Marketplaces Year in Review 2020
2020 was the best year for e-commerce marketplaces in over a decade. E-commerce growth had a step change, and marketplaces captured most of it. In aggregate, it was the most successful year for sellers and brands that transact through them, too. The Year in Review looks at the state of marketplaces and describes the most important trends.
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Only 50% of Amazon Is Retail
Amazon's retail sales are down to only 50% of the company's total revenue. It now generates nearly as much revenue from its services businesses like AWS cloud hosting, Prime memberships, the third-party marketplace, and advertising.
Amazon’s Revolving Door of Brands
The list of best-sellers on Amazon is different day-to-day. And it’s not new trends replacing old ones. Instead, it is brands that didn’t exist just recently pushing out other short-lived brands. Unrecognizable, unpronounceable, and unmemorable and only created for the sake of selling on Amazon.
Amazon Will Pay Brands To Drive Traffic to Amazon
Amazon reduced the transaction fee to 5% from the typical 15% for sales originating from brands bringing the shopper to Amazon. Amazon is trying to incentivize brands to invest in marketing on platforms like Facebook and Google but link to Amazon instead of their e-commerce website.
Walmart Surpasses 100,000 Marketplace Sellers
Walmart marketplace has doubled in size in twelve months to reach 100,000 third-party sellers. It has doubled for the second year in a row.
Amazon’s Crackdown on Chinese Sellers
Amazon has suspended hundreds of top Chinese sellers over the past two months. The company seems to be just now enforcing its rules for blatant policy violations like manipulating customer reviews. Tactics that some of those sellers have used for years.
Prime Day’s Growth Is Stalling
Prime Day is an event that Amazon can place anywhere on the calendar and generate a sales boost. However, seven years after the first Prime Day, it is clear that Amazon is out of ideas on how to turn it into a recognized shopping holiday like Alibaba's Singles Day.
Amazon Ads Are Getting More Expensive
Advertising on Amazon now costs, on average, $1.20 per click. Up 30% from $0.93 at the start of the year and up over 50% year-over-year. Demand for advertising on Amazon is rising faster than the ad inventory on and off Amazon, thus driving up advertising prices.
Amazon Marketplace Is Not Saturated
An increasing percentage of sales on the Amazon marketplace comes from sellers that have been on it for years. More than half, from those who joined in 2017 or earlier. At the same time, new sellers are finding opportunities and bring incremental marketplace growth.
Data
Proprietary software parses raw data to extract critical pieces of structured data on brands, products, categories, and sellers.
Research
We analyze the data and share insights as research reports and articles.
Analysis
We believe that data is better than opinions for understanding what's next in e-commerce.
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