The Rise of the Online Resale Marketplace

Companies like Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba generally get all of the headlines as global leaders in the online marketplace area (although none have managed to achieve complete global domination). While Amazon is considered a global leader, local players such as Flipkart in India and Alibaba in China maintain the lead in their local markets. And in the coming years, online marketplaces are going to become ever more diversified. In a recent report by Coresight Research, global marketplace platform provider revenues are expected to more than double from $18.7 billion in 2017 to $40.1 billion in 2022; all driven by the sharing economy.

Not all online marketplaces are the same, nor do they all provide the same features and functions. In addition to selling product (think Amazon & eBay), there are online marketplaces for resale and rental of products, as well as finding and booking services such as hair salons and restaurant reservations (think OpenTable).

For us here at B-Stock, we think of our marketplace platform as an online mall where nine of the top 10 major U.S. retailers auction off liquidation merchandise to SMB owners who then resell that merchandise through other marketplaces, such as Amazon, eBay, Jet, Groupon Goods,  and so on. These sites can be considered resale marketplaces (in addition to being considered traditional retail marketplaces), which allow resellers to distinguish their used products from conventional retail marketplaces where new goods are sold.

Resale marketplaces have been gaining popularity as an increasing proportion of consumers opt to buy used items to save money or save resources. A Statista survey from June 2017 indicates that around 75% of U.S. consumers have bought a used item at least once in the last year. Leading the charge is the popularity in reselling apparel, accessories, and shoes. Three popular sites for reselling apparel include ThredUp, Poshmark, and Rebag. The emergence of these resale marketplaces is actually great news for major retailers looking to sell overstock and returned merchandise.

Due to increasing buyer demand for slightly used or unsold clothing, major retailers can increase their recovery rates on returned and overstock merchandise. This is how it works:

1. A major retailer puts bulk lots of its overstock and returned merchandise up for auction on B-Stock.
2. Our qualified and pre-approved business Buyer Network can then bid and compete for that merchandise.
3. The winning business buyer can then turn around and resell that discounted apparel either through his own site or through one of these upcoming resale marketplaces such as ThredUp, Poshmark, Rebag, or more traditional channels such as Amazon, eBay, and so forth.

Easy as 1-2-3. Want a more specific overview? Get in touch with us today for a demo.

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