Articles

3.3 million new third-party sellers have joined Amazon marketplaces worldwide since January 1st, 2017; over a million of which joined the Amazon.com marketplace in the US. Three million equals to 3,317 new sellers every day for the last one thousand days, or 138 every hour, or even two new sellers every minute.

Amazon launched in Singapore on Monday, October 7th. Singapore is Amazon’s 16th global marketplace after launching in the United Arab Emirates in April and Turkey in September last year. The company has first launched in Singapore more than two years ago with its fast delivery service through the Prime Now app.

47% of the top Amazon.com sellers are based in the US, and 38% are based in China. Brooklyn, New York hosts the zip code with the most Amazon US-based sellers, and Shenzhen is home to a third of Chinese sellers on Amazon.

Revenue from Amazon private label brands pales in comparison to the negative attention they have attracted. Amazon's brands have only grown to a few billion dollars in sales a year - less than 1% of company's total sales - while drawing increasing critique from the industry and the press, and more recently scrutiny from government regulators.

Amazon, together with singer Lady Gaga, launched a beauty line Haus Laboratories. The first major beauty brand sold exclusively on Amazon. Pushed by the Amazon marketing efforts on Prime Day, the brand became the number one best-seller in the Makeup category by the end of the event. By launching a brand with Lady Gaga, Amazon is showing what it can do for other brands too.

Amazon is testing a new "Our Brand" badge for its private label products. Sponsored products ads for Amazon-owned brands now have a label "Our Brand" instead of "Sponsored." Amazon has also increased the number of sponsored products ads at the start of search results from two to three across all searches.

Last year Amazon launched two high-profile AmazonBasics products - a $59.99 Alexa-enabled microwave and a foam mattress starting at $129.99. However, while the microwave became the best-seller from day one, the mattress failed to do the same. Amazon's private label efforts is not a best-seller-generating magic box. Understanding why some products don't become best-sellers tells a more revealing story than those who do.

Shenzhen hosts a third of third-party Chinese sellers on Amazon and is estimated to be the city with the largest number of Amazon sellers anywhere in the world. It is a major city in Guangdong province, one of the leading commercial and manufacturing regions in China, with the economic hub Shenzhen as well as the capital Guangzhou.

On August 31, 2009, Walmart announced the Walmart marketplace, expanding existing assortment by offering additional products from a select group of retailers. At the time it added nearly one million new items to the catalog from just a few sellers. Ten years later, the marketplace has grown to over 28,000 sellers, which all together bring 45 million items to the Walmart online catalog.

In February, Target launched a marketplace called Target+, or Target Plus. The invite-only marketplace started with 30 merchants, and six months later has grown to just 55 merchants and 115,000 products. However, the last few quarters have shown how well it has been able to integrate stores into the online experience, rendering the marketplace no longer critical.