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Understanding eCommerce Marketplaces
An online marketplace is a website that you can sell your products on along with other competing sellers.

Understanding eCommerce Marketplaces

The Major Global eCommerce Marketplace Players

Share of leading ecommerce marketplaces worldwide in 2021, based on GMV.
Share of leading ecommerce marketplaces worldwide in 2021, based on GMV.

There are many ecommerce marketplaces globally, and while not an exhaustive list, you can explore these U.S.  eCommerce Marketplace business service providers available as overseas sales channel options as part of your digital strategy. The major global ecommerce marketplaces you may be familiar with include: Amazon (US-based retail); Jing-Dong/JD (China-based retail); Alibaba (China-based retail); Rakuten (Japan-based retail), and Pin Duoduo (China-based agricultural retail).

Most popular online marketplaces worldwide in 2021, based on gross merchandise value (GMV)
Amazon has been the leader of sales value thanks in part to US consumers.

The end of the pandemic-driven surge of market capitalization by mid 2022 saw the major ecommerce marketplace players reassess their strategy and spend. As a result of the Impact of COVID Pandemic on eCommerce, many large ecommerce players are now moving towards the higher profit margins of the advertising services business themselves.

Alibaba reassessed its strategy as a result of the COVID pandemic, and will be the largest earner for global advertising services revenues.
Alibaba reassessed its strategy as a result of the COVID pandemic, and will be the largest earner for global advertising services revenues.

How International Consumers Use eCommerce Marketplaces 

Leading markets of most recent cross-border online purchase worldwide in 2022
Leading markets of most recent cross-border online purchase worldwide in 2022

China leads the way in using ecommerce as a sales channel, largely driven by consumer shopping followed by Germany, the United Kingdom, US, and France.

Leading online sources where consumers search for products worldwide in 2022
Leading online sources where consumers search for products worldwide in 2022

Consumers the world over prefer going to ecommerce marketplaces for product research for a variety of reasons: 

  1. Consumers like the ability to search many products by type;
  2. Given the dominance of the larger ecommerce marketplaces and their reputation for service, consumer confidence in these sites is high; 
  3. Consumers prefer a consistent customer service experience which ecommerce marketplaces can provide;

A close second to marketplaces, search engines like Google also factor high with consumers as a product research tool, so make sure your website has been optimized for search engines.  

Most popular online marketplaces worldwide in 2021, based on gross merchandise value (GMV)
Most popular online marketplaces worldwide in 2021, based on gross merchandise value (GMV)
Most popular online marketplaces worldwide in May 2022, based on share of visits
Most popular online marketplaces worldwide in May 2022, based on share of visits

In the graphs above, we see China’s Taobao and Tmall leading in gross merchandise value, yet we also see Amazon leading in popularity by percentage of visits. This could mean that with more visitors and less gross merchandise value (GMV) for Amazon, consumers could be using the Amazon marketplace for product research before buying elsewhere for various reasons to include pricing and individual country shipping restrictions. 

Main foreign countries where global shoppers last bought from online, worldwide 2022
Main foreign countries where global shoppers last bought from online, worldwide 2022

This assumption can be further supported by the graph above where we can see by country where ecommerce purchases are made. China is the main country that other countries buy online from, to include the US.  The countries that that mostly make purchases online from US businesses and marketplaces are South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, and India in order by share.

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