Your products can be listed on marketplaces without actually being visible. Visibility depends above all on the quality of your product information: complete, structured and consistent data ranks better with the algorithms, converts better and is less exposed to delisting. It is the one lever brands control completely.
In 2025, Amazon, Temu, Shein and AliExpress held the top four spots in French e-commerce (ECDB, E-commerce: the 100 best-performing brands in France, April 2026). The picture is unambiguous. But behind this ranking lies a more nuanced reality for brands. Depending on their contractual model with the platforms, they retain more or less control over their stock, their prices or their promotions. Brands do, however, keep their grip on one decisive lever: the quality of their product data.
The marketplace: the first contact between brand and buyer
In 2024, marketplaces already accounted for 31% of e-commerce product sales volume in France, up from 29% in 2023 (FEVAD, Key Figures for E-commerce 2025). A pace that shows no sign of slowing. And this figure reveals a shift in buying behavior: platforms have become consumers’ first instinct when searching for a product, comparing prices and completing a purchase. This shift makes the product listing the brand’s first impression, even before the advertising campaign.
And this storefront is not neutral. On Amazon, the A10 algorithm continuously assesses product data quality: completeness of information, semantic consistency, conversion rate, customer reviews. Products enriched with A+ content show on average 20% more conversions (Amazon Sellers Global Study, March 2025). Conversely, passive or incomplete listings are not merely penalized. Amazon delisted 24 billion listings within a single year (Business Insider, May 2025) as part of its “Bend the Curve” operation. An inadequate listing disappears, plain and simple.
A twofold pressure on product data
For a long time, an approximate listing went unnoticed. Today, product data has never been in such high demand. As the e-commerce environment grows more complex, brands must keep it flawless under increasingly demanding conditions, where the slightest weakness is paid for instantly.
The fragmentation of platforms
Marketplaces now number in the dozens, from global giants like Amazon and eBay to category leaders such as Zalando in fashion or ManoMano in home improvement. Each imposes its own taxonomies, attribute formats and enrichment rules. And the requirements also vary within a single platform.
Amazon, for instance, distinguishes between two models of relationship with brands. In vendor mode, Amazon buys and resells the products and sets the prices. In seller mode, the brand sells directly to end customers through the platform and retains more commercial latitude. In both cases, product data quality determines visibility and performance. But the rules of the game are specific to each contract, and teams must contend with different constraints depending on their status.
Without a complete and high-performing tool, teams manually manage dozens of incompatible formats. Errors pile up, time-to-listing stretches out, and inconsistencies between channels multiply. The solution? Structure the data in a single repository, the PIM (Product Information Management), then distribute it through a PDS (Product Data Syndication) solution capable of handling GDSN feeds, Excel matrices and marketplace APIs alike. A single source of truth, every channel covered.
Retail media amplifies the risks
In 2024, retail media broke through the €1.22 billion mark in France, accounting for 11% of the digital advertising market (SRI/UDECAM, digital advertising market review 2024). Brands invest heavily to buy visibility on these very platforms. But investing in retail media on an incomplete or poorly structured listing means paying to amplify a poor experience. Product data therefore also drives advertising return on investment, not just organic presence.
Social commerce opens a new front
TikTok Shop launched in France on March 31, 2025. Six months later, the platform already holds a 1% share of French e-commerce, ahead of players like La Redoute and eBay (E-Commerce Nation/Headmind Partners, October–November 2025). Sales volumes increased sevenfold between April and September 2025. Purchases via shoppable videos, for their part, increased fourteenfold. In six months, the platform went from 5,000 to more than 16,500 registered businesses.
This model rests on a different logic from traditional marketplaces. The purchase does not arise from an active search. It arises from exposure to content. Product listings must then adapt to new environments: short-form video, live shopping, creator content. These are new data formats to manage, with shorter timelines and codes very different from classic catalogs. The fragmentation of product entry points is accelerating. And with it, the operational complexity for brands.
Product data: the shield that remains
In an ecosystem where brands do not always control promotions, margins or the direct customer relationship, product data quality is the lever they can truly act on. Centralizing your catalog, structuring your attributes and automating their syndication to every platform is no longer a technical option: it is a matter of commercial survival. As entry points multiply (marketplaces, retail media, social commerce, and more), reliable, well-distributed product data becomes the best guarantee of visibility and performance.
Assess the quality and execution of your product data with Equadis. Discover how to centralize your catalog, automate its syndication to all your channels — including your marketplaces — and monitor your products’ performance online.
