Everyone loves to shop online. In addition, the realities of the last three years have made this type of shopping not only popular, but also the only one. Accordingly, everyone who wants to grow in this sector is faced with a difficult choice: to create an online store and a marketplace.
The majority follow a path of least resistance, choosing the marketplace, since after all, the common trading platform provides a clear mechanism for the comfortable provision of trading services on both sides of the transaction. Most people consider the marketplace only as a client, without thinking about what processes are behind the development of such a trading platform.
If you are one of those who want to create their own marketplace, then this article is for you. You will find out whether there is a point in marketplaces in 2022, why it is more profitable than an online store, what difficulties you risk encountering, and other handy things about online marketplace app development.
Contents
Marketplace vs. online store: what customers want more in 2022
When it comes to opening a trading platform, it begs the question: which is better – a marketplace or an online store? First, let’s go over the concepts.
A marketplace is an online marketplace where many sellers present their products or services.
An online store is a trading platform that belongs to one seller and represents one specific brand.
To say that “one is better than the other because …” is unfair and impossible, since both options have their pros and cons. Let’s take a look at the significant strengths and weaknesses and see what’s in high demand in challenging 2022.
The main positive aspect of your own online store is the maintenance and development of the name and the absence of tangible aggressive competition. Accordingly, what is an advantage of an online store is a weakness of all marketplaces. When, in addition to your product, there is a bright promotion of thousands of others, then in the absence of a good idea, the brand dissolves.
However, there is a significant advantage if you still want to launch your marketplace: it is possible to combine many sellers, establish adequate pricing and provide good logistics. The latter is a key criterion why marketplace app development is worth investing.
If you look at it from the perspective of a buyer, marketplaces significantly save shopping time. It is much easier to browse the products of your favorite brands on one site than to go to dozens of online stores.
Thus, marketplace app development is an idea that, with the right approach, can become a very profitable project.
Blunders of beginner marketplaces
An extremely important aspect that requires attention at the initial stage of marketplace app development is choosing the right CMS platform. CMS is a site content management system that allows you to edit site pages, add information, upload images and videos, and manage design. It is preferable to choose an open source software so as not to deprive yourself of the possibility of customizing the marketplace to further scale your business.
Another point that can turn out to be problematic is the desire to cover all niches without analyzing the target audience. Locality is everything. It is very difficult to create a universal marketplace that can successfully enter the market, since marketplace corporations such as eBay or ASOS have already found their audience and won the trust of most customers.
An oversight that can lead to failure is depriving customers of the opportunity to understand whether your project is interesting to them, or simply the lack of an MVP (Minimum viable product). Many often ignore this step, believing that only the final product needs to be demonstrated.
A very common mistake among beginner marketplaces is inaccurate cost forecasting. Marketplace app development is expensive, so you should calculate your efforts in advance so as not to be left with an unfinished product without a source of funding.
It is also worth paying attention and time to finding a development team that will capture the essence of your idea and be able to competently implement it. Often, novice entrepreneurs do not pay due attention to this aspect, thereby delaying the moment the product enters the market.
As you can see, marketplace app development has lots of nitty-gritty details to keep in mind to get your project off the ground.
About the payment system in marketplace app development
The success of your marketplace largely depends on the reliability and variety of payment systems. It should be borne in mind that for many buyers it is more convenient to do everything on one site – search, arrange, pay. You should choose which payment methods will be available to the clients (it is desirable to provide access to all of them, though): bank cards, electronic wallets, Internet banking, and cash payment upon receipt.
The choice of payment gateway determines the security of user data and the reliability of transactions on your platform. To prevent potential risks, you should base your choice on the following aspects: authentication, data encryption, minimal commission, compatibility with your platform.
In addition to implementing ready-made payment gateways, you can develop your own solution. Despite the fact that this option is more time consuming and expensive, you can customize the functionality to suit your needs. However, just in case, here is a list of ready-made reliable solutions: Strike Connect, Nestify, Remoovaz, MobiPark, etc.
Marketplace app development is not only cool features for customer retention, but also a well-thought-out legal and financial solution.
Conclusion
Summarizing the above, it is safe to say that in 2022, marketplace app development is still the niche where you can go well. However, now all efforts must be concentrated on one product or service; the giants such as Amazon, Spotify, Walmart, eBay have already occupied the niche of universal marketplaces.
The development of a marketplace application requires a thorough risk assessment, so it is preferable to pay due attention to the MVP and you will not regret it. Another important point to keep in mind is that marketplace app development involves a lot of financial costs, so you should not dismiss competent management so that everything goes perfectly.
