Mirakl Announces 2024 Marketplace and Dropship Index
Mirakl-powered marketplaces continue to outperform the retail market and grew six times the traditional eCommerce rate in both 2022 and 2023, with total gross merchandise value (GMV) sales increasing by 46.2%
BOSTON – MAY 20, 2024 – Mirakl, the global leader in eCommerce platform business innovation, announced its 2024 Marketplace and Dropship Index, that includes a detailed analysis of 118 global retail marketplaces and dropship platforms, representing more than $6 billion in marketplace and dropship sales, more than 66,000 third-party sellers, and just under 200 million unique products.
This year’s report covered three major trends shaping the platform economy:
Retailers look for new ways to drive growth and maintain margins as profitability pressures become the new normal.
As the platform model becomes more popular among operators and sellers, and more retailers and brands become sellers themselves, the importance of quality seller onboarding is growing.
As customers push for more personalized shopping experience, curated platforms are gaining ground against their generalist competitors, with some industries seeing growth as high as 74%.
Platform models ease profit margin pressure
Businesses feel the pressure to maximize profits by refining their operations across brick-and-mortar and eCommerce channels. Unowned inventory strategies, marketplace and dropship platforms, offer a clear path to profitability that drives growth with new and existing customers, in an asset-light and low-risk way.
This pressure is why we are seeing dramatic adoption of marketplace models from major retailers (Mirakl’s customers) like Anthropologie, Bloomingdale’s, Asos, H&M, J. Crew Group, Macy’s, Shop Premium Outlets, Urban Outfitters. These household names are counting on the platform model for continued success.
“We want to empower our customers to shop a unique selection of meaningful products and brands. We need a scalable solution that can match our brand DNA. Our drop shipment strategy helps us to become the leading, curated, multi-brand destination for style, creativity, and culture,” says Marie Liedholm, global head of new business, at H&M.
The seller ecosystem is growing
Sellers and suppliers are the backbone of marketplace and dropship businesses. Last year saw an impressive 18.9% surge in the number of active sellers across various marketplaces.
The continuous growth of online marketplaces underscores the importance of a high-quality seller onboarding experience. When sellers are equipped with the right strategies and tools for success, they can deliver enhanced value to the platform operator – and expand into more marketplace and dropship channels. As marketplace and dropship strategies mature, companies are increasingly investing in seller experience by offering dedicated operator support to ensure transparent, ongoing communication, personalized assistance, and clear product data guidelines. Robust technology, including advancements in AI, are improving integrations, reducing workloads, and even eliminating the manual process of category and attribute mapping.
Average total sales per active seller increased by 20.2% in 2023, reflecting the impact of these investments by marketplace and dropship businesses. The growing number of total products offered in online marketplaces also reflects the growth of platform ecosystems, enabling competitive pricing and convenience for customers.
In 2023, the total number of products offered across Mirakl-powered marketplaces grew by 44.8%. In many cases, multiple sellers offered the same product, driving more competitive pricing for consumers: according to Mirakl research, there was an average of 1.56 comparative options per product.
Specialized marketplaces gain ground on generalist giants
For years, the most well-known marketplaces were eCommerce giant “generalists”: platforms like Amazon and eBay that present themselves as “everything stores” with offerings across hundreds of categories. However, specialized marketplaces are attracting more shoppers. Research from Boston Consulting Group revealed that 63% of consumers would prefer to shop from specialized retailers, signaling an ongoing opportunity for more curated shopping experiences.
While platform businesses as a whole grew by 46.2% in 2023, industry-specific marketplaces in the fashion, electronics, sporting goods, and home/DIY sectors all grew at even higher rates. In particular, electronics (62.5%) and sporting goods (74.6%) saw dramatic growth.
Retail media takes the mainstream
Pressure on profitability was the overarching theme for retailers in 2023, and that pressure extended beyond simply improving margins through marketplace and dropship sales.
Online retailers explored new ways to establish additional revenue streams. Following the example set by industry titans like Amazon and Walmart, more mature marketplaces began to introduce retail media to further monetize their marketplaces.
The appeal is easy to understand. According to Boston Consulting Group, retail media offers profit margins ranging from 70% to 90%. The rise of AI-powered retail media technology, like Mirakl Ads, is making retail media even more compelling for retailers, delivering a higher return on advertising spend (ROAS) for advertisers, while also optimizing for the highest profitability rate possible for the publisher.
Recently, Simon Property Group’s luxury outlet business Shop Premium Outlets announced its own retail media program.
“We are told we are the equivalent of a top five physical store for many of our brands, with our top brands driving tens of millions of sales a year,” said Neel Grover, chief executive officer of Shop Premium Outlets. “Retail media sponsored ads enable our brands to get the most relevant and time-sensitive product and promotion in front of our shoppers at the exact time they have shopping intent.”
About Mirakl
Mirakl is the global leader in platform business innovation. Mirakl's suite of solutions provides enterprises with a transformative way to drive significant growth and efficiency in their online business. Since 2012, Mirakl has been pioneering the platform economy, empowering retail and B2B enterprises with the most advanced, secure and scalable technology to digitize and expand product assortment through marketplace and dropship, improve efficiency in supplier catalog management and payments, personalize shopping experiences, and boost profits through retail media. Mirakl is trusted by 450+ industry-leading businesses worldwide. For more information: www.mirakl.com.