Medi’s switch from a classic B2B business to a successful DTC player

THE STORY

Traditional company medi applies knowledge within compression technology to the sports and fashion industry with its own brands CEP and ITEM m6. And this worldwide, as medi is active in 90 countries and employs 3000 people. Since 2020, medi’s lifestyle brands have been working with Tradebyte to achieve platform success together.

THE TRIGGER

THE Strategy

For CEP and ITEM m6, the platform strategy was of major importance. The brands worked with our experts in strategic and process consulting, who shared with them their say on early expectation management regarding the requirements, especially concerning product data and logistical processing. One focus for the implementation of the PIM project was paying close attention to detail in the product data requirements of the sales channels, since the preparation of the product data in the DTC business is completely up to the brands. The data work needs to be of the highest quality and the product data onboarding must take place in accordance with predefined processes. This is also what marks the difference from classic wholesale business.

Within the scope of the consulting project, the status quo was examined, and adjustments were made to CEP and ITEM m6’s processes. All stakeholders worked together in a Scoping Workshop during the official project kick-off. This was an extremely important milestone, as the aligned communication is ideal to avoid coordination loops, keeping the project lean. Once they had TB.One and logistics partner 004 on board, the brands CEP and ITEM m6 were ready and equipped with a flexible set-up to expand on platforms and use the close and ongoing support of our team to find suitable channels with the highest sales potential for the brands.

THE Result

The lifestyle brands CEP and ITEM m6 evolved from classic B2B brands to platform players from 2019 to 2021 and are now absolutely DTC ready! The sustainable system set-up could only be introduced by involving all key stakeholders. This created flexibility for a quick expansion and resulted in a newly created marketplace team with a high strategic focus.