Услуга · Websites and web development

Marketplace

The difficulty of a marketplace is not the storefront but what is behind it: several independent sellers, money that has to be split, commissions, returns and disputes. The outward part of the project is the smaller share of the work.

From 4 months
the first version
Sellers
an account and verification
Money
splitting payments
Disputes
rules and review

What the work includes

A marketplace consists of three interfaces: the buyer, the seller and you as the operator. The third is usually designed last, and wrongly so.

Discuss the scope

The seller account

Uploading items, stock, orders, reports on sales and on payouts.

A check before publication

Moderation of listings and of the sellers themselves. Without it a marketplace fills with rubbish in a month.

Splitting payments

The buyer payment is split between the marketplace and the seller. You need a payment partner capable of doing that.

Commissions

Percentages by category, fixed fees, paid promotion inside the marketplace.

Ratings and reviews

With protection against manipulation, otherwise the rating stops meaning anything within a couple of months.

Handling disputes

The operator rules and working tools: freezing a payout, ruling on a dispute, issuing a refund.

How it goes

A working first version takes four months and up. After that the marketplace develops over years and launches in parts.

01

Model

Who pays, for what and at what moment. Until there is an answer, designing the technology is pointless.

02

Design planning

Three interfaces, roles, order states, the money flow scheme.

03

The minimum version

The storefront, the seller portal, payments, payouts. Everything else comes later.

04

Growth

Internal promotion, analytics, automated checking of listings.

Moderation is not a feature but the constant work of real people. Checking listings, handling complaints and disputes between buyer and seller require staff from the first month. Marketplaces close not because of the code but because the operational load was never built into the model.

Questions and answers

From a narrow niche where you can bring in both sides. An empty marketplace is of no use to anyone: buyers do not come without a range, sellers do not come without buyers. That circle can only be broken in a small segment.

It depends on how the relationship with the sellers is set up, and that is a legal question settled before development. The answer determines who accepts returns, who issues the receipt and how the money flows.

For testing an idea, quite. The limits appear where your commission or settlement model is non-standard, which is exactly where the business lives. It is sensible to build the first version on something ready and see how it goes.

Let us discuss the platform

Tell us about the niche and how you plan to make money. We will size the first version and break it into stages.