Amazon delivers nearly a third of orders for marketplace sellers

 BY ABBY CALLARD Associate Editor

ChannelAdvisor says its clients are increasingly turning to Amazon’s fulfillment program to handle the warehousing and delivery of their products.

Sales by outside merchants on Amazon.com Inc.’s marketplace were up 34.4% in June 2014 compared with June 2013, according to ChannelAdvisor. The company produces monthly reports that compare its merchant clients’ sales through various online shopping portals and marketing channels, including Amazon.com, eBay Inc., Google search and Google Shopping.

ChannelAdvisor has added two new data points to its monthly report in response to requests for information about the Fulfillment by Amazon program, a service that lets merchants store inventory at Amazon warehouses with Amazon handling delivery to the customer. The new “Percent FBA” measures the percentage of Amazon gross merchandise volume of ChannelAdvisor clients that was fulfilled with Fulfillment by Amazon. For June 2014, 31.8% of Amazon gross merchandise volume was shipped through the Fulfillment by Amazon program, up from 28.7% in June 2013. The second new data point, “FBA non Amazon,” measures the percentage of gross merchandise value shipped through the Fulfillment by Amazon program that was not sold through Amazon’s Marketplace. These are sales from a merchant’s own site or other marketplaces that Amazon fulfills. In June 2014, that was 1.8%, up from 0.9% in June 2013.

Last month, ChannelAdvisor began tracking its clients’ sales on web marketplaces other than Amazon and eBay—including those of Sears, Newegg and Rakuten Shopping—and combines them in the report. In June 2014, sales on those marketplaces increased 51.5% compared with June 2013. Although that’s solid growth, ChannelAdvisor notes it’s a decrease from the 78.3% year-over-year growth seen in May.

Google Product Listing Ads and paid search channels are generating increased sales for ChannelAdvisor clients. Revenue from paid search ads on Google grew 20.4% in June compared with an 11.7% year-over-year growth rate in May. Year-over-year growth on Google Product Listing Ads was 6.4% compared to the previous year—up from just 0.4% year-over-year growth in May.A deeper dive into eBay’s numbers reveals eBay’s fixed-price division is experiencing steady growth—18.4% in June—but its auctions have been declining since October 2013. In June, auctions were down 19.0% over the previous year. Overall, sales on eBay increased 12.3% from June 2013—up, too, from last month’s year-over-year increase of 11.5%.

Conversion rates on Google search ads increased 6.0% in June compared with the previous year, and customers spent on average 7.0% more in June 2014 than June 2013—up to $137.02 from $128.06. That is the highest average order value ChannelAdvisor has measured for sales originating with Google search ads. Conversion rates for Google Product Listing Ads on Google were up 10.5% in June 2014 compared to the previous year. Customers spent in June an average of $98.23—an 8.7% decrease from June 2013.