Best Buy is giving a third-party marketplace another go. After shutting down its first attempt in 2016, the retailer is back eight years later with plans to launch a new online marketplace built on the Mirakl platform in summer 2025.
Plans for a U.S. marketplace were first unveiled by Best Buy CEO Corie Barry on the company’s investor call for Q3 fiscal 2025 on Nov. 26, 2024: “We have an established, growing third-party online marketplace in Canada, and we are planning to launch one in the U.S. targeting mid next year,” said Barry said on the call. “We believe that as the trusted leader in [consumer electronics] we have an opportunity to leverage our positioning and assets to build a differentiated digital marketplace platform, thereby bringing our customers access to a much more expansive assortment and new categories. In addition, sellers and advertisers will have an additional avenue to increase their reach and build their brands leveraging our qualified traffic.”
Then on Dec. 19, Frank Bedo, Chief Marketplace and Ecommerce Officer at Best Buy, posted an update on LinkedIn: “I am excited to announce that our ‘Sell on Best Buy Marketplace’ landing page is now live and accepting applications, so come and get your products in front of millions of customers and grow your business with us,” said Bedo.
Bedo has been at Best Buy for 24 years but took on his new role just this past October. Back in 2011, Best Buy was among the first retailers to attempt to emulate Amazon’s burgeoning success with a third-party marketplace of its own, but the company abandoned the effort five years later after gaining minimal traction. At the time Best Buy spokesman Jeff Haydock said that the marketplace only brought in 1% of domestic revenue and was causing confusion among shoppers, particularly because 70% of the third-party inventory overlapped with the retailer’s first-party merchandise.
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“We believe we can continue to provide a positive customer experience on our site through other product sourcing methods,” said Mary Lou Kelley, then-President of Best Buy Ecommerce, in an email issued to third-party sellers in 2016.
But much has changed in the last eight years, including retailers’ attitude and strategies around third-party marketplaces. Now the ranks of marketplace operators don’t just include Amazon and Ebay but also Walmart, Target, Nordstrom, Lowe’s, Hudson’s Bay, Macy’s, Simon Property Group and Kroger, many of which are built on Mirakl.
“A new marketplace is coming to town — Best Buy,” proclaimed Mirakl Founder and Co-CEO Adrien Nussenbaum on LinkedIn. “This is a game changer for U.S. online commerce. Excited to see the future launch and support Frank Bedo and his team with the full Mirakl force.”
This launch in particular must feel like a bit of a full-circle moment for Nussenbaum, whose first-ever marketplace was acquired by France’s Best Buy-equivalent FNAC, forming the basis of what eventually became Mirakl.