Online marketplace

Online marketplace (or online ecommerce marketplace) refers to a type of ecommerce site where product and inventory information is provided by multiple third parties, whereas transactions are processes by the marketplace operator. Online marketplaces are the primary type of multichannel ecommerce.

In an online marketplace, consumer transactions are processed by the marketplace operator and then delivered and fulfilled by the participating retailers or wholesalers (often called Drop shipping).

In general, because marketplaces aggregate products from a wide array of providers, selection is usually more wide, availability is higher, and prices are more competitive (compared to vendor-specific online retail stores).^{[citation needed]}

Examples of online marketplaces include etsy, UniSquare, eBay, snapdeal and Rakuten.

See also

• Digital distribution