Third-party source

{{Short description|Good/service provider who is independent of both the buyer and seller}}

{{Selfref|For the Wikipedia essay about this topic, see Wikipedia:Third-party sources.}}

{{Wiktionary|third party}}

In commerce, a third-party source means a supplier (or service provider) who is not directly controlled by either the seller (first party) nor the customer/buyer (second party) in a business transaction.{{Cite web|url=http://www.sp.se/EN/PRESS/GLOSSARY/Sidor/default.aspx|title=Glossary|website=Rise Research Institutes of Sweden|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090213030328/http://www.sp.se/EN/PRESS/GLOSSARY/Sidor/default.aspx|archive-date=2009-02-13|url-status=live|access-date=2018-07-28}} The third party is considered independent from the other two, even if hired by them, because not all control is vested in that connection. There can be multiple third-party sources with respect to a given transaction, between the first and second parties. A second-party source would be under direct control of the second party in the transaction.

"Definition - third party", Yale.edu, 2011, web:

[http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/definiti.shtml YLic] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514051117/http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/definiti.shtml |date=2011-05-14 }},

states: "not directly involved in the transaction".

In information technology, a third-party source is a supplier of software (or a computer accessory) which is independent of the supplier and customer of the major computer product(s).

In e-commerce, 3rd party (3P) source refers to a seller who publishes products on a marketplace, without this marketplace to own or physically carry those products. When an order comes in, a 3P seller has the item on hand and fulfills it. An example of 3P sellers are merchants participating in Amazon's FBM program.{{Cite web|url=https://www.geekseller.com/blog/online-sales-and-its-sellers-1p-2p-3p/|title=Online Sales and Its Sellers (1P, 2P, 3P)|website=GeekSeller|access-date=2019-06-01|date=2017-09-05}}