Journalists all over the world rely on Marketplace Pulse insights and data for their stories. Marketplace Pulse works with leading magazines, newspapers, and online publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and CNBC.
Journalists all over the globe rely on our insights and data for their stories. Here are some of the most recent articles Marketplace Pulse was featured in.
“Amazon is very awkwardly trying to say that, despite all the bad things written about Amazon, there are also sellers that are doing great,” said Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of Marketplace Pulse, which tracks online marketplaces. “But I don’t know why or how, or what is causing it, because they can’t seem to find a way to tell it straight.”
“Social/interactive commerce is growing in the United States and no one has won it yet. So rather than going against Amazon, PayPal is making a bet on a different kind of shopping model,” said Marketplace Pulse e-commerce analyst Joe Kaziukėnas.
Juozas Kaziukenas, founder and chief executive officer of Marketplace Pulse, which studies e-commerce platforms, said there are at least hundreds, perhaps thousands, of brands whose products are locked down to some degree.
Shopify's B2B announcement also acknowledges that modern retail is moving beyond a place where selling products through one channel is viable. Today's successful digital brands often sell products directly to consumers, through marketplaces like Amazon, and wholesale to other retailers, all at the same time.
"Shopify is likely reading this as to mean that the pure website-only DTC brands are dead and the next generation will push their products everywhere, even into retailer stores — a channel DTC was originally aiming to disrupt," Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder and CEO at e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse, told Insider.
The findings give a comprehensive look at Amazon aggregators, which have gained major traction in recent years. Given most aggregators just finished raising more capital, a surge in transactions is expected in the coming year, according to Juozas Kaziukėnas, CEO of Marketplace Pulse, who helped Fortunet complete the survey.
"Most aggregators didn't exist before 2020, and further, they only raised capital over the past 12 months. That capital is only getting deployed now. There will be more acquisitions next year compared to 2021," Kaziukėnas said.
That shift is best captured by the explosive popularity of Netflix’s TV show Squid Game. Over the past week, searches for Squid Game merch have topped the Amazon Marketplace. According to Marketplace Pulse, the most-searched term on the Amazon Marketplace is “squid game costume,” and four of the top five bestselling items in the Men’s Costumes and Women’s Costumes categories have a Squid Game tie-in.
At least 77 Amazon aggregators have raised roughly $10 billion in total since April 2020, according to Marketplace Pulse.
Research firm Marketplace Pulse estimates Amazon Marketplace, an e-commerce platform that allows third-party sellers to sell goods on Amazon, accounted for $300 billion in sales in 2020, or 62 percent of total Amazon online sales.
Juozas Kaziukėnas, the founder of the e-commerce-intelligence firm Marketplace Pulse, said ByteDance's experience with TikTok would help differentiate its service from competitors like Amazon, AliExpress, and Wish.
"I doubt they will materially improve pricing or offer unique selection, but I think there is a lot of opportunity in how shoppers interact with that wide selection," he added. "Wish rebuilt with the experience from TikTok sounds interesting."
“You have no inventory risk,” says Joe Kaziukenas, founder of Marketplace Pulse. “If it sells, great. If it doesn’t—that’s okay.”
“Chinese sellers are the hidden secret of Amazon,” says Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder and CEO of Marketplace Plus, an e-commerce intelligence firm. “Chinese sellers make up a lot of Amazon’s sales, but Amazon rarely mentions them.”
Until recently, Amazon put two or three sponsored products at the top of search results. Now, there may be as many as six sponsored products that appear ahead of any organic results, with more promotions elsewhere on the page, said Juozas Kaziukenas, who runs e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse.
Kaziukenas said Amazon and founder Jeff Bezos have completely transformed from being anti-advertising. It’s become such a lucrative business that ads “have replaced most of the functionality on the site,” he said.
“It’s not uncommon now for brands to be spending 50% or more of their product price on various fees to be selling on Amazon,” Kaziukenas said.
Pharmapacks began as a brick-and-mortar pharmacy business in 2010, and has since grown to become the No. 1 Amazon seller in the U.S., based on the number of consumer reviews, according to research firm Marketplace Pulse.
Its signature PowerCore has been Amazon’s biggest-selling power bank the last three years, as tracked by New York-based data consultant Marketplace Pulse, and its products are stocked by Apple Inc. and Target Corp.
That was when a billion dollars seemed like a lot of money. But just nine months later, dozens of lookalike Amazon “roll-up” businesses have now raised more than $8bn to date between them, according to Marketplace Pulse, which tracks the sector.
"For a retailer without physical stores and a company that is virtually unknown to anyone but their target audience, Shein has utilised social media to reach consumers directly and become arguably the biggest digital clothing retailer," said Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder of research firm Marketplace Pulse.
“For anyone who is a small or medium-sized business, it’s physically impossible, or unprofitable, to be doing all-week nationwide delivery,’ says Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder of e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse. “Amazon has effectively killed Seller-Fulfilled Prime.”
China-based retailers account for about half of Amazon’s marketplace top sellers, up from 13% in 2016, according to Marketplace Pulse.
Juozas Kaziukėnas, the founder of the e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse, mentioned something to me a few months ago that stuck in my brain: If Amazon started today, it might not work, because it doesn’t necessarily have the best products at the cheapest prices nor is it a particularly pleasant place to shop.
Amazon “works for most consumers most of the time for most of the things,” Kaziukėnas told me. Maybe that’s not an inspiring corporate motto worthy of etching on a Jeff Bezos spaceship, but it does explain Amazon’s appeal.
“It is a historic moment,” said Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of the Marketplace Pulse, a research company. “Walmart has been around for so long, and now Amazon comes around with a different model and replaces them as a No. 1.”