What is Market Place Website or Mobile Application?
Marketplace website is a place where multiple sellers list their products or service so customers can find products/services on sale and buy them online. Market place website
Online marketplaces act as a mediator between a large number of buyers as well as sellers. Customers can clearly see and compare the prices and view stock availability to select the products they want to buy from a variety of available options at reasonable prices and that too on a single platform. Customers don’t have to scroll dozens of websites to look for their stuff; everything is done in just free clicks. Sellers also enjoy the benefit of getting access to a large audience.
Providing Market Place Website Platform is considered as a separate business model nowadays. Variety of Market Place model available these days like Amazon, Airbnb, Hotels.com, Booking.com, etc. Each marketplace provides services for niche business domains like Travel, Hospitality, Ecommerce, Services, Food Ordering, etc.
Why customers are using Market Place Websites or Mobile Applications?
As online sales have become very common and popular these days, therefore, customers prefer to see marketplaces website as a need for them rather than an additional service. Nowadays people don’t want to step out from the comfort of their home for buying products rather they prefer to buy the products online over the web. Similarly, for business persons, it is a major benefit as they will be able to sell their products online on selected market place platforms to a wide range of people and they will not miss out on any of the customers who choose to purchase products online.
So, establishing a sales website is the main key to the success of a company in this modern time so mostly all the companies are using it for improving their sales and growth of their business. Making your own online eCommerce website or working with a marketplace website is the best way to go ahead in the industry.
How to start establishing Market Place Website business?
If you are making your mind to create your own marketplace website then you must consider the few things in mind. The first thing that you need is the company that can provide you each and everything starting from working on business strategy to developing.
You need to have a Web Development Company & Market Place Mobile App Developers that has a team of experienced and skilled professionals for the development of a marketplace website. For this, you can see the company’s portfolio to know about the web development projects they have done in the past. If you find it good enough then you can approach them. You have to invest a considerable amount of money if you are thinking to build a website just like that of Amazon. A good way is to start with targeting a small market and then you can focus on the big one. This will be a cost-effective solution for you. You can expand as your business grows gradually.
Cost of building a Market Place Website in 2020?
The cost to develop an online marketplace website is depended upon the functional set you choose. It depends on the selection of niche market you choose and how you want to target that industry with digital solutions. You would like to provide services in Web Platform or through Mobile App only platform, This is a primary key to effect your initial cost for building market place business.
The online marketplace website development needs coordinated efforts of different professionals such as project management, designing (UI and UX design), development both front-end and back-end development, layout, and quality assurance.
Solutions needed in almost every market place business these days :
- Market Place Website
- Master Back-end Panel to manage all solutions
- Back-end Panel for Vendors who list their services & products on website / mobile apps
- Customer Mobile App on iPhone & Android
- Mobile App for Vendors
- Mobile App for logistic Vendors like delivery staff, order processing unit, etc.
Then you need to decide you want to work with the development company based in your local area or offshore outsourcing.
On average, In your local area assuming it takes 800 to1000 hours for developing a market place website with a basic set of functionalities and the development takes around three months of time duration. So, the cost of development with a basic set of functionalities is between $80K but if you are looking to add new functionalities then you have to bear some extra expenses, for instance, if you are going for the development of notifications which takes 20-30 work hours or for browsing content functionality which takes 80-90 hours. Then a marketplace website complex functionality may cost you around $180K. The figures stated vary depending on the increasing functionalities.
But, you can reduce this cost drastically if you work with an offshore development company. A Market Place Website & Mobile Apps will cost you between $5000 – $15000 with the experienced resources. This price range is perfect to start your initial idea & rest saved money you can invest in promoting it / customer acquisition, etc.
It is recommended to start with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) so that you can check how things are working and then you can further develop your marketplace depending on the emerging business needs in the future.
What basic features you should have in market place website or mobile apps?
Although, there are few general functions that are a must-have feature in any online marketplace. The first is the Administration panel and the user platform that is mandatory in every kind of online marketplace you are going to establish. The administration panel works to control the product inventory, orders, payment, and other marketplace settings while the administrator registers the new users, approves products, sets categories and commission, and manages review and ratings. Administration belongs to the back-end and it is not visible to the clients. Next is the user platform consisting of different dashboards for buyers and sellers depending on the kind of business model you are using. The features that are mandatory are:
- Login and Registration form,
- Account Page,
- Authorization and Security,
- Product Listing,
- Search Engine,
- Shopping cart,
- Shipping functionality,
- Customer Support System,
- Payment options, and
- Rating and reviews.
These features are essential without them it is not possible to offer the required level of expediency and security for the marketplace users and at the same time keeping the site competitive and attractive. If you think that this functionality is sufficient for your marketplace, you can select a monolithic solution that is going to not cost you much, but in such a circumstance, you must be aware of the fact that such websites are not scalable.
The simple meaning of this is that it is not possible for you to add new functions to your marketplace in the forthcoming time. On the contrary, more complex scalable solutions have both frontend and backend development and need REST API that facilitates the smooth interaction among diverse parts of the service. The major set of options in your marketplace website can differ based on your business specifications.
So, Planning to start your own Market Place Business? Like Amazon, Airbnb, UBER, OLA, FoodPanda?
The first talk to a competent web development company, Talk to their business analyst they will assist you in drafting your detail scope of work of the projects. The company understanding will see in these details of the scope of work. Focus on requirement understanding than the price numbers. Choosing price numbers over understanding is a pure signal of failure.