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Latest Super Selling Research Confirms Modern Retail is Dynamic, Fluid, Competitive, and Full of Small Business Opportunity

This new 2023 Super Selling report shows contemporary small business retailers take advantage of many different options for selling and fulfilling customer orders.

Our 2021 Super Selling report found that the average small business seller used several different sales methods, and that sellers benefited from online and offline options to sell in many different ways and the choice of many competing store and marketplace vendors. Two years on, this latest report confirms that modern retail remains extremely competitive, and SMB sellers have choices between many competing stores, marketplaces, and fulfillment vendors.

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Background

Some U.S. lawmakers and regulators assert that the size, market share, and success of large online stores and marketplaces like Amazon demonstrate the need for drastic changes to antitrust laws to restore competition and help small businesses (SMBs). Small sellers disagree, and it’s not even a close call. Research continues to show that small sellers don’t feel forced to sell only on Amazon, and that the modern retail industry is one where small retailers have many options and use multiple sales methods.

Lead Findings:

SMB Sellers Use Multiple Sales Methods

The average SMB uses five (5) sales methods
of SMB Sellers use at least three (3) different sales methods
of SMB Sellers with <10 employees use at least three (3) different sales methods

The ‘Super Sellers’ report analyzed eight sales methods that make up nearly all SMB selling. Of these, the four most popular are…

  • 70% use physical retail stores
  • 68% use wholesaling 
  • 64% use third-party online marketplaces 
  • 63% use owned and operated web stores

SMB Sellers Sell on Multiple Online Marketplaces

85% of SMB sellers on Amazon Marketplace also sell on at least one other online marketplace, including 58% that sell on eBay, 48% on Walmart, and 36% on Etsy.
89% of SMB sellers on Amazon Marketplace use four (4) or more different sales methods simultaneously.
84% of SMB sellers on Amazon Marketplace also use wholesale, and 81% use seller-owned web stores, 77% use click-to-buy social, and 74% use brick and mortar stores.

Modern retail provides small businesses with more and easier-to-use options than ever before to offer products to larger markets, grow their small business, and succeed. It has never been easier for a brick and mortar store to start selling online. There have never been more online sales platform choices or fulfillment (i.e., warehousing and shipping) choices. All these choices help small sellers compete with each other and with bigger brands. 

Modern retail is intensely competitive. Congress, regulators, and state lawmakers should not upend America’s small business digital economy based on anecdotal evidence and misconceptions about choice and competition.