Marketplace and E-commerce: What's the Difference?

Although it is common to describe any practice of selling goods and services online as e-commerce, the platforms that make up this ecosystem differ in many ways. So how can we precisely understand what types of platforms make up the online sales galaxy as well as their specific attributes?

Selling and buying online has become a natural practice for many consumers

Technology allows almost constant access to the internet, and people's consumption habits are evolving accordingly. Today, it is possible to sell and buy almost anywhere, and all the time, simply with a computer, a tablet or a smartphone.

The dematerialization of means of payment, also made possible by the technological leap made by the world of finance, further accentuates this ease of consumption, with online buyers no longer even having to draw their bank card, which is directly integrated into the hardware. Thus, nothing stands in the way of a consumer and what they wish to acquire, regardless of the time or place.

In 2025, according to forecasts from experts and global studies, nearly 25% of global retail commerce will be done online, and today nearly 65% of businesses sell goods or services to other companies (BtoB commerce) offer services to purchase online.

The proliferation of devices and access to high-speed internet have changed the way businesses operate and the way consumers spend their money: the ability to order anything online in seconds, and sometimes without even taking out your wallet, has caused e-commerce to account for nearly 20% of global retail sales in 2021 and is predicted to account for almost a quarter of total global retail sales in 2025.

This growing success of online commerce is generating new developments in terms of platforms, and, as in real life, we find both shops and markets. The Internet has not brought about any real innovations in terms of relationships between buyers and sellers, but has been a fantastic tool for bringing into the digital age what we all knew before selling and buying online was possible.

What is an e-commerce platform?

An e-commerce site is like a store. This site is run by an organization which will directly sell goods or services, made by itself or acquired from other merchants, to individual consumers or businesses.

In short, the owner of the e-commerce site is also the owner of the products on sale there. He will therefore also be in charge of inventory and order management, shipping, relations with customers but also customer service and relations with them.

It is therefore a direct relationship established between the e-commerce site and its buyers, in all aspects. This will also be felt in terms of transaction management, which are generally quite simple to the extent that, as in a physical store, the buyer will directly pay the e-merchant and then receive or collect their order afterwards.

An e-commerce platform will also generally have a more limited catalog of products than what is offered on a marketplace. Indeed, the e-merchant manages its stocks of goods, and offers products or services in correlation with its field of activity, within the limits of its management capacity.

However, this model allows total control over all commercial aspects of the relationship established with buyers, whether in terms of experience, price, quality or marketing.

Cette maîtrise aussi bien de l’environnement de vente que de ses composantes ne permet toutefois pas à un consommateur de comparer des produits et services entre eux et de faire profiter d’une baisse de prix engendrée par de la mise en concurrence, l’ensemble de ces derniers n’étant distribués que par un seul et même vendeur. 

What is a marketplace?

The marketplace model is therefore very different from the e-commerce model.

In real life, a BtoC marketplace would be like a market bringing together several merchants (literally, “marketplace” translates as “market place”).

A CtoC marketplace, on which individual buyers and sellers can trade, would be the equivalent of a wardrobe sale or a garage sale.

In all cases, it is a question of concentrating several sellers capable of offering diverse and varied products in a single place.

Marketplaces therefore do not sell their own products or services but act as intermediaries who allow different products and services sold by third-party sellers to be grouped together on a single platform. It is therefore a tripartite relationship that is established on a marketplace, between the platform, the sellers, and the consumers who come to make their purchases there.

This different relationship will mechanically complicate the financial exchanges between the parties involved in the transaction. Indeed, the economic model of a marketplace is generally based on taking commissions on the sales of its sellers. The financial flows are de facto more technical, with both the management of the buyer's payment, the settlement of the sale to the seller, and the participation in the sale of the marketplace. This creates strict supervision and specific procedures in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, particularly through the user identity verification process, also called KYC (Know Your Customer).

Thus, marketplaces do not necessarily have stocks to manage, can offer an extremely large catalog of products and services, but do not necessarily have control over all aspects of customer relations, nor over quality. products and services offered by sellers. Despite guidelines that can be proposed to sellers, marketplaces are also obliged to be flexible to attract and retain the sellers on whom they depend.

Indeed, sellers can sometimes have control over the shipping and returns policy, promotional operations or refund policy. Responsibilities and the quality of the consumer experience are therefore aspects shared between the marketplace and the sellers affiliated with it.

In the context of a marketplace, it is also up to the sellers to set up the listings for the products they sell, and despite directives here too, the marketplace can sometimes have difficulty enforcing the structures of the listings that they sell. she wants to propose.

Marketplaces also allow consumers to compare and benefit from competition to get good deals. Indeed, on a marketplace, several sellers may sell the same products or categories of products, and competition between them systematically leads to a drop in prices. However, this should not be done to the detriment of quality, and buyer reviews allow you to get a clear idea of the best value for money before finalizing your basket.

The arrival of hybrid platforms

Hybrid platforms are tending to become more popular, in both directions: certain e-retailers adopt the marketplace model, and certain marketplaces integrate e-commerce mechanisms. And all this is not as complicated as it seems.

Concerning marketplaces which integrate an e-commerce logic, this can be compared to mass distribution, which offers products from several brands but also its own distributor brand. While marketplaces originally only offered products sold by third parties, some now offer products of their own creation, under their own brand.

As for e-commerce sites which now integrate a marketplace logic, the latter, which until now only sold products and services over which they had full control, are starting to offer products sold by third parties, in adequacy with their activity, whether by extension or by complementarity.

This hybrid nature instantly adds a certain form of complexity, to the extent that two transaction flows are operated on a single platform, namely direct collection and collection on behalf of third parties. But the game is worth the effort and the diversification of online sales players allows them to reach more consumers while almost systematically growing their brand image.

Obvy, the all-in-one online transaction management solution

Whether you are the manager of an e-commerce site, a marketplace, or a hybrid platform, Obvy allows you to equip yourself with a complete transactional infrastructure capable of managing all the complexity of your transactions.

By natively integrating all the necessary functionalities in terms of payment types (direct payment, payment with ring-fencing of funds, deposit, subscription, etc.), means of payment (bank card, bank transfer, payment by user balance, payment in installments times…), logistics (delivery, click and collect, hand delivery…), or even management (security, dispute resolution, monitoring of users and transactions…), Obvy allows you to set up in a simple way and fast any type of online sales activity in an optimal and economical way.

By offering dozens of services through a turnkey, all-in-one solution, you ensure the satisfaction of your users while optimizing your budgets in order to capitalize not on the complex management of your payments and of your transactions, but above all on your platform, its quality, and its notoriety.