More Than 7 Billion Dollars Worth Of Product Will Be Sold Through This Company This Year

Commercehub is the largest company in e-commerce you have never ever heard of – In 2013, more than $7B worth of products will be sold through their systems.

The company's systems connect retailers with suppliers to greatly expand their offerings without having to buy them and store them in a warehouse.  Their client list includes retailers like JC Penney, Kohl's, Walmart, QVC, Staples, Toys "R" Us, Best Buy, and Bed, Bath and Beyond They also serve many of the suppliers to these retailers – who can sell to other retailers.

The company is like the United Nations, where each delegate speaks a different language but a system enables them all to hear other each by translating the messages. His computer software enables a retailer to place an order through its software and get it from a supplier with a different software system. Commercehub makes it possible for a retailer to be able to connect to any supplier.  They allow retailers to be able to radically expand their product offerings. If you're searching for a product and you go to a retailer, and they don't have it, you'll go somewhere else. We can help you radically expand your product offerings without taking the inventory risk.

For Best Buy, its customers expect to be able to go online and find whatever electronics they are seeking, said Ray Stacey, the chain's vice president of marketplace and supplier direct fulfillment. "If I go to bestbuy.com and can't find the product, that's not a good thing for Best Buy," he said. "CommerceHub allows us the ability to tap into a plethora of suppliers to meet that customer need. "But Best Buy cannot afford to build the systems itself, he said. CommerceHub can connect Best Buy with suppliers it already works with, or it can build new software bridges to enable the electronics firm to connect to a seller it wants to add. "It would take me a very long time and be very expensive to build those integrations," Stacey said. "They do it much more quickly, much more efficiently and much more effectively than I would be able to do as a retailer."

For the consumer, the product is shipped bearing the logo of the retailer whose website they used to make the purchase. The seller can track the sale and shipping on their own computers, so they don't lose control.