The marketplace revolution: Key insights from our 2026 Seller Report
The rules of commerce are evolving at unprecedented speed. Customer acquisition costs are rising, shopper journeys are fragmenting across channels and AI is fundamentally reshaping how products are discovered and purchased.
To uncover what's working, we analyzed the performance of over 100,000 global sellers on Mirakl's marketplace and dropship platforms, representing 150 million SKUs and nearly $15 billion in annual gross merchandise value (GMV).
The findings reveal critical trends that every brand and seller needs to know.
Marketplaces are outpacing traditional eCommerce by 4.5x
The performance gap between marketplaces and traditional eCommerce is widening dramatically.
In 2025, traditional eCommerce sales reached $6.42 trillion, growing 6.86% year over year. Marketplaces, by contrast, generated $14.6 billion in GMV with 31% year over year growth.
This isn't a temporary spike. As acquisition costs climb and organic search becomes less predictable, marketplaces offer brands something increasingly valuable: built-in discovery, trusted buying environments and access to high-intent traffic at scale.
Three key trends are driving this growth: the number of merchants entering marketplaces grew 26% year over year, 34% of sellers now operate on two or more marketplaces and the average GMV per seller within the Mirakl Connect ecosystem has reached $7.5 million.
The multichannel advantage: Why one channel isn't enough
Perhaps the most striking finding is the performance gap between single-channel and multi-channel sellers.
Sellers operating on just one marketplace average $575,093 in GMV, while those operating on two or more reach an average of $10,073,917. That's a 17.5x performance multiplier.
This dramatic disparity confirms what leading brands already know: multichannel presence isn't just about incremental growth. It's about transforming business performance.
Each new channel adds incremental reach while reinforcing performance across the entire ecosystem through expanded distribution, greater visibility, richer data and strengthened marketplace credibility.
AI is the new performance multiplier
The most successful sellers aren't just expanding across channels. They're leveraging AI-powered tools to activate new marketplaces faster and operate more efficiently.
The performance benchmarks illustrate this advantage:
Speed to market matters. Sellers within the Mirakl ecosystem complete onboarding in a median of 28 days, with the fastest onboarding taking less than two weeks.
AI automation drives measurable results. Sellers leveraging Mirakl's Catalog Transformer, an AI-powered tool that automates product classification and content transformation, generate 88% higher GMV compared with those who don't use it.
AI-powered tools eliminate catalog management friction by automatically mapping attributes, enriching product data and standardizing listings across marketplaces. What once required weeks of manual work can now be synchronized in near real time, enabling faster launches and scalable expansion.
Preparing for the agentic commerce era
AI is moving from an information tool to an active purchasing agent, and the shift is already underway. According to Adobe:
72% of consumers who use AI for shopping now rely on it as their primary search tool.
AI-driven traffic converts 38% better than traditional sources
In just seven months, AI referral traffic to eCommerce sites increased twelvefold
Looking ahead, Gartner predicts that by 2028, brands' organic search traffic will decrease by 50% or more as consumers embrace generative AI-powered search.
For brands and sellers, visibility in AI-driven discovery will increasingly depend on two factors: broad multichannel presence and high-quality, machine-readable product data.
AI systems prioritize products that appear across multiple trusted sources. Sellers with wide distribution create stronger visibility and trust signals, increasing the likelihood that AI assistants will discover and recommend their products.
Just as important is data quality. AI agents rely on structured, complete and accurate product information to evaluate and rank products.
Three steps to win in 2026
The brands that will thrive in 2026 are those investing now in three critical capabilities:
1. Increase discoverability through multichannel selling
Audit your current presence and identify strategic expansion opportunities.
Prioritize marketplaces that align with your brand positioning and customer demographics.
2. Invest in high-quality product data across every channel
Enrich your product data with comprehensive, structured information.
Leverage AI-powered tools to streamline data management at scale.
Optimize for how AI understands and categorizes products.
3. Improve generative engine optimization
Write detailed, contextual product descriptions that answer common buyer questions.
Add structured FAQs that include the types of information AI agents use to match products to shopper intent.
Monitor how your products appear in AI-generated shopping recommendations.
Ready to transform your marketplace strategy?
The brands winning in 2026 will combine multichannel expansion with operational excellence, integrating marketplaces into a channel-agnostic strategy while maintaining governance over pricing, product data, fulfillment and brand consistency.
Download the complete 2026 Seller Report to access the full data set, performance benchmarks and strategic recommendations that will help you scale efficiently and capture demand in the era of agentic commerce.
