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Research firm Marketplace Pulse estimates Walmart added about 8,000 sellers from China from March 2021 to mid-January 2022, accounting for almost all of its new international sellers and 14% of total new merchants. “WFS makes the seller’s business location practically invisible to shoppers since Walmart ships orders from domestic warehouses on the seller’s behalf,” wrote Juozas Kaziukenas, chief executive officer of the researcher, in a December report. “FBA played a crucial role in unlocking Amazon for international sellers, and the same [is] playing out on Walmart.”

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“Getting N95 masks for kids seems to be surging in waves -- first in August 2021, and now in January,” said Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of Marketplace Pulse, which monitors consumer demand on Amazon and other online stores.

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Marketplace Pulse said Amazon sellers were getting bought out at valuations of between four and eight times underlying earnings, against two to three times a couple of years ago.

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If debt funding is included, the figure is as high as $13 billion across a pool of 89 global active Amazon aggregators, according to industry tracker Marketplace Pulse.

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The timing makes sense, too, as the pandemic has given online sales a shot in the arm. Walmart, which started its marketplace in 2009, saw gross merchandise volume—total sales through its platform—double in 2020, according to estimates from Marketplace Pulse. Pre-pandemic, growth was a more muted 35%.

The newer crop of marketplaces seem to be trying to avoid both risks by being more selective with sellers. A lousy integration with in-store experiences can also hurt, notes Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder of Marketplace Pulse. Shoppers could get frustrated if they can’t pick up and return marketplace items at the store, for example.

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“In some ways Amazon doesn’t really want to be a retailer,” said Juozas Kaziukenas of Marketplace Pulse, an e-commerce consultant. “It doesn’t want to do curation or offer human interaction,” two of the essential qualities of retail for centuries.

“Amazon knows what I buy, how often I buy, what I search for,” Mr. Kaziukenas said. “But decades after it launched, it can’t answer a simple question — what would Juozas like to buy? Instead it shows me thousands of deals, with some basic filters like category and price, and hopes I will find what I like. Amazon is so much work.”

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"Die meisten dieser Verkäufer halten ihre Produkte wahrscheinlich niemals in der Hand", sagt der Amazon-Experte Juozas Kaziukėnas von "Marketplace Pulse", einer Research-Firma in den USA. Er beschreibt den FBA-Handel als "eine Art Computerspiel" - allerdings mit physischen Produkten.

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Amazon-Experte Juozas Kaziukenas, Gründer von Marketplace Pulse, einer Analysefirma in den USA, geht sogar so weit, dass er die Jagd nach der nächsten großen Marke als "eine Art Computerspiel" beschreibt. Verheerend werde das dann, wenn potenziell "unsichere", "gefährliche" oder "gefälschte" Produkte verkauft würden. "Da kann alles Mögliche schiefgehen", sagt Kaziukenas.

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The shift in spending from stores to websites -- accelerated during the pandemic last year -- has made the holiday shopping season boring, said Juozas Kaziukenas, founder and CEO of Marketplace Pulse, which monitors online sales.

“Physical Black Friday had this aura of craziness because people fought in stores and camped outside,” he said. “Now that so much has shifted online, it’s lost its excitement.”

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There’s also plenty of competition. Product categories like ear buds with several third-party sellers fighting one another for sales are less prone to inflationary pressure, said Juozas Kaziukenas, CEO of the e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse.

“The marketplace protects against rising prices because it dynamically shifts sales to the most competitive offers,” Kaziukenas said. “On Amazon, it matters less if products X and Z are getting more expensive. Because on Amazon there are also Y, T, U, etcetera products that didn’t get more expensive. Consumers will pick those.”

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The scale of the fundraising in Europe is only a fraction of the $12 billion that investors have poured into Amazon roll-up strategies since the start of the pandemic, according to data from Marketplace Pulse.

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Amazon’s new pricing policy “seems more aggressive than what I had thought Amazon would do,” said Juozas Kaziukėnas, the founder and CEO of e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse, which provides data and analytics to Amazon sellers.

“It’s no longer up to the sellers to decide how they want to be selling these items,” Kaziukėnas said.

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Research firm Marketplace Pulse found that about 80 companies are in the Amazon aggregator business, with Thrasio and Perch sitting in the top three based on the amount of money raised from investors.

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“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.”

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“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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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At least 77 Amazon aggregators have raised roughly $10 billion in total since April 2020, according to Marketplace Pulse.

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