connections and rules, allowing more companies to provide functionality and services through the installation of Apps.
Yet even with all this innovation around us, direct collaboration with other e-commerce businesses is hard. When it comes down to the real nitty gritty, there are many technical hurdles to overcome.
Collaborative commerce means sharing data, product information, orders and/or handling billing between two parties. Even if the businesses use similar tools, the data could be managed in different and incompatible ways.
Solutions can range from costly bespoke integrations to a patchwork of multiple incompatible apps and services that are difficult to manage. Then you add the complexities of cost, the trust required around handling stock, delivery and billing.
All these issues add up to make collaborative commerce a great concept but overly challenging and time consuming to undertake in reality.
At Alvio Network, we have removed these frictions. Using our experience from 12 years of helping Shopify vendors solve B2B challenges, we’ve built a platform that makes collaborative commerce easier than ever before.
Alvio Network provides a suite of intuitive tools that allow digital businesses to collaborate without the complexity. With our tools, you can easily connect, sync and manage your business’ data with many different partners. We’ve removed the need for costly integrations, incompatible apps or disruptive changes to internal business processes.
Through the Alvio Network platform, a collaboration can be set up quickly in a matter of hours. Our streamlined platform opens up a whole new set of collaboration opportunities for businesses.
When companies can work together, the economies of scale can be significant. From the sharing of stock or marketing activity through to optimised logistics, the implications and second order effects are huge.
For us, collaborative commerce is yet to deliver its full potential. At Alvio Network, we believe our platform is a large step to realising the true capabilities of c-commerce.
Making direct business collaboration easy and simple. Fostering exciting, new ways for people to work together that have benefits for business, individuals and the world.
If collaborative commerce sounds like it might appeal to you, then now is the perfect time to join us at Alvio.
The Alvio Pioneer Programme allows e-commerce business owners to work directly with the expert team here at Alvio. With our help, your transition onto the platform will be smooth, and you’ll find the perfect partners to facilitate business growth.
However, the Pioneer Programme offer is ending soon, so sign up today. Or, if you have any questions about Alvio, feel free to contact our team.
