XCHANGE Market Platform Helps Retailers Through Pandemic

XCHANGE was developed “to serve creative people who make music with computers” by acting as its customer’s “partner and ally to supplement direct sales with an income stream from hundreds of musical instrument retailers from all around the world.” At its heart, XCHANGE is a distribution service, except that all of its delivery is digital and found online.

The company serves as a business-to-business purchasing platform for music retailers to order products from manufacturers and then sell these products to its customers digitally. This strategy allows retailers and manufacturers to expand and scale their businesses globally by networking and connecting to deliver digital software licenses. XCHANGE offers numerous software titles in a one-stop-shop experience for retailers to provide the best products to their customers. While simultaneously serving the needs of retailers, XCHANGE offers manufacturers a portal to manage their retail connections, set prices, import digital codes for immediate sale, and create and distribute promotions, all within a centralized interface.

According to Peter Natale, an administrator at XCHANGE, during the pandemic, the company provided small businesses with access to more products than ever before. “Many manufacturers and distributors require stores to prepay for products and want order minimums, often limiting what retailers can order. We are on-demand. Retailers only need to purchase titles when they get a sale, allowing smaller operations a more conservative financial approach to compete with larger competitors.”

With the pandemic forcing doors to close on traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, many stores launched newly created websites to help maintain sales with software became one of the easiest things musicians could easily purchase. The result of the instant delivery of music software highlighted the potential profitability it had for retailers, even making sales during “non-business” hours because of the on-demand model XCHANGE offers.

Natale cited an example in one of their clients, Black Octopus. During the pandemic, the retailer was able to add a revenue stream by offering music software sales next to their sample packs. This resulted in an increase in their sales and gave their customers more value while completing their online shopping experience.

Another example is from the Brazilian store, 2600Hz. Part of its operation was to teach music software classes, but the suspension of in-person learning because of the pandemic severely impacted its ability to generate revenue. XCHANGE offered their services, pumping new life into the store, and upon the lift of restrictions and the return to in-person courses, 2600Hz’s stated they were able to double their gross income.

When asked how a company like XCHANGE benefits musicians directly, Natale said, “We help musicians by allowing their favorite retailers to sell software titles instantaneously, eliminate wait times for products to ship or the potential for desired items to be out of stock. Musicians can get their hands on more of the software they want while supporting their local music store.”

For more information about XCHANGE, please visit https://xchangemarket.com/index.php. Music stores looking to expand their online business and developers hoping for easy access to a reseller network are encouraged to sign up for a free XCHANGE account at https://xchangemarket.com/join/reseller.php and https://xchangemarket.com/join/vendor.php.