Automation or stagnation? The hidden cost of manual marketplace work

What could your team do with nearly two extra days each week?

That’s the question many ecommerce leaders are quietly asking themselves. Our Marketplace Seller Trends Report 2025, released in October, is based on a survey of 470 marketplace decision makers across the US and Europe, revealed a surprising reality: sellers are losing an average of 36% of their working week (the equivalent of 1.8 days) to manual marketplace tasks.

From updating listings to fixing errors and adjusting pricing, the workload is heavy, repetitive, and costly. More importantly, it diverts energy away from the very activities that sellers say matter most: growing sales, improving visibility, and boosting profitability.

This isn’t just inefficiency. It’s what we call the automation gap: the gulf between the strategic importance sellers place on automation and the reality of how little has actually been automated in practice.

The hidden drain of manual operations

At first glance, manual work can feel manageable. However, as product ranges expand and sellers enter new marketplaces, the time and risk quickly multiply. In our survey:

• 21% of sellers say half their week is spent on manual operations like content updates, pricing changes, or returns.

• Manual errors, such as incorrect stock levels or mismatched pricing, create downstream issues that cost additional time and damage customer trust.

• Sellers active on 7+ marketplaces (already one-third of respondents) are most exposed, since every new channel adds exponential layers of admin.
  
  

The message is clear: manual work is inconvenient AND it is a strategic liability.

The opportunity cost

When we asked sellers what they would do if they could claw back the hours lost to manual work, their answers revealed just how much potential is being left untapped.

1. Improving product content was the top priority

In the crowded marketplace environment, quality content directly influences visibility and conversion. Well-structured listings with strong keywords, optimized titles, clear descriptions, and compelling visuals make the difference between getting buried in search results or winning the click.

Sellers know that stronger content means stronger sales, but too often their attention is consumed by repetitive tasks like fixing mismatched attributes or updating stock manually.

2. Expanding into new marketplaces came second

More and more shoppers are shopping across multiple channels, often browsing two or three marketplaces before making a purchase. Sellers recognize that being absent from these platforms is essentially being invisible to potential buyers.

Yet expansion takes time - onboarding to new platforms, aligning product data to local rules, and navigating technical requirements. When half the week is consumed by manual maintenance, there’s little capacity left to pursue growth opportunities.

3. Optimizing pricing strategies was close behind

Competitive pricing is one of the toughest aspects of marketplace selling, especially when margins are thin and competition fierce. Dynamic repricing, promotional strategies, and adjustments to account for shipping costs or fees can have a huge impact on profitability.

But marketplace optimization requires focus, data, and iteration—three things that are impossible to prioritize when teams are bogged down in day-to-day admin.

Why is it so hard to bridge this gap

If 91% of sellers say automation is “very important” or even “business critical,” why does so much manual work remain? Our data points to several factors:

1. Tool fragmentation

Many teams stack multiple point tools, each handling a slice of the problem: inventory sync, repricing, content updates, and stitch them together via spreadsheets or manual exports. This patchwork approach leads to silos, misalignment, and gaps that require human glue.

2. Underestimating complexity

Marketplace automation sounds ideal until you realize every marketplace has its own specs, taxonomies, rules, and idiosyncrasies. The complexity of mapping, feed transformations, category differences, and variant logic is nontrivial, and partially automating often leaves critical edge cases unaddressed.

3. Implementation friction & resistance

Change is hard. Teams accustomed to spreadsheets or manual habits may resist. Technical integration, data model alignment, and onboarding effort can also feel like barriers, even when the ROI is obvious.

4. Partial adoption & mismatched expectations

You might automate inventory sync but leave pricing manual, or handle returns via a tool but still manually update product attributes. These half-measures can lead to new issues: data drift, inconsistency, or diverging systems that degrade the promise of automation.

5. Integrator mismatch

Marketplace integrators differ widely in power, reliability, flexibility, and ease of use. A tool that feels elegant on day one might struggle under load, with increasing SKU count, markets, or custom needs. Many sellers admit they’re satisfied today but are likely to switch providers in the next 12 months.

Closing the automation gap: What it could look like in practice

You don’t need to overhaul your stack overnight. But closing the automation gap is about building a reliable, scalable foundation that supports compounding growth.

Here’s a high-level roadmap:

 

ChannelEngine is your strategic advantage

ChannelEngine brings to you a marketplace integration platform architecture that scales with you. Here’s how we address the automation gap:

✅ Centralized management: manage listings, inventory, orders, returns, and pricing across hundreds of marketplaces from a single interface

✅ Real-time sync & throughput: Instantly update stock levels, orders, and prices across all marketplaces to prevent overselling and data mismatches.

✅ Flexible automation engines: Build custom pricing, listing, and fulfillment rules that adapt to marketplace requirements and business goals.

✅ Marketplace-specific optimizations: Ready-made integrations and smart mapping tools to list products accurately and stay compliant across marketplaces.

✅ Price management & profit control: Automate repricing across marketplaces, calculate true minimum prices including fees, and protect your margins while staying competitive. 

✅ Future-ready for AI & agentic commerce: Structured data and automation that keep you visible and competitive as AI transforms online shopping.