Sign up to join 2,000+ brand leaders who get their web3 insights right here.
Welcome to the web3 industry newsletter for brands.
We wrote last week about Engage-to-Earn: the trend to incentivize consumer engagement with innovative web3 memberships, rewards and loyalty programs. But let’s not forget that one of ultimate goal for many brands is to also drive direct consumer revenue!
In that spirit, this newsletter is dedicated to the simultaneous rise in brands launching their own direct-to-consumer NFT marketplaces. Mojito is proud to be leading this trend as well with last week’s groundbreaking launch of the Sotheby’s secondary marketplace, powered by the Mojito API platform and enterprise SaaS.
🍃 Our .02 ETH: Direct-to-consumer marketplaces can be a de facto ‘third place’ for active communities, which is why brands and creators are increasingly including them in their overall consumer web3 experience.
IN THIS ISSUE:
Marketplaces: Art Blocks / Mattel / Amazon
Powered by Mojito: Inside Sotheby's Launch
Lightning Round: Quick-hit brand news in web3
Big picture: Direct-to-consumer NFT marketplaces
Want to chat web3? Mojito is an enterprise SaaS company that offers consulting services such as general strategy, go-to-market, UX/UI design, front-end development, and more. Build it all yourself with our API platform or hire us to do it soup to nuts. If you’d like to discuss your web3 project or ideas, please get in touch. As for our newsletter, let’s dive in below.
Direct-To-Consumer Marketplaces
Art Blocks: champions creator royalties in its own marketplace launch
What launched: Art Blocks expanded beyond generative art drops and now has its own direct-to-consumer marketplace in order to:
Like most creators and brands, Art Blocks prides itself on offering a premium experience to showcase its artwork.
Value prop: Generative artists launching on Art Blocks get to build out their collections in a media-rich environment while Art Blocks retains a captive audience of generative art buyers on their site for further discovery, in turn enriching Art Blocks’ engagement data.
Key features:
Art Blocks gives its generative art community a more brand-aligned home for secondary trading with enforceable royalties.
The experience goes beyond an eBay-like shopping experience through editorial content that spotlights the projects and individual pieces, similar to Sotheby’s.
Art Blocks can offer their community a secure place to buy and sell without fakes and knock-offs.
Art Blocks hinted at adding collector rewards based on secondary trading on their own marketplace in further support for artist discovery.
Direct-To-Consumer Marketplaces
Mattel: NFT drop site evolves into all-inclusive marketplace with launch of secondary trading
What launched: Mattel expanded it virtual collectibles platform 'Creations,' to allow collectors to list, offer and sell NFT with each other.
Value prop:
“...offer an unrivalled, best-in-class experience for the fans of Mattel’s iconic brands”
said Ron Friedman, VP of Mattel Future Lab. The launch coincides with a new Hot Wheels product launch and the Barbie upcoming movie.
Key features:
Seamless onboarding and behind-the-scenes wallet creation so new users don’t even have to think about it.
Encourages community interaction and participation as much as commerce, creating a sense of belonging and ownership.
Direct-To-Consumer Marketplaces
Amazon’s: own Digital Marketplace launches soon, here’s what to expect
Launching soon: In a major development, the delayed Amazon NFT marketplace launch has now been slated for 15 May with the option of having digital collectibles linked to physical goods delivered to customers’ doorsteps. Amazon shoppers would be able to buy a fashion-oriented NFT tied to a pair of jeans with a credit card.
Value prop:
“They can onboard millions of users without educating people about self-custody, without educating people how to [set up] a MetaMask wallet,”
Launching via Prime alerts and a seamless credit card purchase (without crypto), 80 NFT collections are expected to be available for US customers, before expanding worldwide, including Bored Apes, WoW and Pudgy penguins.
Buyers can access their NFTs via a marketplace account whilst the physical twins will be delivered to homes.
Only tradeable on Amazon’s marketplace (ie centralized), fees have not yet been disclosed.
Direct-To-Consumer Marketplaces
Sotheby’s champions editorial curation and artist royalties in its own marketplace launch
What launched: Sotheby’s expanded its web3 platform beyond auctions and buy now to include a white-label NFT marketplace as well. The experience blends secondary trading features with in-depth editorial content on curated artists. It’s unlike anything else on the market today.
“When Sotheby’s Metaverse first launched more than a year ago, our goal was to bring to market a first-of-its-kind platform that would be distinguished by the expertise and vision of our specialists to curate sales of NFTs,”
said Sebastian Fahey, Sotheby’s Managing Director and Executive Lead of Web3 (NFT Now).
“Now, we are continuing to advance and evolve our platform to offer new and more seamless ways for the community to discover and collect new forms of digital collectibles, from limited edition NFTs to unique works by the artists redefining perceptions of digital art,” Fahey added.
Value proposition: Sotheby’s is known for its drops, which will remain a focus, but the presence of an editorialized and curated secondary marketplace gives the brand more always-on ways for their community to engage and transact on their own platform.
Key features:
🖼️ Rich Content: Editorial pages for each artist and collection with secondary trading woven in seamlessly
🎨 Enforced Royalties: Artists can even update their royalty on Sotheby’s at any time
💵 List for Sale: Sell NFTs from curated collections at 'buy now' prices.
🤝 Make Offer: Back-and-forth negotiations with opt-in email notifications.
🏛️ Enterprise Compliant: Sanctions, regulatory, and tax checks and integrated workflows when necessary.
Lightning round: Brands in web3
👟Lakersthe photo of LeBron wearing the RTFKT x Nike sneakers went viral, accessible only via the OF1 sneaker drop
⚡️Disney x Crytotoys will release 15 limited-edition Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Darth Vader collectible digital toys
🎨Trevor Jones, web3 defining artist behind $3m Bitcoin Angel drops free mint of ‘The Oath’ to mark the coronation of Charles III
👜 Prada’s 1 year anniversary collection comes with big rewards
⛪️The Vatican Library is using NFTs for digital archiving (not fake news!)
🍃 Our .02 ETH:Brands have always seen value in direct-to-consumer mint pages because it’s the best way to own the storytelling and conversion funnel for that critical touchpoint in the user journey. But after that, most brands until recently would just hand off the ensuing traffic, engagement and sales to third-party marketplaces like OpenSea.
Now brands are increasingly launching or planning their own direct-to-consumer NFT marketplaces. This is for 3 key reasons:
🔀 Royalty Enforcement: When OpenSea paid royalties to brands and creators on every secondary transaction, it was ROI-positive to outsource marketplace functionality. Now most major third-party marketplaces have stopped enforcing royalties, instead generating their own user engagement and revenue off the back of your brand IP. By contrast, of course, you can enforce royalties on your own marketplace!
🛍️ Owning The User Experience: Marketplace trading is one of the most valuable interactions token holders can make with your brand. Direct-to-consumer brands want to own the full user journey because it’s the best way to convert new customers as well as engage and monetize repeat customers. Since the 2021 NFT drop era is long over, and now the trend is to deliver high-value benefits and experiences for token holders, the arc is clearly bending toward brands needing to own their full web3 user journey just like web2.
🏃Cost & Speed to Market: Marketplaces require a lot more functionality than just a simple mint page, so it was typically too resource-intensive for a brand to launch their own marketplace. Now options like Mojito exist for brands to launch their own direct-to-consumer marketplace in 3 weeks or less with our standard UX templates and APIs – all for a reasonable monthly SaaS fee.
This is why Mojito sees so much interest right now from brands to launch their own NFT marketplace within their web3 membership, rewards and loyalty program, and we only expect that trend to grow.
🔥 To meet this demand, Mojito now offers white-label NFT marketplaces that include:
Easy-to-use APIs and up-to-date documentation
Battle-tested UI/UX templates that are quick to deploy
Royalty-enforced smart contracts for marketplace listings and offers
We love talking web3 consumer engagement with brand and agency leaders.
Whether you are sourcing tech solutions with a clear scope, timeline and budget in mind, or you're just getting started, Mojito can help you every step of the way.
Share your contact details below and our team will reach out for an exploratory chat.
