A new platform is about to be launched in the United States, and sellers worth billions have already applied to join!

According to the 2024 Global E-commerce Market Size Report released by MobiLoud, global e-commerce sales this year are expected to approach US$6 trillion, accounting for 19.5% of global retail sales.

The United States is the world's second largest e-commerce market. Next year, this market will welcome a "new player" to enter the market.

The retail giant announced the launch of an online platform, and sellers have already applied to join

This American retail giant is Best Buy .

The news was first announced by CEO Corie Barry in a conference call on November 26. Barry said the company has a mature and growing third-party online platform in Canada and plans to launch it in the United States by the middle of next year.

Last Thursday (US time), Best Buy's Chief Marketing and E-Commerce Officer ( CMOEO) posted a message on Lynk & Co stating that the "Sell on Best Buy Marketplace" landing page has been launched and started accepting applications.

It is reported that Best Buy's third-party platform is built on the SaaS platform Mirakl, and well-known companies such as Macy's, Decathlon, and Carrefour are all Mirakl's customers.

( Photo source: Lynk & Co )

According to the application page, there are 13 items to fill in (First Name and Last Name are counted as one item), but there are only 7 mandatory items besides the name, including:

Email address

Legal Business Name

Do you have an address in the U.S. for shipping and accepting returns (yes or no)

How you plan to fulfill marketplace orders (including through marketplace warehouses, third-party distributors, retailer travel services (such as Amazon), exploring fulfillment options, 5 other options)

Product categories sold

Estimated sales on BestBuy.com (including 6 options: less than $500,000, $500,000 to $1,000,000, $1,000,000,000 - $5,000,000,000,000, $5,000,000,000 - $10,000,000,000 - $20,0 ...

How many SKUs do you plan to list on BestBuy.com (including 6 options: less than 500, 500-1000, 1001-5000, 5001-10000, 10001-50000, greater than 50000)

It is worth mentioning that there are currently 24 product categories listed by Best Buy with the option "Other", including home appliances, audio equipment, cameras, computers and tablets, drones, electronic transportation, household items, mobile phone accessories, pet supplies, etc. , covering a wide range of categories.

(Photo source: Best Buy)

Perhaps because they have been suffering from Amazon for a long time, many sellers welcomed Best Buy's move. Some sellers said they were very interested, and some sellers said they had already submitted applications . The seller who had submitted an application was Brent Wynne, whose Amazon account was blocked, resulting in a loss of $2 million during Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday (see "Amazon's billion-dollar seller was blocked, losing tens of millions during the big sale!" for details).

Brent Wynne said that if Best Buy could treat sellers with dignity and respect, instead of the way Amazon does, it would have a chance to gain a significant market share, "because sellers are eager for an alternative to Amazon's tyranny." In my opinion, although Brent Wynne's remarks are full of personal emotions, if Best Buy does well, it will indeed put some pressure on Amazon. Just like the booming development of Temu and TikTok Shop, the platform is likely to be more friendly to sellers only when the competition is fierce.

Another seller agreed, "Amazon needs to take some hits, and I believe Best Buy, Walmart, and Target all recognize this," and said he would submit his application this weekend as a Christmas gift for himself and his team.

Is a "new player" and a "second entry"

In fact, this is not the first time Best Buy has launched a third-party market.

Best Buy first launched a third-party platform in September 2011 in an effort to better compete with Amazon and eBay. At the time, Best Buy had been experiencing a sales decline for several consecutive quarters. The reason for the decline was that although customers would visit the company's offline channels to view products, they would purchase them through other retailers' online channels. Best Buy planned to save these users and sales losses through third-party platforms.

But in February 2016, Best Buy announced the closure of its online platform in the United States . According to a Best Buy spokesperson at the time, there were two main reasons for the closure: one was to invest the company's funds used to support the market business in other strategic growth areas; the other was customer confusion about market purchases - because 70% of third-party products overlap with self-operated products, buyers only found out after purchase that products purchased on the online platform could not be returned in Best Buy stores.

Most importantly, Best Buy's first online platform had little appeal to sellers, with only 100 sellers from launch to closure , contributing less than 1% of sales , but Best Buy needed costs to operate this business.

Eight years later, Best Buy chose to return to this track where it had once failed. People in the industry generally speculated that this was related to the US retail industry entering a cold winter.

The editor looked through Best Buy's financial reports for the three quarters of this year and found that its revenue has been declining continuously:

Q1 revenue was $8.85 billion, compared to $9.467 billion in the same period last year;

Q2 revenue was $9.288 billion, compared to $9.583 billion in the same period last year;

Q3 revenue was $9.445 billion, compared to $9.756 billion in the same period last year;

Last month, it was reported that Best Buy lowered its full-year same-store sales forecast due to sluggish demand for electronics and other home appliances, and said it now expects same-store sales to fall 2.5% to 3.5%, compared with its previous guidance of a decline of 1.5% to 3%.

At the same time, statistics from Digital Commerce 360 ​​also found that Best Buy , as an electronics consumer giant , has seen a downward trend in online sales since 2020. Therefore, the industry generally believes that launching a third-party online platform is a way for Best Buy to save sales.

( Image source: Digital Commerce 360 )

In addition, from the perspective of the entire retail industry, launching online platforms has almost become a trend. In addition to Amazon, eBay , Walmart, Target, Lowe's, Macy's and many other retailers that have made achievements are also building their own third-party e-commerce platforms.

Of course, some people hold different opinions. One seller said that he was "looking forward to seeing the execution of the Best Buy team in merchandising" and praised Best Buy for resisting Amazon's competition through its excellent in-store experience. However, the seller recommended an article published in October this year by Sanjit Paul Chaudhry, a well-known American business strategist, entrepreneur and writer .

I took a quick look at the first half of the article, in which Sanjit Paul Chaudhry mentioned that retailers should not build e-commerce platforms . Amazon's success has led other retailers to launch third-party online platforms, but many retailers have a wrong understanding of the platform. These retailers believe that "the power of the market platform comes from controlling the distribution channels" and "but in fact the real advantage of the market platform is that they can help consumers make purchasing decisions through proprietary decision support systems." The article also cited Best Buy's transformation as an example, praising it as "to some extent a model of retailer transformation." (I have to say that this seller really has a bad taste)

In my opinion, if Best Buy can learn from its previous failures and solve the common problems of existing e-commerce platforms , it will not be difficult for it to gain a foothold in the US e-commerce market . After all , many sellers are now frantically looking for "an alternative to Amazon." However, it will take time to see what Best Buy's third-party platform can achieve.

Third-party platforms

Best Buy

US Market