The gap between online marketplaces and online retailers has been blurring in recent years as companies with ecommerce websites begin listing third-party brands without holding any of their stock.
Country Road Group, a company that has predominantly sold its own products across its five brands – Country Road, Witchery, Mimco, Politix and Trenery – has just begun listing third-party brands on two of its websites through a marketplace model. Myer, a department store that has for so long sold its own inventory – or housed external brands in concessions across its multiple stores – has been pushing further into the marketplace space as well.
And this is not just noted in the fashion space, but across wider retail. Bunnings, Big W, Kmart, Chemist Warehouse, Coles and Woolworths have all launched online marketplaces over the last few years. This gives new light to the recent wind-up of both Catch and MyDeal in recent months.
It also perhaps explains why other online platforms like The Iconic and Kogan faced challenging sales growth immediately post-COVID, which only recently swung around to green again over the last year, off the back of rejigged marketing spending.
The growing push into marketplace offerings is also not an Australian phenomenon. Marks and Spencers, the UK-based fashion retailer, also shifted into this space. ASOS has also merged its separate marketplace offering onto its own website earlier this year. And Walmart – the big box retailer in the USA – was probably one of the first big retail players to expand into the online marketplace space in 2016.
What has been driving this marketplace boom? RMIT marketing lecturer, Dr Jessica Pallant, says part of it is likely cost-of-living/cost-of-trading pressures post-COVID – at least in Australia.
“It is a hard time to be an Australian retailer, cost of living is continuing to put a lot of pressure on consumers and in turn local retailers so there may be pressure to tap into new markets,” Pallant explains.
“The marketplace model can play into the convenience factor for consumers, being able to source the products they want through one location. This can also help to keep shipping costs down for the consumer as they don't have to pay shipping costs through each retailer separately, or try to hit free shipping thresholds to avoid this fee.”
Pallant says it can also expose consumers to new products or brands they may not have been open to trying, by leveraging the existing brand relationship.
“We are also starting to see this with Target products being sold on the Kmart website and vice versa,” she says. “However, these are operated by the same company but follow the same appeal of convenience.”
The closure of Catch has apparently been a boon for the Kmart Group, according to its parent company Wesfarmers. Kmart has only just launched its own marketplace offering off the back of Catch winding up.
This follows years of continued integration between Kmart and Target’s back-end processes. On a side note, despite concerns that Kmart and Target could merge into one, Wesfarmers has reported they won’t in recent updates. The overarching company’s FY25 annual report mentioned Kmart and Target each having separate goals.
Big W is also believed to have benefitted from the wrap up of MyDeal, with both housed under Woolworths Group.
But what has raised eyebrows is Country Road’s move, given it is a private label brand. Pallant says it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
“They have an iconic brand identity, so the products they introduce through the marketplace would need to be congruent with their positioning,” she says. “It also appears they are focusing on adjacent categories that they are not currently operating themselves to potentially mitigate this cannibalisation.”
At the crux, a marketplace offering appears to be the new frontier for retailers. Pallant says that some stats show marketplaces account for a quarter of Australian spending, and this seems to be growing.
Statista has shared that Australians’ spending on online marketplaces has increased tenfold over the past decade. On its website, the research firm shared that the format has become a key driver of Australia’s e-commerce growth, as shoppers are drawn in by marketplaces’ value propositions alongside extensive brand and product ranges.
“Amazon and eBay have become the country’s online marketplace frontrunners, with fast-growing platform Temu shaking up the landscape recently. From Gen Z consumers frequently shopping for women’s fashion, homewares, and beauty products to older generations ordering home items, consumer electronics, and books, online marketplaces have become Australians’ favorite one-stop shop.”
This comes as online shopping itself surged over COVID. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show that monthly online spending has nearly doubled between June 2020 and June 2025 – from $2.76 billion to $4.6 billion. In original terms, online spending peaked at $5.3 billion in December 2024.
Pallant says she expects to see marketplace growth continue, particularly as cost-of-living issues are “not likely” to be resolved in the short term.
“For wholesalers, it is another channel to market although they need to be careful of not diluting their brand,” she says. “For retailers, it could be an opportunity, but they need to make sure it is not detracting from consumers experience across channels, including the in-store experience.”