CJ Gustafson

Most Marketplaces Charge Sellers, Many Double Fees

How much do the top marketplace businesses take per transaction? Some charge more than you’d think… “Take rate” is a function of: Purchase frequency × ticket size × platform labor intensity The more work you do, the more juice you get. Three takeaways from the research: 1) 100% of the marketplaces I looked at charge the Supply (Seller) side. This makes sense, as they are bringing them (hopefully net new) business. 2) Of the 25 marketplaces I dug into, more than half monetized both sides of the transaction. For some, this more than doubles their effective total take rate 3) Some marketplaces may be going too far. To quote Bill Gurley “In order for your platform to be the “definitive” place to transact, you want industry leading pricing – which is impossible if your rake is the de facto cause of excessive pricing.” Shutterstock and Class Pass are examples. H/T Dan Hockenmaier and Lenny Rachitsky for their prior marketplace research which I leaned on Read the full marketplace take rate analysis here:  https://lnkd.in/g6AaZSNG