B2C MARKETPLACE
How the MAIF Social Club turned its private sales into a marketplace for purpose-driven brands?
The MAIF Social Club evolved its artisanal private sale model into a full B2C marketplace featuring over 100 eco-responsible, made-in-France and ethically sourced brands, with a dedicated back-office for each seller and at least 2 private sales organized every week.
Products listed on the marketplace
Committed, eco-responsible and made-in-France brands
Private sales organized every week
Marketplace launch year
ABOUT
A purpose-driven community space extending its values into the digital world.
The MAIF Social Club embodies MAIF’s commitment to culture and the environment. This unique concept, located at 37 rue de Turenne in Paris, brings together exhibitions, conferences, a free coworking space, a café and a shop showcasing eco-responsible products.
As the leading insurer in the education, culture and nonprofit sectors, MAIF believes in solidarity-based exchange and mutual support. The MAIF Social Club is the daily expression of this mission: a place that invites people to consume differently, discover purpose-driven brands and contribute to a more collaborative society. In 2021, the MAIF Social Club made its move into digital by launching its marketplace a natural extension of its physical store, designed to give even more visibility to its curated brands and reach a wider audience beyond Paris.
📍 Physical location
Paris, 3rd arrondissement
♻️ Positioning
Eco-responsible & made in France
« With Origami Marketplace, we found solutions to adapt the marketplace model to private sales. It wasn’t a standard use case, but the team listened to our constraints and proposed developments that truly match the way we work. »
Morgan Toussaint – Head of purchasing
THE PROBLEM
Private sales managed manually, with no visibility for sellers.
The original model was built on a traditional buy/resell format, managed by hand with Excel exports. A manual system that capped growth, undermined the seller experience and produced no structured performance data.
Order management via Excel exports, with no dedicated seller back-office
No real-time visibility on inventory, revenue or orders for partner brands
No connector with sellers' CMS platforms (Shopify, PrestaShop) for product import
No dedicated dashboard to manage private sales before and after launch
Unstructured customer relations: no organized messaging between buyers, sellers and the operator
A model that couldn't scale: rising private sale volumes were overwhelming the manual processes
THE OBJECTIVES
3 priorities to professionalize the model without losing the spirit of the concept.
Give sellers autonomy and visibility through their own back-office
Enable partner brands (often small structures with no dedicated e-commerce resources) to track their orders, update their inventory and monitor their revenue independently, from a streamlined interface adapted to their actual needs.
Professionalize the private sale mechanics with a dedicated tool
Develop a specific dashboard allowing the team to quickly verify all parameters of a private sale before launch, then track performance in real time — replacing manual processes with structured, scalable management.
Take full ownership of the customer relationship and guarantee a consistent experience
Put in place a structured after-sales process where every customer request is handled first by the MAIF Social Club team, ensuring speed, clarity and quality of response regardless of the seller or product involved.
IMPLEMENTATION
A 3-phase deployment for a one-of-a-kind private sale model.
Back-office adaptation for private sales
Custom development to adapt the Origami Marketplace solution to the specifics of private sales. Creation of a dedicated dashboard for managing and monitoring sales before and after launch.
Catalog integration and seller onboarding
Setup of a streamlined seller interface showing only the most relevant KPIs. Product import via CSV initially, followed by development of the Shopify connector for automatic catalog synchronization.
Tripartite after-sales messaging deployment
Implementation of a three-tier messaging system where the MAIF Social Club team handles all customer requests first, ensuring quality and responsiveness in every situation.
KEY FEATURES
A marketplace designed for purpose-driven brands and their discerning customers.
Dedicated private sales dashboard
A purpose-built management tool lets the team verify all parameters of a private sale at a glance before launch (dates, catalog, inventory) then track performance in real time. A feature developed specifically for this use case.
Simplified, custom seller back-office
Each partner brand has its own management space, calibrated to the information that actually matters: order tracking, inventory updates, revenue overview - without overwhelming small structures with complex KPIs irrelevant to their scale.
Shopify connector for automated product import
The native Shopify integration allows sellers to automatically import and sync their products from their existing store. A decisive argument for convincing new brands to join the platform.
Tripartite messaging with centralized management
The MAIF Social Club team handles every customer request first, only involving the seller when additional details are needed — guaranteeing quality and responsiveness at all times regardless of the product ordered.
Partner brand selection and certification
Every seller has been carefully vetted: values aligned with MAIF's, eco-responsible commitment, ethical manufacturing or made-in-France production. The quality of curation is the primary trust signal for buyers.
CSV import for product catalog management
Ahead of the Shopify connector, the MAIF Social Club used Origami Marketplace's CSV upload feature to import products from its sellers — a pragmatic transition solution that allowed the platform to launch without waiting for full integrations.
RESULTS
A purpose-driven marketplace, live and continuing to grow.
From Excel to a professional platform. The move from manual exports to a structured back-office transformed the experience for partner brands — including the smallest ones, who now have a management tool adapted to their size with no need for dedicated e-commerce resources.
Full ownership of the customer relationship. By centralizing after-sales on the MAIF Social Club side before any seller contact, the platform guarantees a consistent, high-quality experience for every buyer — a non-negotiable for a brand that embodies strong human values.
The Shopify connector as an onboarding accelerator. The native Shopify integration simplified the onboarding of sellers, most of whom already had their store on the platform — reducing friction at entry and accelerating catalog growth.
A model that keeps expanding. Building on the success of its private sales, the MAIF Social Club aims to increase their weekly frequency and grow its audience — continuing its co-development relationship with Origami Marketplace.
Your concept deserves a marketplace that reflects your values.
Like the MAIF Social Club, build a custom B2C platform with a human-scale French partner that listens and adapts to your specific needs.
