73. OnBuy

Founder: Cas Paton
Founded: 2016
Website: www.onbuy.com

Taking on Amazon is no mean feat but OnBuy, with enticingly low and transparent selling fees is having a crack at it. In fact, OnBuy is the fastest-growing online marketplace in the world, despite only being founded in 2016.

How has it achieved this growth in such a saturated market? By being fair.

OnBuy doesn’t sell products on its own platform (unlike a certain Mr Bezos), allowing it to be a genuine marketplace where consumers can find the goods they want to buy. It also means that retailers trust OnBuy to give them better returns and more reliable business. It currently sells products in thousands of categories ranging from electronics to baby supplies and beauty products.

This model has allowed OnBuy to expand remarkably quickly, with business growth accelerating exponentially.

Plus, it looks likely that OnBuy might be able to sustain this level of growth. It has 5,000 merchants already signed-up to the platform and it says hundreds more are joining every month. What’s more, around a third of the site’s traffic comes from 25-34 year olds who might be looking for a better, fairer Amazon alternative.

Currently, the site operates in the UK and bits of the EU. However, it’s planning to launch in 40 countries around the world this year, with another 100 to follow shortly after.

While everything might be fair in love and war, OnBuy is proving that in business, you can get ahead by doing the right thing.