Despite slowing growth, US marketplace ecommerce sales are expected to hit $357.26 billion in 2022, making up 34.6% of all online sales.

Walmart Inc.’s earnings show the benefit of prioritizing value over profits: The company’s decision to keep prices low helped it maintain growth and gain market share.

Under this marketplace-centric model, brands agree to have their products onboarded to publisher marketplaces and pay a CPA commission, as well as a revenue share on product sales.

Beijing’s zero-COVID policy wreaks havoc on the global supply chain: Lockdowns in Shenzhen and Dongguan make it harder and more expensive for retailers like Amazon and Walmart to deliver goods to overseas shoppers.

No. 2 Walmart, No. 7 Target, and No. 9 Kroger are actively expanding their marketplace efforts. “The simplistic framework for marketplaces is price, selection, and experience,” said Guru Hariharan, CEO of CommerceIQ. “It’s hard to disrupt on price, which leaves you with experience and selection.

Amazon also offers a personal shopper subscription via Prime Try Before You Buy and sells subscription boxes on its marketplace. Walmart. The retailer has its own beauty box with samples of different products that it sends out four times per year. The Kroger Co. In 2018, the supermarket chain Kroger purchased meal-kit company Home Chef. Macy’s. The department store chain sells its own beauty box.

But this could be an uphill battle for eBay as more ecommerce companies eye the marketplace space. Amazon has already established itself as a behemoth rival with a continually growing platform. And other big conglomerates, including Walmart and Google, as well as smaller ones like Etsy, StockX and The RealReal, are also hoping to expand their marketplace offerings.

In 2021, Amazon’s US average revenue per user (ARPU) for its retail media network was nearly 4 times that of Instacart and close to 9 times that of Walmart.

Ecommerce sales at many of Amazon’s competitors—including Walmart and Target—are growing faster, but Amazon’s sales are still growing faster than the overall market. Its share of US ecommerce sales will increase from 39.8% in 2020 to 40.4% in 2021, and at a gain of 0.6 percentage points, this growth will be larger than that of any other company this year. What’s changed:.

Insider Intelligence junior analyst Blake Droesch, research analyst Daniel Keyes and principal analyst Andrew Lipsman discuss Facebook Shops and whether businesses and customers will want to use it. They then talk about the significance of Walmart shutting down Jet.com, whether polls will work on LinkedIn and what shoppers expect to do after shelter-in-place orders end.

On the ecommerce side, eBay suffered declines as US gross merchandise value (GMV) dropped 8% amid growing competition from Amazon, Etsy and Facebook Marketplace. Not sure if your company subscribes? You can find out here.

Amazon, Walmart, and eBay ranked top 3 in traffic scale, corresponding to their respective overall ranking in US ecommerce sales, according to our latest forecast. Traffic scale drives sales, which in turn draws advertisers. Our Take: Traffic is the lifeblood of retail media networks, and digital marketplaces tend to fare the best in this regard.

Fluid customer journey, scorecarding sustainability, and marketplaces

One of the unique qualities of retail media advertising is the ability to use closed-loop attribution, tying ad engagements to sales. This is possible because the same company is running the ad and selling the product advertised. Brands often look to Amazon and Walmart.com because those sites facilitate closed-loop attribution—and with the ongoing disruptions to digital identity, this tool will likely provide even greater advantages to those who use it.

That could give other marketplaces like Walmart room to compete—they could offer to take a smaller cut of sales than Amazon and charge less for fulfillment and other services to encourage sellers to offer lower prices on their platforms, potentially helping them win customers from Amazon.

Goldman Sachs, through its direct bank Marcus, struck US SMB lending deals last year with two retail giants: Amazon in June and Walmart in September. Small business sellers that operate on Amazon’s marketplace can receive lines of credit worth up to $1 million, while the Walmart deal involves lines ranging from $10,000 to $75,000.

Those retailers include Walmart, which brought its ad business (now called “Walmart Connect”) in-house and worked to build out its offering significantly. They also include a host of smaller and more specialized retailers, marketplaces, and delivery services, such as Best Buy, CVS, Dollar Tree, DoorDash, Gopuff, Instacart, Target, The Home Depot, Uber, and Walgreens.

Narratives often lump retail together as a monolith, leaving little oxygen for ecommerce businesses (beyond giant marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart) to tell their story. Moreover, there’s a human component: It can be hard to tout success when so many others are struggling.