How to Create a Marketplace Website in 2021: Currently, we are living in a rapidly changing and challenging tech world. Anyone who can predict the future scope can succeed in the market. No one predicted the global pandemic in 2020, but it came. Due to this, nations worldwide have faced lots of typical issues such as job loss and financial losses due to lockdown.
Shut down of retail stores has made the business owners paralyzed, and there are no changes to early recovery. Therefore, in this crisis, how can you safeguard your business and minimize the losses. Establishing a marketplace for your business could be one of the best solutions to resolve your issues in today’s pandemic situation.
According to Statista, the eCommerce market was about $2.3 billion in sales in 2017. Due to rapid and continuous growth, it is predicted to reach about $4.5 trillion by 2021.
Marketplace platform is a buzz word these days. Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, Alibaba are some of the biggest examples that show the success of marketplace platforms. Indeed it is a big space to expand your business, build your brand image, attract new customers and increase ROI.
Why can’t you be the next Jeff Bezos? To make it done, start building an online marketplace website for your business and enable people to buy your products and services online instead of a physical store.
What is a marketplace?
An independent website that works to connect buyers and sellers directly is basically termed a marketplace. No need to have warehouses to store the good as the database contains goods’ information with photos.
To survive in today’s competitive market, you must have an online presence of your business, and the marketplace is the solution that can help you out. While developing a marketplace, you must offer security for the customers’ data, assure each deal’s integrity, track the goods and purchases in real-time, etc.
How to Create a Marketplace Website in 2021?
1. Ideation, research, and idea validation
First, find out the actual issues for that you need to develop a marketplace. For example, Uber analyzed the issues of cab services and worked accordingly to offer the same online. Your idea must be valuable and useful for the clients.
With this vision, you should also analyze the competition in your idea to know the success chances.
Once you identify the main focus, you should know the size of the market for your niche and the external sources you need to succeed.
2. Plan and form a team
You need to gather the requirements, design wireframes, calculate the budget, create a specified SRS (Software Requirement Specification) document, complete market research and decide the marketing cost.
Relying on your project’s scope, scale, and budget, it is essential to hire a team of experts having UI/UX designers, developers, testers, front-end and back-end engineers. Based on your project requirements and management, you will need to connect with project managers, business analysts and marketers.
3. Login process
The time had gone when users were needed to fill lots of forms to register and log in. Today, users are very time-savvy. They don’t have much time to fill long forms.
An easy and fast process is the choice of all users, like signing up from social media sites such as Gmail, Facebook etc. It has become a must feature to include in every marketplace platform to provide easy login to the users and access the services.
4. Convenient and customizable pages for vendor and buyer
The vendor on the marketplace must have access to all required functionalities like adding a product with images and product descriptions. You should offer an immense and satisfying experience to the vendors.
Assist your marketplace vendors with payment options, colour choices, fonts, menu editing and marketing strategies. It is also essential to ensure the maximum user experience while building a marketplace. Keep in mind that users are the key to success in the competitive market.
Assist your buyers with a fully functional buyer page, effective designs, high-quality images, product price, payment options, offers and discount offers and multiple payment options.
5. Integrate a reliable payment gateway
Literally, with online transactions, security is the must need you to need to consider while developing a marketplace platform as there are lots of risks associated with online payments. A safe and secure payment gateway is the right choice to provide secured payment options to your customers.
6. Social media integration
One of the essential elements you should consider while establishing your marketplace is integrating social media platforms. It also assists your customers with one-touch login while using the platform.
Assist your users with login facility via social media platforms. Keep care of their personal information and help them get the details of products and services from social media channels.
7. Personal notifications
What is the best way to keep your customers updated and engaged with your services? Isn’t it a push notification?
Whenever your marketplace vendors launch some seasonal discount offers, free shipments, special deals, your customers must receive an update for the same in no time.
8. Transparent reviews and ratings
Getting reviews and ratings from customers is the best asset for the success of your marketplace. Give convenient reviews and rating facilities to your customers. All these elements will help you improve your service quality and resolve the issues for better improvements.
9. Create a marketing strategy
Building and launching a marketplace without a marketing strategy is valueless. To win the market, you must have a proper marketing plan. Get in touch with the business directories and sellers working with other competitive marketplaces.
Do proper setting on landing pages and advertise your marketplace with perfection. You can also contact the influencers and digital marketing specialist to get a better marketing plan.
Conclusion
Online marketplaces are needed in today’s time. To succeed in a competitive market, you need to have an online marketplace for your retail store. In this writing, we have tried to provide details on how to create an online marketplace platform in 2021.
During this pandemic, it is better to establish an online presence for your presence. It helps you secure your business even in these critical situations. Follow this guide to establish a new marketplace platform in 2021.
