The $12B wholesale unicorn taking on Amazon

Everyone knows Amazon is the “everything store,” but what’s the everything store… for stores?

Faire — an online wholesale marketplace founded in 2017 to help independent retailers compete with Amazon and Walmart — could be the best bet.

The startup just raised $400m at a $12.4B valuation, per Business Insider.

Independent retail is big business

Across North America and Europe, independent retailers do more than 2x the sales of Amazon and Walmart combined.

Faire has 300k of those retailers on its marketplace, along with products from 40k+ brands. By aggregating products from a wide range of wholesalers and distributors, Faire helps retailers:

• Get products they can’t find anywhere else
• Save time and money by cutting back on trade shows where they would normally source products
• Make smarter purchasing decisions

Faire isn’t shying away from anti-Amazon vibes

Besides calling the company out in its mission statement, Faire’s homepage features a section called “Brands not sold on Amazon.”

But big, bad Bezos isn’t standing pat. Amazon Business, the firm’s marketplace for businesses, was the fastest growing app in Okta’s 2021 Businesses at Work report, growing 341% YoY.

In other words, if Faire is going to prove there can be more than one “everything store,” they’ll have to earn it.