What is a Marketplace?
Marketplace Definition
A marketplace is an online platform that connects multiple third-party sellers with buyers, handling the transaction infrastructure while sellers manage their own products and fulfillment.
The marketplace does not own the products it lists, but provides the audience, the checkout, and the trust. Sellers provide the inventory. Amazon, eBay, and Etsy are common examples.
An online store, whether custom-built or running on an ecommerce platform like Shopify, is owned by a single brand selling its own products. A marketplace hosts many sellers at once, earning revenue through fees or commissions rather than product margins. The key difference: on a marketplace, the platform owns the audience, while on your own store, you must build it yourself.
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