It’s no shock to anyone that in 2019, eCommerce is a growing behemoth of collective businesses and services. Look no further than the insanely successful Amazon to see that digital marketplaces are incredibly lucrative business models when they experience success. This has sparked something of a digital gold rush wherein many businesses are starting their own markets–whether that be a general market to sell and buy in such as eBay, or specific services such as Uber that are a market place for a specific service such as a taxi. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of them, but a little known company called Coca-Cola is launching their own Digital Marketplace in partnership with Omnivore.

Coca Cola’s Digital Marketplace: What is It?

As we established, a digital marketplace can be a general place to buy and trade, such as Amazon, or it could have a niche. Coca-Cola’s marketplace is offering technological solutions for its foodservice customers. In other words, businesses in the food industry, such as restaurants, will potentially (of course, you must be a Coca-Cola customer) have access to foodservice technologies that are vetted beforehand. Omnivore provides a universal point of sale connectivity platform—which, in layman’s terms means that their technology allows other technologies to live in the same house and play nicely with each other.

Indeed, the crux of this venture lies in the problem many business owners face today, which is that with the rising availability of CRM software (customer relationship management) which is integrated into POS terminals, the data boom has reached the foodservice industry in a powerful way. Foodservice business owners now have a wealth of data at their fingertips about the purchasing habits of their customers which allows them to make educated decisions about inventory management and loyalty program offers.

As you can imagine, this is not new information to software developers. There are many CRM solutions and POS technologies available to business owners. This is a primary factor as to why Coca-Cola is creating their own marketplace.

  1. It creates further incentive and investment for businesses to carry Coca-Cola products and continue to do so to gain access to this marketplace.
  2. There are significant investment opportunities and potential for the financial rewards that come with exclusivity in a marketplace.

Consider that if Coca-Cola’s digital marketplace is a success among foodservice businesses who are looking for a simple to browse, one-stop-shop for POS solutions that are easily integrated and pre-vetted to work well together, it would mean that participation and visibility in that marketplace would carry an enormous premium along with it. If you are a technology company selling POS technology or CRM software, inclusion into this market would be an incredibly lucrative opportunity. Ultimately, these solutions will be labeled as “proprietary” for Coca-Cola. If it were any other brand, perhaps not—but many companies will jump at the chance to develop proprietary software for the beverage giant.

The new marketplace will launch in September and will be free to all Coca-Cola customers. When the marketplace launches, you will be able to find many technological solutions for front-of-house, back-of-house, and outside-of-house needs. Front-end would be considered customer-focused, such as tableside ordering, payment, digital menus, and guest services. The back-end would consist of inventory, labor, and analytics. Outside solutions include things like online ordering, third-party delivery, and loyalty programs.

When you consider the utility and need for these technologies and the edge they provide, it’s no surprise that researching the many options for each of these services can be an exhausting effort for already busy business owners. Coca-Cola and Omnivore aim to give more breathing room by restricting the selections to a few quality choices that are vetted.

Commercial Refrigeration Solutions

CRM software and POS solutions are definite revenue boosters, but if you’re not squared away with a quality commercial refrigeration solution then you’re putting the cart before the horse! If you have any questions about our coolers or would like to inquire about custom cooling solutions or questions about distribution/logistics, contact us here or give us a call at (813)-870-0340!