Data: Nearly Half of Online Marketplace Sellers See Social Media as Hub for Future Growth

Smaller sellers have leveraged online marketplace platforms to take advantage of the ongoing shift to digital and reach more buyers in new markets. Yet 40% of these agile, marketplace-native firms believe such platforms will not ultimately determine their future success. We surveyed 317 online sellers to explore how they intend to take their signature wares multichannel to cement their top-seller status.

Online Sellers: The Future Is Multichannel examines the factors that drive these sellers and the directions they are likely to take in the future. Whether they operate seamlessly within the online marketplace infrastructure or online sales are just one piece of their business, online sellers have become a major part of the economy.

This report delves into online merchants’ business models, profiles and future plans, in addition to their pain points, concerns and interactions with consumers.

More key findings from the report include:

• Sixty-one percent of online sellers say they have increased their marketplace usage in the last year.

The pandemic certainly did not create online shopping, but it clearly fostered its growth, as 61% of surveyed firms say they increased their use of marketplaces in the last year. We found that 68% of larger, multiproduct merchants increased their marketplace use in the previous year, as did 68% of firms that earn more than $100 million annually.

• Marketplace-native sellers tend to be smaller in size, younger in age and more product-focused. 

They run very lean and are focused on fewer products. Marketplace-reliant firms, on the other hand, tend to be online sellers that are larger, more established and more stable.

• Marketplaces are often part of an online seller’s game plan and they rarely use just one, but sellers are uncomfortable fully committing to marketplaces. Even among firms that rely heavily on marketplaces, just 12% sell exclusively through them.

Just 7% of surveyed firms operate through a single marketplace, and most firms try to diversify themselves far more than just using a second. Of the firms we surveyed, 42% operate through four or more marketplaces.

To learn more about the online sellers’ landscape and its future, download the report.