ChannelAdvisor's chief executive wrote one of the most-read blogs about selling on eBay. Scot Wingo's eBay Strategies became a widely followed source of e-commerce data. His North Carolina company sold the tools behind that advice: software that pushed a retailer's products onto eBay, Amazon, Newegg, Google and Bing from one place. By its May 2013 filing, online marketplaces had become as important to many merchants as their own websites.

Born on eBay

ChannelAdvisor began operations in July 2001, in the years when eBay was the main online marketplace for small sellers. Scot Wingo and his co-founders built software to manage listings, prices and orders across many sites at once. As Amazon opened its marketplace and search ads grew, the company followed its customers there. The bet was that merchants would sell everywhere, and needed one control panel to do it.

Fourteen Dollars to CommerceHub

ChannelAdvisor sold 5.75 million shares at $14 each and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ECOM, a fitting ticker for an e-commerce company. It grew as a subscription business serving retailers and brands. In 2022 CommerceHub, owned by private equity firms, agreed to buy it for $23.10 a share in cash. The deal, worth about $680 million, closed that November and ChannelAdvisor left the NYSE.

Cover: Canal in Venice, Martin Rico y Ortega. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a canal (sales channels).