Marketplaces
E-commerce
E-commerce
Marketplaces are platforms like bol, Amazon and Zalando where you sell through the platform's audience and checkout, paying commission per sale.
You buy reach and trust but give up margin, customer data and part of the brand experience. For known product categories it is often the fastest route to volume.
Calculate per product whether it still works after commission, shipping and ad costs. Build your own channel alongside it so you are not fully dependent on the platform's terms.
In practice
Selling only on a marketplace means no customer relationship: the platform can change commission, rules or your visibility tomorrow.
Related terms
- Sponsored ProductsSponsored Products are ads inside a marketplace (bol, Amazon) that place your product higher in search results or on other product pages, paid per click.
- CPSCPS (Cost per Sale) is what you pay per actual sale — with affiliates and marketplaces often a fixed percentage of order value.
- E-commerceE-commerce covers everything around selling products or services online: the store, payment, stock, shipping and the service afterwards.
- Product feedA product feed is a structured file with all your products and their data, used by platforms like Google Shopping and Meta to display your items.