Matching digital’s unprecedented rise of 2020 was no easy task, but eCommerce—and enterprise marketplaces in particular—met the challenge. As eCommerce sales growth reached 12% in 2021, enterprise marketplaces found a path to even greater heights, achieving same-site sales growth of 25%.
That means, for the second year in a row, enterprise marketplaces grew at double the rate of eCommerce. This level of growth after 2020’s record year solidifies that marketplaces are not a temporary trend in commerce, but rather a fundamental—and permanent—shift in the ways that consumers shop and retailers profitably grow their businesses. In fact, enterprise marketplaces achieved 49.7% compound annual growth (CAGR) over the past two years, compared with overall eCommerce CAGR of 22.2% over the same period.
While retailers faced several challenges in 2021, such as supply chain disruptions and rising customer acquisition costs, enterprise marketplaces were a bright spot in the landscape. Consumers and sellers rushed to marketplaces at a record pace, driving up key marketplace growth indicators. For instance, consumers’ adoption of shopping on marketplaces increased by 35% over pre-pandemic levels: in 2019, 42% of consumers said they shopped exclusively on or a lot on marketplaces, a figure that rose to 57% in 2020 and held steady at 57% in 2021 even as physical stores reopened.
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