PROJECT: Bid4BabyGear.com (Reach Messaging)

Role:

Hired by Reach Messaging as GM of Product to be responsible for creating, developing and managing the product portfolio. Charged with meeting customer needs and driving aggressive business growth and profitability.

Challenge:

Launch an auction/e-commerce site that exceeded from a feature, cost and time to market perspective anything existing in the marketplace.

Resolution:

This property was launched to target the largest demographic in the rapidly growing penny auction market – stay-at-home mothers - and also to be the first penny auction site to be supported by mobile apps. The reasoning behind going after this demo was that children’s and infant’s clothing stores reported revenue of nearly $9.5 billion annually – not including toys and other products that were going to be auctioned off on the site.In addition to being able to bid on baby gear itself, Bid4BabyGear.com also auctioned gift cards to leading national chains such as Babies R Us, Baby Gap, Justice and The Children's Place at tremendous discounts. Reach Messaging also  secured deals with four or five retail outlets that market baby toys, clothing and products to promote their products exclusively on their penny auction site.

Skills Used:

Product Management | Project Management | Product Strategy | Matrix Management | Partner Management | Business Development | Strategic Planning | Business Strategy | Competitive Analysis | Advertising | User Experience | Usability Testing | Customer Engagement | Driving Revenue | Monetization | E-commerce | Contract Negotiation | Audience Engagement | Mobile Devices | Mobile Applications | Agile | Facebook Ads | Google Analytics

Specifics:

• Used strategic thinking to identify and present innovative and alternative product solutions, ensuring product sustainability and capitalizing on growth opportunities.
  
• Conducted research, including customer feedback, and analyzed data on product positioning, pricing and revenue, competitive products and services, and market trends to identify product enhancement and development opportunities. 
• Articulated and recommended product enhancements and product positioning strategies to support business objectives.
• Researched market and identified two needs: site targeted to specific demos and no mobile apps in the market
• Identified target and conceived and defined all requirements for website and supporting iOS and Android apps
• Owned/managed entire process of taking products to market
• Defined and managed social media marketing strategy
• Managed all day to day operations once products were launched
• Negotiated terms for acquisition