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Intuit QuickBooks Finds Ecommerce Footing, Led By Former Amazon, Microsoft Exec

Intuit QuickBooks’ journey to commerce -- in and out of markets -- has been like a Nascar driver on and off the road on a speedway, but the company’s latest marketplace product, Trada, aims directly at a segment that has been notoriously slow to go digital.

There seems no more qualified executive to run the business than Shilpa Reddy, vice president and general manager of Quickbooks Commerce at Intuit.

Reddy joined Intuit in March 2021 from Microsoft, where she worked for more than two years as general manager and engineering lead at Xbox. She was brought on board to build out live streaming and the Xbox eCommerce platform. Previously, she worked at Amazon as GM and head of engineering for multiple divisions for nearly 10 years.

“When I worked at Amazon it was supported by third-party transportation channels, FedEx and UPS,” she said. “I helped to transform Amazon into its own logistics business.”

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She also supported ecommerce. So it makes sense why Intuit QuickBooks appointed her to move the company into ecommerce services.

Last month, Intuit launched Trada, a marketplace built on QuickBooks Commerce. Sellers can showcase their brand and products with a storefront. Retailers can select certain criteria such as eco-friendly and handmade when placing orders. 

Trada came from Intuit QuickBooks' acquisition of TradeGecko in 2020. It plays an important role to help SMBs adopt digital payment and automation practices.

Trada by QuickBooks uses a marketplace model that allows buyers and sellers to meet online to conduct business.

It is specifically designed to connect independent buyers and sellers in the U.S. and Australia.

Building on the successful QuickBooks Commerce integration, Trada helps users navigate the complexities of ecommerce while finding new customers to grow their businesses. 

Intuit QuickBooks powers the payment and credit. It integrates into the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, giving users visibility into bank balances and the health of businesses.

Reddy said users can access Trada as a stand-alone platform. QuickBooks customers need only sign in for both.

The marketplace had very targeted geographies. During the past two years, the company’s made progress adding some of the commerce technology into QuickBooks and built up the Trada marketplace, which recently launched in the United States.

Reddy wants to build an end-to-end platform where small and medium size businesses can gain insights and recommendations on the perfect B2B customers and channels, as well as identify the SMB’s financial needs, and lean on marketing and CRM capabilities to strengthen relationships with customers.

When asked to site some of her responsibilities, Reddy said support capabilities is to help customers sell on multiple platforms like some of the biggest, Amazon, eBay, and Shopify to bring transactions to QuickBooks, she said.

Reddy said it’s very early days for the company’s entrance into ecommerce, but there are lots of benefits for buyers and sellers.

For example, sellers have zero commission fees or transaction fees through 2022, automated order processing from marketing to payment, and streamlined storefront set up because once sellers share their catalog because QuickBooks handles the rest.

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