摘要: When looking at the largest Amazon's Marketplace Is Growing, but Most of Its Sellers Are Active on eBay, Too By Blake Droesch When looking at the largest US ecommerce sites, eBay is a d ...
When looking at the largest US
ecommerce sites, eBay is a distant second to Amazon. But as third-party
sellers become more prominent on Amazon’s marketplace, many want to
expand to other platforms, a possible silver lining for eBay.
In April 2019, intelligence
platform Feedvisor asked US Amazon marketplace merchants what their
business goals were for this year. While the top answer was expanding an
existing product line (65%), more than one-third (35%) said they wanted
to diversify to other platforms—a significantly larger percentage than
those that wanted to go direct-to-consumer (D2C) and launch their own
ecommerce website (12%).
And for Amazon merchants, eBay
is already the most popular secondary option (56%), per Feedvisor,
outshining personal sites, Walmart, brick-and-mortar stores and smaller
online marketplaces.
“For sellers who want the broadest reach possible, eBay and
Amazon are the two most important marketplaces in US ecommerce," said
Cindy Liu, senior forcasting analyst at eMarketer. "But unlike Amazon, eBay
operates strictly as a marketplace—they don’t sell their own inventory of
products—which allows brands to manage their own relationships with their
customers.”
This year, we expect eBay’s total ecommerce sales in the US
will reach $35.89 billion, or 6.1% of all US ecommerce sales. That’s
relatively small compared with Amazon's 37.7% share. But eBay remains larger
than up-and-coming ecommerce players like Walmart and Wayfair.
Reporting from Bloomberg has also sparked rumors that Amazon
plans to significantly cut down on wholesale purchases in the immediate
future, leaving many of its smaller suppliers to pivot to other marketplaces.
eBay was one of the original pioneers of the online
marketplace model. Operating as a pure marketplace, where sellers don’t have
to compete against private-label brands, could make eBay a desirable place
for merchants to expand.
“We don't take an inventory position. We don't manufacture any
of our own products; this is truly a marketplace,” said Scott Kelliher, head
of brand advertising and partnerships at eBay.
However, eBay isn’t the only marketplace for Amazon merchants
to expand to. Retail behemoth Walmart has a growing online presence, and
Google is positioning itself to expand as a marketplace.
While it makes sense that sellers will want to appear on as
many marketplaces as possible, the marketplaces themselves still have to
compete to attract consumers. Given that more than half of US households will
be Amazon Prime members in 2019—and are already paying a premium for the
convenience of faster shipping—it may prove difficult to get them to shop
elsewhere for the same products.
“It will be an uphill battle for eBay," Liu said.
"With Amazon growing its marketplace and offering extensive tools to
help sellers, eBay will need to focus on the things that differentiate it
from Amazon.”
