Less, but better: the marketplace growth split

"Less, but better" was the philosophy that guided industrial designer Dieter Rams.

The idea is simple: remove what doesn't matter, so what remains can perform better.

Marketplace teams could use more of that thinking.

For years, marketplace growth was mostly a game of accumulation.

But more supply doesn't automatically mean more demand captured.

And increasingly, we're seeing a different marketplace operating model emerge.

The best teams aren't trying to do everything.

They're getting much better at identifying the few things worth doing.

The marketplace paradox: more data, less clarity

Marketplaces have never had access to more information.

Most large marketplace teams already have competitive intelligence, scraping providers, seller databases, internal BI, CRM data, search data and category analytics.

The problem isn't access to data anymore.

It's prioritization.

A category manager can identify thousands of products sold elsewhere but missing from their marketplace.

A seller team can find thousands of merchants they could potentially recruit.

But neither answers the question that actually matters:

This distinction matters.

A list of 50,000 missing products creates work.

A ranked list of the 50 gaps responsible for the most addressable GMV creates decisions.

That's "less, but better."

How Vigie enables a "less, but better" marketplace

One of the things we consistently see with advanced marketplace teams is that they don't necessarily execute more actions.

They execute more valuable ones.

Instead of telling a category manager:

The goal is to tell them:

Instead of telling seller acquisition:

Tell them:

The difference looks small.

Operationally, it's enormous.

It changes marketplace intelligence from a discovery problem into a decision problem.

That is what we're building Vigie around.

We map products, sellers, marketplaces, countries, prices and demand signals to understand not only what is missing, but what is worth fixing.

Scraping is only an input.

The value comes from connecting the data, estimating the opportunity and turning it into an action.

The marketplace growth split

I think this creates an increasingly visible split between marketplace organizations.

On one side are teams still optimizing primarily for volume:

On the other side are teams starting with demand:

• What are customers looking for?
• Where is our assortment underperforming?
• Which missing products represent meaningful GMV?
• Which sellers could close those gaps?
• What should the team act on this week?

Both groups can appear busy.

Both can show growth in catalog size.

But their economics are very different.

If one team adds 100,000 low-demand products while another adds 5,000 products specifically selected because customers want them, catalog growth tells you very little about which team is performing better.

Marketplace growth becomes less about the amount of supply you add and more about the precision with which you allocate your limited resources.

The compounding effect of better decisions

This is where the difference becomes interesting.

One good marketplace decision doesn't change much.

But repeat the process every week.

After a year, you've made hundreds of demand-informed decisions.

The marketplace has not simply become bigger.

It has become better aligned with what customers actually want.

And every cycle gives you more information.

• Which categories contain the most untapped demand?
• Which sellers consistently close important gaps?
• Which opportunities convert fastest?
• Where does internal execution break down?
• Which types of assortment investments actually produce GMV?

That feedback loop compounds.

The advantage isn't having more data.

It's learning faster from the decisions made with it.

Marketplaces will remain relationship-driven

There is one important thing technology won't change.

Marketplaces are relationship businesses.

Great seller managers know their merchants.

Category managers understand their markets.

Marketplace leaders know when commercial judgment matters more than a model.

AI and data shouldn't replace that.

They should make those people much more effective.

The shift isn't from relationship-driven marketplaces to algorithm-driven marketplaces.

It's from relationship-driven marketplaces to relationship-plus-intelligence-driven marketplaces.

A seller manager shouldn't spend Monday morning searching spreadsheets for someone to contact.

They should start the week knowing which seller could unlock the most valuable opportunity.

A category manager shouldn't spend hours comparing competitor catalogs.

They should already know where the biggest assortment gaps are.

A Head of Marketplace shouldn't need five dashboards to understand whether the team is executing the growth strategy.

They should be able to see the opportunities identified, the decisions made and the GMV captured.

The technology disappears into the operating model.

Less catalog. Better assortment.

The question marketplace leaders are asking is often:

Increasingly, I think the better question is:

Because the future of marketplace growth probably isn't 10x more sellers, 10x more products or 10x more competitive data.

It is knowing which sellers matter.

Which products matter.

Which gaps matter.

And acting on them before everyone else does.