After decades of competition between retailers, suppliers and manufacturers for the smallest advantage to improve their own profitability in new product delivery, the winner is…. the consumer. More selection at higher quality and lower prices continue to strengthen the consumer’s hand leaving retailers, suppliers and manufacturers a single choice – collaboration.

Not just any collaboration, but collaboration at the speed of the consumer. Retailers have spent considerable sums on the consumer front end to keep up with their constantly evolving behaviors, leveraging social media (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.) to learn what they want, what they like and most importantly, how they value product. Consumers move from one retail community to another to another – that’s their world, and increasingly becoming the standard for all of us.

To survive in this New Retail Economy that is highly visual, always changing and digitally connected, retailers, suppliers and manufacturers need to begin collaborating at a speed and efficiency that enables them to catch up and keep up with a consumer audience constantly racing ahead. Linear processes using emails, digital presentations and spreadsheets won’t suffice any longer. Retailers, suppliers and manufacturers need to embrace the dawning new age of B2B Communities.

The B2B Community business model will leverage the power of digitally and socially connected business communities to make faster, more intelligent decisions that drive innovation, speed to market and profitability. Community processes will move us from using technology to communicate decisions after they are made to using technology to make faster, more impactful decisions, with the confidence of the community already behind us.

This new world will be a social world where you go to your B2B Marketplace before you even check your Facebook page because that’s where everyone is going to be – designers and suppliers communicating, making changes, moving faster to see it, share it and get feedback on it. They can then collaborate to decide which products to include in their digital customer showrooms, tailored to the desires of each market and channel, enabling all members of the community to grow their business, profitably.

At Bamboo Rose, we developed the first B2B Marketplace that provides the infrastructure needed to support community collaboration with strong transactional engines to execute in all aspects of the retail supply chain to discover, develop and deliver great product to any market or channel.

Bamboo Rose is designed for folks on the road, away from their desktop. Everyone’s on their mobile devices, and so are we. So the next time you are at the Canton Fair, plan on:

• collecting images of things you like using the Bamboo Rose Mobile App,
• instantly sharing those ideas with your designers and suppliers,
• receiving notifications when your digital supplier showroom is ready, and
• shopping supplier showrooms for samples your team can begin reviewing instantly

All before you even leave the fair!

Don’t wait – you’re already late – get your Retail B2B Community started on Bamboo Rose today!