Desire to build Online Marketplace Like Amazon teams, video games, apparel, food, toys, furniture, and much more. Millions of people visit the website ‘Amazon’ every month, and over 2 million vendors make use of this platform for selling. Just see where it was and now where it is!
So, without wasting time, let’s start with this post! Happy Reading!
What is an Online Marketplace?
Before starting with anything, let’s understand what an online marketplace is. It’s the online platform that simply connects sellers as well as buyers, thus enabling them to make good deals through it. The best thing about Amazon is that it offers functionality to its customers and sellers. How? It helps sellers in increasing their revenue, whereas customers get benefits from good deals, returns, and offers.
From the very start, Amazon worked on the below-given core principles:
- Analyzing customer obsession
- Welcoming innovative thoughts
- Improving operations
- Future forward planning
Why It’s Worth Building an Ecommerce Website?
If you are planning to create an eCommerce website for the very first time, then you might have numerous questions in your mind. That’s quite common!
So, here we have jotted down a few reasons that show why it’s worth building an eCommerce website:
- Convenience: Shopping online is quite easy, and this is the reason it has become quite popular. Also, it allows one to shop comfortably from the solace of their own surroundings.
- Lower Investment: When you compare any eCommerce store with a physical store, then you will observe a major difference in expenses part. The online store can help you in minimizing the costs of warehouses, retail space, etc.
- A Wide Pool of Customers: It’s the tendency of customers to start looking for the products they want online. So, it will become impossible for customers to look for your products if you don’t have an eCommerce online store.
How to Build an Amazon-like Marketplace?
Now, turn your dream into reality by following the below-given steps that will help you in building an online marketplace similar to Amazon.
1. Determine the products and Potential Customers
In order to build a Marketplace Like Amazon, first, analyze what you need to sell and to whom to get proper insights. You may choose the vertical marketplace for selling the products to a limited number of people. However, if we talk about horizontal and global marketplace, then the truth is that it brings more exposure. How? Since it lists an extensive range of products that cater to the wants of varied customers.
2. Choose a Domain and Platform
Book the domain name after identifying the products as well as customers. Ensure to have a simple domain name that can be remembered easily. Not only simple, but it must also be unique too.
Next, choose the platform for hosting the marketplace website. Today, most of the traffic on marketplaces generally comes from mobile devices, so it should be mobile optimized.
3. Choose UX/UI and Required Technologies
Do you know why Amazon is shining and so popular? Due to its UI/UX! So, make sure you choose the themes and your marketplace design carefully, along with a correct color palette.
After that, knit all the pages carefully:
- Homepage needs to be appealing
- Listing pages need to be simple with filtering and sorting choices
- Product pages have to be informative
Also Read: Why To Use Dokan To Create Your Own Online Marketplace Using WordPress?
4. Plugin Buyer features- Marketplace Like Amazon
After the store design, proceed with adding buyer features. It’s up to you how many features you wish to add. To make the website attractive, like Amazon, you can include an unlimited number of features.
Below given are the must-haves you must not ignore:
- Easy sign-ins
- One-click ordering
- Simple checkout process
- AI-powered notification
- Geo-location tracking
- Prior purchased products
- Bestselling products
The reality is that buyers are responsible for bringing enough traffic to the marketplaces. So, ensure to add the above-given buyer features to attract enough traffic.
5. Focus on Seller Features- Marketplace Like Amazon
Top marketplaces like Amazon get their major revenue from sellers simply by charging the fees for listing and selling. So, don’t ignore the features of sellers too.
Below given are must-have features for sellers:
- Simple product listings
- Bulk inventory uploading
- Category Suggestions
- Simple seller dashboard
- Smart price calculators
- Expand with integrations
The more you offer seller features to your marketplace, the more vendors will like to sell through your online marketplace.
6. Add Shipping and Payment Options
The options of shipping and payment are quite beneficial for all stakeholders. For this, ensure you build partnerships with trustworthy shipment providers.
Also, include flexible options of payment for anyone to access it easily. A few popular methods of payment that you can incorporate are cash on delivery, PayPal, Stripe, Credit and Debit Cards, Bank Transfers, Digital Payments, and so on.
7. Go Through Quality Assurance Testing
The next step is to run a quality assurance test to understand whether the marketplace that you have created is working well or not. It might be you are wondering what the use of QA testing is. It tells how smoothly the features of the buyer and seller are working. Even you can also discover whether the methods of payment that you have added are working well or not.
8. Launch and Promote the Store
This is the final step in creating a marketplace website. Here, you have to look out for the platforms for launching the store so as to get a large number of audiences.
Next, for promoting the store, taking the help of influencer marketing, ad campaigns, video marketing, social media marketing, etc., will work well. Also, you can connect with marketing professionals to get better guidance and for boosting your platform sales.
Also Read: Best WordPress Plugins for Developing an eCommerce Marketplace
Key Features of Online Marketplace Like Amazon
Now, we will go through the key features that one must incorporate into their online marketplace.
Features for Vendor
- Inventory Management: It’s an important feature that enables vendors to record every product arriving and leaving their warehouses.
- Order Management: It’s vital to give sellers the possibility of tracking and processing the orders. This way, vendors don’t have to waste their time manually recording every order, that no doubt consumes much time and can even result in human errors.
- Data Visualization Dashboard: By implementing the user dashboard, you can allow vendors to visualize the information on sales volume, consumer behavior, and so on.
- Admin Panel: The admin panel enables marketers to take care of content like uploading files and adding or deleting information. In addition to this, you can also allow vendors to revert back to the comments of users through an administrator panel.
Also Read: Complete Beginner’s Guide To Advertising On Amazon
Features for Consumers
- Catalog of Goods: The catalog is an important feature of the top-rated eCommerce marketplace. This page comprises product listings, descriptions, and images that will help customers to see the goods closely that they wish to buy.
- Shopping Cart: The shopping cart is a vital feature that helps customers in making purchases from diverse vendors. Also, the cart needs to give information regarding the payment methods available, delivery time, cost, and so on.
- Reviews and Ratings: By implementing this feature, you can gain the trust of customers. This enables customers to make better purchasing decisions on the basis of customer feedback.
- Online Payments: For increasing customer loyalty and sales, it’s vital to provide customers with numerous payment options. For gaining a competitive advantage, offer support for cryptocurrency and digital wallets.
Also Read: Fascinating WordPress BuddyPress Marketplace Ideas
Why Many Marketplaces Failed?
Do you know the reason behind the failure of many marketplaces? What do you think all get succeed in earning millions of dollars? Of course, no! If Flipkart, Amazon, Etsy, etc. are operating successfully, then there are many that have failed too.
Go through the below-given reasons to know about their failure:
- Failed to select the correct brand name
- Won’t track the demands of their customers
- Unsuccessful in generating a competitive edge
- Neglect capturing brand equity
- Over regulating their users
- Emphasizing quantity rather than quality
- Not choosing the competitive pricing strategy
These are a few mistakes that newbie entrepreneurs generally make when creating an online marketplace.
Also Read: How To Start Your Online Marketplace Business by Self
Marketplace Like Amazon-Wrapping Up
In this guide, we have covered almost everything that can help you in creating an online marketplace like Amazon. No doubt, it’s quite a challenging task since you have to invest your time and energy in creating a popular online marketplace. Still, the correct tactic is better than reckless activities that can result in failures and unproductive costs.
There’s no doubt in saying that, at present eCommerce marketplace is everything. Marketplaces such as Amazon receive enough traffic, and it’s the most profitable platform so far. Today, Amazon has side-lined other marketplaces. Also, it has gained the trust of its customers by providing them with everything under one roof.
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