Marketplace management software sounds like one category. The buyers using it sit on opposite sides of the same transaction: brands that want to sell on Amazon, Walmart, TikTok Shop and retailers' marketplaces, and large retailers that want third-party sellers on their own site. The two sometimes use the same vendor — and on the selling side, some marketplaces narrow which tool a brand can use.
What is marketplace management software?
Marketplace management software helps companies sell through online marketplaces, or run one. For brands selling on other people's marketplaces it manages product feeds and listings, keeps orders and inventory in sync, and runs marketplace advertising, analytics and pricing. For retailers running their own, it onboards third-party sellers and manages their catalogs, orders and payouts.
Rithum (formerly ChannelAdvisor), Feedonomics, Pacvue and Helium 10 are selling-side tools buyers name; Mirakl is the platform retailers name for running a marketplace — and it also appears on the selling side, as the connector brands use to reach retailers built on it.
What the interviews add is how far apart the two purchases are:
In these interviews the name covers two different purchases that share vendors. Brands and manufacturers buy it to sell on marketplaces, and every buyer in market for marketplace management is on that side. Large retailers and distributors buy it to run their own marketplace, usually after starting with drop-ship.
On the selling side, the core job is feeds and listings: getting product catalogs onto each marketplace correctly. Some marketplaces require or favor particular integration partners, which can limit a brand's choice of connector.
What is the difference between selling on a marketplace and running your own?
Selling on a marketplace means listing your products on someone else's; running your own means letting other sellers list on yours. The software for each does a different job, and in these interviews different companies buy it.
The companies selling on marketplaces are mostly brands and manufacturers, of many sizes. The companies running their own are mostly large retailers and distributors: their median revenue in these interviews is many times that of the brands on the selling side.
A handful of companies do both, though few run their own side live. And some marketplaces are buyers in their own right, shopping for the tools that run them.
The brands' reason for selling widely is familiar; the cost buyers describe is less so. One puts it bluntly: “Amazon owns the customer or Walmart owns the customer” — selling through someone else's marketplace means giving up the direct relationship. And the promise of listing once and selling everywhere runs into marketplaces that work differently by country: “In practice, that wasn't doable because of the bifurcation of different e-commerce channels internationally.”
Selling-side tools
Feeds, listings, order and inventory sync, and marketplace advertising for brands selling on Amazon, Walmart, TikTok Shop and retailer marketplaces.
Marketplace platforms
Software for running your own marketplace: onboarding third-party sellers, managing their catalogs, orders and payouts.
Seller portals
Marketplaces also provide their own tools. Amazon Seller Central supports third-party sellers offering products directly to customers, while Vendor Central serves brands and suppliers selling wholesale to Amazon. Both can reduce the need for separate software, but they support different selling relationships.
Who buys marketplace management software?
Ecommerce and digital leaders, overwhelmingly. About nine in ten buyers in market for marketplace management hold ecommerce or digital titles, against about a third of all interviews — with order management, the most ecommerce-led of the commerce categories we have measured.
Every buyer in market for this software is on the selling side; none is shopping for a platform to host third-party sellers. Running your own marketplace shows up in the wider interviews instead, among large retailers and distributors — which is why that half of the definition rests on far fewer companies.
What do brands use marketplace management software for?
Mostly to get the catalog onto each marketplace correctly. Five jobs appear in the interviews with brands selling on marketplaces, in this order:
- Feeds, listings and catalog syndication
- Order, inventory and fulfillment sync
- Amazon advertising and retail media
- Market and competitive analytics
- Pricing and the buy box
The most common reason to shop is adding marketplaces or regions.
Feeds, listings and catalog syndication
Getting product data onto each marketplace in the format it requires, and keeping it right. This is what most brands mean by marketplace management.
Some marketplaces narrow the choice of connector: “if you want to launch with them, you have to use another vendor,” says a global consumer brand on why new marketplaces mean a second feed vendor.
Order, inventory and fulfillment sync
Pulling marketplace orders into the brand's own systems and keeping stock levels consistent so marketplaces do not sell what the warehouse does not have.
Amazon advertising and retail media
Managing ad spend on Amazon and other retailer marketplaces, increasingly judged on profitability and incrementality rather than return on ad spend alone.
The marketplace's own tools are not always welcome: a large consumer-goods company calls its supplier portal “Unfortunately, it is required for our Amazon business.”
Market and competitive analytics
Tracking share, search position and competitors on the marketplaces a brand sells through.
Pricing and the buy box
Keeping prices competitive enough to win the default offer on a listing, a narrower job than the others.
Not every brand buys software for this. Some sellers say the marketplace's own portal is enough — “the Seller Center is enough,” says one — and a recurring alternative is an agency that runs the marketplace accounts, alone or on top of software. Several brands bought a feed vendor's managed service instead of running the tool themselves, with mixed results.
Which marketplace management tools do buyers rate highest?
Feedonomics is the most-rated selling-side tool in these interviews, at 7.8; Pacvue rates around 8 on fewer ratings. Mirakl, which buyers rate from both sides of the marketplace, and Amazon's supplier portal rate lower. These are overall product ratings.
| Tool | Rating | What it means here |
|---|---|---|
| Feedonomics | 7.8 | A feed and listing tool, the most-rated on the selling side; some buyers use its managed service rather than running it themselves. |
| Pacvue | around 8 | Too few buyers for a decimal. Amazon and retail-media advertising and analytics. |
| Helium 10 | around 7.5 | Too few buyers for a decimal. Amazon seller analytics and listing research. |
| Rithum | around 7.5 | Too few buyers for a decimal. Formerly ChannelAdvisor; buyers praise its breadth of marketplace connections and split on service. |
| Mirakl | around 6.5 | Too few buyers for a decimal. Rated both by retailers running marketplaces on it and by brands required to use it to sell into those retailers. |
| Amazon Vendor Central | around 6.5 | Too few buyers for a decimal. Amazon's own portal for brands selling to it wholesale; several describe it as a requirement rather than a choice. |
Selling on marketplaces
Rithum · Feedonomics · Productsup · Channable · Pacvue · Helium 10
Running your own marketplace
Mirakl · Marketplacer · drop-ship programs as a first step
What does marketplace management cost, and how do buyers measure it?
Buyers describe marketplace software fees that can increase with sales volume, while some marketplace operators pass platform costs on to their suppliers. Pricing depends on the provider, capabilities and commercial agreement. No prices are published here.
Brands selling through a marketplace connector describe fees that grow as their sales do — “apparently the more you sell, the more you have to pay,” says one small brand — and a connector that is free to start but charges for support. One operator running its own marketplace says the platform's fees fall partly on its suppliers. A grocer that bought rather than built its marketplace tooling explains the choice simply: “Because the marketplace management is more a commodity.”
Buyers judge the selling side on Amazon profitability, return on ad spend moving toward incrementality, revenue by channel, the number of marketplaces they reach, and recovered shortages from wholesale deductions. Retailers running their own marketplace talk about assortment rather than metrics: “We wanted to offer products that we currently did not have access to, and Mirakl assisted us with that.” Several get there in stages — “It's got to start with a drop ship project, but then we'll naturally migrate toward a marketplace.”
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Start my checkup →Should you buy marketplace management software?
First work out which side of the marketplace you are on. A brand selling on other people's marketplaces needs feeds, listings and possibly advertising tools — or an agency, or nothing beyond the seller portal if it sells on one or two. A retailer adding third-party sellers to its own site needs a marketplace platform, and the buyers who have done it describe starting with drop-ship.
Three things follow from the interviews; the recommendations are ours, not practices buyers describe. First, ask which connectors your target marketplaces work with before you choose a feed vendor, since the marketplace may decide it for you. Second, understand how pricing scales with your business — whether by sales volume, orders, marketplace connections or other usage measures — and estimate the cost at the scale you expect. Third, if you are launching your own marketplace, plan the supplier side as carefully as the software — onboarding, payouts and who carries the fees are where the work is.
For the product data that feeds marketplaces, see what is product content syndication and PIM vs DAM; for marketplace advertising, what is retail media; for the order flows behind it, what is an order management system.
Common questions
What is marketplace management software?
Marketplace management software helps companies sell through online marketplaces, or run one. For brands selling on Amazon, Walmart, TikTok Shop and retailer marketplaces, it manages product feeds and listings, keeps orders and inventory in sync, and runs marketplace advertising, analytics and pricing; Rithum, Feedonomics, Pacvue and Helium 10 are examples. For retailers running their own marketplace, platforms such as Mirakl onboard third-party sellers and manage their catalogs, orders and payouts.
What is the difference between selling on a marketplace and running your own?
Selling on a marketplace means listing your products on someone else's, such as Amazon or Walmart; the software manages your feeds, listings, inventory and ads there. Running your own marketplace means letting third-party sellers list on your site; the software onboards those sellers and manages their catalogs and orders. In these interviews the two are bought by different companies: brands and manufacturers sell on marketplaces, while large retailers and distributors run their own.
Why do retailers launch their own marketplace?
To offer more products without buying and holding the inventory. Retailers in these interviews who run a marketplace describe adding assortment they did not have access to, and several get there in stages, starting with drop-ship from suppliers before opening to third-party sellers. The evidence for running your own rests on a small number of companies, mostly large retailers and distributors.
Do you need software to sell on Amazon?
Not always. Some sellers in these interviews say the marketplace's own seller portal is enough. On Amazon, Seller Central serves third-party sellers selling to customers, while Vendor Central serves brands selling wholesale to Amazon. Brands selling across several marketplaces and regions more often use a feed and listing tool, an Amazon advertising platform, or an agency that runs the account, and some use software and an agency together.
Who buys marketplace management software?
Ecommerce and digital leaders, overwhelmingly: about nine in ten buyers in market for marketplace management hold ecommerce or digital titles, against about a third of all interviews. On the selling side they are mostly brands and manufacturers of many sizes; the companies running their own marketplace are mostly large retailers and distributors.
Which marketplace management tools do companies use?
For selling on marketplaces, buyers name Rithum (formerly ChannelAdvisor), Feedonomics, Productsup and Channable for feeds and listings, and Pacvue and Helium 10 for Amazon advertising and analytics. For running their own marketplace, Mirakl is the platform buyers name most. Among the rated tools, Feedonomics averages 7.8 out of ten across the buyers who rated it.
Can a marketplace require a specific feed or connector vendor?
In practice, yes. Several brands in these interviews say the marketplaces they want to sell on work with a particular connector, so joining a new marketplace can mean adding or changing a feed vendor. One brand selling into specialty retailers says it is locked into the platform those retailers use.
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