Lede
The INFORM Consumers Act — live since June 2023 — forces online marketplaces to collect and verify bank account, tax ID, and contact information from "high-volume third-party sellers" (200+ transactions and $5,000+ in a year), then disclose seller identity to consumers on request. Layer on top a wave of state AG counterfeit suits and FTC Section 5 actions against marketplaces for unsafe and fake goods, and the compliance bill for running an open third-party marketplace just went up structurally, not cyclically. This isn't a one-time fine — it's a permanent tax on marketplace headcount, KYC infrastructure, and legal exposure that scales with the number of third-party sellers a platform hosts. That makes seller-count and marketplace architecture a genuine balance-sheet variable, and it splits retail into two camps: platforms that host millions of loosely-vetted third-party sellers, and retailers that either sell mostly their own inventory or run small, curated marketplaces.