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We are working with GENCO in their search for a CEO of their GENCO Marketplace based in Pittsburgh, PA.
GENCO is a $1.5 billion 3PL based in Pittsburgh. You can click here to get a sense of the company’s activities. At a high level, GENCO offers contract packaging, warehousing and distribution, reverse logistics, transportation logistics, damage research, and inventory liquidation – which is essentially the division around which this search is based.
The value proposition behind GENCO’s inventory liquidation business is straightforward: It exists to “Create Profitable Markets for Surplus Inventory.” This video does a fine job of explaining how GENCO’s Marketplace works:
The GENCO Marketplace is one of America’s largest inventory liquidation companies, selling more than $5 million worth of product every day. With a global buyer base and a multichannel liquidation strategy that includes both B2B and B2C channels, GENCO Marketplace can realize net recovery values 8%-10% higher than other liquidation companies. The Marketplace offers the following inventory liquidation services:
- Product Liquidation Solutions – Benefits of liquidation services for manufacturers and retailers
- Excess Inventory Liquidation – Resale of unsold and surplus inventory
- Store Returns Liquidation – Resale of consumer returns
- Bankruptcy Liquidation – Resale of inventory for insolvent companies and insurance claims
- Parts Harvesting and Resale – Extracting value from all parts and materials of end-of-life products
- Reverse Logistics and Liquidation – Combination of returns processing and liquidation to reduce time and costs
- Going out of Business Inventory Liquidation – Assisting retailers in store consolidation and acquisition / re-branding
At a high level, the GENCO Marketplace sources its product from companies like Dell, Glaxo Smith Kline, Kohl’s, Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, Costco, Groupon and offers those products for sale through three channels:
- B2C, through its website NoBetterDeal.com and other sites such as Amazon.com, Ebay and Bidz
- B2B, through its website GENCOMarketplace.com, and
- B2B, through an inside sales team.
GENCO Marketplace’s new CEO must be a seasoned executive with an entrepreneurial bias who can grow the total business at a compound annual growth rate of 20% over the next 5-7 years with the consumer site growing at 40-50% per year while maintaining a steady growth rate on the B2B side of the business. This is a business which could be taken abroad so some international experience is desirable.
For competitive reasons, I can’t share specifics about the revenue split between each of these channels, but the lion’s share of the GENCO Marketplace’s sales come from its inside sales team — which makes perfect sense when one considers that much of the product being offered through any online marketplace (whether it’s eBay, Overstock.com, Liquidation.com, Amazon.com, or NoBetterDeal.com) has a “selling story” behind it …
Bidders want to know: Why is the product for sale? Is there anything wrong with it? Is there any softness in the seller’s price? Where is the product located? And so on. Not all of the product is scratch and dent, but it matters not: Secondary market product is unsold for a reason, and the reasons matter a great deal to wholesale buyers.
It’s no surprise then that (for now) the bulk of GENCO Marketplace’s business is relationship based and the company’s inside sales team’s efforts are critically important. However, since 2009, GENCO has invested over $10MM to strengthen its online technology platform and the team that runs it.
So here we have an extremely well-paying executive job with several critical issues to be managed:
On the BUY SIDE of the business, the buck will stop with you on all matters related to product sourcing. Again, your suppliers will be Sears, Kohl’s, Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon, and the like. On what products are these retailers in a long position? How can you keep them clean on particular types of problem inventory? Can you set up program oriented business which will provide the GENCO Marketplace with a steady flow product for its customers that also constitute a win for its suppliers?
Additionally, are any of these suppliers in a long position on product that is not offered on the GENCO Marketplace? If so, what will it take to develop demand for those items? It has been said that in the trading business, companies essentially make their money when they buy the product, not when they sell it. This is because the secondary markets for surplus and scratch and dent product have become very efficient, and the playing field for that business is pricing.
On the SELL SIDE of the business, you will have three channels to grow. If you are a regular reader of my posts, you already know how to grow an ecommerce business. Certainly that’s a primary consideration here. But additionally, you’ll be required to grow both the GENCO Marketplace’s B2B online marketplace in addition to its inside sales business. All the while, your inside sales team will be clamoring for product. It’s your responsibility to manage these channels in a future oriented way for the company.
Make no mistake: The change management issues will be significant.
And in between the buy and the sell are important transformational questions to address, such as “Which particular products will most benefit from applying “value added” services to enhance ultimate recovery value utilizing GMP’s 1MM square foot operating network? Will it be iPods, tablets, laptops, video games, women’s boots or apparel, brand name tools, or televisions? Or something else?” There is a need for precise analytics to best apply GENCO’s broad and expanding array of test, repair and product packaging services.
Here are the essential success areas we seek in all candidates:
- Leadership
- People development
- Strategic vision
- Team work
- Change management
- Customer acquisition
- Lean, efficient operations
- Values alignment
It’s not enough to have bits and pieces of this experience. You must have it all. Plus, I would expect you to have managed an ecommerce P&L of at least $50 million and ecom teams of at least 25 people. The role at GENCO Marketplace will involve significantly higher numbers than this, but if you have run an ECOMMERCE business of this size and you have the capacity to lead an incredibly dynamic organization whose best days are ahead of it, then I want to hear from you.
UPDATE: THIS SEARCH IS CLOSED.
