Bunnings has expanded its online offering with the national hardware retailer teaming up with third-party trusted sellers to sell products directly through its online platform called MarketLink, without its classic 10% price-beat guarantee.
As covered by ChannelNews back in October, Bunnings was set to follow Amazon in launching their marketplace called MarketLink to sell third-party products from what Bunnings’ call ‘Trusted Sellers’.
The big hardware retailer is set to host as many as 8000 products on MarketLink across critical categories, including kitchen appliances, homewares and furniture.
MarketLink will stock products not usually sold at Bunnings from third-party trust sellers which, when ordered, will be delivered directly to the customer by the third-party.
Unfortunately, because MarketLink products are not sold by Bunnings directly, the price guarantee and lowest prices policy will not apply.
Hopefully, the items stocked on MarketLink will be priced competitively enough so as to render the missing 10% price beat discount irrelevant.
Bunnings will still, however, offer customer support if attempts to contact the trusted seller are unsuccessful with the Customer Support Team ‘happy to assist’.
Much like Amazon, eBay and Alibaba, when ordering multiple items, products may be distributed separately when purchasing from different MarketLink trusted sellers, which products being stored anywhere in Australia.
Bunnings’ chief executive Michael Schneider told News Corporation that MarketLink is designed to offer customers more preferable brands than what is available from Bunnings.
Stating that while they are ‘really good at providing the flooring that goes underneath your kitchen’, they are lagging in the appliance space.
Bunnings will even be taking on the likes of the Goodguys, JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman with electronics available via the MarketLink platform.
The decision to call it MarketLink was apparently to avoid the negative connotations applied to marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay.
Where unlike the competitors, Bunnings is not creating a ‘free-for-all marketing environment’ calling the selection of products on Marketlink, ‘very disciplined, very curated’.
Schneider sees Marketlink as ‘facilitating an even more convenient way for our customers to shop for products for their home that don’t relate to things you would buy in a Bunnings warehouse’.
The hope is also to draw more traffic to the Bunnings website to increase the already 20 million Australians that visit the online site monthly.
