eCommerce Influencer Series: Stephen Staley – GameSeek
It’s time for another instalment of our eCommerce Influencer Series. Today we are joined by Stephen Staley the CEO of marketplace GameSeek.
As part of our one year anniversary we asked some of our eCommerce influencer friends to answer some key questions affecting the current eCommerce climate. With that said, let’s handover to Stephen.
Q. For anyone who doesn’t know you yet, who you are and what do you do?
A. My name is Stephen Staley, I am the GameSeek CEO. GameSeek are a retailer in the UK that has recently successful launched a marketplace and over 1000 sellers are already live selling on the platform. We are a smaller amazon if you will, currently selling everything but are run by humans; not computers.
Q. Looking back over the past 3 years what do you think have been the biggest changes in eCommerce?
A. I think the biggest change has been mobile commerce. All companies completely changing their websites to make them mobile friendly. Outside of this, increase in customer demand for same day delivery and the increase in business opportunities selling internationally.
Q. Amazon obviously cannot be ignored in eCommerce anymore, do you believe they are largely friend or foe to SME’s and as Amazon continues to grow does this change?
I love Amazon as a consumer but lets be honest they are in this for themselves. They decided a long time ago to put the consumer first and marketplace retailer last. There are very large companies, billion dollar companies that ignore Amazon altogether.
I have no problem working with them but to build your business around them is far too risky. If they changed their approach and had some humans you could speak to that could help you grow and resolve issues it would be much improved, however Amazon want to be ran by computers. I get it from a commercial point of view but this leaves the door wide open for a marketplace competitor who has a better approach.
Q. What is the biggest opportunity that you see for SME’s in 2018 and beyond?
A. GameSeek Marketplace. It’s the only marketplace with no barrier to entry and is powered by Mirakl which is the best third party marketplace software in the world.
Q. What emerging technology do you see as the biggest game changer in eCommerce?
A. Logistics and Drop Shipping. And further down the line teleportation. But until then, I think the likes of eg. Amazons days of building warehouses are numbered. They are only live in 13 countries, and I could set up a new company tomorrow and be live in many more countries and be live on all 192 Google channels.
Then spend all my energy building brand credibility. With Google commanding much more traffic than Amazon, I think it will be very easy to seriously challenge Amazon and/or other large retailers on much less resource within 5 years time.
I am not surprised Jeff is pushing Prime and the other products that are unique to them; he will always be worried about future competition; he will be petrified of being cloned; and will be wanting to protect Amazon for as long as he is alive.
Q. Where can people find out more about you and what you do?
A. For retailers and individuals who want to sell on a platform with £0 monthly fees, £0 listings fees, £0 setup fees – visit: https://www.gameseek.co.uk/marketplace
Personally, I am reachable via linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stestaley/
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Dave Furness
Dave is a Co-Founder of eSeller365. For over 10 years he has been involved with eCommerce with a particular interest in the marketplaces and the huge opportunities available for sellers when utilizing a multi-channel strategy. After a year of being the UK’s youngest eCommerce consultant, he built an education platform called UnderstandingE that showed the world how to utilize Magento as the “Third Generation of Multi-Channel software”.
Dave has also created a YouTube channel dedicated to entrepreneurship and eCommerce as well as a podcast dedicated to mental health awareness. When Dave isn’t working his main interests include learning and playing Chess, researching the Crypto and NFT space, and trying to find the nearest beach.
This article is a part of our Leadership Series, which features industry experts sharing valuable insights for small business owners who sell online. The opinions expressed in this contribution are solely those of the author(s).