Last week, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission flagged concerns around how online marketplaces operate. In this special series, Ragtrader looks back at submissions to the Digital Platform Services Inquiry.
Catch’s featured products are selected through a mix of in-house teams and promotional packages purchased by sellers.
The online marketplace revealed its selection process for sales events in a submission to the ACCC digital inquiry, which addressed how private label and third-party products are marketed to consumers.
Catch offers over two million products from over 1,900 local and international sellers to an audience of around 3 million active customers.
This includes products from sister companies Target and Kmart, part of parent group Wesfarmers.
Catch launches and promotes daily events on its website, newsletters and social media with bigger campaigns also marketed through TV, radio and print.
“When a customer clicks on an event, products specifically related to that event are presented to customers in a new page as a series of tiles that show an image of each product and its price,” Catch stated.
“These products are selected by a combination of Catch’s in-stock, marketplace and merchandising teams, who will consider matters such as the relevance of the product to the event, popularity, price and other general marketing or merchandising considerations.
“Sellers can purchase packages entitling them to participate in a dedicated event, a Catch newsletter and/or a homepage banner.”
Target began selling its products on Catch Marketplace in July 2020 and Catch began selling Kmart products on the Catch platform (but not on Catch Marketplace) in January 2021.
Target has a dedicated page on each of the Catch.com.au website and app, accessible from the product categories dropdown at the top of website and app pages.
“In terms of product display on Catch’s websites and apps, Catch does not treat Target products differently from seller products that are featured in events or displayed in response to customer searches on Catch,” Catch stated in its submission.