Although WordPress was primarily released as a blogging platform, it is now used for multipurpose web applications, meaning that you can use WordPress to create eCommerce sites, manage your teams with Project Management Software, manage your business resources, and a lot more.
If you want to create a multi-vendor marketplace like Amazon or eBay, you can do it very easily with WordPress too. In this article, we will be showing the way to create a multi-vendor marketplace using WordPress.
Before we show the process to create and host a multi-vendor marketplace, will be digging deeper to understand the popularity of online stores, the difference between a multi-vendor marketplace and a regular store, and the advantages of online marketplaces from the perspective of admins, vendors, and customers in this very first section.
How Popular Are Online Stores?
Online shoppers around the world are spending plenty of money. Here are some data given by Statista in 2015.
Source: Statista
Expenditure is clearly on the rise, and so is the amount of digital buyers.
Source: Statista
The consistent growth of digital buyers shows that there is no chance that the popularity of the online marketplace will go away.
The multi-vendor marketplace is a good fit both for administrators and vendors. The more vendors register in your marketplace, the more you can expect to grow your profits.
In this part, we will be learning the benefits of having a multi-vendor marketplace as opposed to a single-vendor online store.
What Is the Difference between a Multi-Vendor Marketplace and a Regular Store?
Most of us know that WordPress can be used to create an eCommerce store. But what’s the difference between a store and a marketplace
A regular eCommerce website will only allow one person to maintain a single store. A marketplace where unlimited vendors can upload, maintain and sell their products is a completely different beast.
A multi-vendor marketplace will allow multiple vendors to upload and sell products. In the multi-vendor marketplace, the administrator earns a commission from each of the vendors’ sales or from the vendors’ registration or subscription. This means that a multi-vendor marketplace actually consists of a series of eCommerce stores.
Benefits for the marketplace admin or owner
- A marketplace owner can let his/her vendors sell a wide array of products.
- A wide availability of products means that a marketplace will have a wide variety of visitors.
- As the vendors sell their products, the marketplace owner doesn’t have to worry about running out the stock.
- The marketplace owner doesn’t only earn from each sale, but also can earn from vendor subscription.
- You have the freedom to customize the amount of commission payable to vendors.
- You can review a product before a vendor publishes it.
Benefits for the Vendor
- Keep startup costs as low as possible by putting your store on an established URL.
- Many multi-vendor solutions provide an SEO friendly store which is great to get more visibility on search engines.
- If the marketplace is already up and running, vendors can easily avoid the technical difficulties of launching their marketplace.
- A well made marketplace provides vendor dashboard where sellers can see all their transactions and manage settings.
- Vendors will be able to get a stock manager.
Benefits of the customer
- Customers have almost every product they could imagine at their fingertips.
- Some marketplaces have product and seller reviews. This is helpful for customers trying to find the best deal.
- Different sellers selling the same product? Customers can compare prices.
- Customers don’t have to wait if a vendor is out of stock.
Since we’ve explored the benefits of a multi-vendor marketplace, in the next installment we’ll show you how to set up a multi-vendor marketplace while keeping costs down and maintaining efficiency.
WeDevs
weDevs is a Singapore originated software development company based in Bangladesh that specializes in creating WordPress plugins and web-based solutions for business and productivity. It is renowned for its popular products like Dokan Multivendor E-commerce solution, WP ERP, WP User Frontend, WP Project Manager, and more.
