Multi-vendor marketplace: how to create a successful multivendor business

To understand the difference between the classic e-commerce and the multi-vendor marketplace, just mention a name: Amazon, the successful multivendor par excellence. It sells third party products, its platform allows any seller to offer its products. Traditional e-commerce, on the other hand, is the online shop of a single seller who only offers his items.

How to create a successful multivendor business? You want what you see and it is essential to include indexed content and descriptions for the best search results.

There are also other factors to consider to create an effective multivendor such as the use of images in the search box within the platform or the price previews combined with the ‘Add to cart’ button visible in the predictive results. Allowing users to find the products they are looking for quickly and easily online means they have a better chance of converting searches into sales.

Creating a multi-vendor marketplace: an ambitious but not impossible project

Creating a successful multi-vendor marketplace isn’t easy at all. The web has so far rewarded the few who, thanks to targeted choices, have become millionaires. Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Alibaba.

Thanks to these giants, multivendor e-commerce has become popular. The greater number of products translates into more traffic and more opportunities to sell: it seems easy to say, less easy to do. It is an ambitious project but not impossible: it takes the right preparation and great negotiation skills with sellers who register by adding catalogs to catalogs.

The multivendor is to e-commerce as the supermarket is to the retail store.

Those who buy in a multivendor marketplace can make multiple purchases through a single online sales channel, perhaps saving on shipping.

To attract users and customers, a platform of this type must necessarily be easy to use, intuitive and mobile friendly. The more sellers you attract to your site, the more you will earn with commissions on sales. As your traffic grows, your site’s ranking in search engines will also improve.

It is possible to automatically transform an e-commerce into a multi-vendor

Creating and managing a multi-vendor marketplace involves several activities: setting the interface, main pages of the website, basic settings that allow easy navigation for the user. Then there is to set a specific currency, create newsletters, organize special promotions, update antivirus programs, perform regular backups.

The multivendor must be able to receive and provide technical support: for example, the traceability of goods in real time during the delivery of the goods sold. You may be wondering: beyond the initial settings (which apply to any site), how can I transform an e-commerce site into a multivendor store, saving time and money? It is advisable to rely on ad hoc developed software, special multi-vendor marketplace extensions, able to perform the conversion automatically without having to resort to a code.

In practice, you just need to install the extension and immediately get the configuration of your marketplace without spending sleepless nights planning. With this tool, on the one hand, you will get the multi-vendor admin panel with supplier management, transactions, commissions and payments, reviews, compatibility with mobile apps. On the other hand, the panel for sellers will be added with the appropriate spaces for supplier registration, product management, order tracking, payment requests, customized shipping methods.

Important features of multivendor plugins

WooCommerce multivendor plugins are the best (fastest and easiest) way to create an online marketplace.

The functionalities to look for in a multivendor plugin, the fundamental ones, are:

– intuitive front-end to easily navigate between the various features and intuitive dashboard to easily manage activities such as product loading or order management;

– flexible commission payment options;

– guaranteed and timely technical support, implementation of updates, corrections, new features;

– the ability to pay with PayPal;

– display of social sharing buttons.

We give you a tip: choose a really effective plugin that doesn’t cost too much. Free plugins may allow you to test the offered solutions but will never grant you advanced features, the ones you will need.

Why use NS Themes’ Multi Vendor Marketplace plugin

NS Themes’ Multi Vendor Marketplace plugin, as the name suggests, allows you to transform your website into a multi-vendor marketplace.

Using the Pro version, you can take advantage of different features for as many objectives:

– set Standard and Exclusive Sellers in different percentages;

– promote or demote Sellers in the administration panel;

– pay directly with PayPal;

– choose the display of social sharing buttons on the single product page.

More features are on the way.

You will be able to insert, modify, delete and sell products automatically. Just fill in some mandatory fields, before starting the sale of the products. The Seller can do this by making the personalized WooCommerce registration or, if you are already registered as a Customer, from your account.

No code is required. To use “Multi vendor Marketplace”, WooCommerce must be activated.

The requirements are WordPress 4.8+, WooCommerce 2.5.0+, and PHP 5.6+

Before purchasing the Pro version, you have the opportunity to test the free version to get a taste of the potential of this plugin.

The prices of the annual subscription are very affordable:

– $ 35 for 1 site;

– $ 89 for 3 sites (save 15%);

– $ 279 for 10 sites (save 20%).

An annual license entitles you to one year of updates and support. The subscription will automatically renew every year until canceled.

With such a plugin the development costs of a multi vendor site are reduced and you also save many hours of work.