Most marketplace teams focus their optimization efforts on internal best-sellers.
It feels logical. These products already convert. They generate volume. Small improvements appear to deliver quick wins. Better ranking, sharper pricing, improved content. Incremental gains are measurable and reassuring.
But this is often a defensive decision.
Optimizing what already performs well protects existing GMV. It rarely creates structural growth.
Internal best-sellers are visible, monitored and frequently updated. But their marginal upside is limited: these products are already close to their performance ceiling.
Meanwhile, blind spots remain elsewhere in the catalog:
- Categories with high demand but weak assortment depth
- Emerging brands not yet onboarded
- Long-tail searches with poor coverage
- Repeated search queries returning limited or irrelevant results
These gaps represent unaddressed demand. They are harder to measure, but far more strategic.
Welding aprons. You might assume it's niche, but it generates €1.3M GMV in France and £2.3M in UK on Amazon.
Marketplace growth rarely comes from squeezing an extra 2% conversion rate on existing winners. It comes from expanding relevance: capturing demand that currently leaves the platform.
Defensive optimization preserves performance.
Strategic assortment creates growth.
Before optimizing harder, ask where you are structurally under-serving demand.
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Talk to us about the GMV your marketplace is missing right now.