How To Develop A Multi Vendor Ecommerce Website

A multi-vendor marketplace refers to an online e-commerce portal where you can buy different products or services from different vendors on the same platform. It is a direct link between buyers and sellers. These sellers have their seller accounts, where they manage their inventory themselves and pay a commission to the marketplace. 

These e-commerce services create a win-win scenario for both the seller and the marketplace. The marketplace receives inventory, whereas the seller gets customers. Although, it is the marketplace operator who carries out all the transactions. In essence, if you are planning on going through with a multi-vendor e-commerce website development, then you are trying to create a marketplace similar to Amazon or Flipkart. 

Also, to survive in this competitive environment, it is of the essence that you make advanced features such as fraud detection, detailed order tracking, etc., available. Here are the different types of multi-vendor marketplaces.

● Product marketplace
● Service marketplace 
● Project marketplace
● Hybrid marketplace

Multi-vendor marketplaces is the way to go, and their benefits are undeniable. To put things into perspective, let's have a comparison. Multi-vendor marketplaces can be compared to online stores how shopping malls could be compared to individual shops of narrow focus. Multi-vendor marketplaces offer the option of sharing costs and audiences with other like-minded businesses. 
In fact, according to a study conducted by BigCommerce, 48% of online shoppers directly head to a multi-vendor e-commerce website to do all their online shopping. A staggering statistic is that almost 59% of online shoppers open up Amazon whenever online shopping pops into their minds. 
 

Before you go ahead and try your hand at multi-vendor e-commerce website development, you must first focus on some basics. Then, find the answers to these below-mentioned questions, and once you have them, you can comfortably proceed with the development of your e-commerce marketplace. 

● What sort of target audience are you catering to? 
● What is going to be your specialization?
● Have you figured out your financial model yet?
● What about your management type?
● What are the various products you plan on selling?

Once you have figured out the answers to these five vital questions, you can now proceed with your multi-vendor e-commerce website development. Just use one of these methods to achieve your objective. 

CODING FROM SCRATCH

If you want to build an e-commerce services website right out of your imagination and straight from scratch, you can hire your team of coders to develop it. You, and only you, will have complete access to the underlying code, owing nothing to third-party software. Additionally, you have complete ownership of licensing. 

But the pitfall to this method is that it can be time-consuming and expensive. Coding from scratch might cost you somewhere north of $50,000. Besides, building a platform that can handle all transitions efficiently and securely can be another task. On top of that, adding custom features and experimenting can burn even bigger holes in your pockets.

WEBSITE BUILDER 

Another way of going about building your e-commerce marketplace is making use of a website builder. This is a much affordable option, and you can use e-commerce tools such as Magneto or Shopify. Use e-commerce CMS such as Joomla or WordPress to build a website that caters to your specific business needs. Website builders also offer extensive customization options. 

Using a website builder might be a very affordable option if you can handle plugins and e-commerce tools. Building a multi-vendor e-commerce service via a website builder can cost around $20,000.

NON-CODE MARKETPLACE BUILDER 

Software-as-a-service and Marketplace-as-a-service can come in handy when you are trying to build a website with no code. This method is fast, efficient, and offers one of the best UX experiences. On top of that, it requires minimal investment, and it is not that difficult to manage the website by yourself. If you want to create a no-code website, it can be done within $5,000. 

CREATING THE WEBSITE ON TOP OF AN API 

If you choose to build an e-commerce marketplace on top of an API, then you cannot lay a lot of focus on the basics. Instead, your main focus has to be adding additional functionality and new useful features. Creating a website on top of an API is cheaper than coding from scratch, a lot more customizable than a no-code tool, and offers integration with third-party software. 

Although, the minimum requirement for multi-vendor e-commerce website development on top of an API is the presence of a strong team of API developers by your side. This method will cost you less than $10,000. 

Here's everything you need to know about the basics and development of a multi-vendor e-commerce website. There's no single best way of developing a marketplace. If you have a sizable budget, you can always choose to code from scratch. Otherwise, use any other methods according to your comfort and understanding. 

Get in touch with the specific needs of your business, including budget size, approach, etc., and choose the e-commerce website development that ticks all the right boxes for you and your enterprise.