The institute’s answerGlobal.Web.Shop, G.W.S for short, “the first real trading house in the virtual world”. In online retail, G.W.S takes on the role that wholesale and the trading house play in bricks-and-mortar retail. It is the E-Commerce 3.0 stage in the trade graphic.

What G.W.S providesA shared infrastructure for administration, IT, logistics, fulfilment, payment and e-commerce. The offer is full-service digital commerce, “from organising logistics (from the factory gate) and placing the product on various marketplaces worldwide, including marketing and shipping, to payment processing and the organisation of returns”. G.W.S does not build its own platforms; it uses the existing online marketplaces.

How it works with the brandsThe sales brands are the branches of the trading house, each with its own product and customer focus. Each brand has its own target group; all share the same logistics, IT and processing. It is the principle of the big trading houses and their banners, transferred to the virtual world. Every brand benefits from the shared backbone, and every new brand makes the backbone stronger.

And the instituteThe institute develops the models, G.W.S and the brands test them in the market, and the real cases flow back into research as findings. That is the figure of eight from “How”.

GoalThe shared marketplace for scalable, high-quality products from Europe in global sales, with AI in procurement and sales: “who buys what, where, tomorrow”.