Services-oriented marketplaces (e.g. FVRR, UPWK) primarily match supply and demand in services provided by humans. Because humans in a given field and market require a certain pay rate, less flexibility exists with respect to lowering the cost of a transaction (other than typical geo-based labor arbitrage). Instead, these marketplaces put an emphas... See more

I believe that service marketplaces can only prevail if they fit into at least one of the following categories: repeated discovery, online-first marketplaces and SaaS-enabled marketplaces.

A marketplace can be defined as any 3rd party that connects supply (seller) and demand (buyer) while an e-commerce business—by definition—takes transactions online. In both types of businesses, the total flow of transactions, or the gross transaction value, does not go directly to the company. An e-commerce or marketplace business may only take 15

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