This Week in M&A Issue #225

A tiny fraction of sellers on Amazon now account for a huge share of sales.

According to new research by Marketplace Pulse, fewer than 8,000 sellers,  just 1.6% of all active third‑party merchants in the U.S., generate half of Amazon’s $300 billion in third‑party Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV). This is a sharp rise in sales concentration. In 2023, it took about 15,000 sellers to hit that same 50% mark.

The distribution of sales across sellers shows how competitive and concentrated the marketplace has become:

• 111 sellers produce 10% of U.S. third‑party GMV.
• 1,020 sellers generate 25%.
• Just under 8,000 sellers reach 50%.

This pattern follows what’s sometimes called a power‑law distribution: a small number of sellers capture most of the revenue, while hundreds of thousands of smaller sellers share the remainder. There are roughly 500,000 active third‑party sellers in the U.S. marketplace.

U.S. sellers make up 55% of the top performers and 67% of their combined sales, while Chinese sellers are 41% of the elite group but contribute a smaller share of revenue.

Each seller in this elite cohort does at least $5 million a year in sales, and some, like Amazon’s own Woot or the e‑commerce services firm Pattern, exceed $1 billion.

In short, Amazon’s third‑party marketplace is now dominated by a shrinking group of highly successful sellers, making it harder for smaller merchants to compete at scale.

OpenAI and Udemy are teaming up to bring online courses directly into ChatGPT.

Udemy has launched a dedicated app within ChatGPT, giving users direct access to its library of more than 290,000 courses created by 90,000 instructors. Instead of leaving the conversation to search for classes elsewhere, learners can now discover and explore both technical and soft skills content right inside the AI interface.

This integration is designed to enhance learning, not replace traditional courses or tutoring. Users can receive smart course recommendations based on their conversations, watch interactive video lessons, ask real-time questions during lessons, and enroll directly. They also gain access to assessments, hands-on labs, and structured learning paths that help track progress and validate real-world skills.

With around 800 million weekly active users, ChatGPT has quickly become a go-to tool for research, problem-solving, and skill development. Learning is already one of its most common uses. By embedding Udemy’s content directly into the experience, the partnership aims to remove friction and make upskilling more seamless.

The AI can surface relevant courses based on what a user is asking about, connecting them with targeted training at the moment they need it. The feature is rolling out to both free and paid ChatGPT users, initially in English with subtitles supported.

In a world increasingly filled with AI slop, this partnership is a refreshing change, using AI to build real skills, making learning more accessible, personalized, and actionable for millions of users.