How to Build an Online Marketplace: 17 Tips for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

According to Statista, Amazon’s net sales grew to $469.8 billion in 2021, a 21.7% increase from 2020. Fantastic results, right? They inspire entrepreneurs to build e-commerce platforms that could become the next Amazon or eBay.

Surely, a marketplace website launch can be chaotic, especially when you do not know where to start.

To make things easier, we created a list of steps to take when you consider going into the e-commerce business. From this article, you will know the main stages of building an online marketplace. These are choosing the required features, the development approach, and the software consultancy that will help create your platform. You will also find out how to improve and promote your online marketplace website.

Armed with this thorough guide, you will learn how to create a marketplace that both your buyers and sellers will love.

What is a marketplace, and what are their main types

A marketplace is a platform where stores of various sellers are presented. An online marketplace connects sellers and buyers of goods and services and helps them process transactions.

Currently, there is a shift in online sales from individual online stores to marketplaces. It happens because trading on marketplace websites has many advantages over online stores.

There are many types of online marketplaces. In general, these platforms can differ by types of products, interaction, and participants.

We recommend you look at the table below about overall marketplaces’ classification with examples.

Speaking about the types of marketplace platforms based on the participants, these websites are divided into the following varieties:

• B2B (business-to-business). They offer services and products for business. Wholesale dealers also use such online marketplaces.

• B2C (business-to-customer). The classic of global trade. In this case, online sales are calculated for individual buyers. For example, the Amazon marketplace platform works on this system.

• C2C (customer-to-customer). Business is built between private individuals, both for money and through barter. A similar principle is implemented on eBay and Airbnb online marketplaces.

The thorough table below will help you distinguish between the outlined marketplace types. Let’s look closely at each type (B2B, C2C, B2C) to learn more about their sales value, length of the sales process, goal tasks, and more.

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Key benefits of building a marketplace website

Creating a marketplace is a great way to create your offline business on the web and make it profitable. Let’s consider the key benefits of building a marketplace platform for all sides: a platform owner, sellers, and buyers.

Benefits for founders:

• Revenue
  

The owner of the marketplace website can select a revenue model that best suits their market niche. The most popular monetization models are listing fees, subscriptions, and commissions. Also, we can name lead generation fees and advertising. By the way, you can use a combination of a few monetization schemes.

For instance, Craigslist makes its money from premium listings. The most successful marketplace companies like Airbnb, eBay, Etsy, and Uber use the commission business model.

• User interest
  

One of the main advantages of an online marketplace is that it brings together offers from multiple vendors. Buyers are more likely to use an online store with a wide range of options to select exactly what they want.

• Investor interest
  

Nowadays, marketplace website investing is very large-scale. For example, Uber has raised a total of $25.2 billion in funding by 2022. Their latest funding was raised in 2020. In sum, 117 investors fund Uber. So, it shows that marketplace website development is a really good and profitable idea.

Source: Crunchbase.com

Related reading: Top 5 Online Marketplaces in Australia: Comparison of E-Commerce Leaders

Venture capitalists find investment in marketplace platforms commercially viable. Why? Because it is a perfect way to get a passive income.

Now, let's see what benefits will obtain customers and vendors on the marketplace website.

Benefits for buyers:

• A broad range of products
  

With the help of online marketplaces, buyers find everything they want.

• Trusted platform
  

Usually, marketplaces inspire more trust than self-standing firms, thanks to ratings and a large number of reviews.

• Promotions and discounts
  

Often, online marketplaces offer various discounts for customers. In such a way, these websites attract potential users and retain them.

• Convenience
  

The booking of items buyers need is just one click away.

Benefits for sellers:

• No need to promote by yourself
  

There is no need to use the money on the development process and support of the site and search engines optimization. Sellers can do without programmers, optimizers, and other specialists on the marketplace website.

• Better search ranking
  

Marketplaces consistently occupy positions at the top of the search results. It cannot be said about ordinary online stores.

• More opportunities for promotion and more clients
  

Many online stores and their sites are few people know about. However, if they are placed on marketplace websites, their brand will be more recognizable. Thus, the flow of customers will increase.

• Access to product analytics
  

In their account, sellers can see statistics on product views, purchases, etc.

You may also like: How to Build a Service Marketplace: 5 tips for effective launch

17 essential steps to create a thriving online marketplace

1. Research and choose your niche

Before building a marketplace, define what products or services will be available on your platform. In simple words, conduct market research.

You have two options to choose from:

• Create a horizontal marketplace
• Create a vertical marketplace

The first variant is a horizontal marketplace website launch. Such platforms cover a variety of items. For instance, Amazon spreads over a great number of categories and products, from books to electronic devices.

You may be interested: AliExpress Clone Website: How to Build Similar Platform

The clear benefit of this approach is greater coverage. At the same time, pinballing between several market segments, you lose a chance to become a leader in a specific domain.

Alternatively, you can build a vertical e-commerce platform. It supposes the focus on a specific niche or a particular user category.

Why is the vertical marketplace launch a more sensible choice?

First, the narrow focus allows you to highlight the benefits and specific features of each item you provide. You can attract new potential users with detailed product or service descriptions. It is a good way of making your offerings more useful and valuable for the target audience.

Second, niche marketplaces give users a more personalized customer experience. Buyers can find a specific solution to a particular issue on these websites.

Further reading: How to Build a Multi-Vendor Marketplace From Scratch

2. Learn your target audience

Your next step is to define what user category you are going to serve on your marketplace platform. Why is it so important? Knowing your target audience, you will be able to set out the general direction for your marketing.

For example, if you know your potential customer's pain points and needs, you can adapt your value proposition accordingly. As a future marketplace owner, your main goal is to make it relevant to a particular problem.

When you decide to create an online marketplace, think carefully about your consumers. What do they want? When you know the answer, you can meet their expectations. As a result, users will have positive emotions from using your product.

Recommended reading: C2C Marketplace Development: Why Invest in Your Own Platform

For instance, our Codica team recently developed an Australian online marketplace for boats, Trade A Boat. This is a platform to sell new and used boats and marine equipment. People in Australia are great lovers of the sea. Focused on selling boats and marine equipment, Trade A Boat has become one of the favorites for shoppers and vendors all over the continent.

Our team helped add valuable solutions to the platform, sustaining its successful course. This case study demonstrates that analyzing the local market is of great need.

Finally, the analysis of your target audience and market research helps solve the chicken and egg problem. Also, it helps get the buyers and sellers to use your platform. This analysis allows for choosing the right communication channels, content, and marketing strategies. As a result, you will be able to promote your products and services more effectively.

When defining your target audience, take into account the following factors:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Education
• Occupation
• Interests
• Potential pain points.

You may also like: Online B2B Marketplace Development: Step-by-Step Guide

3. Define the required functionality

Let’s start with the basic features any marketplace should have. These functions will make your e-commerce website convenient for both parties.

• Product page. Give a comprehensive description of selling items to potential buyers. High-quality photos and videos, detailed descriptions - everything matters.

• Shopping cart. As you are developing an e-commerce platform, this option is a priority.

• Security options. Make your marketplace website as secure as possible. SSL certificates, two-factor authentication, and firewalls will help you protect your product.

• Payment methods. Enable users to choose amongst a variety of payment options. The most popular payment gateways are PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, and WePay.

Source: Airbnb.com

Related reading: 4 Best Payment Solutions for Online Marketplaces

• Search feature. The chances are that your multi-vendor platform will offer a great number of products. So, it would be reasonable to add a search box when creating a marketplace website. Make sure it is noticeable. Place the search bar where users expect to find it. According to UX Booth, the most suitable place for the search box is in the top right or top left of the pages on your site.

• Admin panel. Simply put, an admin dashboard helps manage everything related to your e-commerce website. For example, this functionality allows you to track orders, payments, and shipping. Moreover, you can view abandoned checkouts and create draft orders.

Source: Tradeaboat case study

• Wishlists. With this feature, shoppers can create collections of items they would like to buy later. When users are ready to make a purchase, they quickly find the product needed in the wishlists.

• Sign In/ Sign Up Form. There are several reasons why you need to ask your visitors to create an account on your platform. First, registered users can choose the platform role - a vendor or a buyer. Second, sign-up improves customer experience. How? It enables customers to track order processes or view previously purchased items. Besides, such a feature as a wishlist is usually available for registered users only. Finally, registration allows customers to get personalized on-site recommendations.

Source: eBay.com

• Shipping. With this feature, shoppers can choose the preferred delivery option offered by vendors.

This is functionality you should consider in the first place when building a marketplace. With these features, you will get a convenient and easy-to-use web solution.

4. Select the development platform

When it comes to creating an online marketplace, you have two options. You can buy a ready-made solution or build a marketplace website from scratch. The final choice depends on your budget, time, and plans for further scaling the platform.

Custom software development takes into account your specific business needs.

Such domains as education, healthcare, and finance can get the most out of this approach. The thing is that these industries comply with specific regulations.

Besides, their business requirements are not common for other branches. These may include audit trials, automated workflow, and role-based access.

Custom software development better serves these specific needs as compared to ready-made products.

If you wonder how to build a marketplace that will stand out from the competitors, you should consider the option of creating a custom platform.

Let’s take a look at the main advantages of the approach:

• Meeting specific requirements. Bespoke software helps you cover the demands unique to your business. You can be sure that all your fine points and hidden risks will be counted.

• Startup growth. Tailored solutions are famous for their flexibility. It means that you can always add new functionality when needed.

• No needless features. With customized software, you will not have to pay for the extra functionality you will never use. This way, you can reduce the development expenses greatly.

If you choose to build your own custom platform, most likely your development partner will offer you to begin with a Product Discovery stage. Here’s what you should know about it:

At the same time, consider purchasing ready-made software in the following cases:

• You need to save money at the initial software development stage;
• Off-the-shelf solutions meet all your business requirements;
• You are wondering how to build a marketplace in the shortest time.

Of course, choose the approach that meets your startup marketplace demands best and adds value to your business.

Related reading: Spree Commerce: How to Quickly Build an Ecommerce Website

5. Choose the best tech stack

The essential stage in building an online marketplace is selecting the right tech stack. A technology stack is a toolset used when working on projects. It includes programming languages, database management systems, frameworks, etc. In fact, the chosen tech stack determines the performance and reliability of the online marketplaces.

At Codica, we conduct software development that suits the best client’ project. Our software development approach is to fully understand the customer’s business case and its customer journey. After that, we pick a technology stack to create a marketplace of the highest quality. There are some general criteria that all marketplaces shall conform to.

• Scalability. Marketplace websites should be scalable. It is crucial because they need to accommodate increased user loads as your platform becomes more popular. Also, marketplaces should be of high performance. At Codica, we conduct thorough performance testing. Thus, we ensure that the web platform will be able to handle the workload.

• Flexibility. Moreover, your technology stack should be flexible to support user flows and provide a great user experience. Adding new features should be easy. Clearly, the impossibility of adding the functions that your users need is a big problem for any online marketplace website.

• Security. Certainly, security is one of the most crucial factors you should consider when you build an online marketplace. Why? Because the marketplace will deal with confidential information about users. Codica's experts know the modern web security requirements. Our team follows advanced methods when conducting any software development.

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At Codica, we have selected a list of tools assisting us to develop scalable, secure, and high-quality online marketplaces. Now, we will share with you which tech stack we use. Also, you will learn what integrations we recommend for your future successful marketplace.

Front-end tech stack

The front-end of the tech stack is the visual part of your web platform. Visitors see and interact with this part of your solution. So, developing this part for an online marketplace website demands a deep understanding of users’ needs. For the front-end side, we use:

• JavaScript
• TypeScript
• React
• Redux
• Next.js
• Vue.js
• HTML5
• CSS3
• Gatsby

Back-end tech stack

The back-end of the tech stack is the software part responsible for functioning the internal part of a web solution. Of course, software of high quality should have a solid ‘backbone’ to function smoothly. When creating a marketplace website, for the back-end, our experts use:

• Ruby on Rails
• Ruby
• Node.js
• Strapi

DevOps tech stack components

Companies use the DevOps tech stack for continuous integration of operations. DevOps tools automate many recurring tasks. Thus, they improve overall performance. Also, these tools decrease the likelihood of manual faults during the development lifecycle. Our choice of DevOps tech stack when creating a marketplace includes the following tools:

• Linux
• Ansible
• Docker
• Gitlab CI
• Terraform

Databases tech stack

Databases are a significant part of the back-end ecosystem. In brief, the database is an accumulation of data, specially organized for fast search and removal from a computer. They deal with maintaining and processing a lot of data points. Here are the databases we use for building a marketplace:

• PostgreSQL
• MySQL
• MongoDB
• Redis
• Firebase
• ElasticSearch

Infrastructure software stack

At Codica we prefer the following application deployment, provisioning, and configuration management tools:

• AWS
• Digital Ocean
• Heroku

Integrations

Integrations enhance the functionality of the existing system. Thanks to their features, it becomes possible for the system to automate and complete a broad range of tasks. In brief, with the following integrations, we will help you create a marketplace website of high quality:

• Stripe
• Google Analytics
• Paypal
• Mollie
• Hotjar
• Sentry
• MailChimp
• HubSpot
• Uptime Robot
• Skylight

The process of picking a tech stack can be quite challenging. It requires careful discussion with stakeholders and thoughtful planning. Also, your development team should have vast practical experience.

Further reading: What Makes Ruby on Rails Perfect for Marketplace Development?

Choosing the right tech stack contributes to your platform's success

At Codica, we have extensive expertise in marketplace software development. Based on it, we recommend our clients a technology stack that will positively impact their business. Definitely, the right tech stack can help you to create an online marketplace and succeed with it.

As already mentioned, our experts use a certain tech stack to develop web solutions of the highest quality. For example, we are glad to share with you our work on the first automotive marketplace in Africa. The client wanted us to develop a complex marketplace website.

The project was intended to cover many South American and African regions. Also, it was supposed to connect purchasers with auto dealers and private sellers.

We chose our proven tech stack, with Ruby on Rails as a core technology to build a marketplace, and were right. So, our client got a quality web solution with a fast load, simple workflow, and mobile optimization.

Have any questions about your idea implementation?

We will be glad to help you.

Talk to an expert

6. Select a business model

Your marketplace website should bring you a stable profit. For this reason, you have to choose a suitable revenue model. Remember that it should offer reasonable conditions for your potential vendors. Also, it needs to help grow your marketplace.

Let’s take a closer look at the best monetization strategies used by the e-commerce giants, such as Amazon, eBay, and others:

• A commission cuts a part of each transaction made through your platform.
• A listing fee is a sum charged from a vendor when they publish their items on the marketplace. The higher the product or service cost, the higher the listing fee.
• A subscription fee is a marketplace business model when a seller pays a charge to get access to your e-commerce platform. It contains monthly or yearly fees for a definite set of benefits.
• An advertising fee is about promoting items on your marketplace by third-party advertisers.
• Lead fees. This revenue model means that users pay for access to detailed information about the desired item.
• Premium membership gives users access to extra features and exclusive content.

To wrap up the topic, choosing the right revenue models is crucial for making a profit on your platform. Starting with one monetization strategy, you can progress to complex models. This way, you will also help vendors make the most of your marketplace.

7. Write a business plan for the marketplace launch

Now it is time to create a business plan. It is an essential step before you start an online marketplace development. There are several reasons why you need this document for a thriving marketplace launch.

To begin with, a business plan serves as an important tool for outlining your overall goals. It will enable you to track your progress when your e-commerce platform starts to grow.

Second, an online marketplace business plan reduces risks and helps avoid big mistakes. Creating this document allows you to foresee potential issues before they arise.

Finally, the business plan is a must-have document if you are looking for third-party investors for your marketplace launch. If you want people to put their money into your project, you should prove the viability of your marketplace idea in the long run.

With this document, you will be ready to discuss essential questions. These can be financial projections or exit strategies with your potential investors.

These are the main points your multi-vendor marketplace business plan should include:

• Review of your enterprise as a whole;
• Your marketplace description, including your goals and objectives;
• Description of products and services your vendors provide;
• Information about your target audience, the niche you chose, and competitors;
• The online marketplace strategy and ways of its implementation;
• Your team’s organizational structure;
• Financial plan with a revenue model and projections.

8. Find a reliable co-founder

Surely, you can run your online marketplace business solo. However, it would be better to have a reliable co-founder at your side.

Let’s take a look at key reasons why you need such a person when you decide to build a marketplace website.

First, some investors tend to trust companies with several founders more easily. So, having a trustworthy co-founder increases your chances of getting the funding for the marketplace launch.

Second, the co-founder will assist you in making important decisions. Also, they will divide the stress and responsibilities related to the e-commerce business.

In addition, this person can assist you in developing another project sphere. If you are great at the business side, you can pick a person experienced in hiring people or in technical aspects of marketplace launch. Thus, your strong sides will complement their weak sides, and vice versa.

Before starting a collaboration, make sure you have found the proper co-founder. Pay attention to their educational background, experience, and proof of their capacities. Only in this case, you will get a partner who will help fix your business problems when you start an online marketplace.

9. Search for compatible investors

If you decide to build a marketplace website, you need money to translate your project into reality.

What if you don’t have enough funds to finance your online marketplace idea? What should you do? In this case, you have to turn to other funding sources and seek outside investors.

In this regard, it would be a good idea to find investors who may be interested in your kind of business. For example, attend events, conferences, and meetings they hold or attend.

Can you find an investor online? Sure, you can visit specialized professional platforms, like AngelList or Crunchbase. The latter allows customizing your filters to find the right depositor.

Source: Crunchbase.com

It is worth noting that finding an investor is not only about injecting funds. This person can become a source of advice and strategy.

Find the right funders interested in your marketplace success, and they will speed up the marketplace launch. With their help, the projects of business owners will grow faster.

10. Define the required budget

If you want to build a platform from scratch rather than using off-the-shelf marketplace software, get ready for a long journey.

Your project ideas and the chosen technologies will determine the duration and cost of each stage in this way.

So, how much does it cost to build a web solution from scratch?

Surely, the custom marketplace website development will not be cheap, like off-the-shelf solutions. However, it is the best choice for the scalable, reliable, and customized marketplace.

The cost of creating a marketplace totally depends on many aspects. It may significantly vary depending upon the functionality you select. The online marketplace development process requires the coordinated efforts of many specialists. This process includes backend and frontend development. Also, it comprises project management, UX and UI design creation, and quality assurance.

Notably, the location of your development team will also influence their hourly rates. So, you should bring this aspect into focus, when you decide to build a marketplace website.

For instance, PayScale shows that a web developer's average hourly rate in the USA can be about $100 per hour.

Interestingly, in Eastern European countries, the rates are considerably lower. To compare, if you refer to a Ukrainian web development company, they will charge you $35-60 per hour.

So, using the average rate of Eastern European development firms, the approximate cost to develop a website like Amazon will be a minimum of $78,300. If you want a rental marketplace like Airbnb, it will cost you about $77,500.

To learn more about marketplace development costs, look at our thorough article: How Much Does it Cost to Build an Online Marketplace in 2022.

The cost to build a marketplace website is not limited to its technical implementation. You will need resources for the further growth of your project. Of course, the better your product will fit the market, the less your marketing burden after development. So, you should choose the right way of development at the initial stage.

If you want to create a marketplace, consider that it is not a sprint. It is an endurance race. Throughout this race, you should conduct testing and collect feedback from users.

In such a way, you will be able to adjust different aspects of your web project and provide better value for all stakeholders. Clearly, for that, you need experienced software developers. Now, let's move to another stage of our development process guide.

11. Select the right development team

Partnership with the proper development firm is crucial for a successful marketplace launch. Therefore, you should choose the software developers responsibly.

The tips below will help you find a dedicated agency to build an online marketplace that satisfies all your needs.

• Visit research and rating platforms like Clutch, GoodFirms, and Appfutura. They will provide you with detailed information about the team needed. You can read reviews of their existing clients on such websites.

• Check their clients' references.

• Ensure the chosen team knows how to build a marketplace that brings value to both buyers and sellers.

• Pay attention to the organization of the development process and the technology applied. At Codica, we use Ruby on Rails to build reliable and fast-loading marketplaces.

• Give preference to companies that adopted the agile methodology. This approach helps make alterations at any development stage. Besides, you can respond faster and more effectively to market demands with agile methods. This way, you eliminate the risk of expensive market misses.

• Check the software company’s portfolio to make sure they will create user-friendly online marketplaces.

By the way, you can look at the detailed articles on how we deliver marketplaces at Codica:

• How We Delivered Boat Selling Website for Tradeaboat
• How We Delivered MVP for PlanMyKids - Kids Activities Marketplace

Starting a new project is rather a challenging process. To make things easier, choose an established team that knows how to build an online marketplace of the best quality. Thus, you will receive a fast, scalable, and user-friendly web solution.

12. Develop an MVP first

Building a minimum viable product is the easiest way to save money, time, and effort. To build a marketplace, we recommend starting with MVP development.

Let’s look at the main reasons to build a minimum viable product before rolling out a full-featured platform.

1. An MVP allows releasing your marketplace idea in the shortest period.

2. With this approach, you can significantly save costs. It works the following way: you verify your idea first, then create a product. Thus, you can make sure that you are investing in a project attractive to your potential customers.

3. An MVP helps you find early adopters. Their feedback will show how to build a marketplace that is attractive to potential customers. Besides, the pioneer users will tell what features should be added, modified, or removed.

4. In building an MVP, you focus on the basic features required for a marketplace launch. You can always extend the functionality as your platform scales. Don't worry that your product is not perfect. In the first iPhone project, there was no Wi-Fi at all.

Below you can see the MVP prioritization matrix offered by Clearbridge Mobile. This chart can help you define the features that should be included in the MVP.

Related reading: How to Build a Marketplace Website MVP and Not Fail

To sum up, the idea of building an MVP comes down to testing your business idea first. You find early adopters and meet their demands with one or two key features. After receiving valuable feedback, you can improve your product by adding new features. Gradually, you will learn how to build a marketplace that will attract new users.

Codica is a reliable MVP software development company for startups with years of practice. Our team has worked on a broad array of projects. We pride ourselves on our expertise in helping startups launch their products and grow their businesses.

For instance, one of our MVP projects was developed for an online booking platform. Our client, David Watkins, faced the problem of planning his own kid’s activities after school. Like many other parents, he was busy with work, and finding time to look for activities on the web was quite tricky.

So, he decided to create an online marketplace to connect busy parents and kids' program providers.

We started the development process with MVP building. Our specialists use proven technologies and practices to create a product with minimum features that meets all needs.

Thus, with the help of the minimum viable product, our client could check the business idea with the least effort and investment.

At Codica, we know that the success of your startup idea depends on how well you define what features to include in your MVP. Our development team will assist you to make a considered decision. For this, we provide an in-depth analysis of your project environment.

Related reading: How to Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

13. Acquire users

We have discussed a strategy to build an online marketplace. The next question is how you can promote your brand-new e-commerce platform.

An efficient marketing tactic helps attract vendors and buyers to your online marketplace. Of course, solving the chicken and egg problem can be a bit effortful. Let potential customers know about your startup from the planning stage.

Use the following tips to gain sellers' and buyers' attention:

• Promote your platform via ads on social media, including Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

• Become a part of workshops or educational meetups. Attend these events to connect with your potential vendors and buyers.

• Visit trade fairs to search for sellers. Find a subtle way to get their contact information. Thus, you will be able to reach them afterward.

• Organize live events and collaborate with celebrities.

Further reading: How to Create a Micro-Job Marketplace Like Fiverr

14. Platform promotion

To promote a marketplace platform, you need a team of experienced SEOs and content experts.

The task of SEOs is to find where to grow traffic. The task of content managers is to fill potentially traffic pages with relevant and high-quality content.

To make the work as efficient as possible, adhere to the following algorithm:

• Search and development of potential traffic pages.
• Technical optimization of the marketplace.
• Identification of competitors and refinement of the semantic core.
• Analysis and compilation of metadata.
• Compilation of technical requirements to content.
• Drawing up a link promotion strategy.
• Analysis of promotion results and optimization of the workflow.

You may also like: 6 Top Multivendor Marketplace Features for Sellers

15. Build trust between sellers and buyers

When building an online marketplace, don’t underestimate the importance of UX design. Pretty often, it helps prove to your customers that it is completely safe to buy and sell products and services on your platform.

Do you want to know how to create a marketplace website that your customers will trust? Take into account the following points:

• High-quality photos and videos allow buyers to view items from different sides and angles. So, why not allow sellers to provide as many details as possible?

• A thorough product description gives customers comprehensive information about the desired item.

• Reviews and ratings prove that customers can rely on a specific vendor for the quality of the product they are going to buy.

• A refund policy is a must-have for an e-commerce platform. With this option, customers feel safer when purchasing.

Source: Amazon.com

Focus on building a well-arranged and easy-to-navigate marketplace. Thus, you will offer a seamless user experience to bring new customers to your platform.

Further reading: 5 Main Online Marketplace Features to Make Buyers Happy

16. Find tools to monitor different aspects of your marketplace

Starting a new business is always tough. However, the working process will be well-organized with the right tools, and your enterprise will run smoothly.

So, what are the most widely-used applications and tools:

• Google Analytics is used to analyze your marketplace traffic. This tool helps better understand your audience and more.

• Salesforce is a powerful CRM tool. It allows you to connect to your users and organizes your clients' pipeline from the first contact to making a deal.

• Google Drive is the storage for your materials with vast functionality. The system offers collaboration with other people and convenient editing of documents.

• Mention is a great marketplace app for showing mentions of your project on different resources.

• Buffer is a great assistant for scheduling posts on social media. This marketplace app makes your promotion campaign as smooth as possible. All you need is to buffer a blog post, and the service will publish them automatically.

Surely there is no silver bullet to make your management process ideal. Everything depends on the time and effort you are willing to invest into your idea. However, the mentioned tools can do a good job of making the startup project recognizable and profitable.

You may also like: 10 Best Examples of PWA

17. Protect your intellectual property

Now it’s time to protect your business legally. Define if you need to set copyrights, patents, trademarks, or special licenses. Why is it important?

Other people can make a profit from your idea if you do not protect your concept. So you should have the documentation that proves you own the assets mentioned.

Here are the ways which will help you make your product idea safe and sound:

A patent is a set of exclusive rights. It is granted to an inventor for a restricted period in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention.

A trademark is used to represent a company or product. It can be a symbol, word, or several legally registered words. E.g., you need it to protect your project name.

A copyright is a collection of exclusive rights granted to an inventor and spread over a literary work, song, movie, or software. For example, you can protect your website content, including articles, descriptions, etc.

A domain name is the part of a network address that identifies it as belonging to a particular domain.

Applying these methods, you can ensure that your marketplace is highly protected. Additionally, your web project will be recognized by the courts and competitors.

Read also: Codica Named a Top E-commerce Web Development Company

Summary

We hope that this thorough guide will answer the main question: how to build a marketplace convenient for buyers and sellers.

Define the required functionality. Choose a reliable custom software development company and proper methodology. These are the core points that help marketplaces succeed.

As a Chinese proverb says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” You have all chances to create an online marketplace like Airbnb, or Etsy.

If you are looking for a reliable software consultancy to help you with online marketplace development, we are here to bring your ideas into reality. Contact us to discuss your project idea and get a free quote.