Thrive 3PL

Walmart Marketplace has about 200,000 active sellers. Amazon.com has about 500,000 by Marketplace Pulse's count, in a catalog that has had thirty years to fill up. A new listing on Walmart has fewer rivals standing between it and the shopper.

The marketplace is growing fast, too. Walmart's US third-party sales grew nearly 50% in the quarter ending April 30. Walmart also sets strict standards for sellers who ship their own orders, including valid tracking on at least 99% of orders and on-time delivery on at least 90%. A 3PL that ships your Walmart, Amazon, and storefront orders from one inventory keeps you inside those numbers without a separate stockpile for each channel.

Third-party advertising spend on Walmart rose more than 50% in that same quarter. Your competitors may already be there, so it may be time to stake your claim before they do.

Walmart fits best for consumable, household, and value-priced goods that already win on price and delivery speed. Our channel-by-channel breakdown is here: https://f.mtr.cool/xgn2aa6bk3

Amazon and eBay both launched in 1995, and more than thirty years later they are still the two largest online marketplaces in the US. Marketplace Pulse ranks eBay second, ahead of Temu, TikTok Shop, and Walmart.

eBay's US marketplace moved $43.8 billion of goods over its last four reported quarters, and US volume grew 24% in the most recent one. eBay sells nothing of its own, so every dollar of that volume belongs to a seller.

The old picture of eBay as a used-goods site is out of date. Most of what sells there today is new merchandise. eBay also gives you a buyer for inventory other channels handle poorly, such as parts and accessories, collectibles, refurbished units, discontinued lines, and overstock you would rather not discount on your own site.

If eBay sits near the bottom of your channel list, the numbers argue for moving it up. We compare the major marketplaces here: https://f.mtr.cool/x437m0juxv

Third-party sellers account for an estimated 69% of Amazon's roughly $440 billion in US sales, according to Marketplace Pulse. No other channel puts that many buyers in front of a brand nobody has heard of yet, and that reach is why you need to be there.

The access comes at a price. Fees rise every year, and the terms tilt toward sellers who use the rest of Amazon's services. The margin Amazon has already claimed for itself will not be coming back.

Your long-term valuation will hinge on how you perform everywhere else. On your own storefront, you set the prices, you keep the customer relationship and the data behind it, and no third party can change your economics between quarters.

Be on Amazon, and grow the part of the business you own. We walk through where each channel fits here: https://f.mtr.cool/g1wuu2qny9

Your business depends on Amazon. How much do you trust them with it?

The bill arrives in pieces. Amazon charges you when your inventory runs thin and surcharges it when it sits too long. Storage limits change. Listings get suppressed. Advertising costs climb in ways a seller cannot independently check.

A court may eventually change some of that, but not any time soon. You can't control that, but you can improve your fulfillment options this month.

You deserve a fulfillment partner who wins only when you win too, and who you can rely on to be there when you need them.

Thrive 3PL ships for 150+ ecommerce brands out of Houston.
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In Amazon's 2025 Small Business Empowerment Report, the company reported that over 95% of the independent sellers in its store sell on other retail channels as well.

The brands doing real volume on the largest marketplace in the country rarely sell only there, and the debate about whether to diversify ended without most of us noticing.

A harder question took its place: which other channels, and when.

The answer depends on where you are. Under a thousand orders a month, your storefront plus one marketplace that matches the product gives you enough to learn from, and a third channel adds overhead but not much incremental revenue. Between one and five thousand orders per month, the next channel earns its place.

Beyond that, the channel you add usually ships a different unit. A case pack goes to a shelf where a parcel used to go to a doorstep, and that is a different operation, not a bigger one.

We mapped the options by growth stage here: https://f.mtr.cool/cc8g3uorwt

Amazon charges a fee when your stock at its warehouse falls below 28 days of supply. Since January it measures that per variant rather than per product, so a catalog that looks healthy overall can be penalized on every sale of one thin size or color.

The fee runs $0.32 to $2.09 a unit, and it applies to every unit sold while you are below the line.

The only way to switch it off is to send Amazon more inventory. The remedy for holding too little at Amazon is to hold more at Amazon, and every extra unit is capital sitting in a building you do not control.

Split the difference instead. Keep the reserve where you control it and replenish into Amazon on a short cycle, so cover stays above the line without a year of stock parked in their network.
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In 2019, Amazon measured how well merchants met its delivery and shipping requirements, and broke the results out by who did the shipping.

Merchants using a third-party logistics provider met the delivery requirement 98.4% of the time, against a 96% average. On the shipping requirement they scored 99.8%, against 96.8%.

Those figures come from Amazon's documents, included in the filings of the antitrust case filed by the FTC in 2023. Amazon set the standard, ran the measurement, and reported the result.

A brand weighing whether outside fulfillment can deliver on time has an answer, and it comes from Amazon rather than from us.
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Multi-Channel Fulfillment will ship your Shopify orders out of the same FBA inventory. For a single parcel going to a consumer, it works.

The channels that build a brand off Amazon ask for more than a parcel. A retail buyer wants case packs, carton labels, routing-guide compliance, EDI documents and a delivery appointment. A direct customer opens a box that carries your brand, your insert, your tissue. MCF ships in unbranded packaging only, and it does not do retail prep, kitting or international.

Amazon also sets what MCF costs. Amazon raised MCF fees on January 15, added a 3.5% fuel surcharge on May 2, and begins holiday peak rates on October 15. A second channel built on MCF rises and falls with Amazon's rate card, its process changes and its storage limits, which is the dependency the second channel was meant to reduce.

A 3PL changes that. Your inventory sits in a warehouse that answers to you, ships in your packaging, and meets a retailer's compliance rules. The second channel then stands on its own, which is the entire reason to build it.

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Amazon watches what you charge everywhere else. List the same item lower on your own store or on another marketplace and Amazon will suppress your listing.

That rule reaches further than it looks. A marketplace charging half of Amazon's fees cannot turn that difference into a lower price, because the seller has to hold the price up on the cheaper channel to protect the Amazon one. The saving stops at the seller and never reaches the shopper.

Amazon takes roughly 50% of a typical seller's revenue, and that number now sets the floor under prices well beyond Amazon.

The FTC has been arguing exactly this in a case filed in 2023. That case goes to trial in February 2027.

Until it changes, every storefront on the internet carries Amazon's fee structure in its prices. A shopper who has never opened the app is paying for it.
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Remediation is not automatic. Every unit that comes back damaged carries a cost to inspect it, a cost to repair or repack it, and a cost to ship it into FBA again.

Run those three charges against what the unit actually recovers. A low-margin item does not survive them. Neither does anything you would have discounted to move even in perfect condition.

Sometimes the right decision is not to do the remediation. Dispose of the damaged units, take the write-off, and put that money into inventory you can sell at full price.

When the numbers do work, send the stock to us and we'll handle it for you.

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