Mirakl powers the marketplaces at Macy's, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Ulta and more. Selling on one is a different deal from wholesale and from dropship. AIMS360 runs it on the same stock record as your bulk retail EDI.
Mirakl is the platform behind most of the department store and specialty marketplaces that launched in the last four years, including Macy's, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Ulta Beauty and Urban Outfitters. Selling on one is a different deal from wholesale and a different deal from dropship, and it puts a new set of hands into the same inventory. AIMS360 runs it from the same order and stock record as your bulk retail EDI, so marketplace demand does not get its own spreadsheet.
Mirakl is the software retailers use to run a third party marketplace on their own website. The retailer keeps the storefront and the customer. The brand lists its own products, sets its own price, holds the stock and ships the order, and the retailer takes a commission on what sells. Mirakl Connect is the seller side portal, where a brand manages its listings across the retailers it sells on.
The important thing to understand is that Mirakl is not a retailer and not a dropship network. It is the plumbing under a retailer's marketplace. So “we sell on Mirakl” is not a meaningful statement. What matters is which retailer's marketplace, because each one approves its own sellers, sets its own commission and enforces its own service levels.
Retailers adopted it because it removes the buying risk. A category can be tested without a purchase order, without owning the inventory, and without waiting on a seasonal buy. For a brand, the flip side is that getting on is faster than a wholesale account and the commercial terms are entirely different.
Named in Mirakl's own material or in trade reporting. Programs open, close and change categories, so confirm before you plan around one.
Linked names have an AIMS360 integration page covering that retailer's EDI, dropship and marketplace programs. The rest run Mirakl marketplaces but do not yet have a page here.
The one with the most published detail is Macy's. Mirakl's own customer story reports that Macy's launched in September 2022 and in the first year onboarded more than 450 sellers, added over 2,000 new brands and more than 220,000 SKUs, and tested more than 20 new categories. Ulta Beauty is the speed example, launching in six months with over 100 brands.
At URBN the marketplace is branded Curated by Anthropologie, which Anthropologie describes as a marketplace where items are sold and shipped by the selling partner directly to the consumer. Sellers apply through a request form rather than being bought by a buyer, orders ship in roughly 48 hours, and the seller handles returns with a prepaid label. That is a third program alongside URBN's bulk wholesale EDI and its dropship program, and all three are separate onboardings. See Anthropologie EDI requirements for how the three compare.
Note that a marketplace is usually separate from the same retailer's other programs. Macy's runs bulk wholesale EDI, a vendor direct fulfillment dropship program and a marketplace, and they are three different relationships. Same at Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom and Anthropologie.
These get used interchangeably and they are not interchangeable. The distinction decides who sets your price, who owns the customer, when you get paid and what your margin looks like.
| What actually happens | |
|---|---|
| Bulk wholesale | The retailer sends a purchase order, buys the goods at wholesale cost, takes ownership and sells them at whatever retail it chooses. You ship cartons to a distribution center with GS1-128 labels and an 856 ASN. You are paid on an invoice, minus deductions. |
| Dropship | The retailer still sets the retail price and owns the customer, and still pays you a wholesale cost, but never takes possession. You ship single units direct to the consumer in the retailer's packaging. See Dsco, which runs dropship for Kohl's, Nordstrom and Anthropologie. |
| Marketplace, on Mirakl | You set the retail price. You own the listing, the content and the stock. The retailer takes a commission on the sale rather than buying at wholesale. You ship the order and, on most programs, handle the return. |
On wholesale you take a wholesale price. On a marketplace you take retail minus a commission, which is often a better gross number, before you subtract the shipping, the packaging and the returns you now pay for. Model it properly rather than comparing headline percentages.
Wholesale gives you a purchase order, which is a commitment. A marketplace gives you a listing, which is not. Nobody has bought anything until a consumer does, so the demand signal is real but the volume guarantee is gone.
Marketplace performance can absolutely lead to a buying conversation, and often does. It is not the same conversation, and being live on a retailer's marketplace does not make you a vendor to that retailer.
Brands routinely run wholesale, dropship and marketplace with the same retailer, on different terms, against one pool of stock. That is the operational problem this page is actually about.
The commercial terms get all the attention. The operational load is where brands get caught.
Nobody writes your copy or sources your images. Listings need titles, descriptions, attributes and photography that meet the retailer's spec, per style, per color, and they need to stay current.
A marketplace sells against the number you publish. A stale number produces a cancellation, not a backorder, and cancellation rate is what gets a seller suppressed.
Single units, consumer addresses, carrier labels and tracking, at whatever service level the retailer promised. That is a different warehouse motion from picking a pallet.
On most marketplace programs the seller handles returns, which means a reverse flow, a restocking decision and a refund, rather than a retailer absorbing it into a markdown.
Acceptance time, ship time, tracking accuracy, cancellation rate and customer response time. Miss them and your listings get throttled before anyone calls you.
The same units are wanted by a bulk order, a dropship program and now a marketplace listing. Something has to decide who gets them, deliberately.
Everything above is an inventory and order problem wearing a commercial disguise. AIMS360 already holds the record every other channel sells against, which is why the marketplace belongs on it.
Style, color and size with a UPC per size, from your product master, which is the structure a consumer facing listing needs and what a flat SKU list cannot provide.
Available to sell, with open orders and allocations netted out, so a wholesale order already committed cannot be sold again on a marketplace listing.
Marketplace orders join order management next to EDI, dropship, B2B and your own ecommerce, rather than living in a portal someone has to remember to open.
Allocation rules settle who gets the last size medium when a bulk order, a dropship program and a marketplace listing all want it.
Single unit picking runs on the same scanning and bin locations as everything else, with carrier rating, labels and tracking returned automatically. A 3PL can fulfill instead.
Marketplace sales, commissions and returns land in accounting alongside your wholesale invoices, so channel profitability is a report rather than a reconstruction.
Consumer demand is not evenly distributed, and a marketplace listing is exposed to all of it at once. Peak is when the inventory number matters most and when a cancellation costs the most.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday and December run on the same AIMS360 platform as an ordinary week, including a customer processing over 1.2 million orders per day. Nothing is stood up for the holidays.
AIMS360 charges no per document or per kilocharacter fees of its own, so a peak that multiplies your order count does not multiply what you pay us to process it.
Wholesale EDI does not pause for peak. The same platform carries your ASNs, carton labels and routing through the same weeks the marketplace is busiest.
Because every channel reads one stock record, availability stays honest exactly when several of them are drawing down at once. That is the condition that breaks a two system setup.
What brands ask when a retailer invites them onto its marketplace.
Mirakl is the software retailers use to run a third party marketplace on their own site. Retailers with Mirakl-powered marketplaces named in Mirakl's own material and in trade reporting include Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, Ulta Beauty, Urban Outfitters, J.Crew, H&M, Best Buy, Lowe's, Kroger, Galeries Lafayette and Douglas. At URBN the marketplace is branded Curated by Anthropologie. Mirakl itself is not a retailer, so what matters is which retailer's marketplace you are being invited onto.
Yes. Curated by Anthropologie is URBN's third party marketplace, where items are sold and shipped by the selling partner directly to the consumer rather than bought by a buyer. Sellers apply through a request form, orders ship in roughly 48 hours and the seller handles returns with a prepaid label. It is separate from URBN's bulk wholesale EDI, which runs over SPS Commerce, and from its dropship program, which runs on Rithum-DSCO. See Anthropologie EDI requirements for all three side by side.
No, and the difference is commercial rather than technical. On wholesale the retailer sends a purchase order, buys at wholesale cost and takes ownership. On a marketplace you keep ownership, set your own retail price, ship the order yourself and pay the retailer a commission on the sale. There is no purchase order and no wholesale cost. Being live on a retailer's marketplace does not make you a vendor to that retailer.
Who sets the price. On dropship the retailer sets the retail, owns the customer and pays you a wholesale cost, and you ship in their packaging. On a marketplace you set the retail and the retailer takes a commission. The warehouse work looks similar, single units to consumer addresses, but the deal is not the same and the margin math is not the same.
Yes, and that is the normal setup for a brand at this stage. Marketplace orders join the same order queue as bulk retailer EDI, dropship, B2B wholesale and your own ecommerce, and every one of them reads the same stock record. Allocation rules decide which channel gets the units when they compete, rather than whoever picks first.
By publishing available to sell rather than units on hand. AIMS360 nets out open orders and allocated units before any number reaches a sales channel, so a bulk purchase order already committed is not offered again on a marketplace. Units can also be held in a virtual warehouse so they never enter the calculation at all.
No. Mirakl is the platform, not the program. Each retailer approves its own sellers, sets its own commission, defines its own catalog and image requirements and enforces its own service levels. Being live on one retailer's marketplace does not make you live on another, though the second is usually faster than the first.
On most marketplace programs the seller does, which is a real change from wholesale where the retailer absorbs returns into its own markdown. That means a reverse flow into your warehouse, a restocking decision per unit and a refund, all of which should be tracked against the original order rather than handled as a one off.
Service metrics, most often cancellation rate. If you publish availability you cannot honor, orders get cancelled, and a rising cancellation rate throttles your listings before anyone contacts you about it. Ship time, tracking accuracy and customer response time matter too. All of them are downstream of inventory accuracy.
Yes. In AIMS360 a third party 3PL is a location on the same stock record, so marketplace orders can be routed to it and the ship confirmation and tracking come back from wherever the box actually left. Many brands keep bulk retail picking in house and send single unit consumer orders to a fulfillment partner.
Yes, on the same platform it runs the rest of the year, including a customer processing over 1.2 million orders per day. There is no separate holiday system, and because AIMS360 charges no per document or per kilocharacter fees of its own, a seasonal spike in marketplace orders does not multiply what you pay to process them.
Through the retailer, not through Mirakl. Each retailer approves its own sellers, usually by category, and runs its own onboarding including catalog and imagery requirements. Mirakl Connect is the seller side portal used to manage listings once you are approved. The operational readiness question, whether your inventory and fulfillment can support it, is worth answering before you apply.
Often, because they reach different assortment. Marketplaces exist to carry what the buyer did not buy: extended sizes, long tail colors, categories the retailer is testing. Macy's added more than 2,000 brands in its first year on Mirakl, in a business that historically opened a few hundred wholesale accounts a year. The honest caution is that it is additional operational load, not free incremental revenue.
Last reviewed 18 August 2026 by the AIMS360 team. The Macy's launch date, seller count, brand count, SKU count and category count are from Mirakl's own published Macy's customer story. The retailer list is drawn from Mirakl's own material and trade reporting, and names retailers running Mirakl-powered marketplaces rather than implying an AIMS360 program with each. Curated by Anthropologie program details are from Anthropologie's own published seller and customer documentation. Marketplace commercial terms, commissions, service levels and return policies are set by each retailer and change, so confirm the specifics of any program before planning around it.
Tell us which retailer invited you, what you already sell them, and where your stock sits. We will walk through what the marketplace adds operationally and what it takes to run it on the record you already have.
