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Table of Contents
A marketplace brings buyers and sellers together so they can trade products or services. This is often seen in the real world at places like a local market, a shopping mall or a farmers' market. Sellers display their goods at their stalls or shops and buyers wander to see the prices and pick out what they want. Basically, the key thing is that sellers are all in one area, so buyers have more choices and shopping is simpler.
An online marketplace is much like a physical market but takes place on the internet. Many different sellers can put their products on the website or app and customers can browse and purchase from all in one place. Online marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart and eBay fall into the category of websites.
Shoppers do not have to visit many different websites; they can compare many sellers in one location. Small businesses are able to quickly join a marketplace and begin selling their products, without having to spend time on website creation.
The individual or business that oversees the marketplace is labeled a marketplace facilitator. They handle all the tasks that take place in the background such as taking payments, offering assistance to customers and sometimes accounting for sales tax. In a lot of countries, they are tasked with collecting and paying sales tax on behalf of the merchants. That makes it a lot easier and saves time for small businesses when they sell products to customers outside their state or country.
Online marketplaces attract people because they make buying products fast and simple. You can check different stores, read what others say and finish your shopping in one step. Thus, many people now go straight to Amazon to look for products instead of starting with Google. In fact, about 44% of Amazon users check prices there before buying anything from somewhere else.
As an online store owner, being present on marketplaces is no longer optional, it’s strategic. With marketplaces projected to drive 60% of all online purchases by 2027, they’ve become the primary shopping destination for most customers. By establishing your presence early, especially before multiple competitors in your niche jump in, you position yourself as the go-to seller. This gives you a head start in building visibility, trust, and customer loyalty in a crowded space.
There are two main ways to sell items if you use the internet:
Knowing the difference between the two is very useful if you want to run your business smartly.
Launching a multi-vendor marketplace offers a scalable, sustainable business model where sellers drive content and revenue. While an eCommerce store is ideal for focused brand-building, a marketplace helps you grow faster with less inventory risk.
So if you're thinking big, building a marketplace isn't just a trend—it's a strategic move to become a digital business enabler, not just a seller.
Start by selling on marketplaces to test demand and refine your product—then scale with your own store or marketplace using tools like Shipturtle.
While selling on large platforms like Amazon or eBay has its perks, building your own multi-vendor marketplace opens the door to long-term growth, brand ownership, and full control over your eCommerce ecosystem.
With a multi-vendor marketplace builder, you're not just selling your own products—you’re creating a platform where dozens or hundreds of vendors can reach a global audience. Your marketplace becomes the gateway for sellers to connect with international customers, helping you scale quickly and diversify traffic across regions.
Instead of relying on someone else’s brand like Amazon, you get to create and grow your own trustworthy brand. When you offer a professional, secure, and seamless shopping experience, vendors and customers will start trusting your platform, especially when your branding, policies, and support are consistent and transparent.
Creating a seller’s own website can be expensive and time-consuming. Your marketplace removes that barrier, offering built-in infrastructure for hosting, payments, inventory management, and more. It’s a win-win: vendors get a simple, cost-effective platform, and you earn commissions or subscription revenue from each transaction.
By offering sellers a space to test new products before a full-scale launch, your marketplace becomes a low-risk testing ground. Vendors can list limited quantities, gather real-time feedback, and refine their offerings, while you learn what categories or niches are gaining traction.
Encourage vendors to use your platform to clear excess stock, driving more deal-hungry traffic to your site. These bargain-hunters often become repeat customers, and the best part is, your marketplace benefits from increased activity and visibility, even if it starts with discounted items.
While major platforms have in-house fulfillment services, your marketplace can offer similar benefits by integrating with third-party logistics (3PL) providers. With the right builder, you can:
You get the freedom to customize fulfillment partnerships—retaining brand identity while streamlining operations.
Marketplaces unite buyers and sellers, simplifying shopping and boosting reach. For eCommerce owners, they’re not just channels—they’re strategic growth engines in today’s digital commerce.
There are many types of online marketplaces and each one has its own features and effects on online businesses.
Because they serve so many countries, global horizontal marketplaces act like large "macro-stores" that carry many different products in almost every category.
Prominent examples of global horizontal marketplaces include:
With global horizontal marketplaces, eCommerce store owners have an easy way to start or increase their online business. Because of their big audience and established ways to gain trust, new sellers can quickly find out if products are popular and earn profits without needing to put in much effort to drive traffic and build a brand. So, a brand can use them to start off, even if the main strategy later involves mixing own channels with online marketplaces.
Unlike horizontal platforms which cover a wide range of products or services, niche or vertical marketplaces specialize in a small set of goods or services for a particular retail category or industry.34 They provide more focus and meet the exact needs of their intended customers.
Examples of regional and niche/vertical marketplaces include:
Why Niche Marketplaces Make Strategic Sense
For online sellers, niche marketplaces offer more than just visibility—they offer relevance. When you're selling in a marketplace that caters specifically to your category, you're not just one of many—you have the opportunity to become the go-to seller in your space. These platforms attract high-intent buyers who know what they want, leading to better-quality traffic and higher conversion rates. Unlike horizontal marketplaces where you're constantly fighting for attention, niche marketplaces allow for deeper engagement, more efficient ad spend, and a clearer brand journey. It’s not about reaching everyone—it’s about reaching the right audience before your competitors do
Social commerce is a quickly growing part of e-commerce, where shopping is available right within social networks. This model mixes social and commercial activities, so users are able to look for, explore and buy items directly on their social sites.
Key examples of social commerce platforms include:
Between 2021 and 2024, the global social commerce market saw a CAGR of 15.2% which shows strong growth. By 2030, it is expected to hit USD 1.48 trillion, growing by 10.0% annually from 2025 to 2030 due to product tagging, shoppable content, live streaming, AR try-ons, group buying and advanced integrated payments.
Social commerce is a change from the usual e-commerce buying experience to one that includes discovery. People now shop online without having to think much about it, as it happens naturally while they are browsing and using different apps. It means that eCommerce owners need to update their marketing and sales methods by being more interactive, live and visually appealing, placing them on the platforms their consumers use for entertainment. The change brings about content that encourages people to purchase instantly, so it becomes hard to tell where finding content ends and buying begins.
ECommerce companies must decide if they want to operate only as a marketplace, only through direct sales to customers (D2C) or use a mixed approach which shapes their brand control, profit and chances for growth.
Starting your business on Amazon or Flipkart lets you enter the marketplace quickly and expose your products to lots of buyers. Most platforms include warehousing, shipping and customer support which makes it simpler for sellers to operate.
While it is easy for people to start a business, there are obvious disadvantages. Because there are many companies in the market, becoming visible is a big challenge. Profit margins are frequently reduced by the fees and commissions platforms charge. Because sellers do not control branding and have no way to access customer details, it is hard for them to build relationships. Also, depending on platform rules like these brings risk, mainly because they can change without warning.
Brands employ the D2C approach by having customers buy from their website, so not many intermediaries are needed. By using this method, companies have full authority over their brand, pricing, customer experience and marketing strategy.
With D2C, companies can directly engage customers by having their own data and using it to send targeted offers. They may make more profit over the long run by not paying third-party fees and commissions. Custom features can be added to a proprietary website in line with what the brand stands for.
Even so, this form of online presence requires a lot of investment in website, security and digital marketing. A strong grasp of how to draw traffic by using SEO, paid advertising and social sites is also essential. There is a greater need to learn new skills and systems in a D2C business.
A lot of successful eCommerce brands opt to sell directly on their website and additionally through third-party platforms. Large platforms, too, use this model, making both their own products and offering those from external companies.
In a D2C marketplace, the brand offers products it produces plus a selection of products from other brands. It allows you to stock more kinds of products without needing extra inventory space. It lets the brand control its own content and get more people to see it.
Key parts of this model are bringing on suppliers, handling the product catalog, managing orders and payments centrally and having powerful analytics. Publishes can earn money by charging vendors commission or by asking users to pay a subscription fee.
It works well when the goal is to get customers to buy from a company’s platform instead of a marketplace. The aim is to reach and buy from more customers on marketplaces and then drive them to the D2C site so they buy again.
Effective strategies for this transition include:
Adopting a multi-channel approach brings several key advantages:
Although marketplaces make sales happen quickly and bring a lot of visibility, ongoing growth depends on a self-owned channel. Hybrid strategies aim to move people from online marketplaces into the brand’s own store, so the brand can build a lasting relationship with them.
Launching your journey as a marketplace seller requires thoughtful planning, smart platform selection, and the right tools. With Shipturtle’s robust integration and automation features, you can streamline operations, reduce manual work, and scale faster.
Selecting the correct online marketplace is the basis for a successful selling strategy. Choosing a pricing strategy can change your audience, profit and the simplicity of running your business. Look at these important aspects when comparing marketplaces:
With Shipturtle, you can sync inventory across all channels and automate your fulfillment workflow to reduce stockouts and simplify shipping.
The best marketplace for you depends on your product category, pricing, and fulfillment strategy. Handmade goods may shine on Etsy, while fast-moving consumer items perform better on Amazon.
Plan for platforms that simplify operations, widen your reach, and support long-term growth, especially when paired with a powerful backend like Shipturtle.
Registration processes vary widely between marketplaces. Amazon has detailed, multi-step procedures, whereas Etsy offers quicker setups for individual sellers.
Common registration requirements include:
Walmart gives priority to shops that have a verified way to deliver goods and needs additional documentation, for example, a US-based warehouse for handling returns. Because of this, you should always be ready to avoid delays.
Getting all your paperwork ready is just one part. Managing listings, inventory, orders, and shipments across multiple marketplaces can quickly become overwhelming. Shipturtle’s marketplace plugin automates many of these tasks, offering:
By handling these operational tasks, Shipturtle helps reduce errors and speeds up your time to market, letting you focus on growing your business and delighting customers.
Selling on marketplaces isn’t just about being present—it’s about being strategic. To truly benefit, sellers need to choose the right platform, get in early, and position themselves as the top choice in their niche. With Shipturtle’s automation tools and integrations, you can cut manual work, simplify fulfillment, and scale efficiently from day one.
Where you sell can define how quickly you grow—and whether you dominate your niche or compete in a crowded space. Instead of being one of many, aim to be the first mover in your product category on a platform. Here’s what to evaluate:
🎯 Pro Tip: Aim to dominate a niche before competitors flood in. You don’t need ten similar sellers offering the same thing—you need one clear brand leader. That could be you.
Every marketplace has its own onboarding process. Some, like Amazon, require more documentation; others, like Etsy, are quicker to join. Be prepared with:
Platforms like Walmart may need proof of U.S.-based warehousing or return capabilities—so planning ahead avoids onboarding delays.
Once you're onboarded, the real work begins. Managing products, inventory, orders, and shipping across multiple channels can become a logistical mess. That’s where Shipturtle helps:
With these tools, you’re not just selling—you’re scaling. Faster onboarding, fewer errors, and more time to focus on customers and brand building.
$73.5 trillion
that’s what the global e-commerce market is projected to reach by 2030
In multichannel e-commerce, technology helps to simplify processes, improve efficiency and allow the business to expand. Shipturtle is built to deal with the specific problems faced by eCommerce store owners operating on several systems.
Keeping inventory levels accurate and up-to-date on every sales platform is a big problem for multichannel sellers. If synchronization isn’t automated, businesses are more likely to oversell products that are out of stock, run out of popular items and get their accounts suspended by marketplaces for incorrect inventory.
Shipturtle makes it easy by automatically keeping inventory updated in real time on Shopify, WooCommerce and other integrated stores. The process of creating an order or handling a return leads to an instant update of inventory, so there are no gaps and the stock in the warehouse matches the information in the system. Product mapping is possible and the system will update linked stores if product variants are added or removed.
Shipturtle acts as the main place where inventory data is stored and viewed. It manages the main issue of divided inventory data in multichannel retail by giving a single, correct picture of stock levels at all points of sale. It is more than preventing overselling; it also leads to better planning and decision-making. Precise and up-to-date data allows eCommerce owners to purchase goods cleverly, know what to expect in demand and grow their sales channels without worrying about inventory issues. Because of this, inventory management turns from simply solving issues to using data to make the business more efficient.
Orders coming from several vendors and different sales channels can be tough to manage, take a lot of time and have a high chance of manual errors. Because of this complexity, there may be delays and fewer satisfied customers.
Shipturtle is built with an all-inclusive order management system meant for multi-vendor marketplaces. It brings all orders from different marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, through Shopify Marketplace Kit) together in one place. One important part is that it can automatically break down orders by vendor which means manual adjustments are not needed and the risk of errors is much lower. A special dashboard is given to vendors so they can concentrate on their orders only, generate invoices easily and monitor how much they have earned. It is also possible for merchants to configure the system to confirm orders using certain rules (like those for fraud or address checking) before they are sent to vendors. Also, modifying and canceling orders is easy on Shipturtle and all the updates are reflected immediately in every linked channel.
Shipturtle organizes and handles the process of orders coming from several channels. It analyzes and sorts orders carefully, so that each vendor gets involved in the process only with the relevant parts of an order. The system decreases human mistakes, lowers processing time and helps vendors better understand their role which helps improve both speed and accuracy in delivering to the client. This helps guarantee that customers are happy even when there are many different vendors.
It can be very tough and time-consuming for eCommerce businesses to handle shipping on several sales channels and work with many shipping carriers.
Shipturtle makes handling the shipping workflow smooth and efficient. With this system, it becomes possible to swiftly compare shipping rates from almost all the major carriers (including FedEx and Delhivery) for every sale, enabling sellers to choose the cheapest or fastest one for their requirements. Automated printing of labels helps save time and shipping updates sent straight to customers decrease the number of calls from customers about tracking. Besides, Shipturtle provides ways for customers to initiate returns and prints labels automatically which simplifies the process. You can configure shipping automation to assign shippers automatically when an order matches certain criteria, for example, the vendor, how much the order is worth or where it is from.
Because the market is so competitive now, shipping can separate your business from others—it goes beyond just expenses and impacts customers greatly. Shipturtle’s rate comparison function and live tracking update eCommerce owners to make their delivery both quick and low-cost for their customers, reflecting the major change in "supply chain luxury." Because of this, customers are more satisfied and are likely to continue working with the company which helps it stay ahead of its competition.
Shipturtle makes it possible to transform a normal Shopify store into a multi-vendor marketplace with functions for easily controlling vendors, tracking commissions and analyzing data right away. Since it integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce and Squarespace, merchants do not have to handle diverse external programs nor manage the same data more than needed. The unified dashboard handles important activities such as onboarding vendors, matching products, handling stock, managing orders and commissions, automated payouts and moving goods across borders. Shipturtle also offers thorough analytics that clearly show sales on all sales channels, customizable reports for inventory, sales and revenue and automatic warnings when stock is low or orders are delayed, making it easier to manage and decide based on data.
Being able to fully integrate and automate many tasks, Shipturtle acts as a main driver of growing on multiple platforms. Easy use of the dashboard for functions like inventory, orders, shipping, vendor management and analytics collects all the tasks in one place, making it easy to handle and therefore allows for stable business growth. Consequently, online store proprietors may confidently expand to more countries, bring in more vendors and add additional selling channels without facing growing management problems, since these new activities help them put remaining resources into improving marketing, creating new items and helping customers.
Marketplaces play a crucial role in helping eCommerce businesses grow quickly by offering access to large customer bases and built-in trust. However, relying solely on them can limit profitability, control, and long-term brand value. To build a resilient and scalable business, combining marketplace presence with a dedicated Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) website is key.
Managing sales across multiple channels does come with its challenges, but platforms like Shipturtle simplify the process. By streamlining inventory, order fulfillment, and shipping, Shipturtle empowers sellers to operate efficiently, scale confidently, and maintain a consistent brand experience across all touchpoints.
Get advanced shipping, configurable vendor management, payment features, and more. Install Shipturtle today from the Shopify App Store and enjoy a free trial to experience its benefits firsthand.
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Articles from Team Shipturtle include contributions across departments—Tech, Marketing, Sales, Finance, HR—to share varied viewpoints and present a holistic picture.
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