Multichannel ecommerce
Encyclopedia
Multichannel ecommerce consists of selling products or services through third party retail partners. Multichannel ecommerce can be differentiated from traditional retail distribution partnerships in that the manufacturer usually maintains a single product management system that electronically feeds into multiple partners. These partners can be: a comparison shopping engine like Google Product Search, a search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...

 like Bing Marketplace, an online marketplace
Online marketplace
Online marketplace refers to a type of ecommerce site where product and inventory information is provided by multiple third parties, whereas transactions are processes by the marketplace operator. Online marketplaces have become a driver of new business for online merchants that leverage them as...

 like Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

 or an online shopping malls
Online shopping malls
Online shopping malls are websites that have a directory of online shopping stores. Stores may include Best Buy, Aeropostale, Home Depot, Sears, Expedia, Zales, Old Navy and many more online shopping stores....

 like Yatego
Yatego
Yatego is a virtual shopping mall where traders are able sell their goods. Each trader has an online shop that is also integrated in the yatego platform. After the login process customers may make their purchases throughout the platform in all shops....

.

Between 2005-2010, multichannel distribution has become a significant part of the overall ecommerce universe. The key factor in the development of multichannel ecommerce has been the advent of online marketplaces, which aggregate product and inventory information from multiple merchants and display on their own sites, either in a branded or a non-branded fashion. Companies like Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

, eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...

, Buy.com
Buy.com
Buy.com, Incorporated is an online retailer based in Aliso Viejo, California.Buy.com began by selling computers and electronics in 1997 and has since expanded into many other categories...

, Shop.com, and Overstock
Overstock.com
Overstock.com , also known by its shortcut, O.co, is an online retailer headquartered in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, near Salt Lake City. Founded in 1997 by Robert Brazell, under the name D2: Discounts Direct, it was a pioneering online seller of surplus merchandise which, upon its failure in 1999,...

 all allow online merchants to syndicate product information to their product and inventory databases and generally receive a commission for goods sold through their marketplaces. According to Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

, up to 40% of its revenue is now derived through the sales of third-party goods through its Merchants@ and Amazon Associates programs.

Product and inventory information that feeds into marketplaces is aggregated either through a seller portal offered by marketplaces or via data uploads and links in the form of flat files or XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

 feeds. Merchant integration services are often utilized by merchants in setting up direct XML links with the marketplaces. Most frequently, merchants rely on third-party integration services offered by companies like PJ Media, Linnworks, eSellerPro, SolidCommerce, ChannelAdvisor, Ixtens, and Mercent.

Amazon's success in developing its online marketplace
Online marketplace
Online marketplace refers to a type of ecommerce site where product and inventory information is provided by multiple third parties, whereas transactions are processes by the marketplace operator. Online marketplaces have become a driver of new business for online merchants that leverage them as...

 has led to traditional retailers exploring the model, with both Walmart and Sears opening online marketplaces in 2009.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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