Globally, more than 50% of ecommerce sales were made through
online marketplaces in 2018, and that is forecast to grow to about two-thirds
within five years.
We are well acquainted with the likes of Amazon, eBay,
Rakuten and Alibaba – the giants of online retail – but who are the rising
stars? Who are the other big players around the world? Which are the best
places to sell niche products?
In this post, we have compiled a definitive list of all the
online marketplaces around the world,
and we answer those questions and more.
We start with the complete list of 146 marketplaces, then we
look at the most popular product categories, and the best-served global
regions. We include a detailed breakdown of the top four product categories –
fashion, books, homewares and electronics – and finally take a look at the top
marketplaces by region.
Contents hide
What is an online marketplace?
The world’s top online marketplaces
Top product categories sold by online marketplaces
Fashion online marketplaces
Books online marketplaces
Homewares online marketplaces
Electronics online marketplaces
Community-driven online marketplaces
Top regions for online marketplaces
European online marketplaces
North American online marketplaces
East Asian online marketplaces
South American online marketplaces
Online marketplaces in the rest of the world
About the data
There are two key features that define an online
marketplace:
There are many sellers and buyers trading through the same
website.
Buyers are able to purchase products without leaving the
site (or app).
This excludes price comparison sites like Shopping.com.
Although they have products from many sellers, you cannot make a purchase
without leaving the site. They are advertising channels rather than online
marketplaces.
It also excludes some sites where you can sell used products
such as decluttr and ubup. With those, you can only sell your stock directly to
the company, so there is only one buyer. They are sourcing products from you to
resell themselves (often through online marketplaces!)
For this article, we have focused on marketplaces that meet
two further criteria:
The buyers are mainly consumers, not businesses.
The marketplace sells physical products, not just services.
This means that marketplaces that only support
business-to-business (B2B) trade, such as diamond trading site RapNet, are
excluded. Marketplaces specializing in services such as freelancing website
Upwork and also excluded.
