Top Ecommerce Firms that have successfully harnessed the marketplace feature

For multivendor e-commerce marketplace has been one of the most significant developments in the sector. The fact that it basically the eliminates the limitation of having only a singular seller on your website and instead opens it up to multiple sellers thereby boosting your product catalog and also the number of choices the consumer now has at his tips.

All of the most prominent e-commerce have already realized the benefits of a marketplace some of them are

Amazon, United States.

It started as an online bookstore but has quickly diversified as an online retailer of almost every product. Most of their sales come from the sellers who sell their products on Amazon. It constitutes (about 40% as of 2008) of their total sales.

A commission is paid to the associate merchants for featuring links amazon links on their website if that feature turns into a sale. This affiliate program of Amazon has over 1 million members. This is the second most popular method of advertising after google ads.  As early as in 2007 alone Amazon had 1.3 million registered sellers who made sales on its websites.

Alibaba, China

Alibaba.com is one most of the most valuable companies in the world currently and only the second Asian firm to have a market capitalization of $500 billion (currently at $527 billion) as of Jan 2018. It has tapped into the huge unexplored Chinese market by offering services comparable or even better than those of Amazon. Its marketplace is one of the most popular with both Taobao and Tmall attracting more than 500 million visitors every month.

In 2016, a valuation of $478.6 billion was reached by Taobao and Tmall, which are owned by Alibaba and are also two of the largest e-commerce marketplaces.  They have aims of doubling that figure by 2020

Ebay, United States

Ebay though not the e-commerce behemoth it was in 2000s currently, was one of the first to introduce the multivendor marketplace facility. And it went a step further with an introduction of the seller ratings by consumers with 4 categories. It was completely anonymous as neither the seller nor any other third party apart from the buyer could know the customer behind the rating. The website used this feedback to optimize search results for products with sellers having a rating of less than 4.3 being pushed down.

Otto GmBH, Germany

With annual revenue of over $12 billion, the Otto group is among the first e-commerce behemoths established in the 90s. Main source of their revenue is the sales from their marketplace which is again a multivendor e-commerce store. It contributes to about 80% of the revenue. The huge variety of products offered makes them a formidable force in the European market. Their success and relevance is mostly because of the choice to not opt for a single vendor/ first party marketplace exclusively.

JD, China

A member of the global fortune 500, if revenue is taken into account JD is the largest ecommerce firm in China.  Their gross market value has surged to RMB658.2 billion in 2018.  Another promoter of marketplace in ecommerce market it own seller catalogue boasts of over 100,000 registered merchants.  This has allowed them to provide a smooth and rich shopping experience to their consumers providing them with authentic products. Their revenue for the year 2017 was $11.6 billion.

Walmart, United States

Though Walmart is known to be the world’s biggest retailer with its brick and mortar stores all over the world, it is no slouch in ecommerce as well. In 2000, Walmart.com was founded, to compete with Amazon which has aggressively dug into Walmart’s territory.  And it has chosen to follow the same principle it follows in its stores, it will offer products from sellers across instead of promoting its own brand and thus offering the consumer the choice to go with a brand of his liking which is another proof a multivendor marketplace. Currently, revenue for Walmart stands at $13.6billion.

Rakuten, Japan

A Japanese e-commerce startup, it was the first ecommerce store to feature a marketplace for sports goods in Japan. It began with just 6 employees and 13 merchants but by 2002, 6000 merchants had registered themselves with them. Now this marketplace model is followed by all Rakuten subsidiaries in the world. It aims to provide the best shopping experience possible to the consumers. For the year their revenues stand at $7billion.

Zalando, Germany

Has focused on diversifying its product catalog by adding as many established fashion brands in its seller’s list as it can. It has the biggest footprint in Europe and perhaps the largest branded fashion products catalog.  Their top brands include Diesel, Joop, Lacoste, Liebeskind, The North Face, Olymp, UGG etc. Their revenue was $4.1billion in 2017, and thus they set another example of strategic exploitation of the marketplace feature of their e-commerce store.

Groupon, United States

Groupon has stepped up the marketplace game further by offering not just products but a host of services and facilities like travel bookings as well to their vast consumer base all around the world. But their business model is quite different as compared to other companies. They offer deals on services which are attractively priced but will be activated only when a certain no. of people sign up for the offer. This secures the retailers who avoid losses in case, not enough people sign up for the deal.

Groupon made $3.1 billion in revenue last year

Conclusion

Thus are the some of the top e-commerce brands that realized that marketplace is a crucial channel for revenue. They have successfully harnessed this development and secured a robust income growth for their respective businesses and thereby setting the stage for the emergence of multiple vendor marketplaces offering platforms like Magento, one of the most popular e-commerce development platforms.

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