Marketplace

Match supply and demand and monetize via a take rate on GMV. Liquidity — the share of listings or intent that actually transacts — is the defining survival metric, and most structural marketplace benchmarks are deliberately unpublished because they are so category-specific. GMV retention is the truest durability signal.

Marketplaces work by aggregating supply and demand in one place and extracting a take rate on the resulting transactions. The GMV — gross merchandise value, also expressed as total payment volume or gross bookings — is the top-line measure of activity, but GMV alone tells you little about health. A marketplace can show impressive GMV while quietly losing the liquidity that makes it worth using.

Liquidity Is the Survival Metric

Liquidity — the share of supply that actually transacts, sometimes expressed as fill rate or match rate — is the defining structural metric. Low liquidity means buyers leave empty-handed and sellers stop posting; the flywheel stalls. Supply/demand ratio and market depth metrics reveal whether the two sides of the marketplace are balanced, and imbalance in either direction is a strategic threat. Because liquidity thresholds are so category-specific, most competitive benchmarks are deliberately unpublished.

Durability Through Retention

Repeat purchase rate is the behavioral signal that buyers find enough value to return, while GMV retention cohorts show whether the dollar volume from a given acquisition vintage is holding or shrinking over time. These cohort shapes are the truest test of marketplace durability — they reveal whether the platform has genuine network-effect stickiness or is propped up by subsidies. Contribution margin (across its CM1/CM2/CM3 layers) shows how much of GMV survives after payment processing, incentives, and operational costs — and whether the take rate is actually translating into a viable business.