HIGH POINT — Large parcel B2B e-commerce software solutions provider last week announced that it is rolling out a new Branding as a Service (BaaS) initiative, which it says will enable manufacturers to both market and move product within a single channel.
The company cites the unique features of its end-to-end supplier-fulfilled retail model, including its B2B marketplace, fulfillment capabilities and established base of suppliers as making it possible for suppliers to move product through the Christopher Knight Home brand, with plans to offer other brands as options for suppliers as the platform scales.
GigaCloud President Iman Shrock told Furniture Today that the new service has the potential to democratize the landscape for manufacturers seeking to get good products to market.
“Brands can have dominance in select categories, and due to the nature of our industry and the number of SKUs, there is an ongoing mismatch between good products and good brands, and we simply want to give the good products a chance.
“The licensing model has been around for a long time, the biggest challenge is one of trust which usually boils down to the balance between the licensee wanting to maximize the ROI and the licensor wanting to protect and build up brand equity,” he continued.
GigaCloud noted that the combination of licensing, branding, marketing and logistics is a “one-stop” solution that it believes could be especially attractive to smaller and medium-sized suppliers who may lack these capabilities on their own.
Shrock said brands that want to increase their volume and monetize their IP also are presented with an opportunity in this new solution. The SFR model “allows the product to be physically stored, handled and shipped by us, which in turn makes the IP owner as responsive as possible to any issues” that may arise, he said.
“We want to enable the suppliers to do what they do best — design, R&D, manufacturing — which allows the resellers to focus on their core competency: driving and converting traffic. And (we want) IP owners to monetize in the safest way on their assets, or even to operate asset light,” he continued.
The service adds two additional nodes into GigaCloud’s fulfillment chain: a quality control center and a marketing/branding center. Suppliers, at this point mainly in Asia, would be able to leapfrog brand establishment barriers by making use of these centers.
Marshall Bernes, head of the GigaCloud BaaS Program and former CCEO of Noble House Home Furnishing, stresses that the qualification process is already well-underway with the company’s established network of suppliers.
“Factories or sellers have to be qualified. Very similarly to major retailers such as Costo or Target, we use a review and audit process,” Bernes said. “Since the combination of GigaCloud and Noble House, we have about 600 suppliers in Asia; 300 have already gone through the qualification process.
“For a specific product to qualify, the quality has to be built into the product through the manufacturing process” which GigaCloud verifies, he said.
The company also said that, with 1000 employees and multiple offices in China, Vietnam and Malaysia, it’s able to “be present at any given possible market where a factory operates.”
GigaCloud said it will handle the qualification process for suppliers and ongoing quality control of products through these centers, with Schrock noting that, because it physically handles the product at all stages, it “reserves the right to terminate non-compliant product at any point.”
Shrock stresses that this new solution is not a “one-size-fits all” proposition; the company wants suppliers to be able to choose what works for them within GigaCloud’s ecosystem to get their product to customers with better efficiency. “We are not B2C, but if we improve how B2B is done by connecting suppliers and resellers for the purpose of smoothing out the edges, it allows the end-consumer to win as well.”
is an early adopter of the new BaaS platform. More information on GigaCloud’s BaaS offering can be found