An online marketplace is an ecommerce platform that facilitates transactions between multiple third-party sellers and consumers. Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Walmart Marketplace are prominent examples. Marketplaces provide the platform, traffic, and payment infrastructure while sellers provide products.
Marketplaces offer sellers access to built-in traffic and customer trust but come with tradeoffs: platform fees (typically 10-20% of sales), intense price competition, limited brand control, and customer relationship owned by the marketplace rather than the seller.
Many DTC brands strategically use marketplaces for customer acquisition while directing repeat purchases to their own sites. Monitoring brand presence across marketplaces—including unauthorized sellers and price variations—is an important aspect of brand protection.