Consumer shopping habits have shifted irreversibly towards ecommerce in the past two years. For many, every day has become a holiday as new packages arrive from their favorite online retailers. One surprising aspect of this shift is how retailers have adapted their businesses in response. According to Mirakl’s Enterprise Marketplace Index (“the Index”), while traditional ecommerce sites have experienced sharp growth, online marketplaces have grown at double the ecommerce rate: more than 80% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2020. So what’s driving this growth imbalance? The answer lies in how successfully marketplaces have enlisted the assortments of complementary third-party sellers to respond to customer expectations.
