Best
eCommerce
platforms
for
starting
a
multi-vendor marketplace
E-Commerce platforms have made the path of getting an online store so easy today. Best thing is most of these platforms are open-source and you don’t have to pay a penny for using them to build your eCommerce site. A ready made eCommerce site, what could be better than this? - a ready made marketplace site, perhaps? Most of eCommerce platforms provide the basic inventory model stores. However, with the dream-like growth of marketplaces (like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Alibaba, Flipkart etc.) the business entrepreneurs are now more inclining towards this new multi-vendor model of eCommerce. As a result, the developers around the globe have come up with various solutions that allow the inventory model website owners to convert their site to a multi-vendor marketplace. In this blog, I am going to list and discuss about the top eCommerce platforms that can be easily used for developing a marketplace by a simple module installation.
1. Magento With currently more than 251,287 live eCommerce stores running on the Magento platform, it is one of the top-most eCommerce platforms worldwide. With almost 25% of the total market share of eCommerce platforms, Magento is popular brand that powers many other top brands like Burger King, Huawei, Pepe Jeans & Liverpool F.C etc. Magento is an Open-Source platform, and certainly an ideal platform to build an eCommerce site, especially a multi-vendor marketplace. However, despite Magento poses a number of suitable features built-in for B2B eCommerce, it cannot be used as a multi-vendor platform in it default form. Fortunately, because of high end flexibility and massive scalability, Magento can be introduced to the multi-vendor features by installing the Marketplace extension. The Magento Multi-vendor marketplace extension is a custom solution developed by certified Magento developers. By simply installing this extension you can convert your existing inventory based Magento store to a ready-made marketplace site. It introduces some new features to the Magento platform which facilitate the operation of a marketplace site. These extra features include the: Management for seller account registration
Management for seller account approval and declination
Management for different shops by different sellers
Management for Product upload by sellers
Management for Seller product approval or declination
Management for Marketplace Commissions, and much more.
In addition to these features there are several other features that you can check on the extension’s demo from the link given above. Moreover, there are also Marketplace Addons for this extension which can be used to add some more advanced features to your marketplace site. You should Read “Ingredients for starting a Marketplace site on Magento� for
more knowledge about Marketplaces on Magento platform.
2. PrestaShop PrestaShop is one of the top eCommerce platforms in European nations, which is also getting popular across the globe these days. If you are a PrestaShop store owner, and thinking about owning a Marketplace site, you are on a right path. With the extraordinary flexibility and superb community support PrestaShop is always the best choice for developing a marketplace site. Like Magento, PrestaShop does not support the multi-vendor feature by default. However, with the highly active PrestaShop community, nothing is impossible on this platform. The PrestaShop Marketplace Module developed by the expert community developers makes the conversion of a PrestaShop store into a marketplace site so easy. You just need to spare a minute to install the Marketplace module on your store, and bingo, you own a marketplace site now. Here is the detailed account of some excellent functionalities that are offered by this PrestaShop module: Provides better control over seller accounts- As a store admin, you have the full control over the management of various seller accounts on your marketplace store. You can manage and monitor the list of vendors in a coherent manner. Apart from this, you can also view the list of all the sellers on your marketplace store.
Authority to accept/reject the seller’s request- One of the remarkable feature of this Marketplace module is the freedom to store admin to accept or reject the seller’s requests for adding products on their marketplace store. Before that every seller has to create a seller account on the marketplace which can be either approved or disapproved by the marketplace admin. Manages the commission rates for the multiple vendors- Store admin can smoothly manage the commission rates for various vendors based on a global percentage basis or can even set commission rates for individual sellers.
Ability to restrict product categories for multiple sellers- Store admin can decide the number of product categories that can be used for product addition by multiple sellers. Sellers are allowed to upload the products under the allowed categories only. Easy management of the seller’s account on front- Registered sellers get a seller panel to manage their Marketplace shops on the front end itself. It’s the best way to save the sellers from the tricky back-office panel and provide the easiest and customized management controls on the front itself.
In addition to these features, there are separate control for Vendors to manage their shops. Moreover, this module is also backed by several Marketplace Addons that can be used to extend it’s features.
3. Drupal Drupal is a Open-Source content management system like WordPress. Like WordPress, Drupal too is backed by some modules to help you get an eCommerce site. Drupal does not give you the features to develop a marketplace site; but like every other platform, it can be customized to provide the marketplace functionalities through the Ubercart marketplace Module. However, getting a marketplace site with Drupal is somewhat tricky as compared to what we have seen in the Magento and PrestaShop. Using Drupal and Ubercart requires some website development skills, since it’s not an out-of-the-box solution. It’s tricky for the beginners to manage the marketplace without some design experience at least. However, if you are a tech savvy business owner with some development skills or can afford hiring a Drupal developer, it could be the most flexible, and most desirable platform one can wish for having a marketplace site. It’s tough, it;s tricky, but it’s full of potentials too. With Drupal and Ubercart, you have the access to some really strong tools for Admin and Sellers management. Sellers have all the access to track and fulfill the order they receive on the marketplace. Moreover, they can also see theor sales report. The best option the admin can wish for is the platforms ability to work with the PayPal Mass Payments that can be used to distribute the sellers’ earnings right from the admin panel.